With getting to know my inner child, I found myself asking questions about aspects of ourselves we rarely talk about. Beyond the body and the mind, Who are we? I do not know the full answer to that yet but I have been fortunate to come across bits and pieces of information which are contributing towards solving the puzzle. Lately, I have been coming across people who have been asking the same questions and I kind of consider them to be at a higher level of knowing and understanding the Who part of our being.

Let’s start off by trying to figure out the What aspect of ourselves. Beyond the body and mind, we are a system of energies. Which now brings me to the concept of Chakras. What are they? Without going in too deep (because I, myself, am still learning), Chakra means “wheel” and it refers to the energy points in your body. Another definition of chakras is that they are wheel-like organisational centres for the reception, assimilation, storage, and transmission of life force energy. It is called a Chakra System because it consists of seven chakras, namely; (1)Root chakra, (2)Sacral chakra, (3)Solar plexus chakra, (4)Heart chakra, (5)Throat chakra, (6)Third eye chakra, and finally, (7)Crown chakra. The task of finding out what each means I leave to you as homework.

Because chakras are energy centres, they can either be balanced, have excess energy, or be energy deficient. Once you are familiar with them, it becomes easy to detect where you are on the scale which allows you to do what you need to in order to find balance. It would be a great disservice to you to try and break down each chakra in a single post. So, I’m only going to talk about the Root chakra here and discuss the Sacral and Heart chakras in the coming week. Before we dive in, I would like to give a shout out to Anodea Judith (look her up). She basically taught me everything I know currently about chakras. I will be referencing her work every now and then. If you are on a Chakra Healing journey, I highly recommend her as a teacher. Great, let us begin.

Root Chakra: Is the first chakra and is sometimes referred to as the Base Chakra. It is located on the base of your spine, perineum and also includes your legs. It is associated with grounding, support, security, safety and prosperity. We develop this chakra in the first year of life from the time we are born to the point where we start crawling and walking. It is at this stage where we learn how to overcome fear and fully rely on our caretakers for survival. When our needs are met, the result is a grounded sense of security. We learn how to trust that our needs will be met. The opposite is also true. The result of not having those needs met is usually insecurity and fear. On the chakra scale, someone with a balanced root chakra is grounded, stable, healthy, fit and prosperous. An extremely deficient root chakra can be seen in someone who is fearful, often lives in their head, and struggles to manage finances. Physically, an excessive root chakra is associated with struggles to manage weight, being sluggish and addicted to security (or is materialistic). I should mention that it is possible to have both deficient and excess traits existing in one chakra. That was me for the longest time. After putting in some work (and I still am), I can gladly say I’m learning how to balance my energy and it feels great. 

Growing up, I used to be severely underweight. I would eat a lot but just not pick up weight. My body was my biggest insecurity. In my culture, my body type was frowned upon. My fertility was attached to my (lack of) curves and boobs. I grew up thinking I would not get married and have kids because my “structure” could not support a baby. I used to console myself with the fact that I had a fast metabolism and could eat whatever I wanted without the stress of gaining unwanted weight. This act of consoling myself was only serving to heighten my insecurity even further. During exams (or sometimes, a painful break-up), I would put junk in my body and call it “stress eating”. My weight remained unchanged. This was my life until my mid-twenties when I had my daughter, then something strange started to happen. I started putting on weight FAST! It was cute in the beginning until it was not cute anymore. Society calls it “baby weight”. Nonsense! That coupled with postpartum depression, I was a literal mess! It was not up until I calculated my BMI (which confirmed that I, indeed, was overweight) that I decided to do something about it. I went for therapy to tackle the depression, changed my diet and started running daily. It seemed to have worked for a bit. However, it still felt like I was missing something.

Okay, diving a little deeper into my childhood. I am a middle child. The fourth amongst six children. Some of you may be familiar with middle child struggles but to summarise it, our biggest struggle is learning how to be independent and self-sufficient early on so that you feel less of the effects of your needs not being met. You tell yourself that you’re too many for your parents to worry about all of you all at once, so you find yourself unconsciously learning how to be invisible in the house. However, a child will always be a child and there will be the occasional “tantrum” when you just cannot handle being “mature” any longer. It is sad to say that the majority of us who grew up this way now unfortunately find ourselves in a dilemma when it comes to relationships in our adult lives. We are either addicted to love or tend to avoid relationships altogether. All that fear and insecurity from your childhood forces you to become “independent” or too needy. And if you are like me, you are an empath. Always going the extra mile to meet other people’s needs (even when they haven’t asked you to) and hoping they some day return the favour. Pair someone like me with a Narcissist and Voila! You’ve got a trauma bond. If this is you, Sis, invest in yourself. Go for therapy. Learn about chakra healing. Start watching what you eat and move a bit. I found yoga to be a pretty dope form of exercise. Do your shadow work Ma’am. Alright I’m going to drop off here for now. Let’s continue with the Sacral and Heart chakra next week. Okay, bye.

Mwahzies!