What To Do When Your Root Chakra Is Blocked

When your root chakra is blocked you don’t feel at home… anywhere. As the base chakra, it significantly impacts your sense of security in life. When this energy center is open and balanced you feel at home, stable, and able to take on life’s challenges. You have clear focus, a sense of purpose, and are always “present” in the moment. However, if this chakra is blocked, the security gives way to doubt, fear, and your emotional and physical well-being suffers.

Symptoms of Blockage in the Root Chakra

A blocked root chakra not only creates an imbalance in energy flow throughout the body, but it can also instigate feelings of restlessness. You may feel like you’re constantly searching for an elusive something that you can’t even identify.

Individuals with a blocked root chakra find it difficult to “settle down” with anything, including where they want to live and work. Even their personal relationships are impacted.

Characteristics common to those with a blocked root chakra are:

• lack of focus
• co-dependency
• restlessness
• feeling abandoned

In addition to the vagabond-like mentality a blocked root chakra creates, is the issue of the physical and emotional toll the blockage takes.

Common physical signs of blockage involve the lower parts of the body, especially legs and genital area. The root chakra primarily governs the reproductive organs and lower extremities, including the lower spine, legs, and feet. The chakra blockage will often replicate itself manifesting as constipation, kidney stones, circulatory issues, and leg weakness. Additional physical signs can include:

• sciatica
• hypertension
• impotence
• colitis
• eating disorders
• prostate issues in men

Common non-physical signs of blockage include:

• depression
• anxiety
• fearfulness
• guilt
• resentment

Solutions for opening a closed Root Chakra

Techniques for opening a blocked root chakra can range from physical activity to meditation and energy healing.

Any physical activity can help unblock this energy center, from walking to doing chores around the house, and even yoga and dancing. Beneficial yoga poses for the root chakra engage your legs and muscles around the perineum. For example, “Standing Forward Bend” (or “Uttanasana” in Sanskrit) stretches the legs and hips fostering a more stable grounding and opening of the root chakra. Remember, no matter which physical activity you chose, the key is to be present in the moment and aware of your movement.

Meditating on the root chakra can also open this energy center. There are numerous meditation resources available online.

Check out our healing tips for the root chakra or seek assistance from an energy healer to supplement your clearing efforts. 

What Others Say About Blockages In The Root Chakra

Here are selected quotes to shed light on what it means when imbalance takes place in this chakra.

When a young infant faces danger or neglect, it forces him to fall back on himself— an independence which is developmentally impossible. Instead the child falls into an intolerable pit of fear and helplessness— the experience of having no ground. When this happens, the downward current of energy is blocked. Instead, the life force moves toward the upper chakras, which feel safer. The upward movement then becomes habitual, depleting the lower chakras and sending the system out of balance.

Source: Judith, Anodea (2011). Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System As a Path to the Self. Potter/TenSpeed/Harmony.

The Mūlādhāra Chakra is the seat of the unconscious. It is like a dark, locked cellar whose hidden contents we have only a vague idea about. Perhaps there are precious stones, or perhaps poisonous scorpions or snakes. When a snake is sleeping, therefore in an unconscious state, it appears to be peaceful and harmless, but in a wakeful state it can be extremely menacing and dangerous. (…) One question that is often raised is whether it would be better to allow the unconscious to remain buried rather than to stir it up. The answer is that we can only attain freedom when everything that we have carried with us since the beginning of our existence is brought up into the light. Further spiritual development is only possible when everything we have amassed has been processed and purified, and all obstacles from the past removed; it is only when our vision is clear that we are able to recognize the path that will lead us towards realization.

Source: Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda (2012). The Hidden Power in Humans – Chakras and Kundalini.  International Sri Deep Madhavananda Ashram Fellowship.

Shop Chakras: