7 Tips from the Chakras for Embodied Writing with Yoga

Many students, writers, teachers and yoga practitioners I talk to feel really stuck. So many are overwhelmed with the state of the world, both inner and outer. There’s so much conflict and division, and they're not really sure what to say about it or how to say something without doing it wrong. And they don’t trust their inner voice. They feel at once incapable and overstimulated.

As AI has flooded not only the landscape but even their own minds, they're second-guessing their own voice. Double checking it against disembodied machines for consensus. And in the process entirely giving up what makes them human whole, unique, and yes, probably more than a little flawed. Does this resonate? You aren’t alone.

And in case you are wondering, I did not use AI to plan, brainstorm or write this. Though it would have perhaps been easier in some ways, though environmentally and ethically complex. But AI can be a shortcut that circumvents your embodied wisdom. Like any deep foray into a spiritual or self inquiry path, writing is not easy. It’s a deep, embodied process of energetic metabolization and transmission. It is your unique expression. Writing begins in the body, so I want to offer you a few yogic tools to connect to your body and ignite your voice!

Yoga is unity. Not the kind of unity that erases diversity, but unity that celebrates the uniqueness of each individual as part of a greater whole. What makes you so special is that you embody wholeness in only the way that you can.

Yoga gives us many frameworks to rediscover that uniqueness. One of the frameworks is the energetic map of the chakras. Chakra  is pronounced with a hard “CH” sound. Like “Chalk” or “Chocolate.” Just the way we have maps of the physical body, the ancient Ayurvedic and Yogic scientists mapped the subtle body.

The Language of Energy

A chakra is a part of yogic energetic anatomy. They are energetic descriptions of a lived experience of what it means to be an embodied being. If you cut open a human body you wouldn’t see a spinning wheel of different colors within the human form. 

Chakras are metaphors. They are experiential, energetic and even metaphorical ways of describing human experience. There are hundreds of energy vortices in the human form and experience. 

The chakra system we are familiar with originated in Tantric and Shakta traditions and from a Sanskrit written by Pūrṇānanda Yati. He completed the text the Ṣhaṭ-chakra-nirūpaṇa or ‘Explanation of the six chakras’ in 1577.

It was this text that was translated to English and now colloquially, we often refer to seven main chakras and it is these that we will use for this embodied experience knowing there is no one right way to experience energy. Since the system is metaphorical we will use this as a heuristic way to get benefits without overcomplicating the path.

As part of the subtle body, chakras are areas where we receive, give and share life energy. Each chakra is powerful on its own and in a practice like this that builds you will find immense benefit in harmonizing each element and energy center as we move through all energy centers on a path to unlock and amplify your vital energy and voice.

On the writer's journey, and the path of reclaiming our voice, traveling through these seven energy centers can bring lots of embodiment as well as fun. You can try doing just one of these or all seven, and then writing. I’ll offer some practices and asana suggestions, but it's your expression so enjoy it in exactly the way that supports you.

Somatic Chakra Embodiment Practices

1. Muladhara, Root Chakra
   Connect to muladhara or the root chakra by connecting down into your foundations. 
   Practice: You might try doing anything that makes you feel solid, connected and grounded. Maybe take a walk, touch the earth, give yourself a foot massage. 
   Asana: Stand in tadasana or mountain shape and feel the earth.
    
2. Svadhisthana, Sacral Chakra
   Enliven your svadisthana or sacral chakra by doing what brings you into flow, what you love, what inspires you. 
   Practice: You might dance, play, draw, sit by flowing water, swim in the sea, or take a bath. 
   Asana: Move in virabhadrasana II or warrior two and feel the flow.
    
3. Manipura, Solar Plexus Chakra
   Ignite your manipura or solar plexus chakra by bringing in light, joy and delight. 
   Practice: Sit in the sunlight, or the glow of a candle. Do something that makes you erupt in big belly laughs. Or do something new, take a fun risk! 
   Asana: Try engaging your core in any shape, or holding navasana, boat shape for a few deep breaths.
    
4. Anahata, Heart Chakra
   Open your anahata or heart chakra by living a heart first, opening to trust, vulnerability, and expressing love. 
   Practice: You might volunteer to help someone, hug a tree, beloved or a good friend, take some deep breaths. 
   Asana: Bring your arms back behind your back and bow forward in viparita virabhdrasana or humble warrior, opening the front and back of your heart between your shoulder blades.
    
5. Vishuddha, Throat Chakra
   Connect to your vishuddha or throat chakra to unlock your voice and deep listening to the truths being spoken around and through you. 
   Practice: You might sing, hum, chant, roll your shoulders and neck, and practice deep listening to the people around you.
   Asana: Try a low bhujangasana or cobra and engage your throat as you lengthen it.
    
6. Ajna, Third Eye Chakra
   Clear your ajna or third eye chakra to banish confusion and open your intuition and see more clearly. 
   Practice: You might practice gazing intently at a candle or leaf on a tree. 
   Asana: You could try balasana or child's shape, gently rubbing your forehead back and forth on the ground.
    
7. Sahasrara, Crown Chakra
   Connect to sahasrara or your crown chakra to reignite feelings of oneness, connection, bliss and joy.
   Practice: You might notice what is happening right here and now, in this moment, do something in service or devotion.
   Asana: You can embody asana, as an easeful seat and sit in meditation, taking slow deep breaths in and out. 

Using even just one of these seven tools from the chakras for embodied writing with yoga will help support you coming back to embodiment, wholeness, and expressing your own voice fully.

Try getting into your body with any of these practices, and then thinking, writing, speaking, from that embodied place. You’ll find an energy and expression that is your unique embodiment of the promise of oneness that yoga offers us.

Practice with Susanna

On Campus

Ignite to Write

A writing and yoga retreat

April 17–19, 2026

Sources

Barkataki, S. (2020). Embrace yoga’s roots: Courageous ways to deepen your yoga practice. Ignite Institute for Yogic Leadership and Social Change.
Barkataki, S. (2025). Ignite your yoga: How to live, practice, and teach as an authentic yoga steward. Shambhala Publications.
Mallinson, J., & Singleton, M. (2017). Roots of Yoga.
Pūrṇānanda Yati. (1577). Ṣhaṭ-cakra-nirūpaṇa.
Woodroffe, J. (1919). The serpent power: The secrets of tantric and shaktic yoga. London, England: Luzac & Co.

Note: The seven-chakra model most familiar today draws largely from the 16th-century tantric text Ṣhaṭ-cakra-nirūpaṇa by Pūrṇānanda Yati (1577), later translated by Sir John Woodroffe in The Serpent Power (1919). Earlier tantric traditions contained varied subtle body systems with differing numbers and structures of energy centers (Mallinson & Singleton, 2017).