The 7 Chakras: Their Meaning & Achieving Balance with Latha Jay

Jennifer Norman: Hello, beautiful humans. Welcome to the Human Beauty Movement Podcast. My name is Jennifer Norman, founder of The Human Beauty Movement and your host. I created this podcast to have open conversations about all aspects of the human experience. When we're curious, kind, and courageous, we evolve Powerfully as individuals and thrive as a human race.

Take a moment now to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode. I'm so glad that you're joining me for today's show. 

In the quest for discovering the nature of inner beauty, I found so much wisdom in ancient spiritual philosophies. I've come to find liberation and understanding that there are a myriad of interpretations for the same questions we have about ourselves and the deeper world that we live in. We all know that everything in the universe is made of energy. So why not harness it, balance it, and make it work for you? 

My guest today is a truly lovely human who has studied the art of energy empowerment. Latha Jay is a spiritual manifestation coach. She blends modern knowledge with traditional wisdom, working with various healing modalities to help people shift perceptions, manifest what they want, and live happier lives. Welcome to the show, Latha.

Latha Jay: Thanks for having me. I'm so happy to be here with you.

Jennifer Norman: It's a delight, and I understand you're in the Poconos. How wonderful.

Latha Jay: You bet.

Jennifer Norman: So we're doing a cross-country thing. Now I find that it's always helpful to start from the beginning. So please tell everybody how you came to be the spiritual manifestation coach that you are today.

Latha Jay: Sure. I'd love to share that, Jennifer. So I actually grew up in a very traditional Indian household In New York, and I was mainly raised by my grandmother who was a wise woman from India. And we learned all these traditions about Ayurvedic eating and how your energy works and yoga and meditation, all the things that are very popular now. This is what I grew up with.

This was our culture, our lifestyle, and it was common everyday kind of stuff. And, of course, during my childhood, I rebelled against everything. I was like, [i]"I just wanna wanna eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich like all the other kids. I wanna just eat drink soda and do this and go here, and I don't wanna meditate. I don't wanna do yoga and all this stuff."[/i] Like any child. Right? Yeah. And it wasn't until I was older and in my twenties that I was coming back to the culture and understanding the alignment there and how energy works and how I felt so much better in that space. I actually went to medical school, so I always deeply knew that I wanted to help people.

When I told my parents this, they said, great. Become a doctor. You know? It's like the traditional Asian Indian thing. Be was a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer.

Jennifer Norman: Either be one or marry one! Yeah.

Latha Jay: That's exactly what it was. And they're like, perfect. Become a doctor. And I was like, okay. So I went to medical school. And I was like, sure. This is kind of the route. But about three years in, I was like, this is not for me, there's such a misalignment there. I ended up dropping out of medical school and then really returning back to my roots and trying to figure out what's my purpose. I began a journey of who am I? I went through a dark night of the soul, did a lot of different things, and then kind of came out of it finding my voice, some footing to some extent, an understanding of the culture that I was raised in and the traditions that I knew and loved. It was like coming home. And that's exactly what I wanted to do, I wanted to help support people on their own journey of understanding themselves and really accepting manifestation because that was something that was so common in my life.

And I remember even as a child, I was in the first grade, I was talking to one of my friends about manifesting, and she says, What are you talking about? Like, what?

Jennifer Norman: First grade!

Latha Jay: Yeah. The way I explained it was, it's when you think with your heart and stuff happens. Right?

As a child, this is the language that I would use. It was, "You think with your heart, and then it comes true." "What are you talking about?" And she's like, "You're weird. This is not what I know," kind of thing.

And so I kinda, like, had shut down about my culture, my understanding of energy, and things like that until I was much older. And I actually had read [i]The Secret[/i] at that point, and I was like, "Wait, other people know about it, too! It's not just me, it's not just me and my weird grandma." It's like other people know about this. Then I was like, wow. I can teach people about this. And I started to talk to people more about it and teach more and do more lectures and speeches and things like that.

