All about that base! How your attitudes to money and your parents affect your emotional health

If you’ve done yoga, meditation, reiki, kinesiology or acupuncture, you’ll likely have heard a bit about chakras. Having a bit of extra knowledge about their function can really help you identify where you might be hitting emotional blocks in your life. 

Chakras are located in the energy field just outside your physical body and are the avenues through which your life force (chi, prana etc) flows. Or not, as the case may be.

The first major one is the base chakra, known to some as the root chakra. It’s concerned with our material needs (money, food and shelter), our family, our safety and our connection with our bodies. So people who have an imbalance of energy in this chakra might struggle attracting and keeping money, could be materialistic and struggle to sit still (ie unable to stay grounded).

This chakra is located near the base of your spine and because  it is the first energy centre in the body to develop (up until one year of age), it is heavily influenced by your parents. People who had one or both parents absent in their lives, or whose parents had a volatile relationship, often end up with a base chakra imbalance because that affected how they shaped their concepts of belonging and safety. 

This chakra is also influenced by your parents’ attitudes. If your parents constantly complained about a lack of money you may grow up to be overly fearful about ending up in poverty – or even resigned to it as a fait accompli (the attitude of ‘people like us will never have enough money’). Equally, if your mother was constantly worried about all the myriad things that could go wrong in the world, you may have absorbed that energy in the base chakra (because it’s all about safety).

Just to make it clear, this doesn’t mean that your parents are responsible for your lot in life. Even though you may have taken on their beliefs or been influenced by your upbringing on an unconscious level, you’re not destined to follow your parents’ example – you determine your own path. Your choices are your own. However if a belief has taken hold at a young age it may have created an energy block without your awareness, and energy healing can be a helpful way to shift it.

(Image: the base chakra symbol)

The base chakra is also associated with belonging and how you fit in to the world. If you are not at peace with where you came from – particularly if you are disconnected from your ancestry or ethnic make-up in ways that make you feel lost – that will manifest in the base chakra.

People who have a deficient energy flow in the base chakra often have some of these characteristics:

·        Poor attention span

·        Difficulty sitting still  (the overachiever, who never feels like they have enough or are enough)

·        Refusal to listen to their body (particularly in messages about nutrition and rest)

·        Exaggerated fears about their safety

·        Chronically disorganised lives

·        Lack of boundaries

·        Perennial financial struggles (they can never ‘catch a break’; whenever they come into money they lose it somehow)

Some of the qualities of people who have excessive energy in the base chakra include:

·        Hoarding

·        Obese

·        Obsessed with material items, and constantly upgrading cars, electronic gadgets (FYI there is nothing wrong with enjoying objects, but attaching your value to your material possessions is problematic)

·        Fearful of change

·        Rigid ideas about how the world ‘should’ be

To rebalance your base chakra, here are some ways you can ground yourself and find balance:

·        Spending lots of time in nature

·        Learning how to be still regularly (meditation and yoga are helpful)

·        Addressing your attitudes towards money – remember that it’s great to ask the Universe for more money, but the pursuit of it as a means to happiness is flawed

·        Practising acceptance and learning to let go

·        Using regular affirmations to assure your subconscious that you are safe, you have everything you need, you belong and you are enough.

So there it is – all about that base.

If you’d like to work with me to heal any of the issues in this article, you can book energy healing sessions here. More information about how I work is available here.  

In praise of writing. How to make every moment count

If you’ve read my weekly Tuesday lists, you’ll know that I am a big advocate for using writing to acknowledge and celebrate what’s going on my world. Last week I used a similar approach to tackling a feeling of flatness and general life dissatisfaction. Instead of writing about external elements, as I do on Tuesdays, I sat and wrote down all the ways that I'm a more connected, more resilient, gentler and generally more likeable person than I was a year ago. I did this because I believe, as Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner declares, that “if you can write, you can change your life”.

At the end of this experience, I felt like my compass had returned to true north. Like I had twisted the end of a kaleidoscope (kids, ask your parents) and was suddenly dazzled by captivating colours and patterns. Colours and patterns which had, of course, been there all along. But I had not seen them because I was too preoccupied by the darkness. I was looking at the hole instead of the doughnut.

Even if your washing hamper is overflowing and your fridge contains only expired mustard and a mutated chilli*, you have much to be proud of. You are doing better at life than you realise. You are succeeding in ways that you likely do not recognise. You are learning more about yourself and your place in the world. You are contributing to the lives of strangers and acquaintances in ways that you will never fully understand. You are making choices to expand yourself and your world, and, ideally, learning from them. You are caring for yourself and the people around you – and this is no small thing. This is the biggest thing of all. This is what we are here to do.

