Chakra Series: Root Chakra

In the serene ambiance of our meditation class, we embark on a transformative journey beginning with the root chakra, the foundation of our physical and emotional well-being. As we delve into the exploration of this energy center, participants are guided through deeply therapeutic techniques designed to ground and stabilize, fostering a profound connection with the Earth.

Our session transcends traditional meditation, incorporating the ethereal sounds of the handpan, whose harmonious vibrations resonate with the root chakra, enhancing the experience of grounding and tranquility. This unique combination of focused meditation and musical healing invites a deeper introspection, allowing for a release of tensions and a harmonization of the body's energy centers.

As the session culminates, participants find themselves in a state of renewed balance and clarity, carrying with them the peace and centeredness that come from a nurtured root chakra.

Transcript

Good evening,

Everybody.

Thank you for braving the storm.

Make sure that you're nice and comfortable.

We have some blankets and some extra cushions if you need some more stuff on you.

My name is Seth Monk,

Thank you for coming to class today.

Today I'm going to be beginning a new series on the chakra system.

Everybody heard that word before in their life,

Chakra?

Is there anybody who's like,

I actually have no idea really what that is,

But I've heard it.

Is there anyone like,

I'm an expert,

That kind of stuff?

Is everyone like in between those two things,

Is everyone going to raise their hand?

So yeah,

It's cool and it's interesting that the chakras have made their way to kind of like the general public as it were.

They're actually belonging to ancient Indian systems of understanding.

We call them spiritual systems,

But you know,

For them it was also connected to their systems of medicine.

Just as in Chinese medicine,

They have the meridian points and these different places that the body receives energy from and the interconnections.

The chakra system is something that's ancient,

Ancient Indian understanding.

Chakra actually means wheel,

And it's because there are these energy centers that they rotate,

There's like a rotation to them,

So they're called wheels.

There are seven main chakras in the body,

Each of them has a different theme that it works with.

This is far from being a kind of like conceptual curiosity,

But if you really look at your own body,

You'll see very practically how these make sense.

For instance,

When you're nervous,

We say that you have butterflies in your stomach,

Right?

You feel anxiety and nervousness in your belly.

That spot is the solar plexus chakra,

Which deals with confidence and a sense of being able to show yourself,

Feeling that you are capable to get your needs met,

That you have some sort of control over your environment,

That you matter enough to do that too.

When we're sad or in love,

We know it's in our hearts,

Heartbroken,

Right?

We center our feelings of love on this part of the body.

We take it for granted,

But if you really think about it,

What does the heart have to do with love,

The organ,

The beating blood thing right here?

Why do we say that this is the spot of love?

That makes no sense,

Unless we actually feel that sense of love from this area,

Right?

That would be the heart chakra,

It's a place of love,

Of connection.

When you want to say something,

When you want to speak up or speak out,

But you haven't and you're not,

You feel something,

We call it a lump in the throat,

That you feel a tightness in the throat because you're not expressing what you want to express,

Right?

The throat chakra,

A place of expression,

Communication.

When someone's talking to you and you are doubting them or you're suspicious,

What do we do is we kind of wrinkle up our forehead,

Right?

We kind of like furrow the brow,

They say,

Right?

I don't know about that,

Right?

The third eye,

We contract this spot,

Which has to do with intuition,

With knowledge,

With vision.

Also on the top of the head,

We have something called the crown chakras.

If you think of a baby,

The soft spot,

This place that's still open,

They're born into this world,

But they're still very much these open beings and as they get older,

It's almost like this slowly starts to close up and they become more and more solidly here in this incarnation that they're in.

So when we really dive deep into the chakras,

We'll see that they're not these kind of like far out there concepts,

They really work with our everyday experience of life,

Of reality and of our own emotional world.

So every session that we do here,

I'll progress through the chakras and I'll talk about a different one each time.

So today was a bit of that overview of kind of like what it is we're talking about.

But also we're going to be starting today with the roots,

The root chakra,

Which is the bottom chakra,

It's like on the tailbone.

This has to do with a sense of grounding,

A sense of security,

A sense of place,

A sense of being here as if the tailbone,

The bottom of the spine was a root that grew down into the earth.

It's really this feeling of security in my body,

Security in my existence and this beingness.

It's kind of like the first point,

We'll say for a baby,

It's like ages zero to three when they are just born and they're just kind of here,

It's just starting to realize that you're here,

You're just here in this place.

The root chakra,

The theme I like to work with is the theme of deserving,

Deservingness.

What do we deserve?

Deserving has to do with receiving.

