About Today’s Show

Welcome to Stellar Life Podcast. This is your host, Orion. Welcome back and if you’re new, welcome. I really believe in the power of moving our bodies in a free way because most of the time we’ll go to the gym or do yoga class, and we’ll do workouts that are very structured. That are falling into a certain methodology, and there’s a lot of value in those.

I feel like what we’re missing is some free dance. Dancing like nobody else is looking at us, dancing just for ourselves, dancing connecting to our energy centers, dancing to release issues in our tissues and traumas from our body, dancing in a way that is freeing and liberating.

That’s why I invited Natalie Southgate. She’s a trained Jungian therapist and energy healer. Having researched the relationship between dance, music, mandala, and chakras, she created Chakradance in 1998. Natalie has led thousands to Chakradance live events and courses and runs regular workshops across the world. She has trained hundreds of facilitators, who are now running Chakradance classes in over 40 countries.

I hope this episode will make you want to move and shake your body in a way that is free and liberating. So you will express yourself, you will experience bliss, and a connection between your mind, your body, your emotions, and your spirit. And now, without further ado, on to the show. Hey, Natalie. Welcome to Stellar Life Podcast.

Hello, Orion.

I’m so excited to have you here because something that you do is very near and dear to my heart. I want to talk all about it, but before we start, can you share a little bit about yourself and what you do?

I’m Natalie and what I do is called Chakradance. It’s a beautiful dance practice for well-being. It’s not just about physical fitness, although obviously, through dancing we get that physical workout. But it’s much deeper than that. It’s actually because we’re working with the different chakra energies, we’re actually going in deeper and working with healing all the different facets within us.

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I think it’s working on so many levels. If you look at the crazy lives that so many of us lead, we really need that physical fitness for our health. But we also need that personal growth. We need spiritual development, we need to be doing meditation, we need stress relief, we need self-care, and we need fun in our lives.

To put it in a nutshell, Chakradance is like all of these things rolled into one. Quite often, most of us don’t have time to go into all of these things separately. It’s a practice that brings all of these really nurturing, healing tools together in a practice for the well-being of the  whole body, mind, and spirit.

Before you did this, you were a Jungian therapist. What is that?

Jung basically was a disciple of Freud. You’ve probably heard of Freud. He broke away from Freud and began what’s called Jungian psychology. I discovered Jungian psychology after I trained as an energy healer. I studied for a couple of years at a place called the College of Psychic Studies in London, which is an amazing place. During the two years of training, I was learning how to do energy healing and specifically working with the chakras, which was where my love of the chakras came from, and then I discovered Carl Jung.

Carl Jung was one of the very first westerners to work with the chakras, this Eastern map. He put a western idea of how we can understand the chakras. So, I thought, “Oh my goodness. I need to study Jung now.”

The basic premise of what Jungian psychology is about building an ongoing relationship between the unconscious parts of who we are and consciousness. They said that we can be the fullest, the most whole, the best possible version of who we can be, so we’re living this fullness when working with the unconscious.

I was studying Jungian psychology. He worked a lot on dream work. In Jungian psychology, if you were to go to a Jungian therapist, what you do is you take your dreams and you work with the symbolism and the energy of your dreams. It’s believed in Jungian psychology that these dreams are like messages from the unconscious. They are messages that are speaking to you. We work with them to try and communicate so that we can grow.

It was studying Jungian psychology, doing all of this chakra healing, and I’m a dancer as well, that all of these things were coming together that led me to develop Chakradance, which is almost like a waking dream.

That’s a beautiful way to say it.

Exactly a waking dream. In a Chakradance class, the room is completely dark and we dance with our eyes closed.

I love it.

It’s beautiful because it’s very much about bringing our awareness inwards. Each chakra has music which has been specifically composed to resonate with the energy. I can talk a little bit about the music later because it’s a really vital part. The music is specifically resonating at a certain frequency which activates the chakra.

I lead people in with guided imagery, which takes them into the energy of the chakra. From there, people find their own spontaneous movement. It’s not set steps or choreographed in any way. It’s like you go into this energy and you let the music and the energy move you. What starts to happen typically is different for different people. Some people have a lot of feelings and emotions that start to surface as they’re working with a particular part of themselves. But a lot of people see images. A lot of people start to see different images that are related to the energy of their chakra, which is like a waking dream. So, it’s almost the same as the dream life. These images are coming up to reveal something to us, to show the next step in our healing journey. It is like this waking dream that unfolds through the dance.