And my career just evolved, and now I am a best-selling author. I have two books that have been published by Zeitgeist, by Penguin Random House, and it's just been incredible. The journey has been super incredible, and I'm so blessed to be able to touch so many lives and really influence so many people.

Jennifer Norman: That's incredible too because I think that nowadays, we're developing new language. I think ever since The Secret and The Law of Attraction, all of a sudden, people are saying, "Oh, I'm manifesting this." People are understanding and recognizing energy, and it's kind of like, oh, how did we never know about this? How was this a secret? Ancient cultures have known about this all along. It's almost like Western society was just waking up to it and understanding the greater realm of the quantum field and calling things into you and how that happens because many people were living lives and being like, "Why is this happening to me?" and "Why do I keep going and repeating the same circular kinds of behaviors?" And they couldn't really figure out why that was happening. And all of a sudden, it's like, the light goes off, and people are really understanding. Wow. Oh, there is more to this. There might be something to it, and you start playing with it and you realize, wow. This is really powerful. It's actually true. You change your mindset about things. And then, lo and behold, your life is built upon the path that you create with not as much effort as we were doing before. Because everything before was really, like, make it happen. Push. Push. Rather than letting it just flow, rather than just letting it be.

Latha Jay: Yeah. Exactly.

Jennifer Norman: So tell us if you can, it's like trying to put the universe into a drop of water. Right? But the idea and the concept of energy. And so for those of you who are new to the idea of this concept, again, we welcome everyone at whatever stage you are in understanding this, even for me and for Latha, it's like, no matter how many years that you have been learning this and practicing it, there's always something new to learn. There's always some new way of incorporating it into yourself. So, Latha, perhaps from your background, from your wisdom, from your knowledge, you can explain how the idea of energy and embracing and manifesting through energy works.

Latha Jay: Sure. My belief is that we're all connected, and there's an energy that flows between everything. It's a life force. So some people might call it the vortex, energy work. I've heard it called stardust even, and it's basically like this substance, this energy that we can tap into to form any other substance.

If you think of it like a stem cell, you know how a stem cell can then form any part of your body, and it doesn't matter. It's the same thing, but it can form any part of your body. It's the same thing. The stardust can then form anything in your life, and that's what manifesting is. But it involves you. Right? You are the generator of this and it involves your thoughts, your beliefs, your emotions, your visualizations, and, essentially, your actions, which is a big part of manifesting as well.

Jennifer Norman: There's a lot of different ways to skin a cat. There's a lot of different ways to get to this. You can go by saying, Ok. I'm going to develop a plan, and then I'm gonna do these steps in order to get there, and I have a goal. And so that is one way of using the mindset to achieve a manifestation, and it becomes very physical. That is one kind of energy. When we here on Earth as Humans are in this dense form, a physical manifestation of energy so that we can see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, touch it. That is one way of making things happen, of manifesting things. But there is another way, which is when you start from a place of [i]knowing[/i] that it's already happening, that it's already so, that it's [i]done[/i], whatever you're wanting, it's like, yeah. That's [i]already happening[/i]. And that is a way of...it's not even a biohack, it's a quantum hack, right? Of getting what you want.

Latha Jay: I love the way that you're sharing that because I often say, like, don't hope for things. Right? Hope is like wishing, but hope is like a waffle. It's kinda like, I hope it happened. Mhmm. Right? But when you have [i]faith[/i], it's like a declaration that it's [i]happening[/i]. It's [i]ready[/i]. Right? Mhmm. And that's the energy that you wanna be in for manifesting. You wanna be in faith rather than hope. Yeah. You wanna be in knowing that that's yours rather than just, like, wishing.

Jennifer Norman: Exactly. And so whether your faith is grounded in God or Jesus or Allah or Buddha or whatever it is, it's the same thing because we have faith and we know down to our core that whatever it is that we need, we are going to be taken care of. Whatever it is that we ask for, it's going to be taken care of. Ask and you shall receive. It's in the Bible. It's in probably every ancient script, and it's a different interpretation of the same thing. It's of the knowing, that confidence, and that belief down to our soul, down to our core, and every amount of fiber. But it takes practice. Sometimes we do, we have this shadow of disbelief. We're not vibrating in the correct way.

