Oct. 23, 2025

Chakra Chronicles: Marilyn Mercado's Journey of Healing and Self-Discovery

Chakra Chronicles: Marilyn Mercado's Journey of Healing and Self-Discovery

Send us a text In this enlightening episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we dive into the world of energy healing with certified practitioner Marilyn Mercado. With over 30 years of experience in yoga and a unique journey from ballroom dancing to energy healing, Marilyn shares her profound insights on chakra work and its transformative effects on emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. Discover how she blends ancient chakra wisdom with modern techniques to help individuals relea...

Send us a text


In this enlightening episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we dive into the world of energy healing with certified practitioner Marilyn Mercado. With over 30 years of experience in yoga and a unique journey from ballroom dancing to energy healing, Marilyn shares her profound insights on chakra work and its transformative effects on emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. Discover how she blends ancient chakra wisdom with modern techniques to help individuals release trauma, overcome anxiety, and achieve balance in their lives. Marilyn discusses the significance of each chakra, the impact of blocked energy on burnout, and practical exercises to promote healing. She also reveals her journey of writing her book, "Chakra Tools of Transformation," and her ongoing projects, including a second book focused on self-love. Join us for an inspiring conversation that encourages you to connect with your body, embrace your emotions, and unlock your true potential through the power of chakras.

WEBVTT

00:00:00.560 --> 00:01:12.120
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. if you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am joined by certified practitioner Marilyn Machado. Marilyn provides practical and actionable tools that people can use right now, whether they're dealing with things that are spiritual, physical or emotional. She is an energy healer, so she uses chakra. Chakra has been embraced by celebrities like Lady Gaga and Oprah. So we're going to be talking to Marilyn about how she uses ancient chakra wisdom and she combines it with modern emotional well being tactics. So Marilyn, thank you so much for joining me.

00:01:13.480 --> 00:01:14.200
> Marilyn Machado>Thank you.

00:01:15.239 --> 00:01:18.280
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself.

00:01:20.849 --> 00:02:40.270
> Marilyn Machado>Okay. I, beaching yoga for about 30 years now and actually I started as a ballroom dancer and then I keep getting hurt. So I discovered yoga to help me like complement my, my dancing. And so I fell in love with it and so I decided that I want to focus more on yoga and healing. I still dance a little bit, but it's not my main focus. And then through my years of teaching, the chakra came into my life through a voice. It says to teach the chakra. I've done so many styles of yoga, like yin yoga, restorative strength, but I don't really know anything about the chakra. And my inner voice is for me to teach it. And so I, I decided, okay, I learned about it. And so when I took a course, actually I was hesitant in the beginning but I get different emails and just all this vision of books. And so I decided that I'll take a course.

00:02:40.669 --> 00:02:57.360
> Marilyn Machado>And when I took a course, there's so much healing that's happening in me. Like for example, my heart just really open and there's so much grief there.

00:02:57.439 --> 00:05:01.120
> Marilyn Machado>And so I realize it's powerful. And so through the courses I felt like I've discovered so many blocks in my body, in my emotions that I didn't even know. And so the learning continues. I never want to stop it. And when I decided I'm ready, I started teaching it like a seven weeks course. And of course there's so many ah, it also changes in my student transformation. So I start to realize that it's powerful. And then during COVID like five years ago, everything stopped and I really wanted to continue teaching. So I learned how to zoom m. I did like learn how to go to Facebook. I did like 108 days of headstand Challenge to just force myself to learn. Zoom. And then I started sending emails and newsletters. And my roommate at the time, she was a writer and she gets my newsletter and she told me that it's really valuable what I'm sending and, and I should make a book or write a book, but I didn't know anything about writings. And just put together what you have, what you've been sending, and then you'll have a book. And so after a while of, thinking, I decided, okay, I'll do it. I'll put it together, find a coach, help writing coach to help me. And so my book came out, so I finish it. And, it took me about a couple years to finish it, but it's done. So that a little bit of how, I got into the background.

00:05:02.319 --> 00:05:10.480
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, congratulations on finishing your book. And for listeners who are not familiar, explain what chakra is.

00:05:13.290 --> 00:05:18.490
> Marilyn Machado>Yeah, so the chakra is like an energy in our body.