After the dance, another Jungian process. The whole process is very Jungian. In Jungian psychology, one of the most important parts of it is building a very safe container because we are doing deep in our healing work. In order to feel for the soul, for the psyche to feel safe to do this, what should genuinely happen is you need to feel safe.

A big part of that in Jungian psychology is to build a safe container. That’s what we have in the class. The room is set as a sacred space. It’s almost like entering a temple or something. It’s really creating a sacred space. That’s very Jungian. The process of them working in this inner world is very Jungian as well.

In the end, we do a mandala art piece. We come out of the dance and we have a circle in front of us. Mandala means ‘magic circle’ in Sanskrit. We intuitively draw into the circle. Even if you think you can’t draw, it’s not about that. We’re still in darkness pretty much. It’s an expression of what’s going on inside you, bringing that into the outer world. The creation of the mandala is once again a very Jungian practice. Jung himself used to create his own mandalas as a way of his inner world speaking to him, to show those insights.

You can see what happen. The whole Jungian concept, when traditionally you sit in a room with somebody, talk with them, and go through their dreams, I guess what I’ve done is taking the philosophy of Jungian psychology.

And creative embodiment. I truly believe in what you do and I experienced a similar aspect of what you do for my own personal practice, but also the things that I do with my clients. It’s super cool. I want to know for you, this journey of you started as an energy healer, you became a therapist, then you created your own beautiful, magical healing modality. What was the transformation like for you as a person?

The transformation has been huge because what I’ve left out is pre- all of that. I started my life in a very different world. I actually used to work in advertising, so I had a totally different job. I worked in an advertising agency and then for seven years I ran a recruitment agency in London, specializing in the creative industry – ad agencies, film companies, sign companies, and so on. Really high-pressured and long hours – I had a totally different life. I used to go to the bar after work every night, I used to smoke, totally different.

Although I probably looked really successful at that time because I made a lot of money and I had a company car, I had a gorgeous office in SOHO and my apartment. It all looked awesome from the outside but I was starting to just fall apart. I was burning the candle at both ends and running on adrenaline. I think I was in my late 20s and I started to feel like, “Is this it?” I kind of got everything I was trying to aim for and is this it? I just felt like stuck in a life that didn’t feel right for me.

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Stuck in the life that you were supposed to live, but it was somebody else’s dream.

Exactly. It was a dream that wasn’t sustainable for anybody anyway. I was just not in touch with my spirituality. It was very surface, it’s not at the core of who I am. I had dabbled in a Reiki course when I was 17 years old. I dabbled with meditation, but I kind of left it all behind.

It was stumbling across the College of Psychic Studies that kickstarted it all because this girl that I used to work with was a teacher there and she introduced me to the college. As I walked through the doors of this college that had been there for over 200 years, I had this sense of coming home. And that started my spiritual journey.

For years, I kept doing both. I was doing a recruitment company and studying at night. My very first Chakradance class was actually ran in my recruitment company at night. I cover all the computers with beautiful colored cloth and hang wind chimes. I transformed it into my studio.

My whole career completely changed. Then, I sold my recruitment company and I made the decision to just do this full-time. I obviously took a huge money cut into it. My soul needs to do this. It was the best thing I ever did. That was 20 years ago. I was living in London, I ended up moving back to Australia where I’m from.

What was the evolution between 20 years ago to now and the Chakradance process?

For me, personally, or for Chakradance?

For both.

For me, all I can say is that I am almost a different person to the person I was 20 years ago. I’ve become so much more…

Happier.

Yeah and me. I think it’s in the form of who I am, I’m much more present. I used to be very scatty, I was stuck in my head, and underweight because I was a vegetarian but didn’t really like vegetables.

It goes either way. If you’re a vegetarian that doesn’t like vegetables, you either don’t eat or you just eat pasta all day long.

Exactly. I used to live on hot chips and cigarettes. It was really bad looking back. I think like, “Oh my God, how did I get…” Obviously, I’m now this. I still like to have fun and not like this ridiculously over-the-top person. I’m balanced but the core of who I am is just so much more grounded, so much more present, so much more in my body, so much more living the authentic part of who I am – like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I have a spiritual practice that I’m really committed to, I do my own Chakradance practice. I just feel I’m at home now, I’m at peace now. I don’t have that sense of craziness anymore. I never get overly stressed anymore because I’ve got all of these tools to deal with it now. That’s my personal journey.

