dysfunctional families – Just the Tarot

Understanding the Root Chakra More Deeply: Safety, Survival, and the Foundations of Self

Exploring the causes of root chakra issues, the second in a three part series on Tarot and the root chakra.

In my previous post, “10 Tarot Cards That May Indicate a Blocked Root Chakra,” we explored how Tarot can reveal energetic patterns related to fear, insecurity, survival struggles, and grounding issues. Those are all first chakra issues.

So now, let’s look at the Root Chakra in a little more depth.

The Root Chakra, or Muladhara, is located at the base of the spine and is traditionally associated with the color red. It serves as the energetic foundation of the chakra system, governing our sense of safety, survival, stability, and belonging.

Its symbol is a four-petaled lotus, often interpreted as representing the four directions—north, south, east, and west—symbolizing our connection to the physical world and our grounded presence within it.

Its seed syllable, or bija mantra, is LAM, a sound traditionally used in meditation to strengthen and activate Root Chakra energy.

When balanced, this chakra allows us to feel safe in our bodies and secure in the world. When blocked, however, it can create profound ripple effects throughout every other area of life.

CHAKRAS AND DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

One of the most interesting things about chakra work is that it’s really a method of developmental psychology.

What do we mean by that?

Developmental psychology posits that there are certain, “goals,” that we have to achieve as we develop into complete human beings and achieving one goal helps us to achieve the next goal.

To use a really simple example that’s become a cliche’, we have to learn how to walk before we run. When we look at an infant, we can see that that’s literally true: the child’s body has to develop the muscular strength to walk before she can run.

In the same sense, the child has to learn to make sounds before he can make words and has to learn what words mean before he can make sentences. Each developmental step leads into the next.

The important point here is that if we don’t fully achieve the first step, it makes it more difficult to achieve the next step.

While all of that is going on with our physical bodies, there’s a similar development happening with our energetic bodies, i.e. the chakra system.

Each chakra actually develops at a particular phase of our lives and – if it doesn’t develop right – that causes problems in the next chakra, which causes problems in the next chakra, and so on.

LOWER CHAKRA DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES

Chakra One (Root Chakra)

Womb to 12 months

Develops our sense of safety, security, and trust in life.

Chakra Two (Sacral Chakra)

6 months to 2 years

Develops personal identity, emotional experience, and selfhood.

Chakra Three (Solar Plexus Chakra)

18 months to 3.5 years

Develops ego strength, confidence, and our ability to project ourselves into the world.

Chakra Four (Heart Chakra)

3.5 years to 7 years

Develops our ability to form loving, healthy relationships.

Here’s how that looks in the lower chakras:

So, if the first chakra doesn’t develop correctly, then we don’t feel safe in the world.

If we don’t feel safe in the world, then we’ll try to hide who we really are, so the second chakra won’t develop well.

If we try to hide who we really are, then we’ll never have the confidence to project ourselves into the world in a healthy way, so the third chakra won’t develop.

And if we don’t have a strong ego structure, then we can’t develop healthy relationships, so the fourth chakra becomes stunted.

Each step leads to the next, right?

FIRST CHAKRA ISSUES

In her powerful book: “Unblocked: A Revolutionary Approach to Tapping into Your Chakra Empowerment Energy to Reclaim Your Passion, Joy, and Confidence”, Margaret Lynch Raniere suggests that the Inner Child essentially lives within the Root Chakra.

This is a profound concept because it means the first chakra contains the earliest energetic blueprint for:

* Safety

* Security

* Trust

* Survival

* Worthiness of care

According to this model, Root Chakra healing often comes down to two essential early-life questions:

1. Did we feel safe?

2. Were our needs met?

The answers to these questions become deeply wired into both our nervous systems and our energetic systems.

“Just the Tarot,” by Dan Adair – Available on Amazon

DID WE FEEL SAFE?

That’s actually a fairly complex question. If we were born into extremely abusive or dysfunctional families, it’s fairly easy to surmise that we didn’t feel safe. If we were being slapped around or screamed at as a helpless infant, obviously we wouldn’t feel safe.

Remember, though, that the first chakra forms – not just in our first year – but also in the womb. During that period when we were gestating inside of our mother’s bodies, we were basically immersed in whatever chemicals and hormones SHE was feeling.

And so the second part of this question is, “Did our mothers feel safe?”

Because, for that period that we were in the womb, her nervous system was our nervous system.

