What are Chakras + an Introduction to the Lower Chakras

For the last few weeks, we've been working with our lower chakras in my private meditation membership The Healing Sanctuary.

We began working with these energies as a way to engage with the energy of fall. Fall is all about earthy, grounding, and rooted experiences. It's about feeling our connection to the earth and the natural rhythms of the seasons. It's a visceral time when we can smell the pumpkins as we carve them, see the leaves falling, and taste the delicious foods and drinks of this season.

This deep connection to our senses helps us to return our scattered energy to our own body. It  helps us to come home to ourselves, and to root back into ourself as a vibrant, dynamic being alive in this world. It also helps us to come back home in a literal sense, as we prepare for the internal and introspective season of winter. 

All of this rooting, returning to ourselves, and returning to our home, which is our sense of safety and stability in this world, brings us deep into our lower chakras. The energy of the fall season is very conducive to working with and healing these energy centers, which are all about rooting, grounding, stability, and our physical presence in this world.

At this time, we aren't even half way through fall, so there's still plenty of time for you to embrace this energy as well! Winter officially begins December 21st.

Before I dive into discussing the lower chakras, what they represent, and what healing and balancing them can do for us, I'm first going to briefly discuss what chakras are. If you're already familiar with chakras, feel free to skip to the Root Chakra portion.

What are Chakras?

Chakras are energy centers that reside within our body (except for the crown, which sits a few inches above your heard). They are not visible to our physical eyes, but rather, they are something we see with our intuitive and internal vision. They are also something we feel and sense within ourselves. If you've ever felt a sensation in your stomach, such as a flutter or electricity when you were excited, that was you feeling your sacral chakra. 

You have seven main energy centers, or chakras, in your body. Each of these energy centers corresponds to feelings, emotions, and experiences. Each of your chakras are circular and spin in one direction. Some spin clockwise and some counterclockwise, depending on which way they pass the current of energy within you. Each chakra has its own color, vibration, and purpose. Think of them like swirling spheres of light colored energy, going from your root to your crown.

Although a non-physical energy center, each chakra is intertwined with the physical processes of your body. What each chakra represents and what energy is associated with it is based on how it connects with your body. Your body's nervous system runs throughout you, from your brain all the way to the bottom of your feet. 

Based on what you are thinking and feeling, your body sends electrical pulses throughout your nervous system. This causes your body to react, either positively or negatively. Positive messages sent to your body induce healing and balance in your energy centers. An over abundance of negative messaging overwhelms your nervous system and causes your energy centers to come out of balance.

You also have a series of glands that process hormones that reside in your body. Each chakra is near one of these glands, i.e. the thymus gland is by the heart chakra and the thyroid gland is within the throat chakra. When our glands are over or under active, there is most likely stuck energy in that energy center. Stuck or blocked energy is essentially an emotion that never completed (i.e. an overwhelming sense of grief that never processed through to a full healing).

In order to have a healthy body, one most have a healthy energetic system, and vice versa. Your energetic body works with your physical body, and by healing one, you help to heal the other. This is part of why yoga is so powerful for many people - it moves stuck energy in the physical body, which allows the energetic body to come back into balance.

If you'd like to dive deeper into chakras and what they mean, I highly recommend the book Eastern Body / Western Mind by Anodea Judith. I also have a series of donation based packages that will take you through an introduction and healing to each chakra. 

​The Lower Chakras

One aspect of lower chakras that is rarely discussed is how important they are in manifesting. When we manifest we take the non-physical energy of the Universe, channel it down through our Crown chakra, and then turn it into physical reality through our lower chakras.

We often think of manifesting as something that happens primarily through the upper chakras. We see the vision of what we want through our third eye, we call the energy to us through our crown, and we energize it through our heart. But the actual hold it in your hands, it's here and I can see it and hear it and touch, this happens through our lower three chakras.

Healing and balancing our lower chakras can create profound shifts in our abundance, because abundance is all about feeling secure and taken care of. Here is an overview of your lower chakras:

1st Chakra: Root

Your root chakra resides at the base of your hips. It's red in color and holds your sense of being allowed to exist in this world. It's the essence of you as a physical being, taking up space and being seen and heard. If you're like me, and you feel safest when you're in the background, then this is a sign of blocks or imbalances in your root chakra.

