When we are in fear, we tense up our root chakra, which is related to survival. We feel unsafe, anxious and disconnected from our bodies and Earth (hence the global rush for toilet paper.) In this episode, I talk about why it’s more important than ever before to get into your lower chakras through dance and how dance is the ultimate healer. I speak about the three lower chakras (root, sacral and solar plexus) and their associated dance forms. I also speak about why shaking and twerking is SO crucial for your well-being and why there is such shame around it.
Come join me, Goddesses! If you’re ready to join a sisterhood of 2000+ spiritual soul sisters ready to twerk into the new paradigm, come join me in Rose Gold Goddesses, the sacred sisterhood all about becoming your highest self. Doors open now at rosegoldgoddesses.com
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Transcript
Episode 285: Why You Need To Get Into Your Lower Chakras NOW
By Sahara Rose
Namaste. It’s Sahara Rose and welcome back to the Highest Self podcast, a place where we discuss what makes you, your soul’s highest evolvement.
Well, I just wanted to share y’all that I am on TiK ToK now. I have been obsessed with it since I really started it, about two weeks ago, and it is so much fun. It is so fun. I was definitely resistant, like, I heard about TiK ToK last year and I was like “Oh my God, like, another social media platform…I cannot.” But, because I’ve been in quarantine and having this extra time, turning in my next book, I’m like “Okay, why not?” So, I have been on there, literally, doing skits non-stop; dances; and my whole theme of course is – spirituality. So, I’ve done these hilarious skits, if I say so myself, on before and after your spiritual awakening, so, like looking at your old Facebook pictures before your awakening and thinking “What? Who dat?” And just like the decisions that you may have made etc., and also before and after your spiritual awakening; how before you might have been very self-conscious around dancing and like done little dance moves; but after your spiritual awakening you’re like “Woo!” ecstatic dancing, you don’t care what people think and yeah, it has been a lot of fun. And for me, as you guys know, joy, and fun, and play are my priorities because they were not for so long. For most of my life I was very academic, and driven, and what is the next thing I should do. And really, in the past year, it’s been all about what makes me feel good and what brings me joy and what feels fun, and for me TiK ToK has been a lot of fun, because if there’s two things I love to do it’s dancing and acting, and I get to do that at TiK ToK. So, if you are on the App be sure to follow me at iamsahararose, let me know what your favorite of my skits are, I’m replying to all the comments because I’m very excited about it, so follow me there. And if you’re not on TiK ToK yet, I mean, I suggest it. If just love, like, comedy and every video is less than 15 seconds, so, if you just love, little like, quick funny hits and stuff, download TiK ToK, follow me. I’m super excited, and that’s really what I wanted to talk about in this episode, not TiK ToK, but about the importance of joy and play, and also getting into our bodies.
So, we, right now, have been in quarantine for two months. This has been the longest, I think, all of us have been at home for an amount of time; been away from friends; been away from gyms, dance classes, whatever else, and I think right now cabin fever is really starting to kick in. The first like, the first hit or wave of it we were like “Okay, yeah, I’m just gonna stay at home for two weeks, like no big deal; I’ve been out of the house all time; I’ve been really wanting to stay home more.” And now, that it’s been a couple of months, we’re like “Okay, I’m really missing, you know, being around other humans.” So, know that that’s okay, and that is normal, and humans do need each other, and I know, soon, we will find a way for us to all be together again. But in the meantime there is so much that we can actually do out of the comfort of our homes.
So, dance has been the most profound medicine in my life. And, as someone, again, who is very academic, very smart growing up, very studious, I spent a lot of time in my head. A lot of time in my head, not only learning, but also thinking and over-analyzing etc. And when we spend all of our time in our head we actually move energy from our lower chakras.
