“Unless you are really grounded and have a true sense of reality, you can get lost. And a lot of people do! That’s why you see so many people with successful careers but with destructive lives.”
~ Morris Chestnut
Good morning friends. I hope you are preparing for a lovely weekend ahead! It’s hard to believe we are a quarter of the year through already! For some of you, I know that Spring can’t come too soon !!
So yesterday, I gave you a brief overview of the Chakra system, as well as our first energy center, or Root Chakra. Today, I hope to provide some more valuable food for thought. Working with the Root Chakra, I feel, is an ever evolving process, and one which deserves much attention.
The Root Chakra, or Muladhara Chakra, which is expressed by the color red, and is our basic survival mode. Caroline Myss writes that the sacred truth in this chakra is the realization that “All is One”. We learn this truth and explore it’s creative power through experiences connected to family, tribal and group dynamics. As part of our spiritual development and our biological health, this sacred truth has physical expression in honor, loyalty, justice, family & group bonds, groundedness, our need for a spiritual foundation, and the ability to manage physical power for survival.
Difficult tribal challenges cause us to lose power primarily from our first chakra, making us susceptible to immune-related (or auto-immune) disease, from the common cold to lupus. Being at the root, difficult tribal problems can also cause colon related issues, such as colitis and crohns.
Myss gives an extreme example of a social tribe’s energy capacity to manifest illness: Following the Great Depression in the late 1920’s, people began expressing that they felt “crippled” by the economic disaster. In the early 1930’s the polio epidemic surfaced. This sense of being crippled was so quickly woven into the tribal psyche that American voters even elected a crippled president in Franklin D. Roosevelt. It took a physical tribal event and experience of physical strength of WWII to heal. Not coincidentally, Jonas Salk discovered the vaccine for polio in the early 50’s as our culture “got back on it’s feet again” economically.
I was thinking yesterday about this chakra. Every heard the term “scared shitless”?? This little saying describes brilliantly how our fears manifest into the physical equivalent. When Spencer injured his hand, and I had visions of him falling off the cliff, I literally became clogged up for days !! While my mind excepted the fact that he was ok, the situation become “embodied”, and it took time for this energy to move through, and for me to once again relax.
Dr. Page gives some telltales body language signals that we might need some work with this energetic chakra:
- Sitting tightly crosslegged
- Desire to wrap one leg around the other while standing
- Constant fidgeting
- Curling one’s foot underneath the body while sitting (I’m guilty!)
- Excess, or uneven, weight in the lower extremities (ie. a pear shaped body)
Caroline Myss also provides some very good questions we can ask, to begin exploring and uncovering truths which can help us heal our tribal issues, thus learning to live honorably with each other and evolve beyond the misperceptions that contradict the truth “All is One”:
- What belief patterns did you inherit from your family?
- Which belief patterns still have authority over your thinking, but no longer hold validity for you?
- What superstitions do you have? Which aren’t rational?
- Do you have a personal code of honor? What is it? How tightly bound to it are you?
- Have you compromised your sense of honor? If so, what steps are you taking to heal it?
- Do you have unfinished business with your family members? List what’s stopping you from clearing it up. (Or read Debbie Ford’s 21 Day Consciousness Cleanse! and learn to forgive and let it go).
- List all the blessings that you feel come from your family. Work to see the good and offer gratitude.
- If you are raising a family, list the qualities you’d like your children to learn from you. Are you creating issues for them and yourself through this list.
- What tribal traditions and rituals do you continue for yourself and family?
- Describe the tribal characteristics within yourself that you would like to strengthen and develop.
While we contemplate these very deep and personal tribal questions, Christine Pages also offers some advice on how we can begin working to balance the activity of the Base Chakra:
- Learn to relax, taking time for base needs.
- Do one thing at a time without distraction
- Get out in nature, especially barefoot!
- If you are a control freak, learn to ease off.
- If you are a perfectionist, force yourself to shake it up. I have a friend who was a neat freak, and she would force herself to have parties, so others could mess up her house, learning to just let it be. She wouldn’t clean it up until the next day, no matter how badly she wanted to! Spontaneity and flexibility are key to a happy base chakra.
- Stop beating yourself up for your mistakes
- Learn to immediately confront criticism, or learn to let it go, but still speak up for yourself.
- Dance, garden, walk, do pottery. Spend time in activities that don’t have immediate outcomes.
- Say YES to living your own unique way on this planet. Begin to love yourself for who you are.
- If you are feeling insecure, place your feet firmly on the ground. I find doing tree pose helpful here. You can also use crystals to help ground you, and carry them in your pocket. The base or root chakra resonates to the color of red. Rubies, Garnets, Red Jasper and Red Coral can aid this chakra. Black grounding stones such as Black Onyx may also be used.
Meditating on the color red, along with sound note of C, can help gain strength over our fears. Yogi poses, that work to assist and balance the 1st chakra are: Shalabhasana (or locust pose), Janu Sirsasana (or head to knee pose), Bandhasana (bridge pose, moving into full backbend), and Savasana or Yoga Nidra (total relaxation pose, aiding grounding and trust).
Does anyone out there resonate with issues in this area? Working with an energy practitioner can go a very long way in helping you truly cure that which is upsetting you. But it will take honesty, and sometimes painful introspection! But it can be done ….