For instance, if our family was going through a period of extreme stress during the time that we were gestating, we can reasonably conclude that our mothers were producing really high levels of cortisol and adrenaline in their bodies. If they were depressed, they may have had chronically low levels of serotonin. And so did we.

Put another way, if our mothers didn’t feel safe, then we didn’t feel safe.

Whatever they were feeling is the emotional set point that we had when we entered the world. If they were extremely anxious, then we were extremely anxious. If they were depressed, then we were depressed.

And we carry that forward into the rest of our lives. If we felt unsafe as infants, we’ll be in chronic low level fight or flight reactions as adults. We’ll be hyper-vigilant, always looking for the next threat.

We may be ungrounded and unfocused because it’s literally painful to be in our own bodies.

We may even be attracted to people who MAKE us feel unsafe as a way to validate our feelings.

WERE OUR NEEDS BEING MET?

As Raniere pointed out, we might think of the needs of an infant as a continuing series of irritations followed by being soothed.

In a healthy family, that runs like this:

Irritation: I’m hungry. Soothing: someone fed me.

Irritation: I’m cold. Soothing: someone covers me.

Irritation: I’m scared. Soothing: someone holds me.

That sets up a pattern in the nervous system whereby we feel that our needs will always be met. And if our needs are met, then we feel safe and secure in the world.

Now, again, we may think of an infant’s needs not being met in terms of the extremes of child neglect. If a child isn’t held and loved they can actually die from failure to thrive. But not having your needs met can exist over a broad spectrum.

We may, for instance, have good, loving parents who simply have too many kids. Raniere touches on this with the fact that she had 8 siblings who also needed to be taken care of by her parents.

As we were talking about in the preceding section, we may have had a mother who was suffering from deep depression or a physical illness and simply couldn’t provide the care that we needed.

And as Gabor Mate’ has pointed out, it’s possible that our parents adopted a child-rearing philosophy where they thought it was actually good for the infant to ignore her needs. If you just let the baby sit its crib and cry, they’ll learn patience, right?

Whatever the reasons, if our needs weren’t being met as infants, that sets up in our first chakra as the expectation that our needs won’t be met as adults.

We can drift into codependent relationships where we’re constantly over-giving in the hopes that our partners will at least meet some of our needs.

We can intentionally seek out partners who aren’t capable of meeting our needs in order to validate our expectations.

Even worse, we may learn to ignore our needs and fail to take care of ourselves as adults. The pattern we learned was, “Something is irritating me and I’m not going to be soothed, so I have to just live with it.” Our levels of self-care, self-love, and self-compassion may be almost non-existent.

MOVING ON TO SOME SOLUTIONS

So in the first post in this series, we looked at some Tarot cards that may indicate that we have a blocked first chakra. In this post, we looked at how that happens. In the next post, I’ll gather together a list of really good resources to help us heal the root chakra and regain a sense of safety in our lives.

Because when we reclaim our foundation, we reclaim the possibility of building a life rooted not in fear—but in genuine security.

Creating a Counter-Dialogue: A Gentle Approach to Healing Emotional Patterns

A look at emotional set-points and using guided meditations to counter a critical inner dialogue.

THE INNER BASTARD

Many people who grew up in dysfunctional or abusive families carry an invisible burden: a harsh, critical inner voice that tells them they’re not good enough. This voice operates just below the surface of awareness, subtly shaping thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Even highly successful, capable adults may find themselves struggling with a persistent sense of inadequacy—and not really know why.

If you were raised in one of those families, you know precisely what I’m talking about. It’s that Inner Bastard that’s always dropping discouraging nuggets into our thought streams. Things like:

I can’t believe you did something that stupid.

And

What in the hell is wrong with you?

And

You can’t get anything right.

And

If you were any dumber, they’d have to water you twice a week.

This poisonous internal narrative, formed in childhood, becomes the emotional background music of a person’s life. And because it’s so familiar, we may not even question it.

OUR EMOTIONAL SET-POINT

If that kind of a powerfully negative inner dialogue goes on long enough, it can become the emotional vibration that we default to. This is what Esther Hicks and Abraham refer to as our, “emotional set-point.”

The basic idea is that people live in an habitual emotional vibration for most of their lives and they tend to stay there. You may know someone who has a naturally sunny disposition and they’re happy 90% of the time. They may occasionally experience grief and pain, like we all do, but they quickly return to their default state of happiness. Likewise, we all know people who are dark, cynical and unhappy. They may occasionally feel great joy or contentment, but then they go right back to being dark.

If we have an Inner Bastard who’s always whispering that we’re not good enough – that we’re incompetent, stupid, or ugly – we become sad, depressed, and helpless. That becomes our set-point and we stay stuck in it. We have to somehow find a way to root out that inner dialogue if we ever want to be happy.

THE POWER OF COUNTER-DIALOGUE

But what if there were a gentle, practical way to begin shifting that dialogue without needing to confront it head-on?

Rather than trying to root out the negative inner voice through sheer willpower, we can begin to introduce a counter-dialogue—a deliberate stream of positive, nurturing messages designed to soothe and balance the old patterns.

Tibetan Buddhists refer to this as, “antidoting,” negative emotions. In their view, negative emotions are just like poisons that make us sick. So, if we’ve taken a poison, we need to take an antidote to it, right? If we become extremely angry, we can antidote it with a loving/compassion meditation. If we’re really jealous of someone, we antidote it by meditating on their good fortune and try to be happy for them.

For those of us who aren’t Buddhist monks, an easy way to do this is through guided meditations focused on happiness, compassion, or self-acceptance. You can find these for free all over the internet. My personal favorite is, “Great Meditation,” on YouTube but there are many alternatives.

These short recordings, listened to daily (especially at emotionally receptive times like morning or bedtime), can act as emotional antidotes to that negative inner dialogue. Instead of a nasty assed voice telling us how terrible we are, we substitute a calm, peaceful voice telling us how wonderful we are. With regular exposure, these meditative states begin to form different emotional grooves in the brain and happiness gradually becomes our new emotional set point..

EMOTIONAL HOMEOSTASIS: WHY CHANGE CAN FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE

But here’s where it gets tricky.

Humans operate by a principle called, “homeostasis,” and the, “stasis,” in that word tells you what it does. Homeostasis tries to make sure that everything stays just the way that it is. In the body, it maintains a normal blood pressure, makes sure our hearts beat a certain number of times a minute, keeps our blood sugar in a normal range, etc. etc. etc.

All in all, that’s a very good thing because it keeps our heads from exploding and our hearts from stopping and we live much better lives without exploding heads. Where it can be troublesome, though, is when we’re trying to change something.

For instance, people who are trying to lose weight may lose 5 or 10 pounds at first and then they suddenly start gaining weight, even though they’re still on a diet. The reason is that the brain is saying, “Uh, oh . . . we’re obviously starving to death. Slow down the metabolism. Retain fluids. We need to get fat again.”

In other words, our brains have come to view being overweight as, “normal,” and they try to keep everything the way it is. That’s homeostasis.

Just as the body maintains physical homeostasis, the subconscious mind seems to maintain emotional homeostasis. That is, it resists sudden emotional changes, even positive ones.

If your emotional “set-point” has been sadness or self-doubt for many years, your system may view happiness or self-worth as unfamiliar—even dangerous. This can trigger a rebound effect: you’re sitting there trying to rewire your brain by listening to guided meditations and your Inner Bastard responds by cranking up the volume of self-criticism. You may feel happy and light one day and then find that you’re in a deep depression the next. That’s your brain trying to maintain what’s, “normal,” even if what’s normal sucks.

At that point we have to remind ourselves that this isn’t failure. It’s the subconscious trying to return to what it sees as safe territory. Knowing this can help us respond with compassion rather than frustration.

HEALING THROUGH GENTLE PERSISTENCE

The key is to approach change with patience and consistency. You’re not trying to overpower the old patterns, but gradually retrain your system to accept a new emotional baseline. You’re building new neural pathways—ones that support self-kindness, resilience, and inner calm.

Over time, the emotional set-point begins to shift. The system adapts. The counter-dialogue becomes part of your inner landscape. And the old voice, while perhaps never fully gone, loses its grip.

In essence: you don’t have to fight the pain directly. You can begin to antidote it—with gentleness, repetition, and trust that healing happens not in one grand moment, but in small, quiet steps.

My new e-book, “The Alchemy of the Mind: Transforming Your Life With the 7 Principles of The Kybalion,” is now available on Amazon.

The Hermit, Introverted Intuitives, and Letting Our Lights Shine

How intuitives emerge from a Hermit Phase.

As an INFJ personality type, I’ve always felt a particular affinity for The Hermit card. After all, going into Hermit mode is one of the primary defense mechanisms of intuitives and introverts. When we feel overwhelmed or hurt, we pull up the drawbridge, slam the gate shut, and self-isolate until we heal. Sometimes that takes a few weeks and sometimes it can turn into years.

