Today's Workout - Brought to You by My Root Chakra

Grounding With Your Root Chakra

A couple Fridays ago, I made a plan. Saturday, I was going to gett up, have coffee with Jim, then hit the gym.

I thought this was very adult of me. Taking care of my body.

Then I looked at the temperature outside. My plan was immediately cancelled. It was 18 degrees. I had no desire to go out into the cold. But I did want to take care of my body.

So instead, I rolled out my mat, pulled up an online class, and chose one focused on the root chakra. Which sounds very zen and intentional. And it was — right up until I was lying there thinking, wait, is this whole class secretly about my fear of falling, my weird relationship with money, and...my feet?

Apparently yes. All of the above.

The root chakra — called Muladhara in Hindu philosophy — is the energetic foundation of everything. It governs safety, stability, belonging, and feeling supported. Grounding. Home base.

The whole "do you actually trust that the ground beneath you will hold you?" situation. It's also, inconveniently, connected to your legs, hips, and lower back.

So when the instructor started with squats, it was less "spiritual awakening" and more "my body filing a formal complaint." Somewhere around the third squat my brain started doing that thing where it scans my life. How much water have I drank today, how can I incorporate more movement while I'm at work so I'm not just sitting behind a desk all day, and why on earth does my lower back feel like it hates me?

Nothing like a grounding practice to surface your unresolved stability issues.

But here's what I love about Hindu philosophy — it doesn't start at the top. It doesn't open with enlightenment or your highest self or transcendence. It starts with something much more humble.

Are you safe? Are you supported? Are you here?

The Muladhara is the foundation. And the teaching is simple: if the foundation is shaky, everything built on top of it will be too. You don't float upward before you're rooted downward. You don't open your heart if you don't feel safe enough to. You don't reach for meaning if you don't trust the ground.

At one point the instructor said, "Feel your feet rooted into the earth."

I tried. I spread my toes and wiggled my feet and somewhere in that repositioning, something shifted. I was grounded.

It's funny - grounding isn't glamorous. It's quiet. Nobody brags about getting grounded. There's no posts or reels saying "today I worked on feeling safe and stable and not like the floor might drop out from under me." But it's so important.

We spend so much time chasing growth, purpose, passion, the next level — and not enough time asking whether our foundation can actually hold the weight of all that reaching. Deep stuff, right?

By the end of the class, I wasn't transformed but I did feel a little steadier.

But spiritually speaking? I felt very well rooted.