The Chakradance journey’s been amazing. It’s been amazing because in all honesty, I never set out to do this. Actually, I feel I created this practice for myself like it really just started with me. Stumbling upon it for myself. It was while I was dancing and I could feel the different music vibrations. I started to feel because I was studying this energy healing. I could feel the different chakras were being activated by different musical frequencies. It made me really intrigued, so I started playing around with different music.

Because I was a dancer, one day I was dancing in my lounge room which I do a lot of, and I just heard the name Chakradance. I was like, “Of course. That’s what I need to do. I need to dance my chakras. That’s what’s going to heal me,” because I need to be in my body.

It started really just for me. I did it for myself with no intention of anything. It was my friends that said, “What are you doing? What are you doing differently? You seem much better. What’s happening?” And I said, “Well, I was dancing. I was doing this thing.”

That’s how the recruitment company classes started. It was friends. I said, “People, look. Come at night after work and I’ll lead one for you,” and then they wanted to bring friends. I was like, “Well, gosh. I guess I could hire a hall and you can bring your friends.” It literally started like that. It was very organic and natural. I didn’t advertise. It was just this word-of-mouth.

Then, I just start building it, finding more music. I started working with musicians. Then it got to the point where I thought, “You know what? There’s something in this that I need to travel and share this with more people.” So, that’s what I did next. I started to travel a lot and go to bigger workshops. This is when I knew I was on the right path. Very early on, probably within the first few years, I had a call from Hay House. They’re just amazing and they said, “Would you be interested in coming to Doreen Virtue, that Angel Intuitive?” Doreen Virtue runs these amazing Angel Intuitive courses, 1000 people at each event.

You manifested Hay House to call you?

Yeah. This is when I knew it was the right thing to do. They said, “We’ve got this huge event. Everyone sitting down for the whole day. We’d love some movement but we want a movement that’s meaningful. Everybody there is doing chakra work. Is there a way you could get on the stage and take 1000 people though your Chakradance?”

That’s so much fun.

I did that. It was a huge success. That obviously got me into Hay House and then from there they said, “Would you go over to Deepak Chopra Center in California and run some things at his workshop, at his center?” If following the signs, I’ve never felt like I pushed anything. I feel like that’s when you know you’re really on the right path. Obviously, we have to take action. We can’t just sit and wait.

That’s a really cool metaphor for what you do, which is all about dance, flow and allowing. It meant for us to form the embodiment of that into your real life.

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It really did and then it grew from there. I was about mid-30s by then and I was like, “Oh gosh. I really like to have children and if I have children, I’ve got to do it soon.” Then I thought, “What can I do? I can’t keep traveling the world running Chakradance,” so then I thought, “I know what I’ll do. I’ll create a facilitator training program and train up other people how to do this.” Because it’s really not about me. It’s about Chakradance the practice. If I can train up other people to deliver this, it could actually start rippling around the world.

That’s what I did and I was literally 8¾ months pregnant. I was about to drop when I ran my first 10-day residential teacher training.

You’re amazing. This is insane.

That was my first 15 facilitators. They came in from different parts of the world. It was amazing. Over the following years, I changed it into online training because not many people could keep flying to Australia. I think for 10 years or more now, we’ve got well over 500. I don’t know the exact number but it’s well over 500 facilitators and we’re across 40 different countries. There are Chakradance classes going on by lots of different people all around the world which is just something I never even dreamed of, to be honest. When I had that initial experience, I had no idea this is where it would go.

Talk about the word chakras. I’m very familiar with chakras, but somebody listening now might not be. What are chakras? How does that combine with the dance? And how can dance activate the chakras?

I know it can be a bit of a scary word for some people. It has become really normal for me but I think you’re right. I think there’s a lot of people out there who may have heard the word but they don’t know what it is.

Chakra is a Sanskrit word which means spinning wheels. It’s like these spinning wheels of energy. But I think it’s important from the beginning to understand it, to really believe it, and know that we are more than just this physical body that we can see. That we have this energy body surrounding us, which is commonly known as the aura.

Most people have heard of an aura. The aura, the energy body has all these different energies in it. It’s our emotional energy, it’s our mental energy, it’s our sexual energy, it’s our spiritual energy. All these different energies moving around us in this energy field.

The chakras are like the power centers of the aura. They’re the spinning wheels of energy in the aura that allow energy to flow in and out of our whole system about aura and our bodies. Basically, when it’s flowing, when there are no blockages and it’s flowing, then we’re healthy. Life is good. We’re healthy in body, mind, and spirit when that’s all flowing.

