Many of you know that I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) last November. I roughed out a novel from beginning to end during that month. I set it aside to clear my head so that I could return and do rewrites. However, I had just begun to work on the novel again when Wyatt died. His death really hit me hard and threw me into a tailspin from which I have just recovered.

What I realized during the last several months is that I truly want to try to write fiction. It has been a secret dream of mine for as many years as I can remember. What I also realized is that I tend to throw up roadblocks that keep me distracted enough that I don’t get around to writing. I then blame not writing on all of the other things I was “working” on. I am going to stop doing that. I am going to write full time and see what happens.

I want to thank all of my wonderful friends and readers who have supported me in my blogging and left such wonderful and encouraging comments. I apologize that I am not going to be able to keep this blog up at this time. I know, I know… I have been all over the map the last few months with my blogging here, blogging there-and, I apologize. I really think I am clear about my goals, finally. I am giving myself a year of writing full time to see if I 1) still enjoy it, and 2) am getting anywhere near feeling like what I write is worth reading. If, at the end of the year, I am not enjoying writing fiction, then I will probably return to blogging on Desire to Heal.

During the next year, I will continue to come around and visit your blogs as much as I can. Most likely I will also keep a personal blog where I can post about my progress, miscellaneous thoughts, gluten free recipes and whatever subjects I feel the desire to write about. I will do this at a separate blog from Desire to Heal. I have a blog that I began ages ago but it never went anywhere. It is http://tcstaples.blogspot.com. This is where you will most likely find me. I am also on Facebook here. I have not been on Twitter for the last few months and may not return. It is such fun but also takes so much time! And, I will stay in touch through Survivor Network for those of you on that site.

Blogging about my healing process has been immensely helpful on my road to feeling whole. Each one of you that made me feel welcome and offered support has had a part in my healing and feeling strong enough to go for my dream of writing fiction. Thank you for that! You are welcome to email me direct at any time.

All my best,
Tamara

Therefore, I am going to take a hiatus from blogging and posting on the Survivor Network. I hope to spend the time meditating, doing yoga, working in the yard, painting, cooking and just kind of going inwards for a couple of months. My plan is to return around the first of August, sooner if I feel ready.

Thank you all for the wonderful support, understanding and encouragement you have given me. I am very excited that you have been enjoying the chakra posts and I will continue with those as soon as I return. In the meantime, I would encourage you to pick up a book or two and read more. I am finding it to be a fascinating way to better understand myself.

If anyone wants to get in touch with me, you are welcome to fill out the contact form on this site or email me at desiretoheal (at) gmail (dot) com. I am more than happy to correspond with you this way but I will not be writing on this site or at the Network for the next couple of months.

I hope that you all have a wonderful summer. I am looking forward to coming back rested and ready to catch up with everyone and get back to blogging with my previous enthusiasm.

While the first chakra was about the body and grounding, the second is more fluid. Water is added to the hard earth of the first chakra. Also, this chakra expands our consciousness from a feeling of unity with the tribe to a realization of our differences.

Sonia Choquette says this chakra is about balanced vitality. Emotional and sensual well being resides here. In the sacral chakra, our spirit is invited into the earthly experience through emotion, desire, sexuality, sensuality, feeling and pleasure.

The second chakra vibrates energetically to the color orange. This chakra is activated after birth as our energy moves from our foundation up the spinal cord and entices us to experience the joy of being alive. This is the seat of creativity where we can experience the childlike wonder and excitement of the universe and see the world as a magical place.

The mission of the second chakra is I feel, I sense, I discover. It is here we begin to explore what being human is all about. When this chakra is balanced we have a healthy enthusiasm for being alive. We feel good in our own skin.

Blockages of this chakra can begin during puberty when taboos and restrictions relating to sexuality begin to effect the child. This is when and why the childlike innocence and wonder is lost. Obviously any kind of sexual abuse or rape would severely block and imbalance this chakra.

This chakra governs the ovaries, testicles, womb, kidney, bladder and circulatory system.

When this chakra is unbalanced we can suffer mental or emotional issues such as blame, guilt, difficulties with power and control, lack of creativity and money issues. Physically we can suffer impotence, frigidity, uterine, bladder or kidney trouble, chronic low back pain, sciatica or gynecological problems from an out of balance sacral chakra.