We're going to turn now to talking about chakras. It's such a powerful tool for investigating oneself to know if there is a little bit of that waffling along the various parts of your being. So, Latha, I know that you are so skilled and you are so well versed in the chakra system. It's your culture. And so if you would please let our listeners know what is the chakra system, How do each of the chakras help us understand ourselves, and what we can do to get into better alignment?

Latha Jay: Sure. So, essentially, it's energy bodies in your body. And there's a hundred and fourteen of them, but the main ones that we talk about often are the seven that are centrally located. So each center is like a wheel, and that's why it's called chakra. The chakras comes from the Sanskrit word a chakram, which is a wheel or "to turn".

This is an energy center that has energy that is turning in it, almost like a turbine center. So all the energy goes into it, and it's turning. So in the chakra system, it's not so that it's blocked or unblocked, but it's more so that it's balanced or imbalanced. So you might have one chakra, like your heart chakra - it's called the Anahata chakra, that is imbalanced. Right? And that can lead to issues in your ability to have compassion for others and yourself, your loving energy, things like that. And when we really bring focus back into that energy system, we are starting to align our body in a more central and core rooted way, then our chakras are more in balance. When we have a meditation practice, when we're focused on our Spiritual energy, when we focus on our physical needs, we're nourishing our body fully and completely, then our chakra system is in alignment. And that is the difference between being in alignment or being out of alignment, being balanced or being unbalanced, being blocked, or unblocked.

Jennifer Norman: I had no idea that there were a hundred and fourteen chakras and that we're only focusing on the main seven. That's pretty wild. Can you start from the root? And let's work our way up from the root chakra, and how we might know if it's imbalanced or "blocked".

Latha Jay: Sure. The root chakra is located at the base of the spine. And this is the Muladhara chakra, the chakra that's represented by the color red. A lot of times, we will see an imbalance here if we have issues with feeling safe. Right? It's our root. It's how we feel the most structural and safe and structured in our core balance, our base of who we are. Right? 

Moving up is our sacral chakra, and that's located basically just below the navel, slightly below the navel, and that is the Svadhishthana chakra, which is the base of creativity. If you think of the area that it's where our sex organs are, where we're literally creating life. That is in that space, and that is represented often by the color orange. 

Further up is in our solar plexus. Our solar plexus chakra or the Manipura chakra. This is represented by the color yellow, and often that's in the space of confidence. Think you have a gut feeling, not sure about it, or your stomach turns when something happens? That's really where that instinct comes from in that. 

Further up with our heart is our Anahata chakra. That's associated with the color green. And this is the space of compassion, love for others, love for ourselves. All of that kind of comes here.

This chakra is very special because if you notice, it's the middle of the bottom three and the top three. So it's the connection of our earthly being with our spiritual self. And the top three, more so, represent our spiritual self. The bottom three represent our physical, earthly being.

Further up is our throat chakra, represented by the color blue. This is all about the way that we express ourselves. This is when we are speaking and we feel like we can't fully express ourselves. When we stutter in our speech, when we're having issues in our mouth, if we're having teeth issues or mouth sores and things like that, it can sometimes be associated with this chakra. 

Further up is our third eye chakra, and this chakra is all about seeing your third eye. You'll say "I'm awakened. I have a third eye opening." This is that space. 

Then at the top, we have our crown chakra, and this is our connection to our higher source, our higher power. This is where we get information and we give information, and it's often represented by the color white. So it's like the topmost, holiest chakra out of them all.

Jennifer Norman: I love how the chakra colors are aligned with the colors of the rainbow. You are a prism. We are light. We are made of light. We are emitting light. And so it's a very easy way for people to remember what they are and what the colors are and the association from bottom up. 

