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How to Understand And Balance the Root Chakra
The first chakra anyone should be concerned with, the root chakra or Muladhara is the, well, root of all the others. Where is it, what is it, how can you use it, and why is it important?
Everyone has a little ritual that they do to help themselves calm down when they are under stress. Some people recite a little mantra, some people imagine themselves in a tropical paradise, but the by far most common of them is “just take a deep breath.”
Congratulations! Without even knowing it, you’re already working with your root chakra. The root chakra is located at the very bottom of your spine, where your tailbone digs into the earth when you sit in lotus or half-lotus. It’s the most basic and simplest chakra, but it’s also the chakra that many people try to work with, get impatient, and give up on.
This is ironic because the root chakra is a chakra that governs patience, grounding, and calmness. It’s the one that controls presence. It is like a state of being where one is solid and can weather the rain and wind. It’s the chakra that also allows for most physical and muscular progress to be made. So bodybuilders, acrobats, and sports players will find great use in opening and exercising this chakra.
The easiest way to tell if your root chakra is blocked or closed is to watch yourself in a stressful situation. If you immediately lose your temper, start calling people names, or stomp off angrily, that’s a surefire sign that your root chakra is messed up. Unfortunately, that very impatience may be what prevents you from being able to reopen it.
Root Chakra Meditation
There are hundreds of suggested meditations for this chakra. Here’s a simple one.
Sit in lotus or half-lotus. This chakra requires you to be upright, so if you have to, you can lean your back against a wall.
Imagine your tailbone as a taproot, and see your body as a vessel system much like a tree. Take deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth, and focus on watching your taproot burrow into the ground. It can be a centimeter at a time, with each breath. This meditation lasts a long time. Make sure you use the bathroom or whatever else needs to be done before you start.
With each breath, and with each tiny growth, feel yourself soaking up the energy the earth will provide you. When your body physically cannot move from being so grounded in the earth, and you’re just relaxed and enjoying this state of rootedness, you can stay there for as long as you like. If you simply cannot reach this state, pack it up, and try again later.
It will not do you any good to try to force yourself into patience and the root chakra, as that’s the opposite of what it’s all about. Little by little you’ll find yourself getting deeper into the meditation, until one day it just clicks. Congratulations again, you’ve just opened your root chakra!
And you’ve probably also become noticeably more patient, which is ridiculously useful these days too. Good job.