As the chakra closest to the ground, it's all about rooting down and grounding into this world. When your root chakra is balanced and healthy, you are like a tree with deep, sturdy roots. You are stable and secure. You feel an overall sense of safety and security. You feel you are allowed to plant your roots deep and wide, and you are allowed to receive nourishment.

Without a healthy root chakra, it's almost impossible to find feelings of stability and security in this life. When this chakra is unbalanced, it can be difficult to either manifest abundance or to keep it. It will be a struggle to pay your bills and to feel your basic survival needs are taken care of it.

It will also feel challenging to feel that you have a right to be here. You will feel a need to put everyone before you. You will feel that your needs come last, and the only way you are allowed to exist is if you're a supporting character in the lives of everyone around you.

Root Chakra healing package

2nd Chakra: Sacral

Where your root chakra is your right to exist, your sacral chakra is your right to feel. This chakra is your source of your emotions and your feelings. It's all about your right to express your feelings, to embrace your full humanity, and to feel safe and supported in this expression.

Many of us grew up in homes that actively discouraged the full expression of emotions. We were shamed for crying or punished for showing anger. When we showed vulnerability and needed comfort, many of us instead had our feelings dismissed, i.e. You don't have to cry about it, it's not a big deal / Toughen up, you're fine / If you don't stop crying I'll give you something to cry about, or even just outright ignoring and silence.

When we're denied our right to feel, we block up our emotions and they never complete. We also learn to stuff them down and to numb ourselves. When we don't feel our emotions, we don't acknowledge ourselves as beings in this world. As you can see, there is a deep connection between the right to exist and the right to feel.

If our feelings are invalidated, we tend to internalize a sense of not mattering. We feel a deep sense of rejection without being to explain why or how, because we are too young to understand what's happening. All we know is, there is a sense of not being good enough.

When we heal this chakra, we restore our innate sense of worthiness. We allow our emotions to flow freely and in healthy ways. And we connect with people who allow us to be vulnerable and to express our needs without fear or shame.

Sacral Chakra healing package

3rd Chakra: Solar Plexus

A sunshine yellow, your Solar Plexus is your source of personal power. It builds on the energy of the two that came before it. When you feel your innate right to exist and your right to feel, then you also feel empowered. You are in touch with yourself as both a physical being and an energetic, divine being.

​In this chakra, we feel our right to be. This chakra is all about your right to exist as the person you are. This sounds a lot like the first chakra, but it is quite different. Your root chakra is your right to exist in a basic and primal sense. It's your right to have your needs met and to feel safe and secure.

Your Solar Plexus is your right to exist as you. It's your freedom to be you, as an individual, separate from all other people. When we have overly controlling parents, who stifle self expression and see us an extension of their own self, rather than as our own person, our Solar Plexus gets thrown out of balance.

Also, if we don't feel it's safe to be who we are, perhaps because we're queer and we live in a family or community that shames this, then this too will impact our Solar Plexus. There are a lot of social pressures and prejudices than can impact this chakra. When we heal this chakra, we reclaim our right to be who we are and to enjoy the freedom of independence.

As with the other chakras, when this chakra is out of balance, we struggle to manifest and to see our dreams realized. We don't see ourselves as a whole person, and because of this, we don't feel worthy of receiving, or perhaps feel afraid to standout and have our inner world exposed.

Solar Plexus Chakra healing package

Lower Chakra Healing

Blocks and imbalances in our lower chakras can be pretty heavy stuff. It can be connected to deep traumas that we must approach gently and with compassion. If you related to any of what was written above, you are not alone.

I struggle with everything I wrote above, and am neck deep in my own healing and re-balancing. It's a process that has been as painful as it has been beautiful. Restoring my inner self, and nurturing the person that got buried under a thousand layers, has cracked me open in ways I never imagined.

​It's also brought me so much closer to living the life I always envisioned for myself. It's been a wild process, and as someone who feels safer in the upper chakras, journeying through my lower ones has felt like I'm wandering through a dark forest.

I hope this post on the lower chakras and why we're working with them has helped you. If you would like to join us for our lower chakra meditations in The Healing Sanctuary you can become a member for $5 / month! You'll get access to over 100 meditations and visualizations already in there, PLUS each new weekly audio.

Thank you so much! And if you know someone who would benefit from this information, please share it!