So starting from the root, and we were talking about this idea of the root chakra being about safety, security, your foundation. Sometimes people, when they feel unsafe, feel ungrounded. And so you will often hear when you're like, oh, a lot of times with hurricanes and a lot of, like, these forces of nature, climate change, there's a lot of things these days that make people fear and feel unsafe. And so what can we do to get that sense of safety back? There are a lot of things. And, Latha, I wanted to ask you, what are some of the things that you would ascribe to people who are feeling an imbalance in the root?

Latha Jay: Well, first off, just to do the practical things of creating safety. Right? If you're around an unsafe person, get away from them. If you feel unsafe in some manner, change your situation, change your environment. And then when we come to the more spiritual side of things, it's doing grounding work.

Grounding work can look like putting time in nature, going for a hike, putting your bare feet on the ground and absorbing the energy of the earth and allowing the earth to absorb your energy. It's almost as if the earth is pulling away your sorrows. That's what I like to kind of imagine it as, and giving you energy and love into you. You can do yoga asanas. When you're doing yoga, that's a form of grounding work.

There, you can light incense and have prayer. Really, returning to yourself is a form of grounding on its own. 

Jennifer Norman: I have spent more time these days barefoot going outside, sticking my toes in the grass, just breathing in and meditating outside in nature because it makes me feel so grounded and so secure. I will often recite these mantras that are, "You're safe. Everything is okay. Everything is always gonna work out. Everything is always working out for me." And so that is one of the things that I like to do even just start my day is to ground and especially with nature. It's the best way to do it for me. And eating root vegetables, so I understand, potatoes and carrots and things like that are very helpful for grounding or for helping to balance the root chakra. Okay. 

Let's talk about the sacral chakra. This one's an exciting one. So when people feel a "blockage," or feel an imbalance, here in creativity, in being able to generate new ideas or, frankly, of birth something new, what are some of the things that people can do to help get back in balance with their sacral chakra?

Latha Jay: To encourage your creativity is to really just to do things that bring you joy, and that might be in the creative sense of dancing. Seeing it might be in the creative sense of in drawing or painting. I think a lot of times, especially in modern society, even in public schools, if you see the first thing when there's a budget issue that is cut out Is the creative art. Yeah. You know? It's music. It's art. It's dancing. It's things like that. It's so necessary to our life. And when we're in that flow of creativity, so much else comes with us. I'm a mom of three kids now. And I noticed, like, before your child can actually speak, they sing. Right? Before your child can write letters and words and sentences, they're drawing. It's all that form of creativity is our root. It's our base. It's what's needed for us to then build upon anything else. So when we're not honoring that space, it's almost as if we're not honoring anything else that comes after it.

Jennifer Norman: It's true. And when society starts to stymie creativity and tell us, okay. You need to go along with these orders. You need to follow along this script. That is, unto itself, stymieing creativity and causing us to feel more closed in.

That curiosity, those ways of expanding and exploring, reading books, writing, the arts, the dance, the music, all of those things can be very liberating and can also help to get your creative juices flowing. And, certainly, surrounding yourself, I hear even color therapy, the color orange or eating orange foods, things like that can also be of help when you are feeling a bit of a blockage in your creativity there.

Latha Jay: I was gonna say, when we're talking about the chakra system, absolutely. So something that helps with every single one is eating foods that are associated with that color. Right? And I wanna say this is the most natural food that's associated with the color. It's not the orange Gatorade kind of thing. It's literally eating an actual orange. It's eating carrots and really, like, nourishing yourself with those natural vegetables and fruits and things like that. The other thing is that with the chakras to really bring your whole system in balance, the one thing that works overall, it's gonna be meditation. So meditation can help you to realign yourself in all of your chakras. All of your energy centers can be realigned through meditation. And this doesn't mean meditating once and saying, I'm good. I'm aligned. It's really creating a daily practice of meditation in which you're bringing yourself back to center again and again and again. Because throughout day, we're constantly pulled away from our center. We're getting engulfed into chaos. We're getting caught up in drama that we get triggered, and we have these projections and all of a sudden happens. And when we meditate, we come back to ourselves, and we remember ourselves, and we are able to then realign.