Chakras are energy centers within our body. We all have seven chakras within us. I’ve done other Higher Self podcast episodes diving into chakras; I’ve done an entire chapter dedicated to chakras in my book “Idiots Guide to Ayurveda” (I’ll have that, like, in the show notes). But essentially, they are these energy centers in the body. So, when we’re spending all of our time in our heads, all of our energies moving up to that third eye, it’s very cerebral, and that takes away our energy from our root and our sacral chakras. However, our root and our sacral chakras – root chakra is all about survival, it is all about feeling safe. And right now, our root chakras are highly, highly imbalanced because we don’t feel safe, you know. That is why there was such a big rush to buy toilet paper at the beginning of this. Isn’t it interesting, out of the things, like, it was not shampoo, it was not hand soap (actually hand soap sales remained the same), hand sanitizer went crazy and toilet paper went extremely crazy. I don’t even know to this day if there is toilet paper at the stores yet. But that was because we were so afraid and that is related to our root chakras. So, when our root chakras are out of balance, we are afraid of our bodies, we are afraid of out sexualities, we are afraid of the Earth. If you look at what’s happening right now with the situation, we are afraid of nature, we are afraid of each other, we are afraid of this invisible virus. So, that can bring us very deep seeded fear because the villain is our bodies. We don’t know if our bodies are going to fuck us over essentially. So, there is a lot of internalized fear happening right now and we’re trying to protect ourselves by disassociating from that part of ourselves.
So, with toilet paper, we are essentially removing our waste, removing our humanness, you know, like, shit is very human, like dogs shit, there’s no shame around it. Like, when a dog takes a shit, it’s not like “Oh my God, I’m gonna need to wipe myself” it’s like, it takes a shit and moves on, same with a baby. The shame around it comes from societal conditioning.
So right now, our root chakras are extremely out of balance because we do not feel safe, and that is why, if you look at Western cultures, where we are you know, the headiest, we are the least connected to our bodies and least connected to our sacred sexuality. There is a lot of over-sexualization in the shadow aspect, so that’s selling sex in the media without the consciousness around it, you know, just doing it for the clicks, or the money, or the attention etc., but not actually embodying into enjoying and understanding why we are sexual beings and why sex is sacred.
So, because of this right now, a lot of us are feeling very wound up, very tight in our bodies, very, you know that feeling when you wake up and everything is just like cobwebs in your body and you’re like “Everything is cracking and creaking” and maybe you look like, at a work-out video and someone with a lot of energy and you’re like “How are they moving like that? Like, I feel like my body can’t move like that.” And that is actually just because your energy is not in your body right now; it’s in your head, because we all have the capacity to move freely.
When you look at a dancer, you might say “I might never be able to move like that” but actually if they broke down any single position, your body can do that. That your body can put its arm up here or its leg over there. I’m not saying you can do a split right now – you could train yourself to do it. Maybe right now you can’t do a split or backbend but the movements that most of them are doing, we can all do, it’s just that we are not allowing ourselves to because we’re letting our minds dictate how our bodies can be instead of letting our bodies dictate how they want to be. We’re operating our mind, bossing our body around rather than our bodies being our sovereign beings.
So, right now, it is more important than ever with this fear, with this staying in the home, with this feeling of not feeling free and not feeling connected to nature – we need to connect to the nature that is inside of us, and that is our bodies. We all live in a temple; we all are a part of nature; we all are, you know, a jungle and a mountain and an ocean in human form. So, even if we can’t be out in nature, what we actually can do is be at our bodies, and that actually grounds us in the same way.
So, because we’re so disconnected from our root chakras, it’s important for us to shake and move our lower bodies. So, I talk about this all the time on my Instagram at iamsahararose, if you’re not following me there. I teach workshops on this, it’s something that I’m so passionate about, but it is so imperative for us to move our root chakras. What does that look like? Shaking, twerking – we gave it this word ‘twerking’ and you know, the concept of twerking and what it’s turned into, it’s almost like this, like – “You a hoe.” Like, twerking is not classy and that’s actually coming from patriarchy and colonialism, right. Because if you look at the actual act of shaking your lower body – it is ancient. From Middle Eastern cultures, where I come from, belly dancing is as old as Ancient Egyptian times you know, and it wasn’t even called belly dancing, that’s just how you dance. You’d always dance; you’d always shake your body. Look at the gypsy cultures – they were always doing that. If you look at African cultures – tribes that were completely disconnected, the dance forms were always the same because it was connected to Earth, because they were embodying Earth’s energy and that connected them to their wombs and to their roots, and brought them low to the ground and allowed their yeonies to receive the Earthly energy – they were dancing the drum beat of Gaia. If we look at indigenous cultures – same thing; why is it that in Latin America today the dance moves are very sensual – if we look at Salsa or Bachata or anything else, it is very sensual; it is very in the hips you know.
