Balancing your Base Chakra
The base chakra - coming home to your body
"When we balance our base chakra, we can develop a deep trust in our place in the world, and a strong sense of personal safety and security underlies every step we take in life."
Body System - Spine, legs, arms, rectum, circulatory system
Emotion - Survival issues, financial independence, money, food, protection
Career, money survival, security, belonging
The modern lifestyle creates a disconnect with the body, we become like a head with hands, thinking, thinking, doing, doing. Unless we habitually stop and practice meditation, yoga, or spend time in nature, we may never really arrive in our body all day.
The first chakra, located at the base of our spine, is called Muladhara in Sanskrit, meaning root support. Like the root system of a tree, our root or base chakra energetically grounds us in the physical world, including our own body and emotions.
Many of us have sustained emotional and physical traumas in life which may have affected the formation and flow of our chakras. This biography of our experience and life is energetically recorded in our chakra system.
These energetic imprints can upset the flow of subtle energy and cause our chakras to compensate by either restricting energy flow, becoming deficient or under-active, or by becoming overactive and excessive. Or even a combination of both.
The lesson of Muladhara chakra is grounding, a full inhabiting of our physical bodies as the embodiment of our connection to the element of earth. To cease existing primarily in our heads and inhabit our bodies. To cease grasping onto people, places and things as the source of our security. To find our own root support.
If your base chakra is imbalanced, it can have deep and far-reaching effects on your life. Linked to physical realities of life – security, shelter, sustenance, family, tribe – the first chakra is associated with primordial trust. It is the chakra associated with our basic instincts for food, shelter, sex and survival.
If we are imbalanced in this chakra it can manifest as a lack of physicality, being underweight, spacey and anxious. Or it may manifest as an excessive physicality in being overweight and overly attached to the physical by hoarding, over eating and indulgence in pleasure, or over-accumulation of stuff.
If you imagine the root chakra like a plant in a pot, it needs a degree of support to keep the soil and moisture in, but too tight a restraint will not allow it to grow.
As this chakra provides our roots and our foundation for the rest of the chakra system, it is vital to have the base chakra in balance. The lesson of Muladhara chakra is grounding, a full inhabiting of our physical bodies as the embodiment of our connection to the element of earth. To cease existing primarily in our heads and inhabit our bodies. To cease grasping onto people, places and things as the source of our security. To find our own root support.
How can we bring this sense of groundedness into our work-life and home-life? How can we be mindful, stable and practical in our life? And the beauty is, this practice can be a simple as sitting under a tree, walking barefoot on the grass, taking a deep breath of air, drinking fresh, clean water, enjoying an open camp-fire or candle flame, swimming in a river or ocean.
Bringing our selves, as natures beings, to nature without any need to do or change anything.
Top Tips for balancing your base chakra;
1. Create a clean and healthy home environment and spend as much time as possible in healthy environments, especially nature.
2. Find a form of exercise that really suits you and carry it out in a balanced way.
3. Eat healthily and ensure that you are getting the right vitamins, minerals and nutrients for your body.
4. Learn to listen to your body’s needs – know the signs when illness is coming on, or when you need to take a break etc.
5. Limit the amount of toxins you put into your body, this includes alcohol and drugs, but also the toxins in the food you eat, the chemicals in your cleaning products etc.
6. Essential Oils of Lavender, Patchouli, Cedarwood, Black Pepper, Orange, Rose, Frankincense can balance the base chakra
