The results may be worth it in the long run, but opening the third eye is a serious practice. It should not be taken lightly.
All too often, people open their third eye without being truly ready and regret the process. Here are examples of what can happen when you open your third eye and aren’t prepared for what ensues.
The most common regrets can be sorted by categories relating to an array of different experiences. These include –
- Opening the third eye before being aware of what awakened senses can mean for your mundane life,
- Opening your third eye without having the mental framework to cope with new perceptions,
- Opening your third eye without being ready for the spiritual crisis that can ensue, and
- Opening your third eye without knowing how to protect yourself from various energies.
1. Heightened Psychic Perception and the Mundane Senses
The so-called third eye refers to the chakra center slightly above and between your physical eyes on the center of your forehead. This chakra is associated with psychic vision. Though there is no physical third eye that opens, when one enhances their psychic potential by clearing and awakening this chakra, it can lead to an easy alignment with various planes.
Increased psychic activity and sensitivity to subtle energies on various planes of existence are associated with an “awakened”, or “open,” third eye. This sounds glamorous and exciting, but when you open your third eye there are a lot of shifts that can change your perceptions and can have some consequences you didn’t expect.
One of the reasons people regret opening their third eye is because the heightened psychic awareness can bring some havoc and confusion. Early transition to this awakened state can make it difficult for you to discern psychic from physical activity. Some people even experience what they describe as hallucinations and experiences which seem so “real” that they have difficulty determining the difference between what they are actually seeing or perceiving and what they are sensing through their newly awakened chakra.
What to do?
To prevent yourself from becoming overwhelmed with too many sensory perceptions when you first open your third eye, the best thing to do is take it slow. Be sure to adopt strategies to keep yourself grounded as you work with this new heightened awareness so you can integrate new sensations without becoming overwhelmed or confused.
2. Awakened Third Eye and Mental Concerns
Another reason people often regret opening their third eye has to do with difficulties dealing with the emotional and psychological impact of greater sensitivity. While knowing the future, reading auras, or seeing past lives or other planes can be rewarding, using your psychic gifts comes with a cost.
The more you awaken to your psychic perception, the more information you are going to perceive. Not all of this information is pleasant and some perceptions may challenge your sense of well-being. You may suddenly begin to perceive messages from the spirit realm and this can be unsettling.
You may also start to tap into foreknowledge and deeper insight into the problems people around you are having. This can feel like having an overactive imagination, though your visions aren’t fictitious, they’re products of your new perceptions. You will need to have stable and grounded mental nature so that you can process this new and sometimes troubling information in helpful ways.
If you are already prone to worrying, negative thinking, or suspicion, opening your third eye can lead you to understand peoples’ hidden motives or secret fears, or emotional baggage. Taking this on as well as suddenly having new insights into your own subconscious natures as well as information from a number of spiritual sources and planes can be overwhelming.
What to do?
Rather than subjecting yourself to an onslaught of information for which you aren’t truly prepared, it’s best to gradually work on opening your third eye while also processing your experiences with a trusted mentor and community. This helps you maintain perspective. It also helps you to develop boundaries that protect you from becoming exhausted by new stimuli from the third eye chakra. One of these boundaries involves learning when and how to open your third eye.
There are some things you may not want to have extrasensory awareness of. For instance, if you are working in a hospital, or visiting a consignment shop, you may not want to be bombarded with perceptions related to people and objects around you as this can be overwhelming.
3. An Open Third Eye and Spiritual Growth Crisis
In addition to being careful about how much outside stimuli you perceive when you open your third eye, you can also experience a spiritual crisis, sometimes thought of as spiritual “growing pains” when you undergo this process. The more you work on your spiritual path, the more you will be challenged.
In spite of the fanciful concept some have about spiritual growth being all positivity and rainbows, the truth is the more you delve into spiritual development, the more you will be compelled to face your own shadow nature. Opening your third eye can lead you to have to face difficult truths about yourself and those closest to you.
You may suddenly realize your job, relationship, or other choices aren’t well suited for your growth. While this or any other inevitable truth is worthwhile to face eventually, it can be psychologically burdensome to feel sudden epiphanies happening without the adequate time to process these new insights.
This type of breakthrough crisis is among the more necessary and inevitable of the negative experiences people often regret when opening their third eye. To be clear, one should not try to avoid growing pains, but may come to regret the bliss of remaining ignorant to deeper truths you’ve been ignoring.
What to do?
If you’re working on opening your third eye, just as is the case with any spiritual evolution process, you need to be prepared to face aspects of yourself, your past, your traumas, and your choices which you may have been avoiding by distracting yourself with illusions or mundane activities. But when you know that this is going to be part of the process at some point, you can plan the timing and atmosphere for undergoing this process.
Don’t undertake this type of spiritual work when you are in the midst of an ongoing crisis. You’ll want to have a relatively stable baseline and the support of an understanding mentor and community, rather than going through this process alone and in secret.
Other Risks:
Other common reasons people regret opening the third eye chakra usually come down to not having a solid plan for knowing how to ground yourself and keep the chakra balanced. If all you do is exercises to open the chakra but then ignore the need for balance, you may experience uncomfortable complications.
You may lose sleep for several nights. Others report having vivid dreams which may be prophetic or cathartic, and not easily knowing the difference at first. Feelings of confusion may intensify as well. You can also go through a period of heightened sensitivity. Any feeling or perception you have may be amplified or triggered.
Some of these extreme reactions are par for the course but knowing how to properly prepare for this process by keeping yourself grounded and working with a class or team can help you navigate through the process with minimal challenges.
Conclusion
Though opening your third eye is worthwhile and rewarding, it can also be a process that shifts your energy in dramatic and unexpected ways. Along with this unsettling change in energy, you may experience unusual sensory perceptions and this can affect you physically and psychologically.
Not everyone has an extreme reaction to opening their third eye. Though most people will have some noticeable response because they are channeling much more energy of a different vibration. Some people become frightened by the discomfort in the process and may regret opening their third eye in the first place.
Though when the process is given the seriousness and respect it deserves, and when you take the time and effort to properly plan for this major awakening to take place, you are more likely to have a positive experience overall. Regardless of the growing pains which may occur during the process, having the support of a solid mentor and trustworthy friends who understand the awakening process can make the difference between regretting your spiritual growth or embracing it.
Angela Kaufman is a Certified Intuitive Consultant, Psychic Medium, Intuitive Empowerment, Life Coach and an LCSW. She is an amazon published author and was Featured on several shows like Discovery Channel’s A Haunting, Echoes from the Past (2007) 14 Degrees: A Paranormal Documentary, Tune In to Wellness Today with LisaMarie Tersigni, and Empowering Entrepreneurs with Melissa Carter as well as numerous radio interviews. She is the author of Queen Up! Reclaim Your Crown When Life Knocks You Down - Unleash the Power of Your Inner Tarot Queen and also co-authored three books on metaphysical spirituality (Sacred Objects, Sacred Space; Everyday Tools for the Modern Day Witch | Wicca What's the Real Deal? Breaking Through the Misconceptions | The Esoteric Dream Book; Mastering the Magickal Symbolism of the Subconscious Mind). Angela regularly conducts workshops, the Inner Queen coaching program and loves writing articles, that blend social criticism with spirituality.