Understanding the Chakras: The ROOT Chakra
Feeling safe and stable within our bodies is the essential foundation we need to build emotional, spiritual, and physical wellness. That’s why the first chakra is the root chakra, or muladhara.
Located at the base of your spine, the root chakra is associated with feeling grounded and secure. As you might expect, it is an earth chakra. It is symbolized by the color red.
It relates to our basic needs, including physical necessities like food, water, air, shelter, and warmth. But it also incorporates our emotional needs, such as feeling supported and cared for by those around us. We need these things in place before we can start to build the rest of our energy systems.
Just as a plant’s root system provides it with a strong foundation and a source of essential nutrients, our root chakra gives us a structure and a sense of being grounded in ourselves.
Where Is the Root Chakra?
The root chakra is found at the base of your spine. It includes the first three vertebrae, as well as your pelvic floor, bladder, and colon.
The Root Chakra in Balance
When your root chakra is open and balanced, you feel centered and stable. Your trust that your basic needs will be met, and you can face the world free of anxiety and insecurities.
Because it is associated with grounding, you may feel more aware of the weight of your physical body and its connection with the earth.
You will also feel more confident in yourself and your abilities. An open root chakra is associated with a sense that you are enough just as you are, with no need to change or improve. You understand your self-worth.
Deficiencies in the Root Chakra
When your root chakra is blocked or weakened, you lose that sense of confidence and self-esteem. You are likely to feel anxious, insecure, or afraid.
You might find yourself in a scarcity mindset, concerned that your basic needs will go unmet. You may also notice that you are insecure in your relationships, needing constant reassurance or seeking validation from others, instead of from within yourself.
Deficiencies in this chakra can manifest as physical symptoms too. Bladder and colon problems, cramping in the lower abdomen, and lower back problems are common signs of a blocked root chakra.
Excesses in the Root Chakra
It is also possible for your root chakra to be overactive. When this imbalance occurs, you might notice your temper is short and you are prone to quick bursts of anger.
Self-centredness and a lack of concern for others are other signs of an overactive root chakra, as is greed. If you find that work is taking over your life, or you have an excessive desire to accumulate money and possessions, you could have an excess of energy in your root chakra.
What Triggers Blockages in the Root Chakra?
Most of us have encountered situations where our basic needs weren’t being met. That might be due to difficulties in adult life but is often because we didn’t feel safe and supported during childhood.
I’ve experienced this myself. Coming from a turbulent home, where we moved around a lot, I missed out on the anchor of having a secure home during my early years. I needed to implement grounding practices in my daily life to bring my root chakra back into balance and feel at home in my body again.
Any insecurity or trauma like this can affect the root chakra. You may not be able to pinpoint one particular event that caused an imbalance. It is often the result of gradually losing trust in the world as a place where your needs are fulfilled.
How Can You Bring Your Root Chakra Back into Balance?
If you find that you are showing signs of having deficient or excessive energy in your root chakra, you can incorporate various grounding practices to address the issue and bring yourself back into balance.
Options to try include:
1. Yin Yoga
Try slow, grounding poses such as child’s pose (balasana), tree pose (vrikshasana), mountain pose (tadasana), and corpse pose (shavasana). These connect you with your body and reunite you with the earth energy that your root chakra needs.
2. Earthing
Walking barefoot on the ground reconnects you with the earth in the most basic way. The sensory input pulls you back into your physical body at the same time.
3. Eating Red Foods and Root Vegetables
Red is the color of the root chakra, so eating red foods like berries, beets, tomatoes, and apples helps to heal imbalance in this area.
Root vegetables are, by their nature, grounding foods. Incorporating more of them into your daily diet will help to bring your root chakra back into alignment.
4. Meditation
Although it is often considered an exercise of the mind and spirit, meditation can be effective in reconnecting us with our bodies and unblocking our root chakras. Focus on your lower spine as you breathe and imagine this area of your body bathed in a glowing red light.
5. Breathwork
Working with your breath is one of the most powerful tools there is to unblock energy and heal imbalance in your root chakra. It helps you to manage stress and release anxieties.
When guided by a skilled practitioner, breathwork can also be an effective part of trauma recovery. By intentionally focusing on breathing exercises, you can foster emotional healing and ground yourself in the present moment.
Imbalances in the root chakra are common. But these blockages must be addressed if we are to have a secure foundation on which to build emotional and physical health. I hope this guide to the root chakra has given you some suggestions for how to identify issues and begin to heal them.