I’ve done a different episode on the chakras and how they are related to dance but if you look at African dance – it’s very root chakra energy; it’s very, just like, primal and there’s no control of the mind at all. It is not choreography you know. As I’ve mentioned, been studying dance for you know, almost ten years now and it’s very.. You show up, the Elders begin on the dance floor and the Elders will guide the way and bring forth the positive spirits to guide the dance floor that night. And the Elders, you know, it’s not about looking cool or doing the latest dance move, it was about the sacredness that they brought in. And people of all ages would dance their unique dances, all of which were completely individual even though it was to the same drum beat. So that’s a very root chakra energy right there, whereas if we look at Latin American dance, it’s very sacral chakra, it is very sensual, it is very ‘tu eres mia amante’, like, you are my lover and you are feeling each other and just the connection that the two partners have when they are dancing with each other is very, very lustful, and very playful with their sensuality. And what I love is, you can Salsa dance with someone and it doesn’t mean that now you’re going to have sex, or now you’re lovers. Like, you can have that playful, sensual energy without all of the stories attached to it. Like “Okay, now we’re gonna go fuck.” No, that’s not what it means at all, it’s just how you are connecting in that way and seeing that that connection was actually within you, it was just being reflected by your partner, because everyone is a reflection of you.
And then if we look at the Middle Eastern dance floor – they are very solar-plexus, so, we do a lot of belly-rolls, we do a lot of you know, belly dance. It’s very in the middle section of the body. And then if you look at the different circle dances too, it’s very ‘hah-hah’ in the solar-plexus, and if you look at that it is identity, it is power. And we can see also in the Middle East, being a Middle-Eastern person, there is a lot of power struggles happening right now in that area, so there’s a little bit of the shadows side happening too, and we can actually see that with any of the cultures and shadow aspects. But, the solar-plexus is really about ‘here I am; see me; see me in my fullest expression’ and that’s what you convey. You know, I have been belly dancing my entire life (performing and teaching) and when you show up as a belly dancer, you draw in the attention of the entire audience, and even though you’re completely covered, except your eyes, you’re saying “Look at me, I am here, you are going to pay attention to every little ounce and movement that I do in my body.”
So, we can see how dance creates our energy; dance creates our vibe. We wait in our society “Oh, well, I could never dance like that” well, you’ve got to start dancing and that’s how it shows up.
So, if we’re feeling really stuck, really cabin fevery, really in the home, we need to start dancing, especially with our lower chakras – those three chakras that I mentioned.
So, shaking – what shaking does I, as my teacher Malaika Darville who was just on the podcast, taught me – back in her training, shamanic shaking is a practice to help clear and release stagnant energy that we are holding onto so somatically. So, we hold onto, you know, everything in our body; any emotion that you have ever felt; any energy; past life; ancestral etc., we hold onto it somatically. And words can only do so much, you know, with words we can talk about what’s happening, we can think about it, but truthfully we can’t get to the core of it. Like, I will never know what has happened to me in my past lives; I can never know everything that my ancestors have experienced, but I’m feeling it, even though I’m unconscious of it, I’m feeling it, it exists somatically in my body. So, when I dance I don’t have to know what I am releasing. I can just feel that I am releasing something.
So, if you’ve ever done any type of energy work, you may have felt, you know, a time that your body has just started shaking uncontrollably. Even if you have not done energy work, you know when you cry for a long time, or a very deep cry, and when you’re done crying you just kind of shake and it releases the energy from you – well, that is exactly what is happening.
So, if we look at any animal in the wilderness – a zebra. A zebra is being chased by a lion and it gets away, and it was just in a lot of fear, there was a lot of adrenaline moving through it. It just thought it was going to die, and what does the zebra do? – It shakes. This is how it recalibrates and resets its nervous system and then it goes on.
However, as humans, because of colonialism, we have been taught that shaking is barbaric; shaking is primitive; shaking is wrong. And we’ve seen you know, all three of these areas as well as the Native people have been colonized. So, the kind of dancing that was available in Europe at that time, which was also way past the pagan traditions, because the pagan traditions also involved shaking and being in your body and sexuality and all of that, so the kind of like, post-Christianity European cultures that were the colonizers – they were not shaking, they were not in their bodies, it was very, at that time, a level of consciousness based off of fear and duality and suppression. So because of that, they would make it illegal to dance in the way that people were dancing before. You know, Natives people, until the 1970s, were not allowed to practice their traditional dance forms. You know, today, in Iran dance is illegal because of the Islamic government.