If there’s a block in one of the chakras, a block in this energy flow, we experience that in our lives in some way. It manifest or it will show up in some way, whether that’s a physical illness, or an emotional issue, or a mental issue, or it may show up in different areas in your life, in your outer life. It’s really important, if we want to be healthy and we want to have a good life, to have this flow of energy.

A little bit deeper into the chakras. We have seven major chakras. They’re located along the spine, starting from the base of the spine and running up to the top of the head. Each chakra influences the health of specific body parts and specific organs. That’s why we can tell. If you got a specific physical issue, you can identify straight away which chakra that’s connected to. More than just the physical, each chakra also influences a different aspect of our lives. This is another way that we can see whether we are in flow or not. Just to give it in a nutshell, the first one is really all about our sense of trust and our instincts, those raw, primal, almost animal instincts.

There are seven chakras, right? Some say seven, some say nine, and the common number is seven. Where are they located in the body? You said the first one. Every chakra has a different color, they’re located in different parts of the body, and if we start in the base chakra?

Start at the base. Some say the base of the spine, if you’re aligning it with the spine, and some say the perineum, because it’s really that opening point where you’re connecting down with the earth. It’s the color of red and that means that it’s vibrating at the frequency.

Every color holds the vibration of frequencies. The color red is more at a dense vibration and so the color violet. There’s that heavier frequency at the base of the spine. It’s all about our physical health and it’s about our sense of trust and sense of safety in the world. It’s our foundation. It’s our root. It’s our root support.

It’s called Muladhara which means root support. It’s the roots connecting to our body, the root connecting to the earth. Being here, being present, being grounded, and the roots connecting to our ancestral lineage. A lot of the issues that can come up in the base may actually be issues brought in from your ancestors. We do a lot of ancestral work in Chakradance as well.

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We actually call in. In specific dances, we call in the energy of the different ancestors and start to release a lot of the ties of energy. Because we’re dealing with energy all the time and we can use the power of intention. Energy follows thought and the power of energy release can do so much healing. Because we hold so much in our bodies, by doing the movement we start to release what we held in the bodies. We all hold emotions that we didn’t process at the time in our bodies and in our energy fields.

We hold all our trauma in our body. This is why what you do is so beautiful. When a deer is scared after the trauma, you see the deer shake. They’re immediately shaking the trauma off of their body. But human beings don’t do that. What happens with us is we experience the trauma, we freeze, and then we just get stuck in our tissue. That’s why we have issues in our tissues.

Issues in our tissues. It’s so simple.

It get stuck in certain places in our body. Sometimes, there is a lot of heady therapy, hypnosis, a lot of beautiful therapies, and a lot of healing modalities. But I also believe that because like Dr. Windar said, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. A part of our human experience is living in our body. A part of our healing is about healing traumas from our body through movement.

That’s why I love what you do so much. I’m sure you solve so many cases of healing, but before we get there, let’s go back to the chakras. The root chakra is red. It’s about trust. It’s about ancestry. It’s also about our sexual center. A lot of sexual traumas are in that part?

It can be there and in the sacral as well. Some of the issues crossover. The sacral one is moving up to the lower belly. The color orange is its vibrational frequency and is connected to the element of water. This one is very much about flow and this is really the emotional center. It is that sensuality. It’s that sacred sexuality. It’s that sensual part of who we are.

In many ways, it’s the divine feminine within each of us, within men and women. That’s nurturing and receptive but also the quite wild and untamed part of who we are as well. It’s the pleasure. It’s pretty and sweet. There’s so much more of the feminine. When you start to dance this chakra, you’re going to know there’s the dark goddess as well. There’s that whole part of the feminine – that raw, wild part of the feminine- that lives within each of us that comes out in the chakra, which is native in our lives as well.

That’s the second chakra. That’s a beautiful chakra to dance. If you’re dancing like a wild gypsy. The music is very Middle Eastern belly dance type music.

Oh my God. I love it. I started belly dancing.

Oh, you would love this one. You’re in ancient temples in your mind.

I was actually in an ancient temple in Egypt several months ago. I went to Egypt. I went to the Valley of the Kings. I was lucky enough to enter the tomb of Nefertari. Because of Egypt’s economic situation, now you can pay $200 and enter a tomb that before only celebrities or heads of states could have gone to.

I visited all those ancient temples and there were crazy energies in all of them, especially in the Valley of the Kings. I felt some weird energy. I have to block myself because I didn’t know if it was good or bad. Just talking about it, I get goosebumps all over my body. I just remember that moment.