If imbalanced we may also avoid, control or ignore our feelings or — even worse — disconnect from our sensuality altogether so that we are “living in our head.” We may lose touch with, or ignore, what our body tells us, neglecting to take care of it, pushing beyond its limits and refusing to nurture or be kind to it in any way. Self-denial, rejection and deprivation could begin to overshadow our life causing a loss of spontaneity, pleasure and joy. We may have a difficult time appreciating any sweetness in life. The Sanskrit name Svadisthana comes from the root svad meaning to sweeten.

Other physical symptoms of a seriously imbalanced second chakra could include anorexia, bulimia, addictions, sexual dysfunction and depression.

Activities to balance this chakra include:

Watching a romantic movie
Listening to sensuous music
Set the dinner table with best dishes, candles, etc.
Enjoy a decadent piece of chocolate
Buy a new perfume or aftershave
Take a bubble bath by candlelight with a favorite essential oil
Watch the sunrise or sunset
Roast marshmallows in the fireplace
Visit an amusement park or outdoor concert
Go to the theater
Get a manicure and pedicure
Get a massage
Take a walk in the rain
Have a potluck dinner with friends
Visit a botanical garden
Buy and arrange some fresh flowers
Use neroli or patchouli essential oils
Buy new bed linens
Eat favorite foods
Surround self with favorite colors
Bake bread or work with other food that can use our hands to create
Eat finger foods
Bring nature indoors

More on this chakra in the next post.

Besides the enormous amount of pain being distracting and making me not want to move, I am spending ridiculous amounts of time visiting the chiropractor and massage therapist, applying heat and ice, stretching, exercising and doing relaxing visualizations. Each time I think that maybe I am getting on top of it, the pain intensifies again. I am doing my best not to become frustrated since that would be counterproductive, for sure.

All else is going quite well. My intense grief over losing Wyatt has lessened. Simi (our new puppy) is beginning to settle down and not be quite the wild woman she was a few weeks ago. She is still sassy and full of spunk which is fun and makes us laugh. Jesse (our 8 year old dog) is warming to Simi more each day after a very rocky beginning. Thank goodness!

If I can just get rid of my (literal) pain in the neck, maybe life could return to normal again! The good news is that I have now read so much on chakras that when I am able to begin posting again I should have lots and lots to share.

Thank you to all who have expressed concern about my disappearing act. I hope you can hang in there a bit longer and I will do my best to get some new posts up as soon as I can.

All my best,
Tamara

The 1st or root chakra is formed during the second trimester of pregnancy up until the age of 12 months.  When this chakra is damaged it can effect our ability to ground into our physical bodies.  Feeling disconnected from our physical bodies (ungrounded) causes us to feel disconnected from life, from the world and from our own inner truth (dissociative state).  Without a strongly rooted foundation, little else can be accomplished.

Traumas and abuses that can effect the formation of the root chakra include:  birth trauma, abandonment or physical neglect, poor physical bonding with mother, physical abuse or violent environment, poverty and malnourishment or trauma around food and eating.

The instinct to survive is the “program” underlying consciousness that forms our foundation.  When all is well this program runs in the background and we are not aware of it.  However, when frequent trauma or abuse damages our root chakra, our consciousness becomes fixated at this level of “survival instinct.”  The body is kept in an overstimulated state and is flooded with stress hormones that cause the instinctual fight or flight response.  This results in our feeling restless, tense, anxious, unable to sleep deeply and, overtime, causes our health to break down as in PTSD.  Health problems that can eventually result are high blood pressure, heart trouble, stomach or digestive issues, immune system depletion, weak adrenal glands, insomnia and chronic fatigue.

The constant fear of trauma and abuse brings our attention upward to the chakras of perception and mental activity.  We are no longer grounded in our bodies and rather than listen to our bodies from within, we search outside for others to tell us what and when to eat, how much to sleep, who to love, etc.  Eating disorders are often a 1st chakra manifestation.  We can either try to ground ourselves more solidly by overeating or fail to eat enough in an effort to disappear or because we do not feel we have a right to be here.  If part of the abuse was trauma around food or anger at the dinner table the possibility of eating disorders developing increases.

