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In this episode, we discuss:

• Signs & symptoms of underactive & overactive throat chakras
• The role of self-trust in authentically expressing yourself
• How this showed up in tangible ways in Sarah’s life
• 3 tools to begin healing your throat chakra
• How inner child work plays a role in healing this chakra

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Episode Transcript:

Welcome to the Uncensored Empath, a place for us to discuss highly sensitive energy, illness, healing, and transformation. My name is Sarah Small, and I’m a life and success coach for empaths who want to create a thriving body, business, and life. Think of this podcast as your no B-S guide to navigating life, health and entrepreneurship. You’ll get straight to the point, totally holistic tips from me, in real-time, as I navigate this healing and growth journey, right beside you. This is a Soul Fire production.

Signs & symptoms of underactive & overactive throat chakras

All of this fear. This fear that people won’t understand me. This fear that they won’t get it. The fear that my voice won’t be heard. The fear that I’ll be misunderstood. All of this fear. The fear around my voice. All of these cumulative fears. Releasing these fears, coming into my heart, coming into my body. Breathing deeply, fully arriving, in the present moment.

This is a little sneak peek into how I often get my energy ready. And my voice and my throat activated to come and speak to you in the most raw, genuine, authentic way. And every time it looks a little different. Today, this episode is all about the throat chakra. And so, I felt it was relevant to do a little bit of EFT tapping, on any fears around sharing my 100% me, authentically, Sarah Small voice. And podcasting is this beautiful portal. It is this vessel for your voice to be heard. What held me back for so long, from really owning my truth, my voice, that it mattered, that it was important, that I was worthy enough of being heard, where these wounds within my throat chakra energy. The throat chakra is at the base of your throat, right around your thyroid gland. It is one of the seven main energy centers in your being, in your body.

And this specific chakra is the seat of self-expression. Every time I record an episode on the podcast, I am using my throat chakra. And the throat chakra can also be viewed as a crossroads of the heart and the head. This channel between these two powerful components of your being. And therefore, this mediator between your emotions and your thoughts. So let’s talk about this communication center of your body. I’m going to begin by sharing some of my personal story and journey, in having a very underactive throat chakra, and how that has affected my life.

As a young woman, I struggled so much with speaking up. This is the first way that the underactive throat chakra made me feel disempowered. I couldn’t speak up. There’s this very clear image of my childhood. I think it was around fifth grade, and by fifth grade, my friends and I were allowed to ride our bikes around the small suburban town that I grew up in. So we had this responsibility and privilege to be able to go by ourselves. And that felt super cool as a fifth-grader. And so we would ride our bikes and we wouldn’t go too far. Honestly, the place we went to most, was Old Country Buffet, which I, 32-year-old Sarah is like, “What the hell were you thinking?” But that is where we would go. And it was like $5 buffet, and we get ice cream and who knows, jello, whatever we felt like getting from the buffet. We would ride our bikes there.

But I remember this one time, myself and three of my fifth-grade friends, rode our bikes to Old Country Buffet. And we were just sitting around this table, and one of my friends had a Coca Cola, and another friend dropped an olive into the bottom of her almost finished Coca-Cola. I think it was a plastic bottle. And so, basically, it created this very disgusting concoction of super sugary soda, mixed with the ambiance of an olive. Have you? I don’t like either of those things. I still don’t like either of those things. I’ve never liked either those things, Coke or Pepsi or any soft drinks. And I still don’t like olives either. So, that’s just a little info about me. But I remember so clearly being around this table, sitting in these chairs. And, fifth-graders, whatever, trying to find entertainment all the time. And we passed around this bottle of Coke with the olive in it. And it was a dare, that you would drink a little bit of the Coke. And then, you’d take a sip and pass it on; take a sip, pass it on; take a sip, pass it on. And I thought it was the most disgusting thing in the world.

