What are chakras and why are we talking about them anyway?
When I first started yoga all I knew was I needed some time out. Without knowing too much I thought it was the yoga postures that did the magic. It was great to stretch out my body, it was calming to focus on my breath and let myself escape from other stresses or worries. I enjoyed feeling the movements in my body. I then started going along to workshops and courses thinking I’d learn more yoga postures, but what I began to understand is that Yoga is so much more than just a Downward Dog.
I found myself becoming more and more fascinated by the philosophy of Yoga and blending these ideas into my physical practice. This was when I really started to feel a greater sense of wellbeing and ease. This was the start of understanding that exercise alone for my body doesn’t make me happy, I was becoming more ‘aware of my thoughts’ rather than ignoring them cause as I dealth with how I thought I started seeing shifts to the way I saw life. I started making decisions that were better for me despite it uprooting myself and upsetting people around me. What I look back on now, 30 years on from practicing and teaching Yoga, is that I have cleared out what was not serving me which allowed space to be made for what does. It’s not at first an easy process but once you start to see what opportunities have come to pass and what friends and family that have stayed true, you are actually happy to have shed all that was never looking out for your best interest, just you being held back so others don’t have to look at their own.
I know a lot of unhappy highly stressed athletes. Our mental health is what I now recognise is more important than just physical attributes. Yes it’s important to keep your body healthy, that is why our forefathers and mothers of the Yoga practice developed the physical asana cause it allowed themselves and their students to sit more comfortably in meditation.
What is essential is having a balanced nervous system for a greater capacity to heal and repair your body and keep your mind in high spirits. Spending too much time in the fight and flight response (where your sympathetic nervous system is stressed out) is draining to your body. We need time to Rest and Digest to allow your parasympathetic nervous system to calm and your awareness to expand.
Coming from a background of studying Acupuncture the chakra system caught my attention. In Yoga I’ve studied the 7 primary chakras (energy centres) along the spine, but there are thousands of smaller ones all around the body which an Acupuncturist places their needles to increase energy, unblock it, decrease any excess, basically fine-tuning the energy in these point for the health and vitality of your whole body.
Yoga doesn’t just locate these 7 main chakras but study in-depth the mental and emotional connections. In a nutshell, the idea is, when you pay attention to what each chakra relates to, and work to bring yourself into balance, you’ll find a sense of wholeness and completeness that leaves you feeling pretty darn well put together. Understanding the chakras helps us to understand the full spectrum of our basic needs. To be a fulfilled human being we need a whole lot more than food, water and air for survival, let’s start with the basics.
The Base or First Chakra, Mooladhara.
The base chakra relates to the Earth element. It’s sometimes called the Root Chakra, so think tall strong tree, with deep roots sunk into the ground. It governs our sense of safety and security. It’s pretty hard to get in touch with your spiritual self if you feel constantly feeling uprooted or under threat. Paying attention to this chakra means reminding yourself, that most of the time, you’re pretty darn OK. We’re so lucky in the modern west, mostly our threats are that our wi-fi dropped out, or the boss moved the deadline forward. You may have heard the term ‘First World Problem’, because usually we are well fed and housed, and connecting with the base chakra means fully recognise and cherish these things.
Once we’ve understood our safety, and we realise how ‘fertile our soil is’, then metaphorically we can start to do a little weeding. You can’t plant the good seeds when your garden is overgrown with weeds of doubt and resentment. So the work here is to edge your hand off the emergency button and to settle into being OK with things not going how you originally want them to and start to see a new way around the challenges you face.
This is a key indicator of knowing if your yoga is working is when things are crappy (say you had a fight with your partner, or your bank balance is dismal) but you can still find the sense of deep peace and contentment because there is a part of you grounded into the knowing your basic survival needs and safety are being looked after.
The practice of yoga is not just asana (the postures) because Yoga sees we are not just a body. In fact in the traditions it is called an “Eightfold Path”, we explore ethical and moral action, asana, breathwork, meditation, focus, drawing in the senses and recognising bliss. A full spectrum of all things that need to be addressed in keeping us feeling whole and complete. Yoga teaches us to look at how you are relating to each of these areas and dedicating yourself to becoming more skillful at this whole life thing.
As members of a wider community, it can serve you to join others who are working on the same principles as you. Finding great yoga teachers, making friends with your fellow students, and joining online forums are great ways to bring these concepts to the forefront of your awareness.
This stuff can get pretty deep, so be prepared to uncover some tricky weeds. But you know, deep down, that you don’t want those weeds to sink their roots into you. There is a way for you to feel so much more at ease in your own skin. It requires your time and attention, but getting grounded in your foundation sets you up to grow sky high.