00:05:20.810 --> 00:07:30.600
> Marilyn Machado>It's like a wheel. But it's really hard to understand what's, what's that energy wheel. So if I'm going to simplify it, it's like a tree. Like your spine is, is like the trunk of the tree. And then the first chakra is the root. And the root needs to be stable for the tree to be healthy and strong. And the root, the first chakra, is all about stability. So when you're not balanced, you feel very unstable. Like there's anxiety there because you don't feel, balance or you're, you're not, you're overwhelmed or you have anxiety. So that's the first one that's really. We need to balance. When, when we're learning about the chakra, it's very important that our Ruth, our stability center, is balanced. And then the second chakra is all about the guilt, the emotion. So it's through the hips. And that's where all our guilt lies. The emotions, the past, skeleton in the closet. And then going up, above that is the third chakra, which is the power center. But if it's not stable or block, then we are not confident in anything we're doing. We don't trust ourselves. And then going up above that, so through the spine again is the heart, chakra, which is stored a lot of grief. So if you are not forgiving others or even yourself, then there's so much grief in there. But if you're, if it's balanced or it's not blocked, then you have so much love and compassion to yourself. And then going up our throat, chakra which is the fifth chakra, is our truth center, which is the throat.

00:07:30.600 --> 00:09:14.179
> Marilyn Machado>And this is where we express our truth. And if it's blocked, we are not saying our truth or we're not saying what we want. So there's a lot of stuff there. And, sore throat, if you're not saying what you feel, what you want. And then going up in between the third eye, the eyebrows, is our sixth chakra, which is our intuition. And this is really where we seek things. Clearly, we have clarity, but if we are not, if we are blocking our clarity, we have a lot of headaches because we don't want to see what we know. It's a. Is the point of knowing. And then above that, the crown center, which is our seven chakra, is where the wholeness is our connection to our. To our higher self, our, our wisdom, our biggest knowing, like our connection to our divine, our source. So when we are connected, then we are in purpose. So it's, it's, It's a layer there, and we can actually work on balancing that every day. On, my book, it has all the different exercises for each of the chakra. If you're experiencing, like, fear, then there's an exercise there to release that, to release a block of the first chakra of fear. So that's a quick, I guess, interpretation of the chakra. It's like a tree. Thinking of it as like a tree.

00:09:15.539 --> 00:09:19.379
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, is it possible that trauma can get stuck in a chakra?

00:09:20.019 --> 00:10:15.070
> Marilyn Machado>Oh, yes. Uh-huh. It's possible. Because again, these are. A trauma is an energy that we stuck in there that we don't go to. Like a lot of the trauma. There's trauma in all the different chakra, but a lot of the trauma is stuck on the second chakra, which is the emotion center. A lot of people don't want to feel their emotion, so they stuff it so it gets stuck in there. And the exercises for the second chakra, one of the activity actually is just, you know, surround yourself with water, like water is healing. So when, when you're feeling a lot of emotions, then, you know, surround yourself with water, long showers, things like that.

00:10:18.830 --> 00:10:27.149
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, talk about if. Do you feel like there's a link between blocked energy and burnout?

00:10:30.490 --> 00:10:30.870
> Marilyn Machado>Uh-huh.

00:10:31.350 --> 00:10:37.830
> Marilyn Machado>Well, burnout is actually a first chakra imbalance. Burnout is when you're overwhelmed.

00:10:37.830 --> 00:11:44.029
> Marilyn Machado>And, there's so much overwhelm in our society today because we're so used to doing, doing. So there's all this burned out, and then our brain is so preoccupied with so many things. So when we learn how to calm down our nervous system even to, to just breathing technique, that's will really help with burnout. I do that a lot when I teach my classes after classes teaching like two or three classes, then I will center myself, do you know, do a simple breathing technique for myself. And I also work in school. There's so many burnout teachers there. And I got certified as a, also a, yoga educator. So I can bring yoga in school for, for k to high school and also for the educators.

00:11:44.110 --> 00:12:02.500
> Marilyn Machado>So I teach teaching them some technique how to release burned out. And when you're burned out, you're anxious, you're stressed, so there's not much really you cannot do and you, and you're not able to be productive. So that's what my, take on that.

00:12:04.659 --> 00:12:11.539
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>If someone is skeptical of chakra healing, can chakra healing still work for them?

00:12:12.360 --> 00:13:01.330
> Marilyn Machado>yes, definitely. Because, you know, when you're breathing, you're already healing. So they don't need to understand the chakra. When I teach the chakra class, I don't tell the student, okay, we're gonna do, we're gonna do the warrior pose, which is the second chakra, unless it's a specific chakra class. Like, my student will come in the class and they said, oh, I'm so overwhelmed. But after class I'm just so relaxed. So because we work on all the different chakras through the breathing technique, the poses. So even though they're skeptical about the chakra, maybe they did some yoga classes, they don't know anything about the chakra, then they really get the benefit of it.

