INTRODUCTION
Tired of trying every diet system and supplement on the shelf and still not getting results? Feeling discouraged, guilty, or overwhelmed because the foods on the most recent trendy plan don’t appeal to you? Worse, are you sick of eating all the so-called healthy foods, only to gain weight while your friend chomps pizza and fries—and remains slim? Or the reverse—eating all the foods you can fit in your mouth to put weight on with no luck?
We’ve been there. In fact, we grew so weary of chasing health and losing the battle with weight, that we combined our collective experience and expertise to create an innovative approach to health and wellness. It’s unlike anything else you’ve seen. It’s been working for us and our clients. And it’s just too good to not share. The secret? It’s based on chakras.
This unique process synchronizes your choices with your chakras—your single most important chakra, to be exact—so you can reshape your body and, therefore, your entire well-being. In fact, we believe that by customizing your food and supplementation choices to your most vital chakra you can achieve optimum health. In this way, you encourage healing from issues impacting your wellness. If you need a weight change, you’ll notice the difference—not because you’re “dieting,” but because you’re feeding your true self. In turn, you’ll be happier. And happier people often eat healthier. Plus, once you identify your strongest chakra, it’ll be easier to figure out more ways to best care for yourself through the many lifestyle decisions you’ll make day to day.
Okay, so you may be wondering what a chakra is. Hang in there for the technical explanation. We’ll make it quick.
Chakras are subtle energy centers in and around your body. Throughout time and across cultures, spiritual teachers and healers have known that chakras manage every facet of life: all things physical, psychological, and spiritual. They do this by regulating the two types of energy: physical, or visible, and subtle, or invisible. We define energy as “that stuff that makes up everything.” That means your chakras are in charge of everything about you, the physical and the subtle.
We believe that most of reality, including much of your body, is fundamentally made of subtle energies. Actually, so do a lot of scientists. Developmental biologist Bruce Lipton penned his bestselling book The Biology of Belief about this exact concept. More than that, your subtle energies determine what occurs in your body. They actually serve as a blueprint upon which your physical cells organize and build. So if you make decisions that ensure your subtle energies are in good shape, your body and emotions will be too. In other words, if you support your chakras—the “brains” of your entire self—you create, bolster, and sustain your vitality.
Though every chakra is important, your true self, or soul, is embodied in one chakra more than the others. We’ll talk more about that in chapter 1. What this means is that when you nurture your primary chakra, which requires consuming a specific set of foods and supplements, you’ll find yourself automatically following a personalized eating program—one that will work. You can also use the knowledge about your primary, or most important, chakra to make all sorts of other lifestyle decisions, such as selecting the best forms of exercise or meditation. Though we’ll emphasize your food-related choices in this book, we’ll also provide chakra bonus tips to cover additional lifestyle categories, including grocery shopping and dining out. To make it fun, we’ll help you uncover the special intuitive ability that lies in your strongest chakra and show you how to apply it to health decisions.
Excited yet?
Ultimately, our book boils down to this: We’ve all been told, “You are what you eat.” Our motto flips that around: What you eat should be based on who you really are.
We’re giving you more than a framework for eating with this book. We’re offering a brand-new way to know yourself. Why not embrace your uniqueness and nurture your soul, as well as your body? No more comparing yourself to other people. No more worrying if your weight is slightly higher or lower than what it “should be.” (PS: our plan will help you achieve the most harmonious weight for you, which means the pounds on the scale will align with whether you have enough energy for the important things—or not.) No more feeling guilty about making food and other lifestyle choices that differ from the latest fad or your loved ones’ choices. You know what we’re talking about, right?
You watch your partner follow a diet that’s full of lean poultry and grains, but when you try to give up red meat or add more grains, you feel sluggish or lack energy. Or you go for the latest fad and remove all carbohydrates from your diet. And then—you can’t focus! No more of that. This plan lets you customize eating based on your chakra type.
Instead of the typical seven-chakra layout you may be familiar with, we work with the twelve-chakra system Cyndi developed decades ago. A natural intuitive since childhood, she has always been able to perceive chakras, auric fields, and additional subtle energies and beings. Learning about the seven-chakra system when she was in her twenties confirmed what she intuitively perceived, but she could also see five additional distinct balls of light. She spent years investigating cross-cultural chakra systems and conducting her own research in order to identify and label these chakras. And now you get the benefit of her hard work! Using Cyndi’s groundbreaking approach affords a deeper, more revealing, and more precise personality profiling of your energy, which in turn, instructs you how best to nurture your personal energetic makeup.
Okay, we’ll stop. You might be gasping. We know that some of you are still insisting there are only seven chakras. So it’s time to fill you in on a couple of skeletons in the chakra closet.
Most Westerners believe there are only seven chakras because, about a century ago, Sir John Woodroffe, under the pseudonym Arthur Avalon, wrote a book called The Serpent Power. His book became the source for most Western yogic chakra systems. Based on his work, nearly everyone decided that there could only be seven chakras.
However, even Woodroffe stated that the world’s ancestors touted many chakra systems, with as few as two and as many as dozens of chakras. Plus, Woodroffe never actually said there were seven chakras. Rather, he offered up only six! Know that you can more precisely analyze your essential self when you have more, rather than fewer choices. You’ll be glad we’re this precise.
A QUICK TOUR OF THE BOOK
So you know what to expect in this book, here’s a quick breakdown.
• In part I, you’ll learn all about chakras and the twelve-chakra system. We’ll also talk about what we mean by “health,” “healing,” and “harmonious weight,” the three buzzwords in our tagline. You’ll then take a quiz to figure out your major chakra type. In fact, you’ll end up with a chakra ranking, a full portrait of your strongest to weakest chakras. You’ll pay the most attention to the short description provided about your major chakra, but we’ll also help you deal with any anomalies in your results.
For instance, what do you do if you have two strong chakras? We’ll show you how to select which one to work with. What if you deeply relate to or desire to develop an aspect of a weaker chakra? You can still embrace it. Throughout the book, we’ll weave together all the pertinent information about yourself. You’ll be able to see a quick description of all the chakra types before jumping into part II.
• In part II, you’ll find a write-up, or profile, for each major chakra type. You’ll look up your major chakra and read all about yourself. Who doesn’t like to read about themselves? Yup, strengths and weaknesses will be in there, but also information about your life purpose, intuitive gifts, main motivations, deepest fears, and that all-important main endocrine gland that you’ll actually be “eating for.” We’ll then provide in-depth information about the foods and supplements that best support each chakra—especially your major chakra.
We’ll also give you a few extra tips about each chakra’s specific health and wellness needs in areas including exercise, grocery shopping, and dining out. Then you’ll focus on a few questions. These will help you clarify what data applies to you.
• In part III, you’ll take everything you’ve learned about yourself to create a “chakra map,” or plan. This is your customized food and supplement program. You’ll use the knowledge you’ll acquire from filling in these mapping sheets to develop a menu and a go-to grocery list. But you should consider other important nourishment factors as well, such as goals for exercise and stress reduction. We’ll also show you how to utilize the insights you discovered in your chakra profile in part I and from the questions in part II. Say you want to eat certain foods from a secondary chakra type and skip some of them in your primary chakra. Well, you can! Or maybe you love the foods for your primary chakra type, but prefer the exercise and dining out tips for your second-strongest chakra. You can do that! You’ll be ready to make concerted decisions that will fine-tune your diet and light up your life.
Are you ready to get to know yourself a bit better? We’re excited you’re on this journey: a step-by-step guide into your chakras—and your true self.
Copyright © 2021 by Cyndi Dale and Dana Childs