So, these dances were taken away from us and now we have been told that these dances are slutty, shameful, wrong, disgusting, you’re a hoe if you do them. And this is just colonialism and patriarchy being put inside our heads.
You know, I share myself dancing, twerking, shaking on Instagram, and every single time I will get women, women who have the capacity to do this for themselves, shaming me. We call this, I don’t even call it slut-shaming because I think that that world means to also be taken back, but just shaming me on being in my body, saying that there’s something wrong with me or I must be a hoe and doing it for attention, even though I’m married. And this shows the patriarchy and suppression and colonialism that exists inside of us. And most of us, even though we are potentially not consciously aware of it, have it in out sub-conscious.
So, I just filmed this entire workshop in Rose Gold Goddesses on healing and embodiment through dance which you will have available for you when you join Rose Gold Goddesses (the link is in my show notes – rosegoldgoddesses.com, it’s like a full workshop on all of this). But one thing that I talk about in there is to go back to when you would see a woman dancing – maybe it was at a party; a dance; a wedding – what would people say about her? And most of the time there would be one girl who would dance and you would hear what people were saying “Ahh, she’s a slut! She’s a hoe! She’s doing it for attention.” And because of this, whether it was accurate or not, we took it to be true and we created our own judgments towards ‘if I were to dance like that, this is how people would think about me.’ And this has run so deep that most of us won’t even dance at home alone. Most of us, at home, alone, can’t even get sexual and primal and inner bodies, and shake. The suppression is so engrained into our sub-conscious that even alone we feel like we are going to be shamed with no one seeing us. Like, if you can’t get fucking weird at home; if you can’t be rolling on your floor and growling and grinding, then, like, where else are you going to do it and why are you even in a human body? Like, that is part of the joy of being incarnated in this Earth-suit; like, to feel everything that your body has available for you.
So, my invitation for you is to get into your body; get into your lower chakras; twerk; shake; allow the stagnant energy to be released. Don’t tie a story around it; don’t say “Okay, I need to heal from my mom; I need to heal from this.” It doesn’t matter what it’s about because you’re healing so much more than you are consciously aware of – that is just how healing goes. When you heal one thing, you actually heal so much more because it’s all interconnected. So, you can have one shake session and literally come out of it a completely different person. And if you keep doing it that is how you’re recalibrate basically your entire DNA. I would go as far as to say that, and I’m not talking scientific, don’t come at me with your science claims, I’m talking about the energy of who you are, the fabric of your being when I speak about DNA, your spiritual DNA, who you are as a person.
So, you know when you meet someone and you see them again, like, a year later, and they’re a completely different person, like, everything about them has changed. They are embodied, they are anchored, like, they have woken up; they are glowing; they have a spark in them. That is what I’m talking about, that is the shift that is available for all of us.
And we can use this time right now in quarantine; this month’s Goddess in Rose Gold Goddesses is Bridget who is the Goddess of reemergence and spring and the new energy. So, we can use this time right now to become the person that we want to be, you know, to really honor who is this version 2.0 of myself who I’ve been too busy to be. Who does she want to show up in the world as after this? And then from there, what do I need to do right now to get me there? And for everyone, I don’t think that there is anyone on this planet who could not benefit from dancing more. Whether you dance all the time or whether you don’t even like to dance (and you don’t know why you’re listening to this episode right now) because there is no such thing as a dancer, we are all dancers. There is no such thing as being good or bad at dancing, it’s like being good or bad at breathing; being good or bad at meditating, you know, there’s no such thing. It’s just something that everybody does; it’s something that every culture does, there’s no culture in the world – from Chinese to Uruguayan – that does not have a type of dance, because it is part of being a human. We are meant to play music and move our bodies to it because that is how we heal.
You know, I shared this on my Instagram, but it’s one of my favorite quotes and in Shamanic cultures, when people were sick, the medicine person would ask them “When did you last dance? When did you last sing? When did you last find yourself be enchanted by stories? And when did you last find yourself in the sweet territory of silence?”
