Root Chakra: Strengthening The Foundation Of Your Self

After all the healing work I have done in the root chakra, I feel like I could write a novella about it. But let me share some basics. With a focus on strengthening the foundation of your self and being present in the now, the root chakra is a place where many trauma survivors need to spend a lot of time.

The root chakra is associated with the element of Earth. This physical focus reminds us that we’re not only souls, but we’re bodies here on the material plane. Because we are all soul/spirit in the form of a human body, it can be difficult for many of us to navigate how to thrive in physical form. Many of us, especially trauma survivors, struggle with fear. How can we exist safely in physical form? Learning to feel safe is another big focus of the root chakra. We must establish a strong foundation – our self. When we root ourselves here on Earth, and believe in the strength of those roots, we learn how to feel secure.

Interestingly, two wonderful people I have worked with in my journey have taught me that working from root up, is the masculine path to healing, and working from the crown down, is the feminine path. As I said, the root chakra is all about our physical form, and the material is a masculine characteristic. On the opposite end of the chakra system, is the crown chakra, which is all about being connected to spirit, and the spiritual is a feminine characteristic. I’ve given this masculine path and feminine path a lot of thought, and the evaluation that going from root up is a masculine path makes so much sense to me.

I’ve spent the majority of my life working the feminine chakra path and didn’t even know I was doing it, as I wasn’t always educated about chakras. As a feminist and someone whose second major was Women’s Studies at the undergraduate level, this is really no surprise. My worldview and my personal journey all get filtered through the feminist lens, though I recognize that a holistic healing journey means doing work in the masculine areas too. My inspiration for my focus on ancestral trauma and ancestral healing has always been my mother’s and grandmother’s journey, which helps me examine my own journey and continue to grow. The feminine just comes more naturally to me.

So much of my journey has been spent with my head “in the clouds” (crown chakra) as opposed to having a firm foundation here in physical existence (root chakra). My intuition (gut) and messages from spirit have always shouted at me rather loudly, and I have held some outlooks and made some choices in life that probably seemed pretty crazy to others. So, I can see that I’ve been doing the feminine work for a long time. Working in the masculine root chakra has been much more challenging to me.

You might say I was hesitant to live in my body. It is not unusual for trauma survivors to feel this way. When our bodies and minds are put in harm's way and go through unimaginably difficult things, why would we want to be present in our body? Why would we want to be present in a mind that had been through so much that we can’t make sense of some of our thoughts and emotions? It seems far easier to disappear, and there are a ton of ways to do that. Escaping into stories is the healthiest way I have disappeared for as long as I can remember, but I have chosen some pretty harmful methods of escape too including cutting, abusing food, and inviting chaos into my life. Cutting channeled my emotional pain into physical pain, which was a hell of a lot easier to manage. Food numbed the emotions that I could not deal with. And chaos was an effective distraction.  

But, at some point, if we do not come back to our physical form, we’ll be faced with giving up that physical form. When you decide that death is not what you want or that you deserve a better reality than one of constant pain, fear, and escape, you will have to work on your root chakra. But how do you do that?

The first tip I can give you for working on strengthening your root chakra is to remember one very important fact: you are here today, which means you have had the strength to get through everything so far, no matter how challenging. You have to believe in what you see, and if you look in the mirror, there you are. That brings me to the second tip, trust. You will need to work toward surrendering. When we live from a place of fear, that is us resisting trust. And I understand, when we experience a lot of fears, trust is hard. But personal growth requires hard work. When we learn to trust both ourselves and the universe, we see positive changes in our life. It takes some time, but it we remember that you have made it through every single thing you have been through, that is already a start to trusting yourself. Now, trust that the universe wants to deliver nothing but good to you, and your fears will lose power.

Facing our fears head on is another part of root chakra work. Don’t escape from the fears; find a place that feels safe, and sit with them as if they are friends, a messenger. Talk to them. Ask yourself questions, for the questions are often more important that the answers when we work on personal growth. What is it that you’re afraid of? I understand, the list might be long. Don’t get overwhelmed; tackle one fear at a time. One question I have found helpful when talking to my fears is, is that fear logical? Emotions, in general, aren’t logical; they’re quite the opposite. But that doesn’t mean they’re not valid and don’t need to be acknowledged. What I mean by asking if a specific fear is logical is that you can assess how likely it is that the fear you have will actually materialize. Will you die if you speak publicly? Will you even be ridiculed if you mess up while doing so? Will you lose your loved ones if you express your honest thoughts and feelings? Have they ever bailed before when you have been real with them? These are just some examples; you’ll get creative and understand how to dialogue with yourself better as you practice this more.

One specific question that I invite people to ask themselves is, where did this fear come from? This brings us back to logic – chances are that the worst outcome we fear won’t happen. And personally, my brain has come up with some pretty awful, extreme scenarios because trauma makes your brain do that. Often, the fears come from societal programming too. How many of us have heard that we won’t be able to support ourselves if we don’t go to college or play by the rules regarding jobs and income? How often have we heard that no one will love us if we don’t look a certain way or act a certain way? When we question where our beliefs and fears come from, we can start to challenge them and this is another way they stop holding power over us.

Another question that has worked well for me is, what would the outcome be even if those awful, extreme things did happen? Nobody can deny that the end-result is really painful sometimes, but remember that face in the mirror; no matter what you have been through, you got through it. You are here, in the present moment where you are safe and can stand strong in your self.

Remembering all that you have overcome, learning to trust, and sitting with your fears and dialoguing with them are just a few starting suggestions for working on the root chakra, but we have to start somewhere.

If you enjoy poetry, check out my poem about the root chakra on my short stories & poetry page.

~ Peace and Love, Tracey

©Tracey Love, 2023. All rights reserved.