Jennifer Norman: Yeah. And for so many of you who have contacted me and been like, "I can't meditate. I don't know how, I just can't get my mind quiet." There are a million and one ways to meditate. It doesn't mean that you have to go into a dark room and sit in the lotus position and put your fingers together and chant om.

That's not the only way to meditate. There are many ways. A lot of people do walking meditations. I find driving highly meditative, and I've heard from so many people that there are so many ideas that come when you are just driving because your mind is getting into a meditative trance-like state. Doing things like drumming. I took up djembe drumming. When you do drumming for a couple of minutes, just the sound of that beautiful beat can get you into a meditative state. So don't be put off by the idea of meditation. There are so many cool creative ways that will be right for you in order to be able to incorporate it into your life in a way that's joyous for you. Okay. So the next one, we're at the solar plexus now. Okay. The solar plexus is a big one for many people too.

Latha Jay: You know, the solar plexus is like the root of confidence. So when we're feeling unconfident, when we're feeling scared about doing something or speaking up for ourselves, things like that. It's located really here in our almost, like, above our gut. And in this space to really, like, increase your confidence is to step out in confidence. Right? Obviously, it's always to really engage with what is lacking.

Also, crystals that can support you in this space would be the yellow-colored crystals. So citrine is really nice. There's bumblebee jasper. Different crystals like that can really help you, too.

But, again, the main thing is being in that space of meditation because you have confidence when you feel centered. Right? When you feel like you are good, when you're strong, when you have a stable foundation, you have this sense of confidence. It's only when you feel like, "What's gonna happen. I don't know what's gonna happen next. I feel displaced. I feel off center." You're like, "I'm not gonna say anything. I'm gonna sit back. I'm gonna beat the sheep, not the lion." And it's always your choice to choose where you feel most comfortable.

Jennifer Norman: Yeah. I have spent more time trying to rebalance my solar plexus than probably any other chakra that I have. And the reason why and the reason why I started The Human Beauty Movement is because being in the beauty industry for twenty five years and being one of those people that was highly susceptible to what culture told you that you should look like, what you should be like, and looking like me, looking like an Asian American who was adopted into a white family, into white culture. Latha, I'm sure that you probably had your share of this growing up as well. And so it's no surprise that our confidence as women and what society is telling us women should be and should act like and should do and even our own cultures. And when you feel like you don't wanna be a doctor, when you've just you know, you've tried, but it's not for you. But we tend as women to people please. We tend to give away our power. We tend to, because of thousands and thousands and thousands of years of being submissive, of being the one that was two steps behind men, culturally, we have adopted this place where we don't have balanced solar plexuses that are suitable for modern culture today. And so what is happening a lot of times is we will put on the clothes. We will put on the makeup. We will put on the hairstyles. We will put on the badges, the labels, all of these things in order to compensate. It's outwardly compensating for an inner feeling of a lack of confidence. 

And, yeah, certainly, putting on our bright red lipstick can make us feel more confident. It's almost like that neuroplasticity of "you see, you become". And so there is that involvement, but underlying it all is the work that can be done to be like, "You know what? I'm okay with myself even if I don't wear that red lipstick. I'm okay with myself, even despite what somebody might say to me. I'm okay with myself, and I'm gonna not necessarily take other people's opinions to heart so much."

That is the work. That is The Human Beauty Movement. And so we do a lot of focusing on the yellow, on the citrine, on really helping every human being, not just women, but, certainly, for those of you who are my buddies in the LGBTQIA community. For those of you who have been marginalized. For those of you who have just been othered in some way, this is your opportunity to be part of something, a community that is supportive and understands that we all can do so much work upon ourselves in order to make ourselves feel okay. And when we feel okay, then we can shine our light so much more brightly to others and let them know that they're okay, and it just ripples out from there.

So thank you, Latha, for helping to share that in terms of the solar plexus chakra.

Latha Jay: I was gonna say I love that you're sharing this because, like, what you're essentially saying is talking about shadow work. Right? And I always felt like shadow work mainly has to do a lot with the heart, the solar plexus, and the throat. If you think about it, it's how we speak, how we love, and how we feel confident. And it's just the like, so beautiful. I love the way that you just said that.

