Episode 15
[00:00:00] So many women are trying to heal their confidence, open their intuition, manifest abundance, get clarity, while their nervous system is quietly panicking in survival mode.
I'm Nicki Kuurman. Welcome to the Practical Mystic Podcast, where universal wisdom meets modern life.
This week I'm going to talk about the base chakra, and how it's often talked about as the grounding point, and in some ways, it is, but it's also so much more than that. The base chakra is actually about our stability and our safety in the world, and it's directly correlated to our nervous system. Our fight, flight, freeze, fawn responses.
Our energy in general is governed by the foundation of [00:01:00] the base chakra. You cannot build a solid building on a wobbly foundation; sometimes it takes a little while for that to recalibrate, particularly after a big shock or a massive change of circumstances in your life. If you have an accident or a trauma, and it doesn't even always have to be a big trauma; it can just be a little bump, but let's start with an example of a car accident.
You have this massive physical shift because you've had a physical shock. And so, the nervous system is like rattled, and it goes, "Oh, hang on a minute. What do we do now?" And as you would know, if you've had a shock like that, after the adrenaline settles down and the emotions are cleared and any physical damage is repaired, it can take some [00:02:00] time, from days to weeks to months, depending on the severity and how well you coped with it in the aftermath.
I know I was involved in a car accident, mm, maybe 25 years ago, and I still drive through that intersection braced because my body remembers what happened on that day. Now, I've driven that intersection thousands of times since then, but every single time I can feel my body brace because of the unresolved emotional impact of that incident.
And I've done lots of work on it, and it doesn't stop me from driving anymore. But for a very long time afterwards, I couldn't drive without being very panicked. So, the base chakra covers our need for food, water, shelter, financial stability, emotional stability, everything. The foundation [00:03:00] of your life. Now, if one area of that has a wobble, it's going to affect all the other areas in that foundational experience.
You know, if you feel financial stress, that it's actually affecting you emotionally and mentally as well. You know that if you've got a physical problem going on, pain or recovering from an illness, that that is also affecting other areas of your life: relationships, money, emotion, et cetera. So, this foundational piece, the base chakra, is the most foundational aspect of spirituality and self-care and self-awareness.
Because when we truly tap back into our body and lay a solid foundation, we can recover from things so much quicker. [00:04:00]
When you meet a challenge, the base chakra gets blown, so the foundations go, and then the sacral chakra has to try to stabilise your system for you. Your heart will close, your throat will close
And just like a blocked drain, if all of these are closed, nothing's getting through, and our energy can be staying in our head, causing anxiety, overthinking, and that leads to a lack of clarity and safety again. And so, we loop between feeling safe, feeling okay, everything's good.
Oh, there's a bump. And then we have to reboot the system
We know that meditation, coming back to yourself, exercise, breathwork, they are all tools to help you come back into yourself to bring alignment and stability to your base chakra. We [00:05:00] know this.
There's no doubt. We know what to do. So why aren't we doing it?
When the base is out and everything feels uncertain, we have been taught to trust the mind to try to figure this out Our mind can only know what it already knows until it gets a new piece of information. Now, when you're in a state of shock, when you're in a state of freeze, when your body is not in alignment, you cannot take on new information as easily, and also what information are you discerning?
If you can't discern if something feels right for you because your heart is blocked, how do you know?
If you can't talk about it with somebody and you can't explain it to [00:06:00] somebody, is it really true for you? How do you know? We need the information to be received at all levels in order for us to feel safe and take a step towards it
when people are depressed. They feel like they have explored every option to pull themselves out of that. They feel like they're in a deep well, and nothing is going to bring any light to their situation. The foundation is blown. There's nothing to grab hold of. And they can't find the light at the end of the tunnel
When you're trying to manifest abundance, but you have a core belief that you don't have enough, that you have a money block, no matter [00:07:00] how much manifesting you are trying to do, you're doing it from a place of lack.
And what's going to show up? More lack You have to go back to basics. You have to use your basic principles of food, water, exercise, breath, meditation
You cannot breathe out and be anxious at the same time You cannot have enough energy to power through difficult situation if your body isn't well-nourished Your brain cannot work if you don't have enough water
When you come back and return to yourself through a moment of pause, breath, meditation, you're turning off your mind and the chatter and the noise to open up your other [00:08:00] energy centres to receive information on other levels. Because if you knew the answer, you would have done something differently by now.
When your base is out, you're scrambling for connection and security and the truth and the next answer but you can't hear it or act on it clearly until you pause, come back into centre, and sit within the discomfort of this instability for a moment and choose your next foundational version of yourself
We can get rocked in our foundation many, many times a day, especially when we're going through something s stressful. And each time we have a new knock we have to be able to quickly come back to a foundation of safety within ourselves. When you have a massive physical change in your foundation, [00:09:00] like moving country, divorce, um, end of a relationship or, even becoming a parent can change your foundation.