At the end of the dance that we do, we take ourselves to the imagery that’s going to help us go into the mood, into the energy of these chakras. That’s what waking dream and you’re dancing in there and it starts to release. And a lot of these are ancient.

I was in this one temple. It’s the Temple of Dendera and it’s the goddess of song and dance. Everything they described in the sacral chakra is something that I felt in that temple. I just felt wild.

We went with a group—you have to go with a group—but I was apart from the group. Everybody were somewhere down below the temple and I just left and start wandering alone in the temple. There’s something about the goddess of song and dance that really resonated in my body. It was wild raw sacral energy that you’re describing on the second chakra.

It’s so beautiful. We bring goddess energies into the dance and invoke different goddesses in dance with their energy. There are so many different parts. That’s beautiful. What a beautiful experience. That’s on my list. I’m really going to bring it to the front of the list. To go to Egypt and some of these temples because I would love to experience what you’ve experienced. It sounds amazing.

So that’s the sacral. Just very quickly with the base. The dance at the base, being all about the trust, the grounding, and everything, the dance is very earthy, very tribal, very raw, and very percussive. It’s like didgeridoos and African base. It’s almost like you start to move like a wild animal and people start to connect with their power and are very primal. You can feel how the music is very different for each one and then the dance is very different.

Then you come up to the solar plexus which is between the navel and the base of the sternum. Like in karate when you do the ‘hi-ya,’ you make that natural sound from your solar plexus. It’s from there. That’s the color yellow in its vibrational frequency and this is really our divine inner masculine for both men and women. It’s our strength, our inner power, our courage, our self-esteem, our confidence, our self-worth, our get up and go, our right to take action and our right to take up space. It’s that outer and inner strength.

With that warrior energy, there’s also a peacefulness. It’s not about crazy activity all the time. It’s about balancing that quiet inner strong warrior with that dynamic action. It’s the element of fire.

It reminds me of the Haka dance of New Zealand.

That’s the kind of thing. People start dancing because it’s your own free, spontaneous dance. When you’re in a dark room, your eyes are closed, and the music’s loud. It’s about feeling the vibrations of the music. You’re in this sound sphere as well.

I want to be in a dark secret space with you right now.

It’s amazing. People are doing martial arts type movement, the music is very dynamic, it’s very powerful.

You are guiding them toward that. You put the image in their mind, then their subconscious mind created whatever they need for themselves, and then they move in that way. They release whatever they need to release or receive whatever energy they want to receive.

That’s exactly what happens.

I know. I’ve been there in my heart.

And that’s where we’re going up to the heart, which is the center.

I set it up.

You set it up. I like it. It’s vibrating to the color green. A lot of people see rose pink with the heart as well but the vibrational frequency is green. As you would expect from the heart, this is our sense of love, but it’s that higher sense of love. It’s that unconditional love. It’s the love for ourselves primarily that we can then share with others.

It’s forgiveness, it’s loving kindness. It’s learning how to be kind to ourselves and you have to be compassionate. It’s this sort of raising about vibration release so that we can start to find love and compassion not just for those close to us but for strangers and for bigger projects that we might want to go out and help with.

Moving up to a very different dimension here, the music for this is just beautiful. It’s really…

Angelic?

Lyrical. Angelic. Absolutely. It just makes your heart see it. You’re like walking on air. Air is the element. Again, we go into all sorts of places with the breath because the element’s air, we use the breath. We do bring in angels to actually take from us anything that’s been in our holding, the heaviness in our own hearts, moving to that lightness.

Start to feel what it’s like in that energy because a lot of people struggling in their day-to-day life, it’s really common. They come and they dance this heart and having experience of, “Wow, I didn’t even know I could even feel like this.” They can take that energy out into their lives and start to feel what it’s like to live in this heart energy. Absolutely beautiful.

I bet some people started crying on that part.

You do get a lot of tears of recognition of how much they have not been loving themselves It is a beauty of how beautiful it can feel in this space. A lot of people make connections with loved ones that have crossed over here. A lot of people, oh my goodness, I felt like they were here dancing with me in this heart. It’s that relationship, the ultimate relationship. That’s a beautiful chakra to dance, they all are, but it’s just stunning.

And now we’re climbing to the throat chakra than most of us. A lot of us are blocking their throat chakra because we’ve been told ‘no’ so many times throughout our lives. We’ve been told that we are not enough. We were told that our voice is not good enough, not strong enough, or if we use our voice too much, we are told to put it down by people that might feel safer if we dim our light. I bet the throat chakra is also a big opening for a lot of people.

