An aspect of my approach to bodywork is looking at emotional stressors or energetics and how that contributes to someone’s pain patterns. I always say, there are a lot of crooked people out there, but not all of them are in pain.
The root chakra and sacral chakra come into play with the pelvic floor. The root chakra can close off with anything that involves fear. I think all of us can agree that we’ve felt some amount of this over 2020-21. Any history of abuse or trauma, at any point in life, can contribute to issues in the root. Fear usually involves the breath to tighten, and as we’ve discussed, the breath mirrors into the pelvic floor. If the root gets closed off, it shuts off connection to the feet. I often feel that a lot of knee/foot issues are not just about the pelvic floor in terms of mechanics, but also this holding from current or past fear patterns.
The root is also all about stability. So any type of lack-of-safety feelings would play into dysfunction here as well. This could be financial, physical or emotional.
The sacral chakra obviously involves sexuality, but also creativity and sensuality. If you don’t feel safe, how can you feel like you have the energy or bandwidth the be creative or truly yourself?
You can bring more opening and awareness to these areas by visualizing the sphincters of the pelvic floor opening up like a valve and that water is coming down the legs. If color is your thing, the corresponding colors are red for the root and orange for the sacral.
Take this for a walk and you can visualize those colors going down one leg, back up and over to the other leg like a light up yo-yo. Check in with your body and see as you put those colors in your mind’s eye, are they vibrant? If they start off more dusky or dark, let the old stuff drop out of your feet and into the ground. Then as the light comes back up the leg, can it be a bit brighter? If you continue to do this, the colors will become clearer and you’ll feel better—promise.
This is my favorite book on energetic systems. The author connections modern psychology with the chakra system. It’s a great balance of ‘woo woo’ and philosophy.
