Most people who've spent any time around yoga studios or energy work know the seven chakras — root to crown, red to violet, the classic diagram on every studio wall. It's a useful map. But over the past few decades, a growing number of practitioners have started working with a 13 chakra system: the familiar seven, plus six additional centers that extend below the feet and above the head.
The reasoning is practical, not decorative. The traditional seven-chakra map covers what happens inside the body. It says less about your relationship to the ground you stand on, or to whatever you consider larger than yourself. The expanded chakra system fills in those edges — and for people whose main complaints are feeling scattered, ungrounded, or emotionally porous, those edges are often exactly where the work needs to happen.
One honest note before we start: the 13-chakra framework is a modern development, not an ancient one. Classical tantric texts describe various chakra counts — six, seven, sometimes more — but the specific 13-center model described here emerged from contemporary energy work traditions, largely in the late 20th century. That doesn't make it less useful to the people who practice with it. It just means you should know what kind of map you're holding: a working model practitioners find helpful, not a scientific anatomy or a single unbroken lineage.
The 13 Chakras, One by One
Numbering conventions vary between teachers. The version below — starting at 0 beneath the feet and ending at 12 above the head — is one of the most common.
Chakra 0: Earth Star (sometimes called Vasundhara)
Location: Roughly 12–18 inches below the feet, in the ground itself.
This is the anchor point. Where the root chakra governs your survival and stability, the earth star chakra is described as your connection to the planet — the place your personal energy meets something that isn't you. Practitioners work with it for chronic ungroundedness: the person who lives entirely in their head, can't feel their feet, and startles easily. If you spend ten hours a day on screens, this is usually the first center an energy worker will point you toward.
Chakra 1: Root (Muladhara)
Location: Base of the spine.
Safety, survival, money, home, body. When people say they feel "unstable" or "in survival mode," this is the territory. Practical signs practitioners associate with root work: sleep, appetite, and the basic sense that you're allowed to take up space.
Chakra 2: Sacral (Svadhisthana)
Location: Lower abdomen, below the navel.
Emotion, pleasure, creativity, sexuality. Less "what do I need to survive" and more "what do I actually want." People often come to sacral work when life has gone flat — functional, but joyless.
Chakra 3: Solar Plexus (Manipura)
Location: Upper abdomen, between navel and sternum.
Will, confidence, boundaries, follow-through. The center practitioners associate with saying no without a three-paragraph apology. If your stomach knots before difficult conversations, you already know where this one lives.
Chakra 4: Heart (Anahata)
Location: Center of the chest.
Love, grief, connection, self-acceptance. In the traditional system this is the bridge between the lower "body" centers and the upper "mind" centers — and it keeps that role in the 13-center map.
Chakra 5: High Heart / Thymus
Location: Between the heart and the throat, over the thymus gland.
Here's the first major addition. The high heart chakra sits in the gap most of us know well: you feel compassion (heart) but struggle to express it (throat). Practitioners describe this center as governing forgiveness, sincere speech, and compassion that includes yourself. It's a popular focus for people processing grief or working on how they speak to themselves.
Chakra 6: Throat (Vishuddha)
Location: The throat.
Expression and truth-telling. Not just talking — saying the actual thing.
Chakra 7: Third Eye (Ajna)
Location: Between the eyebrows.
Intuition, perception, discernment. The center associated with noticing what's really going on versus what you'd prefer to be going on.
Chakra 8: Crown (Sahasrara)
Location: Top of the head.
Connection to meaning — however you personally define it. In the seven-chakra system, this is the end of the map. In the 13-center model, it's a doorway.
Chakra 9: Soul Star
Location: About 6–12 inches above the head.
The soul star chakra is described as the seat of your individual purpose — the "why you specifically" center. Practitioners often work here with clients in major life transitions: career changes, relocations, the year after a loss, any moment where the old identity no longer fits and the new one hasn't arrived yet.
Chakra 10: Universal Chakra
Location: Above the soul star.
Where individual purpose meets everything else. Practitioners describe this center in terms of interconnection — the felt sense that your life is part of a larger system, which tends to shrink problems back down to their actual size.
Chakra 11: Galactic Chakra
Location: Higher still in the field above the head.
Associated in this framework with expanded awareness and access to insight beyond ordinary problem-solving. This is deep-practice territory — most teachers don't emphasize it for beginners, and you don't need it to get the everyday benefits of the system.
Chakra 12: Stellar Gateway
Location: The highest point of the personal energy field, up to a few feet above the head.
The outermost center in the model — described as the threshold between your individual field and undifferentiated source energy. Think of it as the ceiling of the map, the counterpart to the earth star's floor.
Why This Matters Day to Day
You don't need to hold a position on the metaphysics to see what the expanded map is for. Three practical shifts stand out:
- •Grounding gets its own address. In the seven-center system, "get grounded" is vaguely assigned to the root. The earth star gives grounding a specific location and a specific practice — which, for chronically anxious or dissociated people, makes the instruction actually usable.
- •Self-compassion gets its own address too. The high heart names the specific gap between feeling kindness and expressing it. Naming a thing makes it workable.
- •Boundaries become spatial. The full 13-center model describes your energy as a bounded field — a floor beneath you, a ceiling above you. People who absorb every mood in the room often find that image alone changes how they move through an open-plan office or a crowded train.
A 3-Minute Daily Alignment
No equipment, no experience needed. Sitting or standing:
- Minute one — floor. Feet flat. Breathe slowly and picture a cord running from the base of your spine, through your feet, into a point of warm light about a foot below the ground. With each exhale, let weight settle downward.
- Minute two — column. Bring attention up the center line of your body — base of spine, belly, solar plexus, heart, the space just above the heart, throat, brow, crown. One breath per point. Don't force imagery; just touch each spot with attention.
- Minute three — ceiling and seal. Picture a point of light a foot or so above your head. Inhale as if drawing from that point down to the point below your feet; exhale the reverse. On your last breath, imagine the whole column settling into place. Open your eyes.
Most people notice the effect of this less in the moment and more an hour later — usually as a slightly longer pause before reacting to things.
Where to Go From Here
The 13 chakra system isn't a replacement for the classic seven — it's the same map with the margins filled in. If the traditional model has felt incomplete for you, especially around grounding and boundaries, the expanded version is worth a few weeks of honest experimentation. Start with the earth star and the high heart; they're the two additions with the most immediate day-to-day relevance.
And if you'd rather not work alone, an experienced energy work practitioner can tailor these practices to what's actually going on in your life — which is usually faster than guessing. Browse practitioners who work with chakra balancing and energy healing on Gyfts to find someone whose approach fits how you like to work.
Energy work is a complementary practice. It is not a substitute for medical or mental health care, and nothing here is a claim of treatment or cure. If you're dealing with a health condition, keep your healthcare provider in the loop.