So why the hell does this matter? Why am I sharing this with you? Because I was so caught up in the idea of fitting into my friends, with my friends, and being liked by my friends, even though they were all ready my friends. And this had to have an emotional charge because I remember it at age 32. And when it came around to me, I could have burst into tears. I was dreading taking a sip of these two things I hated, especially mixed together, but I did anyway. I did anyways. I remember going home and just feeling so nauseous and had a stomach ache, and I thought it was so fucking disgusting. And this is just one seemingly simple, maybe seemingly irrelevant example of the consequences of not speaking up for yourself. I shared that example because that goes back to fifth grade. In already feeling there’s this pressure to fit in, and to be liked, and to be agreeable, and to drink the damn Coke with the olive in it. And sacrifice my stomach, and feeling super nauseous after, because I wouldn’t speak up and say, I don’t like those things. No, thank you. I’m not getting pressured into this.

The role of self-trust in authentically expressing yourself

I also remember not speaking up in more of an indecisive way. Where, my mom would offer us, chocolate or vanilla ice cream. And I wouldn’t be able to choose. I didn’t even know what I wanted, at a very young age. I also remember my family, we didn’t grow up with a lot of money. And so, if we ever went out to eat, four kids two adults. If we ever went out as a family of six, before my parents got divorced, we would usually go to Olive Garden. I don’t really know why. Maybe because they had unlimited salad and breadsticks. But I also, never liked Olive Garden. And if anyone in the family was, where should we go for dinner tonight? I wouldn’t just speak up and be like, “I hate Olive Garden. Let’s go somewhere else.” Instead, I just go with the flow. Isn’t it better to go with the flow and just do what everyone else wants to do? And I remember my brothers also really liked Olive Garden. They thought the breadsticks and salads were amazing, and probably just some spaghetti or something, but I never liked it and I never spoke up for myself.

While the consequences of these examples may not seem very relevant, or at least a very big ripple effect in my life. It did. Because these are some of the specific examples, of when this behavior first started. When I stopped speaking up for myself, and I let my voice be dampened. And that is a symptom of an underactive throat chakra.

The second area that I want to talk about that has affected my life is being agreeable. So I touched on this just a little bit. But another way it showed up and manifested in my life, around being agreeable. Is when anybody; parent, teacher, a friend asked, what do you think Sarah? And instead of saying how I felt, sometimes I did know how I felt, and I didn’t want to share how I felt. Other times I truly didn’t know, how I felt. Like I was just talking about before, chocolate or vanilla. It was almost like my mind went blank. And I didn’t even know how to have an opinion, because I was so focused on just pleasing and appeasing everyone else. So if I was asked, what do you think? I would try to do sort of tune myself to different energies. As you guys heard about in the codependent empath episode. This is related to that. And I would try to intuit what that person wanted me to think, and that’s how I would try and answer. Or I would just say, “Whatever you think. I think that too.” And when you’re agreeable, you don’t have very many of your own opinions. You tend to stop thinking for yourself, and you absorb into the group. Or the person that maybe feels threatening, or did feel threatening when you were a little girl.

Another example of this underactive throat chakra, and my life, and my upbringing is, mumbling. And I was just talking to my coach about this today, on our call. Because I have this very clear memory that was just reignited because I just spent the last two weeks on vacation. And I got to see my family, and my dad was there, and it just happened once. But I think we were in the car driving to Pickleball. Which y’all, I have a new hobby and it’s called pickleball. And it’s actually quite fun. My dad’s really good. He plays probably four or five times a week. So we played with him. And there was this moment in the car where he didn’t mean any ill by it, but he said, “Sarah, you’re mumbling. I can’t understand you.” And I got sucked back in the time machine, transported back to middle school and high school. Especially when my dad would tell me constantly, you’re mumbling, you’re mumbling, you’re mumbling. I can’t understand you. And while he was trying to teach me, guide me into speaking more clearly. I never felt I was actually mumbling, and I didn’t know how to change it. And after time, and time, and time again, of you’re mumbling, you’re mumbling, you’re mumbling.

