Natalie Southgate, and What the Chakras Mean For You
We’re all capable of finding our truth. But in an effort to live a loving, well-nourished life, many get lost along the way.
It’s time for this to change. Natalie Southgate, the founder of Chakradance, believes that your mental, emotional and spiritual wellness doesn’t have to be a guessing game.
“The difference between stagnation and growth can often be found in your chakras,” Southgate explains. The chakras are described as “spinning wheels of energy located along your spine”, and they’re said to adversely affect nearby organs, glands, and specific aspects of our lives when blocked or imbalanced. Southgate believes that the combination of spiritual attunement and the freedom of dance has an incredible capacity for self-healing. And through her movement therapy, Chakradance, she makes it possible.
Understanding The Chakras
She says, “We could all benefit from paying attention to our chakras and investing in our wellness. The chakras connect into every aspect of our being. Each one is connected to the health of specific body parts and organs. If you have something going on in your digestive system, for example, it will be connected to an imbalance in your solar plexus chakra. This may in turn show up as issues around your confidence and self-esteem, which are also linked to the solar plexus chakra. The chakras offer a roadmap: a sense of guidance to cut through the chaos and find an understanding within yourself,” she explains. According to Southgate, they can be quite diagnostic. “Every issue or problem we face in life can be directly linked to a chakra. For example, grief is related to the heart chakra, reproductive issues to the sacral chakra, and lack of imagination to the third eye chakra. Whether the issue is physical, emotional, mental or spiritual, balancing our chakras is key to finding balance and wellbeing in our lives.”
The Power of the Chakras
Southgate maintains that the best way to target and balance your chakras is through dance. More specifically, Chakradance. Described as a fusion of ancient wisdom and modern music, Southgate believes that it offers a sense of liberation: the power to take ownership and change the course of our lives. “I genuinely believe that we all have the power to change our lives if we want to. It’s a decision. Through Chakradance, you can do it in a more exploratory, free, and playful way rather than sitting through deep, uncomfortable therapy. Its self-development made fun,” she explains.
Southgate pioneers a truly unique approach to healing through dance. Contrasting with traditional dance classes, Southgate claims that the chakra resonant music takes you on a spiritual journey quite unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. Harking back to her time spent clubbing in London while working at her recruitment company, she believes that the atmosphere is incredibly crucial to the dynamic meditation modality. “Much like in a nightclub, Chakradance is all done in a dark room. The primary difference to the club scene is that it’s in a safe and sacred environment where you can allow yourself to be vulnerable, close your eyes and let the energy take you over. The music has all been composed to resonate with each of the seven chakras. For example, the music for the base chakra vibrates with the frequency of red and is earthy, raw, and primal. Didgeridoos, tribal beats, and chants call you to connect to your instincts and your ancestors. You might find yourself deep within a cave and moving like an animal as you reclaim your wild inner instincts. Whereas, the music for the third eye chakra vibrates to the color indigo. It holds high vibrational frequencies mixed with repetitive, hypnotic beats that take you on a trance-like journey into higher realms. From here you open yourself to your own inner wisdom and guidance. Dancing to the music of the seven chakras is like dancing into seven different inner worlds, each with its own lessons, stories, and gifts.”
After completing each dance, Southgate anchors the energy and insights through artwork. She invites participants to draw their personal experience of the dance by creating a mandala artwork. This process of spontaneously drawing inside a circle not only grounds the energy of the dance, but also creates a bridge between your inner and outer worlds. It is a visual representation of your inner landscape.
Southgate continues, “The more you practice Chakradance, the more you will notice changes in your body and in your life. You may find yourself releasing the tension you’ve been holding onto for years and gaining energy for the things that you want to do in your life. Your dance may put you more in touch with your sensuality and help you re-ignite your passion. You may find you have more insight into how to handle difficult situations or changes that need to be made in your life. Working with your chakras can help you to gain more confidence, set boundaries when you need to, and find your authentic voice. You may find more joy in your work, become more connected in your relationships, and wake up each morning looking forward to the day ahead.”
She goes into further detail on the importance of the chakras in her #1 bestselling book, “Move Your Chakras, Change Your Life,” published by Hay House. As Southgate explains, “You need to find that bliss and bring it in — embody it. Embody the different energies so that you can utilize them in your life. For those that experience this movement therapy, I hear two things fed back to me. Regardless of where I am in the world, people take the time to tell me, ‘I feel so free. I feel like I’ve come home.’ This shift in your energy manifests not only inside of you, but it changes your outer life. What’s within is reflected without, and just like magic, the changes that you undergo feel miraculous.”
A Journey in Dance
Southgate has found alignment within her spirit for many years. But before the inception of Chakradance, a lifestyle of incessant working took her to a breaking point. “While working at my recruitment company, I was burning the candle at both ends. It wasn’t what I was put here for and I knew that I had to break out of it. Every night, I pushed the couch against the walls and played music with an intention for growth and healing. Then, with my eyes closed and my heart open, I danced in the dark. It was my meditation,” she explains. However, on one particular occasion, events unfolded differently. “As I was dancing, the music aligned with my soul. I got lost in the deep, vibrational sounds, and a voice came to me. And it said, ‘Chakradance’. At that moment, I finally understood that this was the way to heal myself.” Southgate underwent nothing less than a total spiritual awakening.
“It was a moment of certainty and clarity. I knew what I needed to do. I needed to dance my chakras. I quickly realized that one of the main keys to Chakradance is music. Each of our chakras has its own vibrational frequency and I discovered that if we dance to the right music for each chakra, it balances our energy system. It’s like a form of vibrational medicine. So I started collecting music intuitively. I must have listened to thousands of hours of music trying to find tracks that stayed in one chakra frequency. Eventually, I bought an editing kit, started clipping audio bits, and mixed tracks together to create musical compilations for each chakra. I’d then burn them onto CDs and dance them. I felt like I’d become my own DJ. I didn’t even tell anyone — in the beginning, I was doing it for myself. As Chakradance grew and thousands adopted the modality, I began working with professional musicians. Now we have our own full-time musician and our music is created with direct intention: through every instrument, the soundscape journey holds your hand and takes you through your very own meditation in dance.”
As Southgate started a family, she wanted to teach the healing properties of Chakradance to her young children. She wanted to empower them with wellbeing tools to help them navigate life’s challenges, and help them understand themselves and other people. “It was so effective with my own kids, that I began developing Inamojo, a wellbeing program specifically for young children. We already have 80 Facilitators across 15 countries, and those numbers are steadily growing.
Chakradance and Inamojo both offer powerful healing opportunities. If you have unexpressed emotions you will be holding them in your body and in your energy field. The system I’ve created is a method to safely release unresolved memories and trauma held within the body to come back to who we really are. Teaching that to kids is phenomenal because they’re dealing with issues much earlier,” she explains. Southgate is intent on her methods reaching the masses, promoting spiritual guidance and internal healing to all those who long for it. Through Chakradance, we can find alignment within our lives, and journey further towards the fulfillment that we seek.