It's not the same as it was yesterday. And when we try to keep recreating the old foundation, we get disappointed because the situation is so different now. For example, in a divorce, you can't create exactly the same foundation as you had prior to the divorce when you're alone, rebuilding your life, perhaps financially rebuilding your life, sometimes being a single parent.
Everything in that dynamic has changed, and it's going to take some time and practice and trusting yourself to find a new foundation that works for you now. But the principles of who am I? What's important to [00:10:00] me? What are my key values? They are your truth, and they're going to help you build a foundation far more quickly.
Some of the ways in which a blown base shows up with financial instability, is that you might be feel like you're doing okay but there's a constant low-level fear around not having enough or I can't do XYZ until I have a certain amount of money. And you're constantly dysregulating your safety and stability with these thought loops of there isn't enough.
It's like eroding the sands in your foundation because you're constantly doubting yourself. That fear of losing everything creates an overworking sense of safety and [00:11:00] stability. It has to be on overdrive. Am I safe? Am I safe?
Have I got enough money now? It's the constant checking the bank account. It's the constant need for perhaps looking at shares or the stock market. It's this obsessive- looking for answers outside of yourself to see if you're safe enough, we know that money is energy in motion, that it is a means of transference of energy from one thing to another. It's like a bridge. Cash is just an easy method of transaction
So, if you're constantly in fear that what you desire isn't here yet, you're constantly going to undermine your foundation of I have enough, because your mind is fixated on this thing that you want. Now, we can use that to manifest beautifully by focusing on the thing that we want, but unconsciously, most of us are focusing on the lack and [00:12:00] not what it is that we desire
This scarcity conditioning of our society, of having to fight and scramble to the top, and all the lies that we've been told about there not being enough of things in the world, is it true?
Or are you just tapped into the universal scarcity consciousness that many powers that be would love you to have? The other thing that many people search for is certainty. And so, they look to the past because they know that that's certain. That happened, that exists, so that's certain. We can argue that to a bull in the face, but if you're certain of something, you're going to recreate something that already exists Now, are you recreating it because you want it, or are you recreating it because it feels [00:13:00] comfortable?
I see this a lot in relationships. People come to me; they've got out of a terrible relationship only to go onto the next partner who is just version 2.0. They didn't do any healing or recovery or look at the pattern clearly enough of what wasn't working in the last re- relationship before they go and choose same, same, but different.
We can intellectualize it and go, "I want someone completely different." But the next person who is similar to your pattern walks in, you'll feel this sense of comfortability. "Ah, this feels good. I know this feeling. This is comfortable. This must be the one." And you get a little way down the track and you're like, "Ah, hang on a minute.
These are the old patterns coming back up." That is certainty playing out again [00:14:00] in your reality. It's not a certainty of something that you want. It was a certainty of something you didn't want, but it still stayed in your reality We need a certain amount of certainty to feel safe. In order to get up in the morning, repeat the things that we normally do to feel like we've got a home and family and relationships in our life.
We also need a certain amount of uncertainty. We need to look forward to things. We need anticipation. We need excitement and joy and creativity and curiosity and wonder. They come from uncertainty They are a higher vibration. They lift up through your energy centres, not down. And so, while we are needing certainty before we can relax [00:15:00] I want you to question that in yourself.
Do I need certainty before I relax? Because how certain am I of the certainty? Was it truly working for me? Or can I just sit in this moment of now and be happy and content, grateful, and optimistic of who I am in this moment and moving forward? Because that is your truth. That is your core foundation, not how much money you have in the bank
But who you are at your core, trusting Your ability to have your needs met. Trusting your ability to feed yourself, provide shelter, find water, have relationships
If you're not feeling certain in those areas, that's a lack of [00:16:00] trust with yourself, and that means more coming in, more meditation, more getting to know yourself Knowing your values, your purpose, your worth
People pleasing arises from an instability in our base chakra. We're not safe unless everyone around us is okay It's not safe to have my needs voiced because of the reaction I'm anticipating from somebody
Hypervigilance arises when we don't feel a sense of certainty and we're on the lookout for the next fearful pattern. Destroys the base Over control, over holding everything together [00:17:00] exactly the way it's always been Doesn't allow freedom and movement and flow. It's constricting and hard and confining.
You cannot manifest abundance from that space
It shows up physically in burnout, lack of sleep, poor nourishment, overstimulation, no rest between different cycles. Even not even celebrating the end of a cycle or the end of completion of something. It's like, "Ah, yeah, I've done that." Pause before you move on again, I think that's one of the, the things that we don't celebrate so much in Australia and other cultures do, is like the end of harvest, for example, and celebrating the End of a cycle.
