Today we’ll be continuing our discussion about chakras and how they relate to our personal finance habits. While today will cover the more spiritual chakras, be sure to check out the last post to learn about the first three that relate primarily to the physicalities in our lives.

4. The Heart Chakra or Anahata

The heart chakra is all about tying the lower physical chakras together with the higher spiritual ones. It is the place where love is born, and where it is received. In a spiritual sense, it means that you love yourself, and are compassionate and open to others around you.

In personal finance, it’s important to love yourself, too. It’s important to forgive yourself for past mistakes. Acknowledge them. Learn from them. But don’t dwell on them or allow them to predict your future behaviors. Love yourself, past money mistakes and all, and then move on to make better ones that will have a different impact on your future. When you’re at this stage, you’ll do smart things with your money because you love yourself and want to take care of yourself…today and tomorrow.

It also means that you don’t judge others for their financial decisions. The woman in front of you in line may be buying Oreos on food stamps, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she is completely irresponsible, or that she’s a moocher who has never paid taxes. She may be buying a pair of $400 stilettos, but you don’t know if she’s scrimped and saved for them. She may be your friend who is constantly broke, despite making a decent income, but she could be dealing with some heavier things in her life you don’t know about.

When your heart chakra is open, you’re conscientious of all those possibilities, and don’t hold a holier-than-thou attitude.

On a more visceral level, having your first three chakras in line means that you are in a better position to demonstrate love fiscally. While money is far from the only way (or even the best way) to show love, when you have your financial house in order, you’re more likely to be able to give to causes you support, or provide support for someone in your personal life when they hit a rough patch.

5. The Throat Chakra or Visshuda

The throat chakra is all about speaking your truth. It’s about speaking compassionately, but not censoring yourself in order to appease others. Ironically, the sensory organ associated with this chakra is the ears, indicating that while it’s important to speak truth, it’s also important to listen for it, and recognize that truth may be different from person to person.

The throat chakra is associated with the muscle groups and glands in the throat. The one I find to be most interesting is the thyroid, as it controls our hormones that affect a myriad of functions in our body including metabolism. Its malfunction is often pointed to in bouts of depression that require Western medication. Fix your throat chakra, and you may see improvements in these areas of your life.

Not speaking your truth can affect your personal economy. It may mean that you’re too nervous to negotiate your initial salary or raise. It may mean that you aren’t effectively communicating your current finances or future financial goals with your partner. Overall, it means that you are so worried about conflict or judgement that you are willing to mute your needs, sacrificing your overall financial well-being.

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Not listening for truth can also be detrimental. On the flip side of things, when your partner comes to you with money concerns or an alternative way to approach the financial state of your household, if you’re not listening, you may be missing out on big opportunities, not to mention damaging your relationship. When anyone offers you advice, you may be too set in your own ways to be open to it. When you read an opinion that differs from your own, you may stubbornly shut it down, potentially missing out on information that could help you in your journey.

6. The Third Eye or Ajna

Opening your third eye means that you’re open to see the world beyond the physical realm. While logic and reason may dictate the way you typically analyze the facts in front of you, the third eye enables your intuition, or the feeling that something is right or wrong despite the physical evidence in front of you.

When you see beyond the physical in personal finance, you start to make different money decisions. Instead of buying ALL THE THINGS, satisfying your lust for immediate gratification, you may start saving for intangible things in the future, like a secure retirement. Or you may choose to allocate more of your expendable money to experiences rather than stuff. You may choose to become a minimalist, lowering your expenses. These people have more resources at their disposal to go out and do things because they are spending less on physical bobbles and their maintenance.

Intuition is a sticky thing. You may have a feeling that the stock market is going to plunge, so you pull all of your money out. That’s not a good exercise of your intuition in personal finance.

A better example would be when you’re looking at your neighborhood. Maybe you live in a place that is extremely manageable financially, but isn’t the safest. The schools aren’t great, and while staying there would allow you to save more for your kids’ college, you have this feeling that they’d be better off if you moved to a house in a more expensive locale.

On paper, is that the smartest money move? No. Is there any guarantee that your child will be safer or make better life decisions in an area where it costs more money to live? Absolutely not. But in this case, doing what you feel is best for your family may outweigh the monetary advantages of staying put.

7. The Crown Chakra or Sahaswara

This is an admittedly difficult one for me to tackle. I am not going to sit here and tell you I have mastered the chakra that is tied to ultimate enlightenment, or an unfettered connection to the divine.

What I will tell you is that the crown chakra is often likened to the lotus flower. The lotus flower blossoms not in lush meadows, but in muddy, murky waters where it is often the only source of beauty.

Are you planted in a financial meadow? Lucky you! Your financial blossoming is no less beautiful than that of the lotus flower. In fact, you together with your peers make a beautiful sight.

But for those who are not, the lotus flower symbolizes hope. It shows that even if you come from a place of little opportunity, even if you come from a background of mistake after mistake, you are not doomed. You can get your finances on track. You can reach a type of fiscal peace.

And when your financial lotus blossoms? People that see it are going to notice. “Damn, I never expected to see that here,” they’ll say as they look around the murky waters, admiring the beauty and tenacity of this one, unexpected, breath-taking flower.