It’s huge. It’s absolutely huge what comes up in the throat. Even looking at our bodies, look at the throat, it goes in like ugh. A lot of coughing starts to happen and it’s interesting. This is the color sky blue and we’ve moved out of the physical elements and into the ether. From here, we’re working with the world of vibrations. It’s in the whole process, in particular here in the etheric world. It’s almost like we cross your veil in the guidance, and enter into a world made purely of sound and vibrations.

What we do here is a mantra dance. We chant the seas down the beaches down of the chakra. Then, we play and chant in different sounds. We might have chant love as we dance and feel the vibration of love as we chant it. Then, we chant the truth. We play with different words.

Can you demonstrate how you chant love or truth?

We all breathe in and this is to the music. The music would be going with “love,” then, everyone would breathe in and what happens is we build the vibration of that chat until you feel the vibration.

I’m so happy I asked you to do that because it is so beautiful. You have a beautiful voice. It was so beautiful and pure.

Thank you. We love as well, which is interesting, isn’t it? We turn that into a mantra dance where we chant these vibrations and start to feel the power of our voice.

What type of music do you put on that?

This is where the angels play. It’s so ethereal. It almost got a pulsing, humming, vibrations, moving field. I shouldn’t have favorites but I always think it’s my favorite music. It’s this otherworldly and yet we have the mantras going through it. The mantra dance is beautiful.

Opening the throat chakra is about opening up our self-expression and it’s about our truth. The name Vishuddhi means purification. It’s about, first of all, purifying our bodies because we cannot open up to these subtle vibrations if we got too much dense energy going on. The more we can clear our bodies and our energy field, the more we can open up to the subtle vibrations and start to hear spirit.

I do a lot of mantra process at Naam Yoga near my house and we do a lot of chanting, lots of mantras. It’s nice because you do the mantras while you’re moving in a certain way and do all kinds of mudras. It’s very powerful. Actually, when I do a lot of Naam, I can get very airy. I’m not grounded enough.

I remember when I did it a lot in the beginning. I was floating. In some way, I was in this ethereal dimensions but I was leaving here and I had to come back to earth and be grounded.

Yes. Back to the base chakras. We always come back to the base at the end of every class to ground, to step back out, so you don’t want to walk out to being totally open and be so sensitive to everything around you. You want to keep your sensitivity but have that protection and that grounding. We always come back to that. But it’s so beautiful to play in these energies, to play in this throat vibration, and to really discover your truth.

I think that’s really for me what it’s so much about is to really live that truth and to really speak that truth. The creative expression that comes from this is pure creativity because this is where we express that truth of who we are.

I really believe that the more we open the throat chakra, the more we find what our unique creativity is. A lot of people find shifts in what they do when they start to really open the throat chakra because they find that truth. It’s another beautiful chakra.

We come up to the third eye, which is in the center of the forehead. I think this is probably the most well-known chakra.

It’s one of my favorite.

It’s amazing up here, isn’t it?

I’ve been to India, to Wellness University, and I had out-of-body experiences there. I was flying through different dimensions and seeing all kinds of visions. It was just extraordinary. I love that third eye where you see beyond the one percent of our reality into the 99% of what is. You have a glimpse into the magical world.

Into everything. It’s sort of timeless, isn’t it? And like you say, there’s the multi-dimensions. In Chakradance, we reach it during a trance dance, which is probably one of the easiest ways, maybe that’s because I like to dance. But a lot of people have shared with me that they’ve wanted to be able to have those kinds of experiences, sat in meditation and don’t go anywhere. But there’s something about moving your body. The movement and the music for the trance dance is very repetitive, it’s very hypnotic.

What kind? What is a trance dance? How do you move in trance dance?

You still find your own movement, but you close your eyes, you bring your awareness to your inner eye, and then you imagine that inner eye is opening. The music is of a high frequency. There’s this higher frequency, I don’t want to say club music because it’s organic. Think of a big night club.

Like rave trance music?

Think of like a rave, but we don’t do it in the rave way. The music is more organic with natural instruments but that same kind of vibe.

Didgeridoo and stuff like that?

Didgeridoo and the frequency of the color indigo where there is this higher vibration going as well. Then there’s the drumbeats and it’s very repetitive. What happens is you just surrender your body. First of all, we set an intention and in a way—this is how I like to see it—instead of trying to lift up out of your body and go somewhere. You actually open your body to become like an empty vessel for the insights to drop in, for the visions to drop in, and in the trance dance you just surrender your body to the hypnotic music.