I’ve recently begun focusing on another part of The Hermit card, though, which is the lamp that he’s holding aloft. He isn’t just hiding out anymore – he’s illuminating a path for others to follow.

INTUITIVES DON’T LEAD

Doing that is NOT something that highly intuitive or empathetic people are inclined to do, for a couple of reasons. First – and most obvious – is the fact that most intuitives are also introverts. We’re not the sort of people who want to have a great deal to do with other people, much less try to lead them anywhere.

In a very real sense, that’s more of the path of the extrovert. Extroverts love, love, LOVE to charge out into society, organize everything, and tell other people what they should be doing and when they should be doing it. Which is fine, because someone has to put together the Christmas parties, right? Better them than us.

INTUITIVES AND SELF-IMAGE

Another reason that intuitives seldom assert themselves as, “leaders,” is that many of us have really rotten self-images. We feel as if we don’t fit in, as if we’re the original square peg in a round hole.

Some of that flows out of the fact that society is, once again, pretty much designed by extroverts. Starting in elementary school, we’re told that daydreaming and wanting to be by ourselves is, “bad.” How many of us received the dreaded report card that said, “Doesn’t play well with other children?” Yikes.

That continues into adult life, of course. Just look at the modern work spaces, with cubicles piled on top of each other and no sense of privacy or personal space. They’re extrovert heaven and introvert hell and if we don’t like them there must be something wrong with us. It turns out we don’t play well with other adults, either.

INTUITIVES AND DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES

There’s a further reason for intuitive introverts having terrible self-images, which is – guess what? – our families. When I first started digging into intuitive personality types I was astounded at the number of people who reported that they had come from dysfunctional families. And by, “dysfunctional,” I mean families where one or both parents had serious mental issues, addiction issues, or abuse issues.

Frequently, a part and parcel of being a terrible parent is blaming the child for your bad parenting skills. A classic example is a parent who gets drunk, beats the hell out of the kid, and then says, “You made me do that. If you were a better child, I wouldn’t have to beat you.” The end result is that the kid is convinced that he or she isn’t a, “good,” person and that they’re somehow to blame for the abuse. We go into life with the basic premise that we’re flawed and unloveable.

INTUITIVES AND COGNITIVE INTELLIGENCE

So, all of these factors (and more) lead the introverted intuitive to feel that she’s in no position to lead anyone, anywhere. After all, we’re odd balls and we’re just not quite good enough. But is that borne out by facts? Consider these statistics from Susan Storm’s article in PsychologyJunkie:

Of all of the personality types, INFJs have the second highest grades in high school.

INFJs have the highest first semester grades in college and some of the highest undergraduate grades.

INFJs are among the most persistent personality types in actually finishing college.

INFJs tend to score well above average in standardized IQ tests.

INFPs and INFJs read more than any other personality types. While the average American reads 12 books per year, INFJs average 67 books per year.

INTUITIVES AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

While some introverted intuitives are full blown empaths, ALL of them are highly empathetic. And by empathetic, I mean that they can, “read,” another person’s emotions so deeply and so quickly that they may appear to be psychic.

When you meet an introverted intuitive, they are instantly scanning your body language, your eyes, your facial expressions, the tone of your voice and even the clothes that you chose to wear that day. All of this happens so rapidly that the intuitive may not even be aware that he’s doing it. What’s more, intuitives frequently feel that everyone else must have that same level of perception, simply because it feels so natural to them. But, no, most people don’t do that.

As Eileen McKusick, author of Tuning the Human Biofield put it, “It’s like having an antenna that goes a little higher than everyone else’s. We pick up information that normal people don’t.”

COMING OUT OF THE HERMIT PHASE

What usually pulls introverted intuitives out of their Hermit phase is a desire to help other people. That can manifest as personally as wanting to help a friend who’s gone through a divorce or as broadly as wanting to make some contribution to humanity as whole. Intuitives are, after all, highly empathetic, which means that we really DO feel other people’s pain, almost as if it were our own.

In order to help, though, we have to get rid of that old, “I’m not good enough,” self-image. When we combine our intellectual intelligence with our emotional intelligence, we are actually extraordinarily capable of helping others heal.

It’s estimated that up to 52% of the population may fall into the introvert section of the personality types. BUT . . . introverted intuitives are a very tiny slice of that. Only 1 to 2% of the world population are INFJs and only 4.4% are INFPs. We have unique gifts and unique perspectives. We just need the self confidence to go along with those gifts. To let our lights shine on other people’s darkened paths.