00:13:04.690 --> 00:13:10.860
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>What kind of skills or experience would someone need if they wanted to do chakra work?

00:13:13.259 --> 00:14:08.169
> Marilyn Machado>If they want to teach it or learn it? Well, first, if you. They want to just learn the chakra, it's great that they can learn the specific chakra points and then learn all the different maybe breathing technique for each chakra. There's also an mudra. The mudra is it's like doing yoga with your, with your fingers. There's a mudra that we do. And then there's also colors that helps activate and block the chakra. Each chakra, like first chakra is red. So if you're feeling anxious, overwhelmed, not grounded, then surround yourself with red or even activity, put your feet on the ground to help you ground. So that's one that's.

00:14:08.250 --> 00:16:11.440
> Marilyn Machado>Those are for people that wants to just learn about the chakra. And for those people that want to go deeper, then they they take a course like the first seven chakra. There's a lot of courses being taught. I continue to take actually courses of the chakra because there's so much more to learn. When I did, I just did a, yoga retreat in Costa Rica over the summer for seven days. And so I said, oh, this will be perfect. I don't need, they don't need to know that they're doing the chakra. But half of the class already had my book and learned it. So they, they told me, we are doing the chakra, aren't we? I said, yes, but they don't need to know that we are doing it. But I, I decided where we'll work on the different area of the body. The, so we can heal, we create some healing, we release the block. And so it's, it's really important that we, for me especially because I, I do the chakra that I incorporate a lot of chakra work when I'm teaching class. Even though they don't need to know what the chakra is, they're still getting all the different benefits because yoga is all about balance. Hip opener, heart opener, core work, which is the third chakra, heart opener, fourth chakra. And then we do a lot of breathing techniques like school breath. This is the ocean breath. It helps open up the fit chakra. And then the six chakra is all about meditation. And then of course the seven chakra is that relaxation post where they lie in stillness. You feel more at peace. So that's, I guess the short version of it of your question.

00:16:13.279 --> 00:16:18.080
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So talk about some of the things that energy work and chakra can heal.

00:16:22.559 --> 00:17:39.519
> Marilyn Machado>There's a lot for people. Okay, I, want to talk about the first chakra first because there's so much fear. Like I do a lot of coaching also. I started coaching during the pandemic also. And the first chakra is all about fear. So there's so much anxiety, there's so much, insecurity because they don't know what's going to happen. It's pandemic, it's Covid. And so I started coaching. And so I just get them to really work on breeding and silencing their mind. I guided even a whole district and just releasing all the anxiety during the pandemic. So I guided a district to the breathing technique and then we did simple exercises like, like hip opener. Because you know they'll be sitting a lot, like they're always on the chair. Hip opener, get it gets tight when you're sitting a lot. And there's a lot of tensions over there. And then the core, the core is our power center, which is our third chakra.

00:17:41.440 --> 00:19:33.490
> Marilyn Machado>When we are not in our power center, we actually weaken the first chakra, which is fear. And then we get into guilt because we are not in our power center. And that's a lot of core work. When you see a lot, your core weakens. And so I tell everybody, you know, move and do all these stretches. And there is some powerful breathing technique, even just breathing to strengthen the third chakra, that core center. And of course when you're blocked in that third chakra, you have a lot of stomach problem, digestion, indigestion, some people experiencing a lot of just pain in their stomach because that's the third chakra. And then the fourth chakra, is all about grief. And I started actually writing a second book. It's called self love Mastery Healing to Space, silence and Stillness. Because, because there's so much grief in our heart, fourth chakra. And fourth chakra is really an important chakra because that's where all the healing happens. And that's also the bridge between the physical and our spiritual self. Our upper chakra, five, six and seven, and then one, two, three. So that's where the meeting place is. So a lot of heart opener, on the fourth chakra. Because if not, then we, we stay stuck in unforgiveness, not loving ourselves, which is a big one for everyone I know. So when I tell people, oh, I'm writing a self love book, everyone tells me, oh, I need that. I need that.

00:19:33.490 --> 00:19:39.769
> Marilyn Machado>Because that's all about forgiveness and loving yourself, being compassionate with yourself.