Receiving also has to do with worthiness,

To be worthy to receive.

To deserve means that you're worthy to receive.

Many of us in our lives,

We don't really have the life we want in some way,

Whether it's a relationship or financially.

Something in our situation isn't the way that we want it to be.

Often we'll work and we'll fight and we'll struggle and we'll try to get this thing,

But perhaps all that's missing is our own sense of deserving it.

Maybe there's something in us that doesn't actually think we deserve to be happy or that we deserve love without having to do something for it.

A lot of that programming comes from our childhood,

This feeling of not enough,

The parents wanting you to reach their expectations in some way.

Like I have to do something to be loved,

Or if I do something wrong,

I won't be loved anymore.

If I end up doing something wrong against the parents' wishes,

It makes me unlovable all of a sudden.

So while we are deserving of love regardless of what we've done,

We are programmed from a very young age to believe the opposite,

To believe that love is conditional,

To believe worthiness is conditional,

To believe deservingness is conditional.

To be rewarded,

We have to be a good boy or girl.

We're not allowed just to receive beautiful things,

Love,

Abundance,

Just for being who and how we are.

It's fascinating when you look at a baby and everyone just flocks to babies and they just want to give them love,

Right,

They're these little love magnets usually,

Unless they're crying on an airplane or something,

Generally very lovable beings.

And then something happens as that baby ages,

That there's some point that suddenly now they should know better,

Right,

That there's something they need to do to get it.

Something in our education,

Something in our shared agreements in our society of who we're supposed to be for each other,

It starts to get in the way of our inbuilt,

Ingrained sense of deserving,

Of being enough,

Enough as we are.

If we don't believe that we are enough as we are,

We will go through our life believing that we will get into relationships with people who continuously reflect back to us that we are not deserving.

A lot of clients that I work with tell me that,

You know,

Their last relationships they were with narcissists,

It's a term that you hear a lot,

Right?

But why would somebody get into a relationship with someone that only cares about themself?

Well,

It's because they didn't think that they deserved somebody caring about them too.

They thought love meant taking care of somebody else's needs,

That's what love is.

But because their own needs were neglected as a child,

They get into relationships with people who also neglect their needs.

Because I neglect my feelings,

I'll find someone who also neglects my feelings,

And now things work,

It's an agreement.

We'll both neglect my feelings together,

Great.

So slowly as we start to work through these themes and the different chakras,

We start to,

We start to see the ways which we've been stuck,

The ways which we are holding on to beliefs,

Perceptions,

And stories that are really limiting us from being happy,

Limiting us from growing,

From stepping into the reality that we know is possible.

These next few classes of the chakras,

This is an opportunity to do the inner work together and to be open to the experience that maybe by doing the work inside of yourself,

You'll start to transform your external world too.

Maybe by doing it inside,

The outside will start to shift to mirror that,

So this is the invitation.

So I invite you all to get comfortable in your seats,

If you want to lay down,

These seats can be pulled forward to then pulled back.

I invite you to close your eyes,

Take a few deep breaths,

Just start to relax into your body,

Breathing in deeply through the nose,

Out through the mouth,

Utilizing the breath as a vessel to help you soften to ground,

Bringing our awareness gently to the base of our spine,

To the root chakra,

To our sense of deserving,

Of worthiness,

Of safety.

As you breathe,

Imagine you're breathing energy up from the earth into the body,

Up into the tailbone.

As you breathe out and relax,

Energy flows from the body down into the earth,

So allowing the breath to be this exchange of energy between the base of the spine and the earth beneath you,

Allowing this process to be effortless,

Easy,

Allowing yourself to connect down towards the center of the earth.

As you breathe,

The energy exchanges from the roots,

The base of the spine,

The center of the earth,

Beginning to soften and feel the space around you,

The space of the room around you,

Allowing the body to dissolve,

The boundaries,

Borders,

To just fade away like mist in the morning,

Allowing this connection to the center of the earth,

To remain intact as if there was a drain just pulling,

Sucking down all of the density,

All of the heaviness,

Everything you're done with,

Allowing it to travel down to the earth to be recycled,

Allowing a flow of love between the root chakra and the earth,

A sense of caring,

A sense of safety,

The safest you've ever felt in your entire life.

Breathing into that safety,

Letting it flood through the body,

Through the mind,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time.

The body,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Allowing the deepest rest that you've had in a long time,

Breathing,

Feeling of safety deep into your body.

Breathing,

Feeling of safety deep into your body.

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,

Feeling how worthy you are of love,

Of care,

Of safety,