Jennifer Norman: Oh, beautiful. Beautiful. What's so interesting, because after I had read The Secret, and I've probably listened to thousands of Abraham Hicks talks. Like, I just consumed it. And so I was like, you know what? There's no such thing as shadow work. There's no such thing as, like, I just wanna be all about positivity and light, and ignored that part because I didn't feel like it needed to necessarily be told or brought up to the surface. But I have since discovered the importance of doing it because it'll still be there. It's not something that you should ignore about yourself. It's part of you. So do the somatic work to let it emerge and then release it. It's important to do shadow work. Yeah. 

Okay. Let's talk about the heart.

Latha Jay: Heart. Everyone's favorite. Right? So our heart is associated with, like I was saying, with the connection of our spiritual self and our earthly self. When we have imbalances in our heart space, it might show up as our inability to love ourselves. Right? How many times have we looked in the mirror and said, "You suck!" or sometimes hated on ourselves...

Jennifer Norman: Or worse. You know?

Latha Jay: We're our worst critics sometimes and beat ourselves up. This chakra is all about loving yourself and bringing self compassion in. Because only when we truly love ourselves and we know what we deserve, we are able to attract that in any other mate, in any other relationship, in any situation outside of us when we understand it inside of us.

Jennifer Norman: Yeah. And this is the green chakra. This is a very special chakra. A lot of people say, oh, my favorite chakra. I wear jade and do all the crystal work to open up my heart space.

So how will somebody know if their heart chakra is off balance?

Latha Jay: It could show up in your life as constantly degrading yourself. It could show up in your life as you putting up with situations in which other people are degrading you. 

It can show up in situations in which your love life just seems never really work or get together. Those are the big ones I think that people can identify in their life. When we're having issues with compassion, with love, with nurturing ourselves, That's where the amount is at.

Jennifer Norman: I know that a lot of people have relationship issues. They are just having a difficult time with their loved ones, it could be their spouses. It could be their families. It could be a sibling. It could be even, frankly, colleagues at work. It's relationships.

And opening up the heart is [i]vulnerable[/i], and a lot of people were taught, you gotta armor up. Gotta protect your heart. And so it turns us into these cold beings. It turns us into these people that don't necessarily have as much heart as we like to project. Like, oh, I give to charity, or I volunteer, and that's not the same thing as being there and actively listening and being there for somebody and doing the work to be filled with compassion.

Interesting. Okay. Now we're moving up into the spiritual side. We move up to the throat.

Latha Jay: Yes. And the throat is known by the color blue. So that could be crystals like lapis lazuli. It could be one of my favorite ones is blue kyanite, which has a deep connection to your spiritual song. So with the throat chakra, it's all about really expressing yourself and being able to fully feel self expressed.

Sometimes, like we were saying with the shadow work, when we're doing our shadow work and we're truly understanding what is holding us back, we're then better able to be fully self expressed. Now, also, with the throat chakra, some of the items that you can ingest for this, right, is going to be blue foods. So there's not a lot of blue foods, like blueberries and things like that. But the main thing is also to have nourishing liquids.

So warm herbal non caffeinated teas, honey, and coconut water are really excellent for supporting your throat chakra. Oftentimes, actually, I have a lot of issues with my throat chakra, and it shows up as a difficulty speaking. Sometimes I'll just not be able to speak, like, this is my job. You know? And having this, almost like something is holding me back from being able to speak. I've dealt with issues with asthma. I've had stuff where the thyroid can show up. It's like anything that's really located in your neck. You can have swollen lymph nodes that come up. All of these things can indicate an imbalance in your throat chakra.

Jennifer Norman: And this is an important one because even if you feel that you don't have the ability to speak, it's also in writing. You have the ability to articulate or to be understood. Like, are people getting what you mean clearly? Are you really clarifying yourself? And so it may not just be vocalizing. It could be, are you feeling like you're being misunderstood? That could also be a representation of somewhat of an imbalance there in the throat chakra. Excellent. Excellent. Let's move on.