I felt like my voice was just not heard. I felt very disempowered around even trying to talk. Well, no one can fucking understand me anyway. So why do I even try? Because apparently, I mumble and no one understands what I’m trying to say. And that wore on me. It wore on me. I became very self-conscious about it. And I don’t even know if I actually mumbled. I don’t feel like I mumble today. But the constant reminder of it, certainly made me self-conscious of it.

How this showed up in tangible ways in Sarah’s life

Another example of this, is my very first live stream. And probably, the first 50 live streams I ever did on Facebook. Side note, when I started my business, Facebook Live didn’t even exist, but it does now. And I use it constantly. But those first live streams. And I want you to think about this for a second. Have you done your first live stream yet? Have you ever done this in your own life, on your own profile, in a group, for your business to talk about whatever you want to talk about or teach on something? I had so many fears. These fear bubbles that would ripple up to the surface and explode and shut me down every time I thought about going live. Because I had a lot of thoughts about it. But there was just this all-consuming fear. And inside that fear, the voice said, Sarah, there’s no room for error. You are live, you cannot fuck this up. You cannot mumble. You cannot stumble over your words. Look there, I just did it. People are going to notice if you use the word, ‘um’, ‘so’, ‘ah’, ‘like’, ‘maybe’. There’s no room for error. You have to be a perfect specimen, a perfect public speaker in order to go on a live stream.

And that held me back for so long. It continued to dampen my voice. It continued to hold me in this disempowering place, because I did have something to share. I do have something to share. And now, you see me on live stream all the freaking time. You might even be sick of how much I live stream. And I don’t go on with notes. And there’s not even a second thought about whether I should go live, or what I look like or anything. If I have something to share, bam. My phone gets pulled up and I go live. But that is not how I started. I started with a deep fear around needing to be perfect. And this voice that said, there’s no room for error. And that’s simply not the truth. It is simply not the truth.

People will not log off of your live stream. If you use the word, ‘ahm’, or you don’t have makeup on, or you stumble over your words, or their dog barks in the background. That’s not a legitimate reason to get off someone’s livestream. But I had those fears, and they very much manifested into paralysis around doing anything or getting started at all. The same thing, or at least, a similar story came up, the first time I also recorded a video of myself. So that came before the live stream because it felt safer. It felt safer to be able to delete and record again. And to listen to it back, before I published it, or posted it somewhere. But in this instance, the internal dialogue said, you have to look perfect. So I was holding my phone up. And I remember being in my old apartment on the futon, I had set up the… It wasn’t even a small ring light like a lot of people use these days. It was this giant photography spotlight. My makeup was done, as best as it possibly could. My hair was done up. I made sure I had the right angle of my face, as I was recording this video. I think it was talking about an essential oil class that I had coming up. There was just so much critiquing and criticizing every little thing about my body and the way I looked, on top of my voice. Thinking about this, I am actually shocked. I even posted it because I remember this inner turmoil around all this self-doubt. And even when I did post it, I still was self-critical, and looked down, and thought badly of myself. It’s not as good as so and so’s video. It was a 15-second video, by the way. But this is how much this underactive wounded throat chakra was showing up in tangible ways in my life.

And then, I got into podcasting. The girl who feels like she has to look, and talk perfect, and has been told for years that she mumbles, no one can understand her. Decides to start a damn podcast, and it was nerve-wracking. So in the very beginning, at least I would say for all my solo episodes, probably the first 20 episodes, minimum, were scripted. And I did my very best to make them sound like they weren’t scripted. But podcast listeners, I’m talking to you, those were scripted. I’m not going to deny it. They were still authentic. They were still real, but I was so afraid that if I just pushed record, that I would sound like an idiot. So instead, I scripted it to make sure that there was no room for error, and I didn’t fuck it up. And I wouldn’t have to go back and do it again, and do it again, and do it again.

