What’s the Root Chakra got to do with an ageing face?

 The other morning I found myself thinking about just how much I judge how I look – especially my face as it continues to age.  I decided to call upon my chakra system to help me heal this negativity in some way, and doing my meditation (in bed as I usually do) I thought the best place to start would be with the root chakra.

I brought my awareness to my root chakra and ‘asked’ for help on this issue.  I was shown a bubbling, hot small pool of water, a bit volcanic.  I saw myself with scuba diving equipment (I don’t dive, but there you go).  I went down into the water – underneath it was very still, very cold and was an ocean.  In the distance was a tiny, tiny dot of white light.  I ‘swam’ towards the light, and very suddenly it was very large and it engulfed me.  I was inside it.  At this point I must have fallen asleep. 

 I dreamed the weirdest of dreams, which I’m not going to detail here, but what I will say is that it was about losing things, the sea, people I know, getting lost – the usual kind of fragmented happenings that many dreams are full of.

When I woke I touched my belly and still judged it for being podgy.  I still thought if I look at my face in the mirror I would judge it as old and unattractive.

I realised many elements in the dream are aspects of small things on my mind.  So what’s the bigger picture – and how does it relate to being so judgemental of myself?  I know I come from a family system where making negative judgements of people was pretty common, and of course I’m good at judging others for being judgemental!   My husband and I talk about this a lot and thanks to him confronting me for 25 years I’m much less judgemental than I used to be.

 What has changed in recent years is that I am aware of having shifted my consciousness and my feelings up to a ‘higher’ level.  I transcend the inner critic, open my heart and change what I say and how I feel about what is going on.  What this process here has reminded me of is that I don’t do that with my looks, and being critical and judgemental is still my default position in life when I’m stressed or scared.  Help!

 So the root chakra has revealed this to me.  My default position is to judge negatively – because this is instinctual.  This is how I learned to survive.  We need to make judgements to survive – is this situation/person safe or not?  Is this food poisonous or not?  Am I doing too much exercise or not?  Of course there are many negative judgements around eating and exercising – shouldn’t eat this, shouldn’t eat that, should exercise more.  When are those judgements good for us and how can we make them so that we don’t feel bad about ourselves?  What is underneath all of this?  When is a judgement simply a good judgement and does not carry any kind of moral or value-laden energy with it?  When does it need to be based on sound values eg. we do need to judge the difference between right and wrong.  Judging my ageing face has turned into a huge subject! 

 What the root chakra invites us to do is to go deeper, to get far into the unconscious mind (hence all the water in my dream – water being often a symbol of the unconscious mind).  What we find there may well not be comfortable; it may demand us owning up to aspects of our psyche we thought we had healed from or moved on from.

Fortunately in my work with therapy clients I come from my ‘higher’ self; here I keep my heart open and if some reason I find I’m not doing that I take this to my supervision to see what’s stopping me.  My work as a therapist has been and continues to be the vehicle that motivates me to become more whole and loving.  Now I also need to continue to do this to and for myself and not rely on my work role.  Or rely on just wanting to be a better wife to Russell.

So I thank my Root chakra for showing me all this.  You may like to be a bit brave and visit yours and explore this issue for yourself.  

All good wishes,

Delcia