A traumatic or abusive childhood can result in the root chakra working either excessively or deficiently.  In a state of deficiency the symptoms include:  disconnection from the body, being underweight, emotions of fear, anxiety and inability to settle down, poor focus and discipline, financial difficulties, poor boundaries and chronic disorganization.

An excessive root chakra includes the following symptoms:  obesity or overeating, hoarding, material fixation or greed, being sluggish, lazy or tired, fear of change or addiction to security and rigid boundaries.

A healthy root chakra is associated with safety, security and solidity.  In order to correct damage done to the first chakra from an abusive childhood we must learn to ground ourselves as adults.  Being energetically grounded is crucial to our basic well being.

Personally, I spent many years in therapy with excellent therapists.  Certainly I made much progress towards healing.  However, it was not until I began working with a therapist that understood the need for me to come more fully into my body that I could truly heal.  When I would be spinning off into one emotion or another, she would bring me back with the question, “where do you feel it in your body?”.   Over time I was able to become more grounded and therefore more emotionally and physically healthy.

Healing strategies for a damaged root chakra include finding ways to reconnect with our bodies through massage, grounding meditations of visualizations, spending time in nature, yoga or other movement exercises and dancing.  It is about reclaiming our right to be here.

The following affirmations may be helpful:

- It is safe for me to be here.
- The earth supports me and meets my needs.
- I love my body and trust its wisdom.
- I have abundance in my life.
- I am here and I am real.

Most of the above information was taken from the book “Eastern Body, Western Mind:  Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self” by Anodea Judith.  It is a fantastic book and includes much, much more information than I was able to include in this post.  As we go through the chakras, I will be doing a post regarding trauma and abuse and how it effects each individual chakra.

Onward, ho!  (This series of posts about the seven chakras begins here)

The first, or root, chakra is about balanced foundation, life force and personal power. It is also our connection to our family, community, ethnic group and any other groups, clubs or organizations we might belong to and relate to.  It is also about feeling like we have all we need to survive including food, shelter, warmth, security and safety.

Questions you might ask yourself about your own foundation are:

1)  Do you feel you have all that you need?
2)  Do you feel safe and secure?
3)  Do you feel grounded?
4)  Do you experience anxiety and fear in your life?

Several things can lead to feeling unbalanced in the first chakra. From your past this includes your family environment at your birth and when you were young.  A loving home with stable, reliable parents and caretakers that provided you with what you needed as a child can lead to a very solid and grounded first chakra.  However, a stressful, chaotic or abusive home where you were not provided basic essentials of food, security, safety, love and attention can seriously weaken your first chakra.  Also, in childhood, if you were exposed to anger, threatening or untrustworthy people or moving often causing a change in schools and friends would lead to an unsettled environment and an unbalanced root chakra.

1)  What was your childhood home environment like?
2)  What is the nature of your relationship with your family and friends?
3)  Were you constantly moving or jumping from one school to another?
4)  Did you feel safe as a child and that you were well provided for?
5)  Was your home life peaceful when you were growing up or was there a lot of fighting and arguing?

Present day conditions that could unbalance your root chakra include losing or changing jobs, not having a job or reliable source of money, working with people that you do not like or connect with, getting married, divorced, ending a relationship, moving, fighting or arguing, becoming ill or experiencing the sudden illness or death of someone you love.  To stay balanced we need a life that is stable, familiar, predictable, safe and secure.  I think that at this point in time with the war continuing, the economic picture becoming so bleak, so many people losing their jobs and their homes that the country as a whole is suffering from some level of unbalanced foundation or first chakra.

1)  Do you feel safe in your home?
2)  Do you have a job where you like your work and those who you work with?
3)  Do you like your boss?
4)  Do you feel secure that you can afford what you need and can pay your bills?
5)  Does your life feel stable and predictable?

Because life cannot always be counted on to provide the perfect environment for a balanced root chakra, it becomes important that you find ways to stay internally balanced when externally things are shifting and changing.  It is good to know what calms your spirit, soothes your soul and makes you feel nurtured, safe and secure.  You can help yourself by keeping some amount of ritual and routine in your life, eating healthfully and regularly, getting plenty of restful sleep and exercising.  A nice way to help balance your foundation is to bring life into the house in the form of pets or plants.  Working with plants has the added benefit of getting your hands into the earth which is enormously grounding.  I even find that chores such as cleaning and organizing my house, cooking or doing laundry can ground me as quickly as anything else.