What tends to happen after a few minutes, at first you resist and think that you can’t do it.Once you get through that barrier, then something happens and there is a science to trance dance. It’s like the left logical brain that we leave a lot of our lives in. The trance-inducing music flicks us over to the right – the more intuitive, creative, visionary brain.

What tends to happen is you will end up finding that you make quite repetitive movements, you might find yourself just doing this one movement, which could be a strange movement over and over.

The hammer.

Exactly. It’s quite funny when you’re watching people. And then, what starts to happen is it all starts to happen in the imagery, in the third eye. This is where people have all sorts of experiences. Some people have such need that they’ve had their entire life flash through the screen. It’s like having a TV screen in your eye and they’ve seen their whole lives flash through.

Other people just get visions of different galaxies almost and like you were saying, different dimensions that they traveled there. A lot of people will get memories. Although that’s fun, you can have some really blissful experiences, and it can be really exciting if you dance with the third eye. What I love most about it is that it can really show us creative ways of dealing with our lives that we may not have reached. We’ve got things that we can’t figure out the solutions to. If I’m stuck on something and I can’t figure out what to do about it, I’ll dance the third eye.

Normally, what I would see, if that’s my intention, is a creative solution that I just wouldn’t been able to get to when I’m sitting and just thinking about it. So, it’s got to really good purpose to help us in our day-to-day life as well with these creative solutions and just seeing things from a different perspective. We’ve got a kid’s program now.

Our chakras serve as roots in our body, connecting us to the earth. Share on X

Nice. Kids are so beautiful. I can’t imagine seeing them doing that. They are so pure.

It’s amazing. It’s called inner mojo. We recorded something else. It’s the same program but for kids basically. This is all based on fairy tales, but we talk about the eagle mind and the wings of the eagle – how you can lift up. That’s kind of the same for adults. When you’re stuck in drama or stuck in a story, we all get those days where we’re just stuck in whatever’s annoying us or whatever. To be able to lift up into that energy, that third eye, that eagle mind, that higher perspective, and just see the bigger picture – going the grand scheme of things. This little thing really doesn’t matter, like I put it just to get out of it.

I find it blissful, this cosmic, amazing experience, but I used it a lot for just really practical purposes in my own life, which is an amazing tool to have, and it’s our intuition as well. It’s trusting when you get that flash of, “I shouldn’t really drive that way to work.” And you go, “Why? It’s quicker. That’s stupid. I’m going to go,” and then your next minute you’re sitting in a traffic jam, there’s been an accident, you’ve been there for half an hour, and you’re like, “I knew that. I actually knew that. I heard that. Why didn’t I trust that?”

That’s your intuition. Just getting those flashes of things that our logical mind cannot make sense out of, so we don’t give it any credit. The more we work with the third eye, the more we trust those. Even if there is no rational explanation for it, we had enough proof by now that this is a phenomenon. This intuition is something that’s real. The more we trust it, the more we receive it.

I think it’s like a muscle. The more we develop it, the stronger it becomes. The more we rely on it, the more we can trust it. The more our life flows because working with your intuition and your logical mind makes like so much easier than just trying to push through logic all the time. The third eye’s got so much to offer.

The last one is the crown, the top of the head, which is violet in frequency. A lot of people see gold as well but in its actual frequency. This is the ultimate, this is our own highest source of our spirituality, so it’s connecting to the god of our own understanding. That will be different for each of us, but it’s having that spiritual connection and it’s having that sense of our own soul.

We often say in Chakradance, this is the soul’s turn to dance and we have almost like a nectar of the soul permeating through the crown of our head. The music is divine. The music is very spiritual, very high frequency. It’s again otherworldly but of the higher vibration. It’s almost angels singing and choruses of spiritual beings and white light for dancing with other light beings and feeling that energy of the truth, the who you are, that soul energy, and letting that energy come into your body and move you.

This is again why we have so many people just in tears because it’s like a dancing prayer. The energy, the wisdom, and the grace that we can feel dancing the chakra is so healing. It just keeps us in alignment with the bigger part of who we are and why we’re here.

It’s all in your new book.

I got a book out it all now. I resisted doing a book. It’s actually the second time I’ve done a book on it. This is a bigger book on it because I thought it’s not something you can really read about. It’s something that you want to feel.

We came up with a book that comes with a guided dance for each chakra as a download with the book. There is a lot of information and what I’ve actually done is I’ve woven into the book a big chapter on each chakra, a bit more about the philosophy, the Jungian style, and all about what’s underpinning it.

