Ways to Balance Your Root Chakra

The root chakra, or Muladhara in Sanskrit, is the first main energy point in the body.

When it is blocked, our body, emotions, thoughts, and health can suffer. Thereby, learning how to balance this spinning vortex of energy is necessary to have a healthy, fulfilled life.

Let’s discover its power and learn how we can create a solid internal foundation and more stability.

Understanding Muladhara

The root chakra, the most instinctual of all energy centers, is at the base of our spine.

The red color represents it and symbolizes the important survival intent of this first chakra. Red also reminds us of vitality, power, and confidence.

The root chakra symbol is a downward-facing triangle, within a square, within a circle. On the outside there are four petals. The inverted triangle is a symbol of the earth element and embodies pulling energy downwards. This depiction resembles a mandala lotus.

On the emotional realm, this swirling wheel, when aligned, is responsible for making us feel secure, worthy, determined, and with a sense of belonging. Mentally, it helps us focus, think clearly, set goals, and prioritize effectively.

However, we obstruct its natural flow when we experience traumatic events that threaten our basic survival or when we ignore our primal need for safety and engage in toxic relationships, eating patterns, and thoughts.

Other symptoms of an inner root chakra imbalance include:

• Impatience
• Insecurity
• Attachment and greediness (hypoactive root chakra)
• Anger
• Scarcity mindset

Physical effects of a root chakra imbalance

On a physical level, Muladhara is the foundation for our life force energy and the link between our energetic system and the physical world. It governs the adrenal glands, colon, kidneys, and bones.

These are some tangible blockage signs you might be experiencing:

• Fatigue.
• Constipation.
• Bladder problems.
• Irregular, heavy, scanty, or absent periods.
• Pain or inflammation on lower back, legs, or feet.

Other signs of blocked root energy

There are times when we feel we don’t fit in.

We experience insecurity and a low self-steem.

A sense of being constantly stagnated, easily distracted, and frequently depressed or pessimistic could be manifestations of a Kapha imbalance, but also an indication that the first chakra has a block.

Our root chakra connects us to the earth.

That is why we feel grounded, calm, and empowered when we listen to our hearts and live purposeful, healthy lives.

But life happens.

The death of a loved one, a divorce, an illness, natural disasters, or domestic abuse can all, literally, shake our worlds and transform our reality, alter negatively the way we think about and treat ourselves, and how we connect with others.

Because the root chakra is at the core of our survival, a blockage can impact our mental and emotional health by provoking anxiety, fear, indecisiveness, and restlessness.

You might perceive the lack of harmony in having continuous nightmares.

Or overthinking and worrying too much.

Perhaps, the most significant indication is an eating disorder. A feeble relationship with food.

Those may reveal we feel fearful, ungrounded, and emotionally disconnected and that Muladhara is closed.

Opening the root chakra is key to having a fulfilling, fearless life; full of confidence, persistence, and purpose. This is a task we should all consider, not only for our sake, but also for the ones we share or lives with.

How to Remove the Blockage

There are helpful ways to balance your root chakra.

To live fully we require balance, stability, and structure, which means we all need these tips because, honestly, a life that feels unsafe and threatening is very hard to live.

In the body

• Reevaluate your eating habits and relationship with food. Pay attention to the language you use about food and try mindful eating by using all your senses to experience and enjoy the food choices you make. You can actually appreciate your food five times.
• Eat red foods. Pomegranate, cherries, raspberries, red kidney beans, red quinoa, beets, red cabbage, radish, and red leafy greens should be part of your diet.
• When cooking, use saffron, pink peppercorn, Himalayan salt, and occasionally, paprika.
• Having tonic and nourishing drinks, specially prepared to help you anchor to the ground, or beetroot lattes, is an excellent strategy (magic recipe below).
• Move in grounding ways to increase the earth element if you feel nervous, restless, and anxious. Try my Vata Fitness Guide to pacify a volatile root energy and balance the first chakra.
• When you feel stagnated, heavy, and depressed, I suggest using my Kapha Fitness Guide to stimulate a lethargic first chakra.
• Yoga, Ayurveda’s sister science, offers poses that increase balance and stability. Practice child’s pose (balasana), garland pose (malasana), standing forward bend (uttanasana), mountain pose (tadasana), warrior II (virabhadrasana) or tree pose (vrikshasana) when working on the root chakra.
• Open your root chakra by doing gentle pelvic floor exercises. These movements can improve your vitality and strength, increase bladder and bowel control, and diminish back pain.

In the mind

• Practice sound healing along with your meditation practice to regulate the earth element within you. Singing bowls are a wonderful tool to decrease tension and perturbation in the mind.
• Connection is key in healing the root chakra. You can connect to the earth by doing earthing or gardening. And to enhance your bond with other people, practice the act of sharing your love, thoughts and wisdom, kindness, or a freshly prepared Ayurvedic meal. I have tons of recipes here!
• Color therapy and stone therapy is important. Use the red color to balance Muladhara. Crystals like ruby, garnet, jasper, agate, red diamonds, red tourmaline, red apatite, or eudialyte are fantastic to attract the vibrations of safety and security.
• Aromatherapy is a very effective technique. Whether you use candles, essential oils, or incense, choose cedarwood, black pepper, patchouli, sandalwood, myrrh, rosemary, clove, ginger, or geranium.
• The mantra for the root chakra is LAM. Repeat it mentally or vocally in your meditation practice.

Root chakra elixir

Other Ways to Balance Your Root Chakra: Affirmations

In addition, repeat these affirmations.

Write them down if possible. Some might resonate more with you than others.

*I am deeply well.

*It is my right to be here.

*I always feel home.

* I am connected to my body.

*I am fearless.

*I know Mother Earth supports me.

*I embrace uncertainty.

* I feel safe and protected.

*I am strong. I have all the resources I need to survive and live a happy life.

*I am undoubtedly where I am meant to be.

*My root chakra is balanced.

*I am financially secure.

*I am independent.

*I can feel the connection to my inner peace.

Let me know your favorite ways to balance your root chakra and if there’s any that you feel should make the list!