Caroline Myss has an amazing way of looking at the chakra system and relating its being unbalanced to illness in our body.  She talks about how we leak energy (of which we are given a certain amount each day to function in our lives) into our unresolved issues from childhood, problems in present day with our relationships, jobs, finances, or our fears about the future.  When we leak out enough of our daily energy that we go into energy debt then the energy needed to run our lives is pulled from our cellular tissue.  Thus, illness ensues.  The type of illness depends on where we are leaking energy and which chakra is affected and which parts of the body the affected chakra governs.  I find it too much information to explain it all here but she has an excellent series of videos (each approximately 10 minutes) on YouTube.  I have found them fascinating and very informative.  An added benefit is that she is an excellent teacher with a dry sense of humor that I really enjoy.

The links for the videos are:
Volume 1 (1 of 10) - An Introduction
Volume 1 (2 of 10) - She begins to explain how she reads the chakras and energy leakage
Volume 1 (3 of 10) - A continuation of the previous and she begins to discuss the First Chakra
Volume 1 (4 of 10) - More about the First Chakra
Volume 1 (5 of 10) - She finalized the First Chakra and Begins to move onto the Second

I hope that you find these videos as helpful and enjoyable as I have.

It was too much information to address here but if you have any interest in the chakras and Kundalini then you might enjoy the book “Wheels of Light; Chakras, Auras and the Healing Energy of the Body” by Rosalyn L. Bruyere.  I have not finished reading the entire book but what I have read about the first chakra and the Kundalini energy was quite informative.

The first chakra, or base chakra, has the Sanskrit name:  Muladhara.  It means root or support.  It vibrates energetically to the color red.  Physically it has to do with legs, feet, bones, large intestines, lower back and the immune system.  This chakra is about grounding.  Our ability to ground ourselves keeps us stable and involves the lower chakras opening and merging with gravity so that we can feel ourselves as part of an integrated flow of energy.

What we need day to day in order to survive is the focus of the first chakra.  A balanced first chakra allows us to feel secure that the Universe will provide for us.  This chakra governs our desire to eat, have warmth, shelter and comfort and security.

An imbalanced, or weak, first chakra can lead to feeling anxious, insecure, like your sense of safety and support are threatened.  This can lead to a reactionary me, me attitude  or greediness and insensitivity to others.

According to Caroline Myss, in her book “Anatomy of the Spirit”, the first chakra is about tribal power.  This tribe can be our family or our country or a ethnic group we belong to.  It is our group identity and group pattern of beliefs.  Tribal chakra represents our connection to both positive and negative group experiences.

Some ideas to begin balancing the first chakra include; cooking (the act of lovingly preparing food is very healing), gardening (it is very grounding to get your hands into the soil), feel your feet on the floor or walk barefoot in the grass, dance to bring your energy out of your head and into your body, make sure your bed is comfortable so that you feel well supported when you sleep and you wake rested and relaxed.

You could also; wear the color red, go on a picnic, eat root vegetables, join a church, get a massage or take a hot bath.  You might try the following essential oils to wear as a scent, add to a massage oil or bath water or to scent the room:  vetiver, angelica, cypress, rock rose or ginger.

Some wonderful books to learn about chakras include:

“True Balance” by Sonia Choquette
“Wheels of Life” by Anodea Judith
“Anatomy of the Spirit” by Caroline Myss

Also, You Tube has some very informative and interesting videos by Caroline Myss.  This one is a good introduction.

In this post I wanted to introduce you to the first chakra and give you some balancing ideas.  The next post, I will delve more deeply into what unbalances the first chakra and the ramifications of that.

The heart chakra is so important because it is the link between the lower three chakras dealing with the body and ego and the upper three chakras that deal with the spirit or divine self.  It is this chakra that allows us to feel compassion, forgiveness, understanding, empathy, joy, affection, warmth and love.