Writing is how we can bear witness to that growth and also account for the actions that might be taking us far away from the people we want to grow into. It’s through the act of recording our experiences that we recognise that at any given moment, there is always more right than there is wrong. It’s how we hit the pause button on a world that seems to spin faster every year. It’s how we celebrate all that we are and all that we have. It’s how we can make the little moments count.

In a letter to her younger self, Cheryl Strayed – aka my spirit animal – writes: “The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.”

And it’s through writing that the becoming comes to light.

If you feel lost, putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard, can help you find your way home. This blog does that for me. I have to be totally honest with you at this juncture: this blog is not always a joy. It steals sleep and leisure time from me, and it yields precious little in terms of bankable business. BUT the act of diarising my attempt to find meaning in my life has resulted in me discovering that meaning, every day, in ways big and small. By translating my observations and disparate thoughts into tangible and (hopefully) fluid articles, I am living more consciously and less on autopilot. Writing can do that. I highly recommend it.

*Me, currently.

One for the sensitive types. How your weakness can be your strength

Confession: I hate parties. I’m awkward when it comes to small talk because I’m rubbish at ‘playing the game’, and I find meeting new people terrifying. Christmas parties are a battle of endurance for me, and summer barbecues with people I don’t know are acutely uncomfortable. For a long time I labelled this as shyness however I’ve realised that, yes, I am slow to relax in other people’s company and don’t enjoy talking about myself, but I actually don’t fit into the category of ‘shy’. I also attributed this mild social anxiety to being an introvert – which is true, I am – but this doesn’t completely explain my level of discomfort in social settings. 

A month ago I read an article in Elephant Journal that made all the pieces fall into place. My preference for short, one-on-one interactions – or none at all – is nothing to do with shyness or introversion, it’s all about being highly sensitive. It’s about the way I respond to social exchanges on an emotional level.

This is what it means to be highly sensitive:

* You need massive amounts of time alone

* You pick up on other people’s moods instantly, and usually absorb them

* You feel overwhelmed by social situations and crowds

* You feel emotions deeply

* You appreciate and respond to art, music and beauty at a very deep level

That’s a tick, tick, tick, tick and a half-tick for me.

The fact that I’m highly sensitive means I can’t work for long periods in offices that are super bitchy or super negative because that drags down my mood and drains my energy. I can’t have a packed social calendar, because I need lots of time in solitude to recharge. I can’t watch news footage of tragedies or disasters because I am seized by intense despair. I can’t enjoy boxing or sports where violence is encouraged because I find the aggression really confronting. 

In a society that prizes physical dominance and discourages displays of emotion, sensitivity is regarded as a weakness. I vividly recall being told: "Don’t be so sensitive," as an adolescent when I complained about being bullied. (Um, thanks, really helpful. Nothing like a spot of victim shaming to avoid tackling an issue.)

What I understand now is that being sensitive is not a weakness, it’s a strength. It’s what helps me to perceive, via my intuition, when people need help, extra kindness or just space. It’s also the thing that allows me to tune into other people’s energy fields to help them identify emotional blocks – hence my affinity with reiki and angel card readings. (It also means I can be prone to taking those energies on board, but I have measures to avoid that.)

Highly sensitive types are the ones who create dazzling works of art, poetry and performance that allow us to see the world in entirely new ways. They are terrible at dating but excellent at long-term relationships. They have a small group of friends who they forge strong connections with. They listen far more than they speak. They are very protective of their personal space and don't react well to being touched by strangers or people they don’t know well. 

For me, being sensitive means I need plenty of self-care. It’s about lots of sleep, lots of water, lots of exercise, and lots of time on my own. It’s also vital to make time to be creative and to be still. It feels good to be at an age where I don’t have to make an excuse for choosing, and enjoying, these activities. I know I feel better for them. I also do a shielding ritual as part of my daily morning meditation, to protect myself, my physical space and my energetic space. This means I can face the day knowing that no matter who I’m around, I’m not going to get dragged down by their mood or their ‘stuff'’. (Happy to give tips on this to anyone who’d like to know more about how to do this, just drop me an email.)

If this post resonates with you, I hope you can find ways to embrace and nurture your sensitivity too.

Don't be a martyr – say NO to other people and say YES to yourself

“You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep others warm.”

I saw this quote on Instagram the other day and I actually cheered. I’ve been wanting to write a post about the power of saying NO for some time, and this quote sums up my thoughts perfectly. 

You know how safety announcements on planes tell you to attach your own oxygen mask before helping others with their masks? That’s because you can’t help other people if you have not been looking after yourself. In simpler, less alarming terms: you can’t give energy if your own tank is empty. 

