The Gateway Chakra: 6 Encouraging Methods to Balance Your Pet’s Brachial Chakra for Trust, Connection, and Healing

When you’re working to build trust with a sensitive animal, you might notice that certain areas of their body carry more tension, or feel like an energetic wall. The space around the shoulders, between the front legs and neck, often holds the key to unlocking deeper safety, presence, and connection.

This is where the brachial chakra lives.

While most people are familiar with the seven main chakras, the brachial chakra is a lesser-known yet vitally important energy center found only in animals. Sometimes called the “key chakra” or the “gateway chakra,” this powerful point governs the energetic bond between animals and their guardians. It’s the place where your animal chooses whether or not to trust.

Learning to balance your pet’s brachial chakra means understanding what the brachial chakra is, how it functions, and signs that it may need support. Here’s 6 encouraging ways to help your animal feel safe and connected through this energetic bridge.

What Is the Brachial Chakra?

The brachial chakra is unique to animals and sits at the front of the shoulder area, often around the base of the neck or just above the front legs. It serves as a central access point to the rest of the chakra system: a hub through which energy flows into and out of the animal’s body.

Energetically, it’s considered the bridge between human and animal connection. It’s not just about bonding emotionally; it represents the energetic “yes” an animal gives when they begin to trust, engage, and open up to relationship. When this chakra is in balance, the rest of the energetic system is more responsive to healing. When it’s blocked, nothing else seems to land quite right, no matter how experienced you are or how much love you offer.

Unlike the more colorful chakras, the brachial chakra is typically visualized as silver, black, or deep charcoal grey – grounding, anchoring, and protective. It helps your pet feel embodied and safe while navigating the human world.

Balance Your Pet’s Brachial Chakra For Healing and Connection

Because it governs trust, the brachial chakra plays a critical role in how animals relate to people, other animals, and their environment. It’s especially important for:

• Rescue animals learning to trust again
• Horses or dogs with a history of trauma or inconsistent handling
• Animals who shut down when asked to participate
• Guardians looking to deepen their energetic connection

This chakra influences not only how energy enters the body, but how the animal chooses to receive relationship, guidance, or healing. In energy work, it’s often the first point to assess, and sometimes the only one to start with, when working with a shut-down or mistrustful animal.

Many times, as I approach an animal, I naturally reach for this area. Before I knew there was a chakra or what it was called, this was where I would start. Even now, with many more tools in my toolkit, I’m in awe at how much power flows through this chakra!

Signs of an Imbalanced Brachial Chakra in Animals

The brachial chakra can become blocked due to trauma, inconsistent care, rough handling, or even subtle energetic disconnection. It often presents as a guardedness that seems both emotional and physical.

Here are common signs this chakra may need attention:

• Reactivity or flinching around the shoulder area
• Resistance to haltering, saddling, or wearing harnesses
• Avoidance of being touched near the chest or front legs
• Tension, freezing, or bracing when approached
• Over-dependence on one person or extreme aloofness
• Disconnection during handling, training, or energy work
• Difficulty bonding with new people or adjusting to change

Some animals may also appear to be cooperative on the surface, but carry a subtle energetic resistance or “wall” that makes progress feel hard-earned. That’s often the brachial chakra quietly asking to be acknowledged first.

6 Encouraging Ways to Support and Balance the Brachial Chakra

Supporting the brachial chakra isn’t about pushing through resistance. It’s about creating the conditions where trust can grow. These practices help your animal feel safe enough to say yes.

1. Brachial Chakra Touch and Energy Work

Start by resting your hands gently over your animal’s shoulders. You don’t need to move or press; stillness is powerful here. Focus on your breath, your heartbeat, and your presence. Imagine a soft charcoal or deep violet light expanding from your hands, wrapping your animal in warmth and safety.

You can also visualize this area as a doorway opening slowly and naturally, without force. The goal is not to “heal” them but to be with them in quiet support as their energy begins to soften on its own.

2. Establish Trust Through Routine and Choice

Animals with an imbalanced brachial chakra thrive on clear routines and freedom to choose. Offering small choices, such as which direction to walk, whether to be groomed now or later, or how close to stand, helps build their sense of agency.

When your animal has a say in the relationship, their energetic field becomes more open and cooperative. This chakra responds especially well to consistency, patience, and a sense that nothing is being demanded before they’re ready.

3. Practice Heart-to-Brachial Bonding

You can deepen connection by linking your heart chakra to your animal’s brachial chakra. Place one hand on your chest and the other on their shoulders (or simply visualize this connection if physical touch isn’t welcome yet). Breathe together. Imagine a golden thread of light connecting your heart to theirs, pulsing with warmth, trust, and mutual awareness.

This exercise is especially powerful with horses and dogs who’ve experienced separation, rehoming, or grief. It helps reestablish energetic safety and reminds your animal that they are not alone.

4. Use Crystals to Anchor Connection

Grounding, protective crystals can support the brachial chakra by helping your pet feel held and steady.

Black Tourmaline – Grounds the energy body and offers strong protective qualities

Smoky Quartz – Gently clears fear and anchors emotional stability

Hematite – Strengthens energetic boundaries and encourages presence

Obsidian – Helps release energetic tension and old trauma stored in the body

You can keep a stone in your pocket during sessions, place one near your animal’s bed or stall, or even use it as part of your grounding practice before working with them. These stones are not about stimulating energy but anchoring it, which is exactly what the brachial chakra needs.

5. Affirm Safety and Relationship Through Spoken Intention

Because this chakra governs trust and human-animal connection, the energy behind your words has a powerful impact. Speak clearly and gently, with your full presence. Even if your pet doesn’t understand the language, they feel the vibration.

Try affirmations like:
“You are safe in your body and safe with me.”
“We are connected in trust.”
“I will always honor your pace and your boundaries.”

Say them out loud, whisper them during quiet moments, or hold them silently in your heart. Your intention is what the brachial chakra listens to most.

6. Support Energetic Connection With Target Training

For horses especially, target training is a beautiful and empowering way to engage the brachial chakra. It invites your animal to participate voluntarily, which helps rebuild trust in the body and in the relationship.

As your horse learns to reach for a target, follow it, or touch it with their nose, they begin to associate your presence with consistency, curiosity, and reward. Because the shoulder area is often involved in reaching or movement, this gently stimulates the brachial chakra while helping your animal stay present and engaged.

Target training reframes your role from “handler” to “partner.” It’s not just a training technique: it’s a two-way energetic conversation that builds confidence, autonomy, and connection over time.

How the Brachial Chakra Relates to the Rest of the Energy System

The brachial chakra is often described as the gateway chakra. It doesn’t just sit between the heart and shoulders, it connects the entire energetic body to the outside world. When this chakra is closed, other chakras may be harder to access or feel unresponsive in healing sessions.

It is especially connected to the root chakra (safety and grounding), the heart chakra (love and emotional openness), and the crown chakra (trust in the bigger picture). You might think of it as the front door to the home: when it’s open, everything inside feels more accessible. When it’s closed, the house may still be beautiful, but no one can get in.

Working with the brachial chakra first can improve the effectiveness of all your other energetic or behavioral work. It builds a foundation of safety that ripples through every interaction, cue, or healing moment you share.

Trust Is the True Connection

The brachial chakra reminds us that animals are always choosing whether or not to trust, not just based on our actions, but on our energy. This powerful chakra is where that choice lives, moment by moment.

When you approach this space with presence, consistency, and care, you’re doing more than balancing energy — you’re opening the door to a deeper bond. A bond built not on obedience or pressure, but on mutual respect and shared safety.

That is the kind of healing that lasts. That is the heart of true connection.