By having my heart chakra closed and out of balance I have felt like I have nothing to give to the world.  I have felt isolated and alone and unable to offer nurturing to others.  Therefore, I decided to do a short post about the heart chakra and include a meditation that would hopefully be beneficial to anyone else experiencing a closed or out of balance heart chakra.  After this, I will go back to the first chakra and proceed in order.  In the fourth week I will provide more complete information regarding the fourth (heart) chakra.

A few things you might try to help balance and nurture your heart chakra are:  give someone a hug or ask someone to give you a hug, read an uplifting book or watch a “feel good” movie, have a loving chat with a best friend, spend time in nature, bring some beautiful flowers into your home, massage rose essential oil over your heart area or soak in a bath with your favorite bath salts.

This is the time to really nurture and care for yourself and try to maintain positive, loving thoughts towards yourself and others.  Create a list of activities that make you feel good or bring you peace and joy and then do something from the list.  Maybe eat comfort foods like beef stew, chicken and dumplings or whatever warm, grounding foods you desire.  Treat yourself gently and with the love that you deserve.

Hopefully this short (about 8 minutes) meditation/visualization will help you feel more balanced in your heart.  You might also want to put on some of your favorite music and dance around the room.  Anything that can bring a bit more joy into your life can help you feel more balanced.  (I welcome any comments or feedback regarding the visualization.  It is the first time I have ever recorded or posted an audio file on my site).

I realize that this is a very brief post but I felt like I needed some “heart” work before I could proceed.  Again, I will provide more information about the heart chakra in the posts during the fourth week.

Namaste.

In an effort to recharge, I decided that I need to spend some time taking care of myself.  An excellent place to begin is with making sure that my chakras are all balanced.  Therefore, I am going to work on one chakra per week for the next seven weeks.  I will begin with the 1st or base chakra and work up to number 7.  I thought I might take you along for the ride and explain each week what each chakra does and give some balancing ideas.

Hopefully you will find this helpful in bringing yourself into a more balanced and centered place.  At the end of the 7 weeks I hope to have regained my energy and I will return to writing about healing from abuse.  But, really, this is part of the healing process.  Learning when you are out of balance and finding ways to come back into alignment, or center yourself, is excellent for your own healing.  It is so important to be empowered enough to find ways to care for yourself when you are not feeling quite right.

For those of you unfamiliar with chakras, let me explain a bit about what they are and their function.  The chakras are your spiritual energy centers.  This is more an eastern belief.  Here in the west, with our logical thinking, talk of these spiritual energy centers may sound a little strange.  My experience has been that they are very real and balancing and aligning chakras can help bring the whole body, mind and spirit into balance.

The word chakra is a sanskrit word meaning wheel or disk.  According to traditional Indian medicine, chakras are believed to exist in the surface of the etheric (non-physical) body.  The Chakras are said to be “force centers” of energy.  These spinning wheels or disks are considered the focal points for the reception and transmission of energies.  There are seven major chakras or energy centers (also understood as wheels of light) each having a different function.

According to Sonia Choquette, in her book “True Balance”, the chakras have the following functions.  (I will explain each in more depth in the following weeks).

Chakra One - Foundation (Personal Power and Well Being)

Chakra Two - Vitality (Emotional and Sensual Well Being)

Chakra Three - Sovereignty (Domain of Your Inner Child)

Chakra Four - Heart (Domain of Human Intimacy)

Chakra Five - Expression (Personal Expression and Messenger of Your Spirit)

Chakra Six - Personal Vision (Ability to Think, Analyze, Dream, Imagine and Visualize)

Chakra Seven - Your Crowning Glory (Center of Your Highest Spiritual Consciousness)

This is just a very brief overview.  The chakras and what they do are much more complex than this and it is fascinating to study them and how they affect us when they are either balanced or not.  Even if chakras are not “your thing” the information that I will be sharing each week to bring them into balance will include practical ways of soothing and taking care of yourself so that you can feel re-energized and more grounded and centered.

I hope that you will join me in this seven week series of blog posts and share your experiences and thoughts in the comments section.  If you prefer, you can use the contact form to send me a more private message.   I am by no means an expert on chakras so I welcome any input, ideas, advice or healing/balancing tips that you might have to share.

Namaste (the light within me honors the light within you).

I will respond to comments and be back to blogging in a few days.  I thank you all for your comments, support and understanding.