When we've completed a project at work, celebrating, resting [00:18:00] for a few days before moving on to the next thing. I'm really guilty of this. It took me a long time, and I'm still not great at it, of pausing and completing before I start something new. All of those things build trust with us and what erodes the trust with ourselves is moving so fast our body can't keep up, our energy system can't keep up
Lots of people try to manifest by bypassing the base chakra. They try to manifest from the top, from their thoughts. They're only visualizing what they want. Nothing wrong with visualizing what you want, but it can create exhaustion and stress when it's only in the mental field When you want to manifest something, you have to be able to visualize it.
And when you can speak it and talk [00:19:00] about it, this is what I want, this is where I'm going, you're making a commitment to yourself. When you bring it to the heart, how do I want to feel about it? When you bring it into the solar plexus, what is my will? What are the decisions? What am I going to push through to?
What are, what steps am I going to take? And as it moves down through the sacral and you engage your personal power, you step out into the world and say, "This, this is what I'm going to manifest. This is what I'm creating. This is what I'm doing." And that comes when everything's in alignment. It doesn't just come from wishing A dysregulated base chakra does not mean you're failing or you're broken or that you're in a low vibration.
It means that you've got some work to do to feel whole and complete I think we all have moments of that Your system is [00:20:00] operating intelligently but it's also operating in instability
And you need to have compassion for your nervous system, that it's always trying to keep you safe. It's always doing the best thing it can for you and so if it's panicked when things are feeling wobbly, it's protecting you
When you're in pain, the body makes you pause. That's protecting you That's your ego, nervous system self-responding to the situation in its most natural form. But it does get jacked up on Red Bull, and you do need to bring it back into alignment and calm it down by reassuring yourself and building trust with yourself and your own [00:21:00] foundation again.
You're not seeking perfection here. You're not trying to keep yourself in such a blissful state of centeredness that nothing can shock you ever because you will not participate in very much You will actually create fear around trying new things because you don't want to upset that stability.
I want you to take courageous steps, but you can take even more courageous steps when you have a strong foundation to come back to. When you know yourself, it's much, much easier to take those big leaps forward. Creating small amounts of safety or small moments of safety in your day are a great way to rebuild the foundation if you're in a state of wobble.
Routine is probably the, the biggest one that we know of, right? Getting up at the same time every day, exercise, food, water, [00:22:00] rest, meditation, et cetera. Getting back into that habit of that simple routine is the first way that you can create trust and safety with yourself.
What do I need in terms of, say, financial stability? Do I want to work towards a certain amount of savings? Do I want to work to a certain amount of money coming in? Or whatever your financial goal might be. Little steps. How do I break it down? What do I need to feel safe right now? Because if you've got nothing in the bank and you need a million dollars, that's a huge step, right?
But do you need a million dollars today? Would be nice, right? You might go buy a lottery ticket. But however, what do I need right now? When you're in need, the universe will always provide. And as you start to trust yourself and your foundation, you'll see that [00:23:00] everything you need always comes to you
Nervous system steadiness is the next thing you need. Rest, time out, no avoiding, just some quiet time, even if that's breathing, meditation, gentle exercise. Support structures. Who are your support people? Who can you lean on? What can you lean into? What supports you? For some people, it's a, a practice like yoga or their exercise routine.
For some people, it might be their faith. It doesn't matter what it is. What is your support structure? What do you trust? What do you believe in? What can you lean on
The courage to have open conversations with those around you who do support you about how you're feeling and what's going on for you [00:24:00] and what you need. This is particularly hard for the people pleasers. They're not used to asking for help, and they're certainly not used to receiving support. They pride themselves on being the ones who can support others, but when they wobble, who supports them?
Sometimes you might need some boundaries with people if that's disturbing your peace
The rest It's the basics: food, water, breath, movement, meditation. Healing isn't always about ascending, getting more, gathering more in, gathering more wisdom, sometimes it's about turning in, turning down, focusing on the foundation, and letting that be your final exhale of the day, knowing that you are safe, and from that [00:25:00] safety, you can grow.
If you're going through a major life change or you're struggling to find your new foundation, please reach out and have an aligned conversation with me to see where I can help support you coming back into alignment with yourself, rebuilding your foundation, structuring your life, your presence, your choices, your consciousness
into an alliance that feels true for your body, mind, and spirit to flourish Thank you so much for being with me today. Please like and subscribe and follow on the channel or platform that you're watching or listening to this podcast on. Every follow means so much to me. I appreciate you being here. [00:26:00]
Until next time