A lot of people who seek reiki treatment have emotional imbalances because they’ve created energy blocks in their bodies through having a lack of boundaries in their lives.

So many of us – especially women, because we’re often socially conditioned to be people-pleasers – struggle to say the word NO to things that we don’t want to do because we think people won’t like us. We don’t like letting people down – so we say yes to every social event or request... and in doing so, we let ourselves down, because we end up stressed and on the path to burnout. We fear what other people will think of us if we say NO so we say yes, then we end up resentful about having no time to ourselves, and feel like we’re being taken advantage of. We also feel stupidly, irrationally guilty about saying NO. 

Just to clear this up: no is not a bad word. It is a very powerful tool for protecting and enriching your energy levels and emotional health. If you consistently say yes when you want to say no, others will expect you to drop everything to help them whenever they need to move house, organise their parents’ anniversary party or remove an ingrown hair – because they’re responding to your past behaviour. You can’t expect people to honour boundaries that you have failed to set. 

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help out your mates and spend time with your relatives and in-laws – but not at the expense of your own health and wellbeing. If you feel like someone might be taking the piss and you’re feeling resentful about it, they probably are. Set very clear parameters, eg: “Yes I’ll come to your sister-in-law’s baby shower with you but I’ll only stay an hour” or “I won’t be able to give you a lift to yoga on Saturday morning because I really need a sleep-in but I’ll meet you for a quick coffee next weekend” or “I’ll look after your kids for two hours if you’ll pick mine up from school when I have a doctor’s appointment”.

You do not have to be a martyr in order to have close friendships or loving relationships. In fact, people will respect you more if you do set boundaries. If they don’t... maybe you need to ask yourself how much of a presence you want them to have in your life. 

The most important thing you need to know when it comes to boundaries is that saying yes to everyone does not make you popular or loved – it makes you a doormat. Set boundaries... before you set yourself on fire. 

PS I’ve just posted the quote at the top of this page on my Instagram – if it takes your fancy, visit my feed at @onegroundedangel and regram it. 

Stuck in grumpy mode? There's probably something going on underneath

For the past few days I’ve been really shitty, and despite my best efforts to shake it, I keep reverting to a state best described as the angry love child of Grumpy Smurf and Oscar the Grouch. I’ve found myself replaying old arguments in my head and scripting shouty comebacks. I sent off a series of terse emails. And yesterday on the train, the sound of someone constantly rustling a plastic bag annoyed me so much I had to get up and change seats. (I was also tempted to shout at her for using plastic bags, which is surely the greater crime, no?)

All this irritation had no obvious cause, but it went on for days and I suspected something else was going on internally.
My body was giving me signals that it was experiencing irritation at a deep level. My jaw became tight and painful (this is one part of the body where we hold on to anger), my digestion went out of whack (something which is usually, but not always, associated with emotional stress) and I developed hay fever (which is all about irritation)*.

Anger and irritation are perfectly valid emotions, and me experiencing them is not a problem in and of itself. The issue for me was that they weren’t prompted by a specific event or experience, and they were lingering like out-of-town relatives after Boxing Day. I knew that this was something that needed to be investigated.

When I thought about what is really frustrating me at the moment, I instantly felt that sensation in my gut that I get when I know I’ve identified something significant. There’s the fact I have to move out of my house, which is going to be an exhausting process that will cost me money I don’t have right now (and am worried that I won’t find, despite the angels’ reassurances to the contrary). There’s also the fact that my business is taking a long time to get off the ground. The experience of sitting in an empty room with an empty diary and waiting for the phone to ring is somewhat soul-destroying. 

It wasn’t hard to see the common thread: fear. Namely, fear of failure and fear of not having enough (money, resources, time). So many metaphysical books say that everything comes back to fear. In fact, anger is often referred to as a secondary emotion because it is usually masking another emotion. And often, that emotion is anchored in fear. 

Recognising my fears and calling them out for playing saboteur on my physical health hasn’t made me any less annoyed, but at least I’m aware of what’s really going on – and that’s helping me to put my focus back on what will help me move forward: patience. Accepting that my life is unfolding exactly as it should, and being patient with that process, makes me feel more calm. I hope that that will translate to patience across the board, making me less inclined to react to surface-level irritations. That’s the theory, anyway. 

I can’t, however, make any guarantees regarding the safety of plastic bag rustlers. 

* For the record, this doesn’t mean that if you sneeze you’re afraid of something – it probably just means you should stay away from pollen (lol). Also, sometimes a bad mood is just a bad mood. What I’ve documented here was just my experience of a lot of physical symptoms and emotional triggers adding up to the same thing.