Latha Jay: Yes. So next up is gonna be third eye. So the third eye chakra is really connected to how your intuitive abilities, how you are connecting with things that are other than just what we physically see in the world. Right? These two are actually the top two.

The third eye chakra and the crown chakra are mainly based in the space of meditation. So meditation is very powerful for these. One of the things that connects us best with our intuitive abilities, one of the crystals is actually apophyllite, and it's one of my favorite crystals.

It's a, like, a light white color crystal that has, like, usually a lot of, like, formations together like a cluster. Mhmm. It's a beautiful crystal, and that's always very supported in our third eye opening and our ability to see maybe a little bit beyond of what's here in our physical space. Our ability to really, like, connect with one another and have this deeper understanding that comes from this checkup.

Jennifer Norman: And a lot of people will be like, [i]"Oh, crystals don't work. They're pretty and all, but what the heck is it about crystals that are really so powerful?"[/i] Would you be able to explain?

Latha Jay: Sure. I'll tell you how I understand it. So you're probably watching this on an iPhone or maybe on a screen here, maybe on your television. I don't know where you're gonna be seeking this, but you're using crystals right now.

There's crystals in your TV screen. There's medical treatments that involve crystals, and you might not even understand it as that. I have dealt with an autoimmune disease in the past, and I'm constantly in the space of healing from it. And one of the treatments is actually passing blood through a specialized tube that is made of quartz crystal.

And when the medical technician was explaining it to me, I was like, wait. What? I didn't even understand that this was part of it. You know, crystals are ingrained in our society in so many different ways, but it's just like when we see it as a rock or as a gem, we devalue it. 

But a crystal is formed from thousands of years of growth, and its crystalline structure is actually very, very stable. So it carries energy. Just as I was saying, we all have a different energy. So we can tap into different energies. We all come from a source energy.

Crystals have some of the most stable energy. And as we were saying earlier about world religions, they're mentioned in all world religions. They're mentioned in the Bible. They're mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita. They're mentioned so many different places, and the value of crystals, it's not just the aesthetic value.

Sometimes people might think like, oh, I'm drawn to amethyst because it's a beautiful purple color. And it's like, yes. You might like it aesthetically, but there's a deeper connection for you there. You might be drawn to it because you're feeling the need for support in your manifestation. Right?

You might be drawn to hematite. You're like, oh, I love it. It's so shiny metallic, but it's like, oh, you maybe need an aspect of protection in your life. Right? 

There's properties that are carried by each crystal, and sometimes we're drawn to them for whatever reason that we're drawn to them.

Jennifer Norman: Yep. Yep. My parents had a business, and a long time ago, this is way before I knew about crystals or anything, but the business in electronics was crystals and clock oscillators.

And I had always seen, like, on my watch, it would say crystal quartz, and I'd be like, oh, okay. Whatever. And I totally discounted the fact that these are timing devices because they are frequencies, And they oscillate. And, yes, you're exactly right. They actually keep time. They keep pace because they vacillate and they vibrate at a certain resonance, and so that is what we call the magic of crystals. And so, yeah, charging them out in the sunlight helps them to increase their ability to radiate those frequencies to you. I've definitely done Reiki healing where I had rose quartz put on my heart, and I had amethyst put on my crown, and different types of crystals can help to also rebalance and get your chakras aligned. It is in your belief system. The more that you believe something to be true, the more that it will be true for you. And so people who really call on the metaphysical aspects of crystal healing. There is power there.

Okay. Now we're on to the crown.

Latha Jay: To the crown. It's the top most the highest chakra of all, and it's our connection to our greater powers, our higher powers. Right? So this one is mainly meditation. There's not really food that you can consume that's gonna help you to bring balance into this.

