Muse

The root chakra, though it gets less attention than its upper counterparts, is implicated in some of the most important aspects of the development of the soul's consciousness.

The root chakra serves as the anchoring point for divine consciousness as it is stepped down from a very high, fine vibration to the dense energy of the physical body.

Consider the notion of electric power moving from the high voltage of a massive powerline to the 120 volts that run your household appliances. As power flows through the system, it is "stepped down" to a level you can use. The root chakra is the equivalent of the system's grounding rod.

The integration of higher vibration consciousness into your personal, human existence requires an active, grounded root chakra.

Enlivening the root chakra requires that you engage in the process of becoming empowered. Empowerment provides a sense of safety, which helps you to let go of fear and defensiveness.

It is much easier to be present with what is going on in the moment if you aren't worried about what is about to happen.

In order to live a determined and intentional existence, your root chakra needs to be active and capable of grounding energy. 

A well-functioning root chakra provides the foundation for spiritual transformation, and the momentum to get on your spiritual path and practice. 

The root chakra contains the energy of potential. An engaged root chakra can help you bring dreams and desires to fruition–like creating a home that feels good to you, making money, or connecting with your creative passion. 

Spiritual practices that focus exclusively on opening the upper chakras may create ecstatic states. But if you are unable to ground this high-vibration energy, you might end up feeling emotionally and physically imbalanced and uprooted. 

A high-vibration state of consciousness in and of itself is not enough to create healing and change. We are human beings living in dense, physical bodies. In order to function well in these bodies, we need to be able to stay grounded. 

A spiritual practice that gives attention to the root chakra will allow your healing path to unfold more easily and gently.

Here are some suggestions for working with the root chakra:

1. Learn how to ground your energy. This takes time and practice. For a simple grounding exercise see the Muse post Getting Grounded, Staying Grounded.
2. Spend time getting to know your root chakra. When you bring your attention to the base of your spine, what does it feel like? What thoughts or images come to mind? What does your root chakra mean to you? For more information on the subject of chakras, I recommend reading Anodea Judith's book Wheels of Life.
3. As you learn how to take root in this chakra, notice what issues arise for you. Use compassionate mindfulness to gently observe what comes up. A harsh and judgmental stance will shut your root chakra down.
4. Exercises that focus exclusively on awakening Kundalini Shakti should generally be avoided. Many people have gotten themselves into trouble by prematurely awakening this energy. If you think this may have happened, you can find helpful information through the Spiritual Emergence Network.
5. If you engage in practices that open the crown chakra–such as chanting or drumming–it is important to stay grounded, which enables you to draw the energy down into your root chakra for integration into consciousness. If you are unable to stay grounded, perhaps back off these practices until you are able to bring your energy down into the root chakra at will.

As you shift into fully inhabiting this chakra and grounding through it, your healing journey will flow more easily. You will also access deeper levels of consciousness and subsequently feel more expansive, while at the same time feeling firmly rooted in your human experience.

Growing strong roots will help you reach for the sky!

Be Well,

Rebecca

"Treetop" photo image by Jennifer Hopkins ( http://jenhopkins.com/about/artwork-2/ ) with a Creative Commons license.

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Grounding refers to being energetically connected to the earth. Like a lightening rod, proper grounding helps to run excess energies into the earth, enabling you to handle the diversity and abundance of energies running through you.

If you are very sensitive and open to experiencing the force of Shakti, learning how to ground is an essential survival skill. Proper grounding helps integrate the energies that meditation, yoga, and other types of healing release.

As Kundalini Shakti starts moving and opening up energetic blocks, the experience can be very unbalancing. This process of purification can be intense and unpleasant, and staying grounded will help ease some of the discomfort.

Grounding helps to move and clear energy more easily, and it creates better flow and communication between your physical body and your electromagnetic field. When grounded, you feel more stable because you are anchored to the earth. (Try doing standing yoga poses when you aren't grounded and you'll see what I mean!) 

Grounding brings you into present time, and helps increase focus and clarity. It helps gather and integrate the energy that is essential to empowerment and manifesting what you want in your life. If you aren't grounded and fully embodying your lower chakras, you may not be able to "hold" the positive effects of energy healing.

