Check your chakras!
Walking through the front door of Georgia Coleridge’s home is like stepping into a rainbow. Georgia (right) is wearing a violet jacket and blue scarf, which zing against sharp yellow walls as her scarlet-socked feet pad along orange-striped matting and past coral curtains. We sit at a long, whiteclothed table where vases of multicoloured gerberas nod in the sunlight next to bowls of oranges and lemons. ‘I love colour,’ she says. ‘It brings joy.’
Colour is also integral to Georgia’s work. Once a children’s book reviewer, broadcaster and author of two parenting books – she and husband Nicholas have four children – Georgia now practises as an energy healer from her house.
‘One of my husband’s favourite jokes is that he comes home and sees beaming men departing and piles of banknotes on the table.’ It’s a good line, although she says that the majority of her clients are actually women, often professionals, bowing under the weight of modern living.
Central to Georgia’s healing practice is locating and correcting imbalances in the chakras, the seven energy hubs that run down our spines from crown to base. Each chakra is represented by a colour and associated with different characteristics: mental, physical, emotional and spiritual (see the illustration, right).
In her new book, The Chakra Project, Georgia explains how she sees our physical bodies as a house, with the energy field around each person as a garden and the chakras as windows. ‘Windows need to be sparkling clean to let in light and air. In the same way, our chakras need to be clear and bright so the different energies that make up our life force – the magic stuff that makes everything work – can flow freely through our bodies and minds.’ When energy is stuck, she likens it to a river where leaves, twigs and branches have collected. ‘It may be stagnant on one side and racing too fast on the other. Similarly, a chakra may be under- or overpowered,’ she says.
The chakras were first described in the Vedas, sacred Indian texts compiled 3,000 years ago, and are still a staple of Ayurvedic medicine with parallels in traditional Chinese medicine. Although the concept of chakras is sometimes seen as New Age woo-woo in the West, the late neuroscientist Dr Candace Pert, a leading researcher in the science of mindbody medicine, wrote: ‘The ancient wisdom of the chakra system… corresponds to modern scientific discoveries about the location of neuropeptide-enriched nodal points along our bodies’ longitudinal axis, [and] can help us enter a relaxed state of mind where natural recuperation and recovery can occur.’
In The Chakra Project, Georgia explains how to detect and rebalance any out-of-kilter chakras. It’s a special book of wisdom and insights and I loved the calm that it brought me. Georgia’s book The Chakra Project will be published by Aster on Thursday, price €20.99