The main thing to rebalance your crown chakra is meditation. And like I said previously, it's not meditating once and feeling like, hey. My crown's good. It's having that consistent practice. I explain meditation as if you're driving down a muddy road and you're in car, and there's mud that kinda comes onto the windshield. And you have the wiper that comes up, and the windshield wiper cleans off your view so you can't actually see where you're going. And you are the vessel. You are the car. The mud is society constantly coming and putting stuff on you, and the wiper is the meditation. It wipes it away so that you can then have the vision of your path forward and that you can kind of, like, take the next step and move forward and understand that. And it allows you this, like, connection to source. That's the crown chakra that is all about your divinity, your connection to source, and your higher power, and that's what happens through meditation. It kind of clears the path for those divine downloads to come in and for you to just have this intuitive knowledge and movement forward in your life.

Jennifer Norman: Yeah. I think that that is such a beautiful analogy. And when your crown chakra is blocked, you can start thinking too much about what is happening around you and, you know, what's going on in the world and really forgetting forgetting yourself, forgetting how powerful you are, forgetting how you are connected to everybody else and all that is around you. And so whether you call it source or god or Allah Or Krishna or your higher self, your inner self. Those are really different ways of interpreting your spirituality and your connectedness to everything that is around you.

And I'd like to take a moment to really go back because there is this idea that the heart being the center of it all and being the connection between everything that is physical, everything that is below, those those chakras which are below the three below, as well as the chakras, which are more spiritual, the three above. There is that phrase that we've heard, "As above, so below." And it's interesting how the three chakras, just like it was a pool, like a reflection, think about a mirror or think about if you're looking into water and you see yourself, you see the reflection of the upper chakras and the lower chakras really serving to integrate and align with each other. 

So what happens with our root chakra if we're feeling insecure, like something is happen. It could be health. It could be the world. It could be where we're living, and we start fearing. Don't we start praying more? Don't we start looking more towards our connection to the divine for answers and solutions? We might be like, Oh, god. Please help me get over this health condition. God, please help me get over this situation where I might be losing my house. Like, those are the things where we can see the integration and the orientation of as above, so below. 

The same thing can happen with our sacral chakra. And so this being the center of creativity, A lot of people who are seen as being great creators or having a lot of creativity are looked to for having great vision. And so that is, like, the third eye. Like, as I see this imagination, I can tap into what is not yet manifested or not yet in the physical, and I can make it into a reality. So you can see how those two chakras really have interplay with each other. And then there is that solar plexus, that seat of power, that seat of self confidence. Don't leaders who have great self confidence and seemingly great power, have a great way of articulating and speaking? If we think about the great orators, about people like the Obamas or, like, Theodore Roosevelt or any great leader has an ability to articulate what the power is. And they're saying, like, oh, yeah. They've got a really great stance. They've really got themselves in this great sense. 

And then the heart. The heart is the connection of it all. As above, so below. 

So remember those in terms of your chakras, how they from the spiritual side into the physical and vice versa. So beautiful.

Latha Jay: Yeah. I love how you made that connection and how you're explaining that. It's so true. It is As above is below as well.

Jennifer Norman: Excellent. Excellent. Well, Latha, I would love for everybody to know how they can reach you. You are virtual manifestation coach, you help people to really embrace their energy and harness it in order to get back into balance, to shift their perceptions, and to live happier lives. And so I want people to be able to know how they can get in touch with you.

Latha Jay: Yeah. Thanks. You can find me on my website. It's www.lathajajay.com. That's lathajajay.com.

You can also find me on TikTok. My handle is Latha_Jay. On Instagram as well, it's Latha_Jay_, And the Jay is Jay, which is my last name. And I would love to connect with you guys. So if you wanna reach out, feel free to do so.

I also run an incredible group coaching program that has helped to transform so many people's lives. If you're interested in that, let me know. It's called the Journey Group Coaching Program.

Jennifer Norman: Oh, that sounds incredible. Latha, I wanna thank you so much for your work, for being a beautiful human, and for connecting with all of the beautiful humans who are listening to the show. Thank you so so much.

Latha Jay: Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for having me on the show. It's been really great talking with you and connecting.

Jennifer Norman: Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, rate, and review us wherever you Stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community-based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, Find us on social media, and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at The Human Beauty Movement.com.

Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.