00:19:39.849 --> 00:21:02.569
> Marilyn Machado>Because we need to practice each day. Even for myself, I need to remind myself to self love because it's easy to just give and not think of yourself. And then the fifth chakra, actually it was my weakest one when I was learning it. And that actually, my experience, that's why I wrote the book, so I can explain to people what happened after I decided to release the block of my fifth chakra. Because it's all about my truth. And in the beginning I was not speaking my truth. That's why I have a lot of heart chakra, four chakra pain. And when I finally connected to my truth, I realized that I needed to leave my relationship that I've had for 25 years, my marriage, because that was my true center. That was the fifth chakra. It was not easy, but I know that it's, you know, I'm gonna stay stuck forever if I Don't do that or for, or for how long the marriage will be.

00:21:02.890 --> 00:22:26.940
> Marilyn Machado>So after 25 years, I connected to my truth and I say I need to leave my relationship. And so that's really helped me just really explore more of what I want, my passion. And so on my, on the, my sixth chakra, after I opened that up and left my relationship, I connected to my passion which is writing and doing workshops. Everything that I wanted to do because that's my intuition, my clarity. Like I want to do a retreat, I want to write a book, I want to teach all these classes, this workshop. And so I felt like because of that I'm in purpose. So my, my seven chakra is open. It gives me more things that I never thought I wanted to do like speaking. So I started speaking to different organization and, and started teaching, expanded my coaching to not just the chakra but I expanded it to life purpose coaching. Helping people to find their passion and their purpose. So that's, that's just a little bit of when your chakra is open and it's, it's functioning well, it's healthy.

00:22:28.940 --> 00:22:35.250
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, whenever you use chaka to heal, how long does it take and does the healing actually last?

00:22:36.769 --> 00:23:28.170
> Marilyn Machado>Well see, our energy gets blocked each day. It depends what are we doing each day when we have like a lot of meetings and not just the meeting itself, but the people around because everybody has different energy they bring, then it gets blocked. So if you know the importance of balancing the chakra, then you can continue to release those blocks. A lot of times you know, you just need an hour like long showers for the second chakra because there's maybe if you're experiencing so much emotion and you don't know why, it's because your second chakra is blocked.

00:23:28.170 --> 00:24:59.160
> Marilyn Machado>Maybe because you have sat down for, for hours and your hips are, are like getting it. Because if your hip is not open or you're not working the hips and you're just sitting down for long periods of time, then it gets stuck. And I understand that. That's why even when I do work, I stand around, move around, do some hip work. So long showers or even just surround yourself with orange because that's the, just the color for the second chakra to help activate the, the healing the block. So there's so many ways, even breathing techniques on my book it has different ways to unblock the chakra. Like there's colors, there's food, there's breathing technique, there's an activity like for example, like going out in nature A lot of people does that. they didn't know, they don't know why, but it feels good. But that's help you stay stable, release tension, stress, anxiety. So that's really what I shared in my book and I kept it really practical because there's a lot of chakra book even for me is too deep. But the book is really all about my experiences, so, so I'm, I'm excited about writing it.

00:25:01.730 --> 00:25:06.130
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, tell us about some other complementary practices that are out there.

00:25:07.490 --> 00:25:35.650
> Marilyn Machado>Yeah, so there's when I was taking my advanced teachers training in yoga, there's like Reiki, which is also an energy work that you can do. You can even send that healing energy to people that's not close to you. But it always starts with you.

00:25:35.650 --> 00:25:44.619
> Marilyn Machado>You want to center yourself first and then you put the person's name in mind or their, their name.

00:25:44.619 --> 00:27:44.609
> Marilyn Machado>And then you, you just use that energy to send healing energy. There's also massages and massages are one activity for the fourth chakra. When our fourth chakra is close, then massages really helps the open up the fourth chakra. And singing is actually a fit chakra, activity. Also chanting. If you don't chant, you just sing, you hum. And then the sixth chakra, if you want to have more clarity, you maybe have a project and you're not clear, then just do some painting, drawing. You don't have to be an artist, just draw to help open up and activate the six chakra. And, and really the activities really help moves the energy of the chakra to, to create some healing. Whatever activity you choose, like walking, first chakra, second chakra, swimming. So simple exercises that you can do to release any blocks. And of course yoga is most of it because in yoga practice we do a lot of all of those. We open different areas in our chakra. Like, like the first chakra is all about balancing. So we do a lot of standing poses like the mountain pose or the tree pose. Second chakra, hip opener, third chakra is the core work.

