Root Chakra: Can't Relax, Even When the Kids Are Asleep?

The kids are finally asleep. The house is quiet. Nothing is wrong.

And you're on the couch with your shoulders up around your ears, listening for the next thing.

If that's you, your body is still on duty. This post is about how to tell it the shift is over.

I'm a holistic counsellor. Helping people settle is a fair chunk of my job. And for the first couple of months after I moved out of my home, I was scared nearly all the time.

Not scared of anything in the room. Just scared. I felt like I was living above myself, watching a woman who looked a lot like me pack the bags and answer the messages. I was pretending to be okay, pretending to be this version of myself, and it was exhausting. The masking was exhausting.

I did what most of us do. I tried to think my way out. I told myself I was safe. I listed the reasons. My body didn't believe a word of it.

I had it backwards. I thought safety was something you decide in your head. It isn't.

Safety is something your body has to feel. You can't talk an alarm into switching off. You have to show it.

How I found the way in

I've loved meditation for a long time, but I hadn't done it for a couple of years. I went looking for a healthier way to deal with what I was feeling, and stumbled across a chakra meditation built on sound. You hum a different vowel sound for each chakra.

It was one of the first things that made my body respond alongside my brain. As I hummed, I could genuinely feel that part of my body moving. After a long time away from my body, that was exciting. It was the first time in months I'd been in the room with myself.

So what is a chakra, actually?

One innocent doomscroll will tell you that chakras are ancient wisdom, pure nonsense, definitely proven, absolutely fake, the secret to manifesting a car, and the reason your ex sucked.

The way I work with them is simple. Chakras are an inner map of how energy moves through you. There are seven main ones, running from the base of your spine to the crown of your head. Each one links to a part of your body and a theme in your life.

You don't have to believe in chakras for the map to be useful.

Here's the honest version of the evidence. The idea comes from ancient Hindu texts, the Vedas and the Tantras. The seven main chakras sit roughly where the body has major nerve bundles and hormone glands. And millions of people report the same sorts of sensations when they work with them: warmth, tingling, a sense of something letting go.

People have tried to prove chakras with gadgets, like Kirlian photography. When scientists look at those photos, they see moisture and heat. Medical science hasn't validated any chakra detector, and I won't pretend it has.

You're allowed to be curious and grounded at the same time.

The Root

The Root chakra sits at the base of your spine and runs down through your legs and feet. It's the part of you that cares about very practical things: food, shelter, money, belonging, and whether it's safe to be here at all.

It's linked with the first year of life, when someone else met every one of your needs. If that went well enough, your body learned: I'm held. I'm allowed to be here. If it didn't, or if life has pulled the floor out since, your Root can sit on high alert for years.

On high alert it looks like constant worry, clinging to routines, and trying to control everything because relaxing doesn't feel safe. Run flat, it looks like feeling spaced out, tired to the bone, and unable to do the basics for yourself. Plenty of us swing between the two. All systems go, then total collapse.

That isn't a fault in you. It means your inner security system has been working overtime for a very long time.

Do this with me now

Put both feet flat on the floor. Shoes off if you can.

Press down through your heels, as if you're trying to leave footprints.

Breathe in through your nose. On the way out, hum. As low as your voice will go, for as long as the breath lasts.

Do it three times. Notice where you feel the buzz. Notice whether your shoulders have dropped.

That's it. That's you telling your body where the ground is.

Tonight, pick one

Root work is very ordinary. That's the point.

• Eat dinner sitting down. Your dinner, on a plate, not the crusts off theirs.

• Feet on the ground. Two minutes barefoot on the grass or the cold kitchen floor.

• Tend one corner. Make one small spot of the house feel looked after. Not the whole house.

• Message one safe person. You don't need to say anything deep. "Thinking of you" counts.

• Hum in the shower. Low and long. Nobody's listening.

What I can and can't promise

I can't show you a scan of my Root chakra. What I can tell you is that the humming was the first thing my body answered to, when all the sensible self-talk had bounced straight off. I stopped living above myself, a few minutes at a time.

"I'm not really a chakra person"

Fair enough. Maybe it sits in the same mental folder as crystal memes and that family friend who always has something to say about Mercury retrograde. Maybe you grew up in a faith that taught you chakras belong to someone else's belief system.

You can keep your faith, keep your critical thinking switched on, and still notice what happens in your own body when you put your feet on the floor and hum. Call it a map. Call it nothing at all. Your shoulders will drop either way.

You're allowed to exist. You're allowed to take up space. And you're allowed to clock off once the kids are asleep.

If 5pm is your hardest hour, I've made a free guide for exactly that time of day. Sanity at Sundown: 7 Ways to Stop the Sundown Meltdown is seven small practices you can do with your kids right there. Get it here.

Next in this series: the Sacral chakra, and why wanting something for yourself feels wrong.

Anna writes from Yabberup, in the South West of Western Australia, where she lives with her daughter, the horses and the rest of the animals.

If today is more than a hard day, Lifeline is on 13 11 14, any time.