Inhabiting the Body: 1st Chakra Practices

"When we live in exile from our sensate reality of the body, we live in exile from the source of our aliveness. The only place that we can reconnect with this aliveness is in the body. Of course we all have bodies, yet few of us truly inhabit our bodies. We may live a short distance from the body divorced from our feelings, sensations, intuitions, and instincts. The body may seem like a foreign land that we have read about but never personally visited. And just as we may come to know a foreign land through the stories we've heard and the pictures we've seen, the actual reality of the place can never be known until we have walked, eaten smelled, touched, and been there ourselves. When we begin to live in the body again, we take of citizenship in our personal residence. In this way we come home to the body." -Donna Farhi

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The 1st chakra's access point is the physical body, and really, how cool is that? We've got everything we need right here in front of us, all we have to do is be present. And as I sit with that , I start to notice how hard that can be.

Some of the signs of a 1st chakra imbalance are being un-grounded in the body, living out of body or harshly criticizing or judging the body. As I began to do my own work with these lessons, I began to notice how often I was moving outside my own body. I would find myself comparing my body to others, wishing my body somehow looked different or when I was "in" my body, pushing it further than it needed to go. It was so refreshing to have this 1st chakra reminder to come back into my body and sit with those thoughts, feelings and judgements. While I certainly can't say that I've moved beyond it all, I can definitely say I have become more aware of how I inhabit my own body.
In my next post we'll be moving on to the 2nd chakra, but I feel like I've just begun my exploration of what the 1st chakra has to offer. The great opportunity here is the bridging between the chakras and as I develop a stronger more grounded 1st chakra, the more I support my 2nd chakra, and the rest of the way up the line. While the waters of the 2nd chakra are already calling my name, here are some final practices to ground into the 1st chakra:

Be Here Now
Each and every breath you take, be present in your body. As you come into a pose, notice those places that you check out. Where do you have blind spots in your practice? Where do you go numb? Are there places that you're not able to visualize in your mind's eye? Notice these places. Invite your awareness into these places and in particular, invite the breath. Use the breath to create space and to explore. The more you bring the breath, the easier it will be to be present.

Now start to notice the transitions you make between poses. Its easy to be present in Warrior II (well, most of the time...). But how present are you as you move from Downward Dog to Warrior II? Are you aware of how you step through? Are you fixing your clothes? Fixing your hair? Are you watching other practitioners? Make a commitment to notice your transitions, make the movement from pose to pose be the focus of your practice for a day. It relates to the idea that its easy to be centered and grounded on your yoga mat, but when you're in transition, driving in traffic from home to class, how grounded and centered are you then? Let it all be your practice!

Using Sound to Connect with Earth: The Schumann Resonance
Alex Theory created a series of CDs called Full Spectrum Soundhealing. The Earth CD in the series works with the Schumann Resonance (listen to a portion of it above). I used this CD for several of the classes, as the sounds he invokes in the Earth series, are grounding and connect us with the resonate power of the Earth. The Schumann Resonance can be thought of as the heartbeat of the Earth. When we bring ourselves into alignment with this sound,we come more into alignment with the energy of the Earth and therefore our own 1st chakras.