So I just scripted it all out, made it sound pretty. Spoke it into the microphone in a way that that was more my natural voice, versus it sounding like I was actually reading something. And that took so long. A podcast episode that maybe was 30 minutes, ended up being three hours. Because I had to write out the whole script, plan ahead, get my ideas right, record it, probably go back and rerecord certain parts. I don’t fuck with that anymore. That is not how I podcast anymore. And that’s, why I wanted to show you the little insight in the beginning of today’s episode. I just get fully in my body. I get fully present. I have probably six bullet points up on my screen right now. That are guiding me in speaking to you. And now, I just trust myself. I just trust myself, that if I don’t know, some person comes. I’m up at the cabin right now, at our Airbnb in Grand Lake Colorado.

And sometimes, our neighbors stop by. And if our neighbor were to come to the door, and my dog started barking like crazy, I would stop recording and I would delete that out. But if I have a weird, awkward pause, or I say ahm, or I forget about my thoughts for a second, it’s not a big deal. I trust that the frequency of my voice is being heard in the deeper codes in this message, are being relayed to you. And trusting yourself is one of the biggest assets in your business. I want you to think about this for a second. How many more courses, posts, live streams would you do, if you just trusted yourself? If you opened your throat, heal the wounded parts of your voice, and allowed yourself to be fully authentically expressed. How much would shift and change? What impact could you have on this planet?

So just sit with that for a moment. So, I want to talk about this communication center in your throat, in your body, in your energy body. Because it does govern your ability to speak your truth openly. And to be able to understand others, and to be able to communicate with them. Which is critically important if you’re going to be a coach healer, practitioner in this health and wellness or spiritual development world. People have to understand you and communication is absolutely required. The interesting thing about an imbalanced, so you can be overactive or underactive. I’m going to guess most of you are underactive. Just going to throw that out there. But an imbalanced throat chakra can show up in the ways that I just shared, about my own journey. It can also be very physical. You can see physical symptoms manifest in your physical body, that might not make perfect sense or have been going on for years. They’re chronic. And you’re wondering, when am I going to stop getting bronchitis, after bronchitis, after bronchitis? Or I feel I’m constantly struggling with a faint sore throat. And more cough syrup is not going to cure that, if the root cause, is that your throat chakra is underactive.

So how does this show up in our body? Sore throat, things like bronchitis, but especially thyroid imbalances, thyroid issues. This especially shows up hyper hypothyroidism and the autoimmune disease, Hashimoto’s. If you’ve been a lifetime listener of this podcast, you know I’ve talked about Hashimoto’s being the people-pleasers of the world. Why? Because it manifests in their throat. And when you fall into those tendencies of people-pleasing, feeling like you can’t authentically express yourself, that also shows up physically. It’s not likely, that last week you started people-pleasing. And now you have Hashimoto’s, it’s probably been a lifelong journey.

The other physical signs include neck and shoulder pain. This is the one that I resonate with more, neck and shoulder pain. Which is also where our population generally holds stress as well. And so, I found that it’s helpful to work with a practitioner to see, is that stress? Is that a burden you’re putting on yourself, or is that throat shocker? Because it could be a little bit of both. You may also have issues with hearing through your ears, which can sometimes also show up as ringing in your ears. Jaw pain and TMJ. That’s another one that… I had jaw surgery. So there’s certainly, a physical component, but even after surgery, there’s still pain, which indicates to me that I’m clenching and holding back parts of my voice. And the way that, I want to express and share my truth with the world.

I’m going to list off a few more here. So frequent headaches, dental issues, mouth ulcers, hoarseness, laryngitis, neck pain. These are all ways that physically, you can feel this in your body. There are also many more emotional ways that you can see this manifest as well. Like the fear of speaking. I just talked about in the very beginning, this fear of speaking up for myself. Being able to say what I want, or to be able to say no, to peer pressure. The inability to express your thoughts. This typically, and I hear this one a lot, actually, where clients come to me and they’re just, I don’t even know how to describe how I’m feeling, or what’s going on in my head. Can also see this as shyness. Being very shy or just more socially reclusive and potentially detached and a lot of the introvert energy, of wanting to keep to yourself. An inconsistency in your speech and actions. So this is really interesting. Where you say one thing, but your actions are another way. I’m going to call out a few of you, who say, I want to start a business. I want a $10,000 month. I want five more clients. I want to host my launch or my first course. Yeah, I hear you, but you’re not taking action on that. Or what actions are you taking towards that goal? So inconsistency, between what you say and the actions that you take. Social anxiety? Absolutely. And part of that is the fear of speaking, that shyness, that, when you’re in a social setting, likely feels amplified.

It can also feel an inhibited creativity. So you feel you’re not sure how to creatively express yourself, or you might identify as someone who’s not creative. There’s not an artsy bone in my body, but that’s not true. We all have a right and the left brain. But it may feel difficult in navigating how to express yourself. Or you might feel your channel is blocked to creative ideas. Stubbornness, detachment, these can all show up.

So let’s talk for a hot second about overactive. Because, overactive tends to be a little bit different. Again, I don’t see this as common in the empath autoimmune community, but I want to mention it just in case. So the overactive is going to be more excessive talking, the chatty Cathy archetype. The girl just won’t shut up. Arrogance. So this big egotistical behavior. Dishonesty, which is related to the, I say one thing and I do another thing. Gossiping is huge for an overactive throat chakra. The inability, or at least, poor, poor listening. So more the ignoring style of listening. You guys can go back, pretty far back, but there’s an episode on, ‘The Five Types of Listening’, if you want to understand that better. And manipulative behavior. Manipulating people likely, with your words and in being really sly with the way that you use your words. I love my brother, Joe, but in his lifetime, he was the king of manipulative speech. He was so good at it. And I really believe he had an overactive throat chakra.

The underactive is going to be more on the side of the spectrum that is quiet, that is fearful, that is anxious, insecure, shy. And it feels harder to express yourself. Harder to speak to others. And, sometimes even to the extent of this feeling of paralysis, around, what do I say? I was sharing after our breathwork session one time, pretty recently. And it was obvious to me that I needed to share. And it was a highly emotionally charged thing, I was going to share, in my life. And when I went to go unmute myself, and share on this Zoom call, I lost my voice. It just disappeared out of nowhere. Has that ever happened to you? Where you’re just merry on your way, and talking normally, but then, when it comes to certain subjects, you can at the snap of a finger, lose your voice. And that’s a big sign as well, that there’s a blockage or an imbalance in that throat chakra.

For me, in that case, it felt like, okay, my throat chakra is pretty open in general, in life, but when it comes to this issue. It shuts down. Shuts down. And that was actually a beautiful experience for me because it helped me see my body sending me messages, signals on there’s something here. So let’s dive into it now, and see how we can address or heal it.

3 tools to begin healing your throat chakra

So you’re probably wondering, especially if you’re resonating with a lot of the signs and symptoms. Or parts of my own story, what’s next? How do you start to then, heal your throat and heal your voice? I want to share three simple ways that you can begin this process. The first is, through essential oils, peppermint, and spearmint are my favorite minty oils for activating the throat chakra.

So peppermint is going to be more beneficial for focus and clarity. Clarity of your words, your speech, and a focused mental state to be intentional about your words. Spearmint is beautiful for public speaking and for gaining the confidence to share your voice. You could use a blend of both if you wanted. And all you do is, you can do both or inhale through your nose. You’re just taking a deep breath in, of one or both oils. And then, the other option as an and/or, is to apply it to the base of your throat. The bottom of your neck. And just rub that into your throat chakra.