00:27:45.009 --> 00:27:58.369
> Marilyn Machado>So all of those will also help activate those chakras that we want to open to heal. So when you practice yoga, like Hatha yoga has all of those.

00:27:58.849 --> 00:28:29.769
> Marilyn Machado>There's specific yoga that's just design for relaxing. So that's like a six or seven chakra because you just wanna, you just want to heal your, your mind, your body. Maybe you just had a surgery and you need some healing. So you go to a restorative yoga and that's their focus. Healing, healing the body, as you relax the mind, you just restore. So those are a few.

00:28:32.009 --> 00:28:36.410
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, throw out your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

00:28:37.930 --> 00:29:46.269
> Marilyn Machado>Yeah. So I just got a website. It's in construction. But my, the name that I use, actually for my book, my book is called Chakra Tools of Transformation. And my name on the book is Wise Warrior, AKA Marilyn. And then my website is the same wise, warrior.net. and then my Facebook group is called Wise Warrior. And then it has another long longer name. No ka ole N O K A O I. And then yoga, dance and life coach. My email is nalani webahoo.com. so Nalani is N M A L A N I W E b@uh, yahoo.com. so hopefully that's clear enough.

00:29:48.829 --> 00:29:51.029
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>We'll close this out with some final thoughts.

00:29:51.029 --> 00:30:01.470
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Maybe if that was something that I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, any final thoughts you have for the listeners and any other projects besides your book that you're working on that they need to know about.

00:30:02.750 --> 00:30:27.079
> Marilyn Machado>Yeah. So the final touch that I want to mention is if you really get in tune with your body. A lot of us are not in tune with our body. We're always in our mind. But healing happens when we feel. And it's through the body. Chakra is all about energy.

00:30:27.720 --> 00:30:35.480
> Marilyn Machado>And when we get in tune with the energy in our body, like for example, okay, oh, my knee hurts.

00:30:36.420 --> 00:31:24.240
> Marilyn Machado>Right. So then that's if you know the chakra, that's already the first chakra. Feeling not feeling stable, you're being anxious. So being in tune with your body, sometimes it's been there, but you're always in your mind and it's been there for five days. You didn't know that you have it or you're, you're feeling it. So in order for you to get healing, notice your energy. A lot of times we are feeling depressed. We don't even know why we're depressed. And then if you get really in tune with your body, maybe you experience that feeling in your heart chakra, your fourth chakra.

00:31:24.559 --> 00:31:51.789
> Marilyn Machado>It's like, okay, I'm feeling depressed and the energy is in my heart chakra. Maybe there's someone I'm resenting, maybe a co worker. I need to release this. So when you start to get in tune with your energy, that's really how you can help yourself get in tune with the energy of your body.

00:31:53.960 --> 00:33:18.059
> Marilyn Machado>Because that's. We're all energy. We just, we just ignore our body, our Emotions are feeling. Healing happens when you feel. I used to tell my yoga class, as you feel, you heal. And the new project I'm working on actually is my second book. not chakra, but self. Self love Mastery, Healing through Space, Silence and Stillness. And this is the practice I started really, I guess feeling that I wanted to just some silence, more stillness so I can continue to heal. And, and it's so important because like the chakra is one. And when I experience all this discomfort in my heart, I know that it's all about self love. And that's why I decided I'm going to write about self love. And so that's the second one I'm working on. space is not, not space space, but creating space in your mind, in your heart, in your emotion, going out in nature. Create that space. So that's what I'm talking about with the space and then being more.

00:33:18.299 --> 00:34:02.869
> Marilyn Machado>Creating more silence in your life and then more stillness in, in your mind and body. So that's what I'm working on. And I'm actually also teaching now. A different chakra is all about manifestation. You can manifest your dreams using the second chakra, but this time it starts from the seventh chakra because that's our vision and it gets clear on the sixth chakra. So I just finished my class, this week using the sixth chakra. And then we're going to use the help of all the chakras to manifest our dream. So, it's powerful.

00:34:05.839 --> 00:34:43.400
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, ladies and gentlemen, to keep up with everything that Marilyn's up to, visit wise warrior.net, check out her book and Facebook group, and everything that she's up to. Follow, rate, review, share this episode to as many people as possible. And for more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, please visit www.craveball337.com and share the website to as many people as possible. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Marilyn, thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining me.

00:34:43.960 --> 00:34:45.639
> Marilyn Machado>Thank you so much, Curtis.

00:34:46.760 --> 00:34:59.570
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, visit www.craveballuh337.com until next time, keep Living the dream.