Balancing the Root Chakra
Muladhara is the Sanskrit name for the Root Chakra. This vital chakra connects you to the physical, material world. 
Each chakra represents a certain phase in our development; your root chakra begins to form in the womb. Your survival instincts, feelings of physical safety and security, and attitudes about your body are based here. I think of the root chakra as the foundation of our house. It has to do with the feeling you have a right to be here on the earth.
By being conscious of your root chakra’s health, you can revitalize yourself completely.
In the root chakra, we also sense our basic feelings about life’s abundance.
An abundance mindset exists when someone believes that there is plenty for all. Someone with more poverty consciousness believes that survival is all they can manage for now.
In his book Soul Mission, Life Vision, Alan Seale says, “the root chakra contains the seeds of potential within you.”
“All that you can be is planted in the root chakra. When you open to this energy center and keep it alive and thriving, you become all that you have the potential to be.”
The root chakra is a bountiful source of energy. When this chakra is full of vitality, it provides physical and emotional well-being.
The root chakra also holds sacred potential. Alan Seale says that the root chakra holds “the divine seed of You.” This seed can be fruitful and multiply throughout life when we are receptive to its gifts.
You may have done the Chakra tuning exercise if you read my first blog in this series. If you feel any constriction of energy in the root chakra area of your body, you may want to do a further exercise to open up the flow of energy for greater balance.
Exercise for tuning the Root Chakra
As you do the exercise, mentally bring to mind the color red.
Sitting with legs uncrossed, begin to breathe, imagining energy flowing into the base of your torso, filling your pelvic basket, and expanding into your lower back and upper buttocks.
Feeling warmth or tingling in that area is a sign of awareness that energy is moving there. If you encounter resistance, remain patient and easy with yourself and stay with your breath until you can feel the energy flowing freely. It may take several sessions.
When energy is flowing freely, envision your root chakra as your center of gravity as well as a source of your life force.
You always have access to this true life force. 
As you breathe, feel your center of gravity in this low center of your body. Your life force is here; just be still and notice it. Sometimes we mistake activity for life force. It is helpful to recognize that your life force is within you and not in the busy whirlwind of your days.
When you have a healthy relationship with your root chakra, you feel grateful for your body, recognizing that it is the physical home of your soul.
If you are not at peace in your body, what changes can you make to feel good about it?
Can you view the physical changes that come with aging as a natural part of life?
Are you surviving or flourishing on the spectrum between poverty and abundance? If you are thriving, you feel secure that you will always have as much as you need.
Feeling secure now is often linked to how safe you felt as a small child. Psychologist Erik Erickson’s stages of development tell us that the first stage—trust versus mistrust—is closely related to your root chakra development.
When an infant consistently gets what he or she needs, the world feels secure. If caregivers withhold or delay what the baby needs, first chakra imbalances can occur.
Repeat the following Root Chakra affirmations. Do they ring true for you? I am:
- Taken care of
- Safe
- Grounded
- Secure
- Provided for
How to Balance Muladhara
Meditation, of course, connects you to a higher spiritual plane and serves to ground you. You may not always be able to trust that the world will give you what you need to survive, but the connection to your higher self and trust in a power higher than yourself will give you what you need to feel safe.
Other ways to tune an imbalanced chakra include using yoga asanas, mantras, colors, and gems.
Yoga asanas that help to open and align Muladhara include:
knee-to-chest poses
head-to-knee poses
squatting poses
Kegel exercises and bandha yoga (locking or tightening certain areas of your body) help strengthen the area of the first chakra.
Chanting or toning sounds can also help bring you back to balance. Sounds create vibrations in the body, and these vibrations help the cells work together in synchronistic harmony. The mantra sound that corresponds to the root chakra is LAM. You can practice this in the linked video. Certain colors and gems can also help bring a chakra into balance.
The root chakra’s color is red.
Gemstones for the first chakra include garnet, red jasper, black tourmaline, and bloodstone. You can place the gemstone on the area of the chakra while lying down to help open and align it.
Other tools for root chakra health are essential oils for grounding.
Oils made from trees are grounding, such as cedarwood, myrrh, and vetiver. If you think of tree roots going down into the earth, you can visualize how grounding these essential oils can be.
Being in nature is one of the most grounding things you can do. When you can, walk barefoot and feel your feet connected to the earth, or sit on the ground and feel your tailbone resting and know that you are connected to heaven and earth.
As you bring more balance into your chakras, you become fully yourself and feel at home in your body. That’s where real health and real power are.
If you would like to explore your chakras more fully, we would love to include you in our Tribe of Soul Artists. Learn more.
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Find out more about my journey through my book on Amazon: Vision Quest; A Journey to Happiness by Jane Ramsey.