Most of the book is focused on the seven chakras. Each chakra I talked about what that chakra’s about, but I put in a lot of my own personal stories of what I’ve been through. I share quite a lot of my life about how the chakras helped me in practical ways and also other people’s stories of Chakradances. I had hundreds of people who’ve done Chakradance and were really happy to support me in the book, who shared their stories.

Where can we get it?

It’s in a lot of the bookstores. It’s out worldwide and it’s in a lot of good bookstores. It’s actually through online bookstores. It’s on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Booktopia here in Australia.

Everywhere worldwide.

Yeah, then actually you get the tracks that you download with it.

Of course. The most important part. We are unfortunately almost out of time. But still, I ask you, what are your three top tips to living a Stellar Life?

One absolute is daily practice. Without a doubt, you have to no matter what’s going on in your life. Daily practice of some kind. Some sort of spiritual practice, whether that’s meditation or just focusing on your breathing or doing an intention for the day or pulling a card, whatever that is, find what works for you and commit to doing that every single day. I call it soul time. It’s in my book. Soul time. If you can do it first thing in the morning, the first thing that you do. It sets you up for your whole day. That would be number one.

Number two would be movement for me, especially so many of us are living these lifestyles that we’re sitting at computers a lot and that’s not good for us on any level. It’s not good for our physical bodies, and it’s certainly not good for our energy bodies, either, because we need that flow of movement. That would be obvious, I would say dance because that’s what I do, but again, find what works for you. It maybe doing yourself some steps, whatever those fit people are doing. It maybe just doing some yoga. Whatever it is for you but doing something physical everyday, even if it’s just five or ten minutes.

The other one, I think, is connection. I’m glad you asked me this question because I haven’t really sat down and thought about this. I thought just spontaneously coming out. It’s connection. I think we do, in a spiritual world, in a self-development world, so much of what we do is about our own inner work and our own inner healing because we have to. We have to heal ourselves first.

But I think it’s been important to step out and connect with friends, connect with loved ones, connect with family, to have that connection. You said earlier that we’re spiritual beings having a physical existence. We’re here to have that physical connection to be with other people and have that sense of community as well. That’s healthy and healing for us and supportive for us.

So, I would say, off the top of my head, the top three.

Cool. Where can people find you? What’s your website?

My website is chakradance.com.

chakradance.com. Go there, get the book on Amazon. She is unbelievable. Thank you so much, Natalie. I really appreciate you.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on your show. I really appreciate being here. I’ve enjoyed it so much just chatting with you. Thank you.

Thank you so much and thank you, listeners. Have a daily soul time, keep moving, connect with your loved ones, and have a Stellar Life. This is Orion, signing off. Talk to you next time.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

✓ Learn more about your chakras and how to balance the different types of energy within you. Let this knowledge help you become more in tune with your inner self so that your overall physical being thrives.
✓ Cultivate your self-expression through different forms of art. Natalie considers dance as a form of release, but you may prefer writing, painting, or singing.
✓ Pay close attention to your vivid dreams and write them down in a journal. In Jungian Psychology, these dreams are messages from the subconscious.
✓ Create a sacred space in your home where you feel safe and completely yourself. Fill it with things that inspire you and meditate there when you need to recharge and spend some time alone.
✓ Don’t be too hard on yourself when it comes to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Accept that it’s okay to indulge yourself occasionally as long as you don’t forget your real reasons for doing what you’re doing.
✓ Don’t force things. Instead, let life unfold naturally. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to work hard for your dreams, but what is meant for you will not pass you by.
✓ Stay grounded by keeping a secure connection with your spiritual side. Be aware of your thoughts and actions and always aim to be authentic.
✓ Learning new skills, starting a self-development practice, or educating yourself on topics of interest can expand your horizons, help you meet new people, and improve your lifestyle.
✓ Keep moving and be more physically active. If you’re spending hours working in front of the computer, make sure to find time for a pleasant walk or some exercise in the outdoors.
✓ Grab a copy of Natalie Southgate’s book, Chakradance: Move Your Chakras, Change Your Life, and start activating your energy from within.

Links and Resources

About Natalie Southgate

Natalie Southgate trained as a Jungian Therapist and energy-healer. Having researched the relationship between dance, music, mandalas and the chakras, she created Chakradance in 1998. Natalie has led thousands through Chakradance live events and courses, and runs regular workshops across the world. She has trained hundreds of accredited Facilitators who are now running Chakradance classes in over 40 countries. For more information, go to www.chakradance.com.