I Got No Roots

Think about a time in your life that you were incredibly busy. I mean, so busy that you knew that if even one more thing was added to the agenda, the entire “thing” might come crashing down.

I have recently found myself found myself in this very same place.

Don’t get me wrong, most of it is good stuff, but all the same it is just too much.

As a result, in an effort to stay ahead of the chaos, the small, intentional actions that I try to maintain tend to be the first things to fall by the wayside.

Things like basic organization, meditation, space to plan and prepare, etc. And, ironically, these are the things that would help tremendously if I kept them a priority in my daily life.

I would venture to guess the same happens to you.

What slips from your day when you get busy?

Do you skip meals? Forget to drink water (guilty here)? Is your desk an absolute disaster?

When this becomes a reality, we move from living in a place of proactive action to reactive action – and living reactively is a recipe for disaster. I can speak from personal experience that this is not a place that can be sustained in the long run. Exhaustion, excuses, and unhealthy choices tend to be the end result.

Unfortunately, these are stages of life that inevitably happen and to think otherwise is simply unrealistic. Distractions arise, people get sick, co-workers quit so you take on more workload, and there is nothing that we can do to change the circumstances. What we can do is prepare for these times and develop habits or tools in order to stay grounded.

Of course there are many different ways to stay grounded: setting an alarm and working in blocks of time, turning off your phone and email so that you have no distractions, taking 5 minutes a day for simple mediation or breath work a continued priority, journaling, maintaining a morning ritual such as drinking warm lemon water each day, etc. Today, however, I want to share in a yoga practice and philosophy that has been proven effective.

Chakra Work

Now, before you say to yourself, “oh great more ‘woo-woo’ yoga stuff,” hang with me here. You don’t have to be a yogi, or even spiritual for that matter, to connect with and utilize this practice. I do think, however, knowing the basic principle offers evidence as to its efficacy.

We aren’t just throwing wet balls of paper at a wall here, hoping they stick.

According to yogic literature, chakras are bundles of energy housed within our bodies. I once read that you could think of them as traffic roundabouts – which I found to be especially interesting as the majority of experience I have with roundabouts is chaos, but I digress.

The idea here is that when all seven chakras are healthy, or unstuck, that energy in the body can flow freely, offering a sense of stability (root chakra), easy creativity (sacral chakra), power (solar plexus chakra), love and happiness (heart chakra), easy speech (throat chakra), and clear thoughts (crown chakra).

Sounds pretty good, right?

While it’s important to address all seven chakras, for the purpose of this exercise, I’m going to focus on the root chakra. After all, when life gets crazy, getting and maintaining a sense of grounding is sometimes all we need.

Want to get more info on chakras? Head to my blog post “How to Find Strength When Nothing Else Works” where I discuss the solor plexis and heart chakras.

Root Chakra – Muladhara

As the name implies this chakra is the foundation of having a sense of calm. Alternatively when this chakra is out of balance a sense of frenzy can occur resulting in things like asking where your glasses are when they are on your head, leaving your wallet on the top of the car, losing your keys, letting the mail pile up, etc. “Always behind” is a common response when this chakra is isn’t tended to.

Additionally, it can cause physical reactions such as anxiety, poor sleep, pain in the legs and feet, and poor digestion.

Anyone who feels this way knows that it’s nearly impossible to just force a sense of control and grounding back into their lives. It takes intentional changes and practices.

There are many ways that you can clear this chakra and find a sense of strong grounding. In yoga, we use a variety of different asanas (poses) in order to strengthen this area, including standing poses (such as warrior variations), standing balances, seated poses, and forward bends.

In the video above, I will show you two tools that you can use, a simple breath exercise and visualization practice that you can do anywhere.

xx

– Elle

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