The pull of yoga for me is how it works all of you, not just your physical body, but it nurtures your soul and your heart as well. It is the draw of the philosophy that keeps me coming back to my mat and that calms me when I feel uncentered (side note, that originally auto-corrected to uncensored and I thought about leaving it). I am currently working on my chakra healing certificate and hope to do some workshops this summer to help others learn and work through their chakras.
So lets talk chakras! I find that they are everywhere is mainstream culture right now, people are buying bracelets with the colours of the seven chakras, but what do they even mean? Chakra translates to wheel or disc from Sanskrit. These are thought to be energy wheels that align themselves along the spine. You can visualize a chakra in your body as a swirling wheel of energy, a place where consciousness and matter meet, centres of prana. It is said that when you have unbalances or blockages in your chakras, it can lead to health and emotional problems. The reason I like the chakras is it provides a tool that gives insight into how things that have happened to you can impact you both physically and emotionally. There is not easy answer to properly your chakras, no magic fix but it does provide insight into the places you need to do work, and gives you tools to work on it.
The first chakra is your root chakra or the Muladhara chakra. It is located at the base of your spine. Its colour is red and its element is earth. Your root chakra is all about safety and security. It is about those primal needs of food, shelter and connection to family. If you ever have had times where you were unsafe, money was a challenge or food was short and unpredictable you might have imbalances in your root chakra. Childhood problems with attachment and not having your needs met cause problems with your root chakra also. These imbalances can show up as problems with your bowels (like constipation), your bladder and fatigue physically. Emotionally it can make you feel needy, have low self-esteem and maybe engage is self-destructive or co-dependent behaviour. When it is in balance your feel strong and confident, and able to take care of yourself.
Yoga postures that can help balance and open the root chakra are balancing poses like tree (think of grounding and roots), and standing poses like tadasana where your root down through your feet to rise up. Essential oils that can help are sandalwood, frankincense, vetiver, ginger, cinnamon, cypress, and blends such as Young Living's Grounding and Valour. Mantras like "I am safe" "I am worth of love" and "I am grounded" can help in meditation. But the true key is recognizing why the blockage occurred and working through that with compassion and grace for yourself and those in your life. Forgiveness and understanding can go a long way to help heal.
The crazy thing about these imbalances is they can come and go too. So it might not be a large childhood trauma, but something like being away from home that can throw your chakra out of balance. Even temporary disconnection from those in your family can cause imbalances. But by noticing them and being curious about why they are happening you can set yourself on a path to healing. Yoga can be very helpful to calm and balance occasionally imbalances and gives yoga philosophy gives you the tools to forgive and heal.
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