The second healing tool that I like to use for throat chakra healing, are crystals. And my favorite is, ‘Blue Lace Agate’. And this is a blue stone. It’s a lighter blue. Oftentimes there’s some kind of striping throughout it. You can, depending on the grade of the crystal, the quality of the crystal, they may look slightly different or vary. But these blue lace agates are really powerful for throat chakra healing. And they have the vibration of the color blue. So in our light spectrum, all of the colors within the rainbow vibrate at a different frequency. And this color blue has that same frequency or vibration as the throat chakra. So when we place that stone, that crystal on the base of your throat. So you’ll want to lay down, before you try to balance it there. You can listen to a meditation or just close your eyes. And I recommend from 10 to 30 minutes and just allowing that to rest on the base of your throat. But crystals or crystalline, and are going to hold their frequency and structure, much more efficiently and effectively, than our human bodies, that are majority water. And very fluid, and constantly changing, there’s blood pumping. My food is digesting. My lungs are expanding and contracting. And the crystal is going to hold its frequency and influence them to spin, or the charge of your throat chakra. That’s another beautiful way you can get started.

How inner child work plays a role in healing this chakra

And number three, I really can’t leave out, because the first two are amazing tools to be used on a pretty regular basis. But unless you get to the root of the emotions, or the inner child work, that influences the throat chakra, then, all the peppermint oil and all the crystals, bathing in all the crystals, and dousing yourself in essential oil may not have the fact that you desire. Again, until you get to the root. So the third step is really to go into inner child healing and to begin to release negative emotions, any sort of hurt, or resentment, or past memories, similar to the ones that I’ve shared today, that you might still be holding energetically. Or on a cellular, or DNA level, that is then, influencing the subconscious in how you behave. The patterns, the thoughts, the most common thoughts that you’re having in your day to day life.

So really starting to look at the inner child. Communicate with the inner child, to be able to understand her and why she’s so afraid of sharing her voice. Or what are those past memories that make her feel like she isn’t important, or what she has to say isn’t enough, or worth hearing by other people. Because on a conscious level, I know that’s bullshit, but if my inner child is deeply afraid and holding on, on a subconscious level to those memories and those beliefs. Then that is what drives the show. And likely, if that’s you, you’re stuck in paralysis around taking action, because the fear, it outweighs everything else. So we really have to start there by looking at the inner child and allowing these layers of grief, hurt, resentment wounds to shed and be released.

With all of that being said, I want to extend an invitation to you.

I’m hosting a free training called, ‘Throat Chakra Alchemy: Discovering the Healing Codes in Your Voice.’ Because your voice has a frequency. My voice has a frequency and you’re hearing it right now. And each of our voices is coded with healing. But too often, we forget how powerful our voice truly is. If this episode, this conversation resonated with you, then you likely do have a throat shocker imbalance. But that is not some life sentence diagnosis. It’s simply an awareness. It’s an awareness around how you do, or do not, express yourself, communicate, speak your truth. And where you may choose to invite in some change. Because when our throat is fully alive and activated so many doors, open up in your life, especially in your business.

So in this training, I’m going to teach you how to alchemize the inner child wounds, around your throat and your voice, with the divine potential of your being. Because the world is ready to hear your message. So here’s a brief explanation of what you’ll experience inside the free training. Which we’ll drop a link for, in the show notes. You’ll experience a deeper understanding of this energy center, the throat chakra. Transformative breathwork for throat chakra, alchemical healing. You’re going to be getting clarity around your core message, and exploration into the deeper energy codes, within you. And the why, that truly drives your voice and mission. And, that is your why for showing up for this training too. Why do you care about expressing yourself more authentically? Why do you care about being heard, or seen, or understood in your truth and who you really are?

And there also will be an invitation to my upcoming course, which is called, ‘Ready, set, record’ and this course is like nothing else I’ve ever created. You’ll learn about it more, inside the free training. Which is intended for individuals who are committed to sharing their voice with the world. The live experience will be Wednesday, September 9th, at 5:30 p.m. Pacific, 6:30 p.m. Mountain, 7:30 Central, 8:30 Eastern. And again, the link is in the show notes to sign up and register for free. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me, on any social media. And thanks for tuning in. I’ll see you guys soon.

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