About the Shadow

FEAR

Fear is the Shadow of the Root chakra. It deals with our primal fears surrounding survival.  Some examples include fear around our health and physical body, fear around death, fear around being able to take care of ourselves financially, fear around loss of job or home, fear of not belonging to a tribe and having to do everything on our own, fear of not having enough and fear of not having our needs met. 

The main goal of the root chakra is survival.  When our survival is threatened, we feel fear.  Fear brings us into the present moment and dominates all of our energy to help us survive.  The body release chemicals that energize it and move it into action (adrenaline).  This can be very helpful if we are being chased by a bear. But if we are constantly in a state of fear when there is no threat, this is taxing on the body and especially our adrenal glands.

If we grow up in an environment that isn’t safe then this fearful state becomes the foundation for our program for survival. We can’t relax and the nervous system is constantly on high alert.  It is constantly looking for signs of danger at all times.  This is hard on our system and all of our energy becomes focused on survival and can’t be used for the other chakras.  This makes it harder to experience pleasure, love, connection, enlightenment. 

Even if we grew up in a safe household, most of us are still having fear responses in our bodies constantly,  due to modern technology.   Our nervous systems are so sensitive and fine tuned.  They are constantly on the look out for signs of danger.  In cave people times, being able to tune into a leaf rustling in the distance could mean the difference between life and death.  These days we are being bombarded by stimuli constantly.   Our bodies weren’t designed for the amount of bells, lights, dings and notifications we are constantly receiving.  Even though we know we are safe when our phone rings, our nervous system is still alerted.  Our nervous systems are constantly overworked and overactive.  This is why we have so many auto immune diseases these days.  We are constantly in fight or flight and our immune system can’t stop so it begins attacking itself.  This is why it is so important to recalibrate in nature and return to slow Earth pace as often as possible.