Being "ungrounded" contributes to disembodiment (not feeling the full aliveness of your body) and/or dissociation (being cut off from your emotions). You may also feel dizzy, spacey, or light-headed from lack of grounding. I suggest reading Anodea Judith's book Wheels of Life and her chapter on the first chakra for a more extensive look at the subject of grounding. 

What is a good way to ground effectively? For years I used the metaphor of tree roots in the grounding exercises that I gave my clients. While this imagery works for many, the roots just can't conduct all that energy--particularly if there is a lot of Shakti running through you. Imagine a pipe that is too small to carry a large volume of water.  

What works much better than tree roots is a bigger grounding pole. Here is a simple grounding exercise borrowed from Jill Leigh of the Energy Healing Institute. 

1. Sit with both feet on the floor, uncrossed, hands in your lap, uncrossed as well. Come into the experience of your body. Feel  yourself sitting, feel your feet on the floor, and engage the breath. Relax.
2. Bring your attention to your feet. Imagine the foot chakras in the arches of your feet opening up.
3. Move your attention to your root chakra (base of spine).
4. Imagine a bright green ball of light spinning in your root chakra, the width of your hips.
5. Drop this ball from your root chakra, imagining the ball creating a grounding pole as it moves down into the center of the earth. Your legs and feet are part of this grounding pole.
6. Allow your energy to drop down, through the grounding pole, and feel the connection to earth's energy.
7. Then come into your first and second chakras, and inhabit and enliven this space. 

If you have difficulty staying grounded, practice this as many times a day as you can. You are teaching your body to do something unfamiliar, so be patient.

You may have physical sensations and emotions that are new. This is part of the process that grounding awakens as you become more rooted in your body. If you are feeling a tingling sensation in your lower chakras, you have it! This is your body enlivened. In time you will feel more aligned, balanced, and present. So have fun and enjoy getting grounded and staying grounded!

Be Well,

Rebecca

"Fall Light" image by Jennifer Hopkins (http://jenhopkins.com/about/artwork-2/) with a Creative Commons license. 

Shakti is a powerful force. Energy healing, meditation, yoga and many other practices are an invitation for Shakti to begin its work of transformation. As Shakti is unleashed, she moves into the energetic blockages and constrictions in the body and electromagnetic field.

Her energy can feel enlivening, empowering, and joyful--but it can also push up the muck that holds the energies of our past, and this can feel downright terrible. The healing process reveals and magnifies the negative patterns that we have created, and this can be pretty hard to look at.

When I started on my spiritual journey, I didn't just put a toe in the water—I jumped into the deep end of the pool. It was way too much. I ended up feeling drained and lousy because of too much healing. It is good to have time to integrate the energy into consciousness, and being grounded and energetically contained allows for this.

People who have core issues of self-hatred, shame, and a belief that there is something inherently wrong with them can have a tendency to attempt to do too much healing too soon. Overcompensating for feeling permanently flawed by doing even more healing never works. People who overheal will often end up feeling strung-out, exhausted, and on an emotional roller coaster. 

So how do you dance with Shakti in a way that works for you?

1. Make yourself your first priority. So many of us (and I include myself here) give ourselves over to service (and our spiritual paths) in a way that disregards personal needs and desires. If you believe that you have to put your own needs aside in order to heal the planet, you may get into trouble. 

   By healing yourself in a grounded way that allows you to experience joy and love in your life, you are healing the planet. It isn't selfish to be happy (even though it feels this way, especially with what is happening all over the world right now). Joy is a very high vibration that has a powerful healing effect on those around you. So go for joy! Make room for pleasure and fun. Be frivolous, do nothing, do what you love. 

2. Learn how to contain your energy—your energy, not everyone else's. This begins with learning how to have energetic boundaries and using proper energy hygiene. For a great book on energy hygiene see John Friedlander and Gloria Hemsher's book Basic Psychic Development.

   Yes, you are a part of and are completely connected to the Universe, but you are also your own divine spark of energy that is just you. When we run lots of Shakti without being properly grounded and embodied, we open ourselves up for all sorts of energies to enter our space.

   And, if you are a natural healer, there's a good chance you are giving away lots of energetic juice unknowingly. This is exhausting. Learn how to clear and ground your energy and own your energetic space.

3. If you are an "overhealer," back off the healing and find different practices that are calming and grounding. Learn how to calm your stress response and engage in activities that soothe and create love and joy. I highly recommend  Dr. Eva Selhub's book The Love Response.
    
4. And last but not least: get out of isolation. Find like-minded people to talk to and have fun with. Play games, be silly, be unproductive, and laugh.

Remember, the healing journey is ongoing and there is no there to get to... be gentle with yourself, be patient with the process, and do your best to enjoy what's happening right now.

Be well,

Rebecca

Shakti, and her partner Shiva, are synergistic energies which lie both within and outside of us. Shakti is an upward moving energy full of the power to create. Shiva, a downward moving energy, is consciousness manifested. Shakti is the energy of potentiality, Shiva provides form for that which emerges out of divine consciousness. When we learn how to allow these energies to work together, we are on the path towards a greater sense of wholeness and integration with our souls/higher selves and the divine.

If we can't contain and ground Shakti we will not provide a container for Shiva to become rooted in our personal consciousness. In other words, if your practice is only about moving energy upwards, you will not be inhabiting your lower chakras in a way that allows you to manifest the power and creative forces of Spirit.

I come to the subject of Shakti and its power from my experience as a hungry and at times desperate seeker. What was I looking for? I sought what so many spiritual aspirants seek: wisdom, the experience of oneness, and the desire for elevated states of consciousness. But what I was really looking for was emotional healing and peace of mind. I have started this writing project to share my experiences. I am a work in progress, and make no claims to truth, absolute knowledge, or wisdom. I learn through my experience and by sharing it with others, and what I "know" is constantly shifting.

As a psychologist practicing traditional psychotherapy, I always thought something was missing from the healing process of talk therapy. For anyone with a history of trauma (sexual, physical, or emotional), the therapy process often reveals an emotional and cognitive pattern that can be resistant to change. The body, the mind, and the heart get stuck in a pattern that is negative and self-defeating. Shifting this pattern can be extremely difficult and frustrating. 

Intuitively, I thought energy healing would help. I understood that the stuck emotions, cognitions, and physical reactions were energies that needed unsticking. Energy healing seemed like a good way to help release the relentless torture of the traumatized heart and mind. What I came to discover, however, is that working with energy can cause potent shifts--not all of which are pleasant.

Certain spiritual practices can be very powerful. If you are unprepared, uncontained (meaning too open energetically), and ungrounded, Shakti can take you on a hair-raising ride. There are many practices (such as specific types of yogic breathing and Kundalini Yoga) which intentionally raise Kundalini (an aspect of Shakti), and can inadvertently stir the fires of transformation too quickly. In my case, the combination of a Transcendental Meditation practice and receiving lots of energy healing triggered the rise of Kundalini in a way that was extremely uncomfortable. 

Everyone has different responses to Shakti. Many seekers have never experienced the fire of Kundalini pulsing through their body no matter how much breathing, sitting or yoga practice they do. Others have an easier time of it as the Kundalini slowly awakens in a way that can be assimilated. For me, the energy was way too much. My nervous system seemed to be in a state of "fight or flight" much of the time. I couldn't sleep at night, I couldn't focus my mind or remember things, and, ultimately, my body broke down from exhaustion. Those like myself, who experience these "spiritual emergencies" (see the Spiritual Emergence Network) can suffer tremendously. It isn't my intention to suggest that these kinds of experiences can be completely avoided. Rather, I hope to provide suggestions for managing the process of spiritual transformation in a gentler, saner way. Looking back, I know I had to go through all of this for a variety of reasons and I wouldn't change a thing. However, much could have been avoided with proper energy hygiene and the guidance of a skilled healer. 

So what have I learned from all of this?

1. Healing yourself isn't a competitive sport. There is no finish line and no hurry to get to the end of the race. 
2. Everyone responds differently to energy healing or other spiritual practices. Listen to yourself and what you need. 
3. Find a healer who will teach you good energy hygiene and practical skills for managing your healing process. There may be times when you need both a therapist and an energy healer. 
4. Learn how to completely inhabit your body. Many find it too painful to be fully present with the physical experience.
5. Learn how to ground. This is incredibly important in terms of integrating healing energies and being fully functional, both cognitively and emotionally. 
6. Learn how to be less energetically open. We keep hearing that we need to be more open. A wide-open energy field creates a superabsorbent sponge for all types of energies to move into. 
7. Finally, learn how to have fun! 

Be Well,

Rebecca