So, I invite you right now to ask yourself these questions. Have you been spending your quarantine watching other people live their life? Have you been spending it watching other people dancing and playing and having fun? Maybe you’re watching Netflix or Instagram or whatever else, but you’re not being a part of that thing that you’re clearly fascinated about. Like, I know so many people, “I love watching dance videos but I’m not a dancer” – Girl! You are a dancer, but watching videos is not what’s going to get you there, it’s putting the phone down, playing whatever music strikes a chord in your heart and letting your body move.
And at first, you know, moving especially your lower bodies, I recommend doing hip circles or shaking, but it could feel really weird. It could feel like you’re being watched even though you are not. It could feel like you’re waiting for someone to slut-shame you, maybe it’s your husband or someone to be like “Why are you doing that?” And they might, they might say that. But you can say “This is my practice” you know, would they say the same thing if you were doing yoga? No! But because yoga is a masculine practice that was created for pre-pubescent men to keep their hormones in line and it doesn’t involve any type of rolling the hips and doesn’t really invite our sexuality in. So, because of that, we have no problem with yoga as a society, we’re fine with it you can do as many asanas as you want, but shaking your ass? Oh my God! You hoe! Do we see this? How can one form of moving your body is shameful, but another form is considered healing? Any form of moving your body is healing, and especially for women; it is in the circles and it is in the shaking. We are not men, we don’t have linear bodies; we don’t have linear minds. The masculine is very directional, it is very focused, it is linear, so masculine is – “I gotta go from point A to point B, so I’m gonna go in the straight line”. Feminine is – “I’m in a spiral and I’m going to stop by over here and check out what’s over there” – that’s how our energy moves, it circulates; it’s a spiral, it’s the whole picture, it’s the whole equation, and that’s how our bodies want to move. They want to ungulate. What ungulating means is to roll. It is like, we talk about Kundolini or even this Kundolini-Yoga Movement that I’m seeing some of this emerge, but again, we’re so afraid of really going there in our bodies because we’re afraid of being seen as sexual. Like, I can do, you know, my body circle and stuff if I do something that’s very not sexual to balance it out, you know. Like, I’m gonna call this out because I just see this happening of like you can be a little bit in your body but not too much in your body because that can be a hazard for the patriarchy, you know.
What would the world look like if the women were fully embodied? If they fully owned their sexuality: if they fully said “Yes, this is my body and I can move it however I want and no, it’s not for you; and no, it’s not for sale; and no, you cannot control it or tell it how it wants to look! It can be hairy and have rolls and whatever it wants to show up as naturally, and there is no place for you to judge it.”
So, this is how we move forward as a society. It’s not by basically chopping our heads off and pretending we don’t have a body, and putting a white sheet over us as if our bodies didn’t exist. Like, no, be in your body! Spirituality is embodiment. It is fully being here. What is presence? Presence is to be here in the now. It does not mean you are Astro-projecting to other worlds; it does not mean you are thinking ahead – it’s to be here in your physical Earth-suit. And for most of us who are so disconnected, the way that meditation is taught is like, “Okay, just drop in and feel your bodies.” It’s like “Hello, most people like, don’t even know how to move their like butt-cheeks apart. Like how are they going to drop into their body? Like, let’s move our bodies.” That’s how we get into our bodies – let’s move them; let’s see what they can do; let’s roll them and ungulate them and make weird shapes and feel things, and see how that feels.
And interestingly enough, when most people have experiences with plant medicine that is what they naturally want to do. The first thing they want to do is just move their bodies because they’re like “Woow, my body is capable of feeling this? Like, I had never even noticed what it feels like to like roll my shoulder like that.” And anyone who has done any form of plant medicine will agree with me right now, it is like “Oh my God, my body feels so good just to move. Like, that is so cool. What a blessing that I am here.”
Look guys, do you know how many souls are up there wishing that they were incarnated into physical body? Like, it is a gift to be here on this Planet in this time. So, use yo body, move yo body, twirl yo body, swirl yo body, work yo body, twerk yo body, everybody work yo body. That should be my next song, right?
So, this was a little PSA for you from your Highest Self telling you to get into yo dirty self, get into yo twerking self, get into yo rolling self and stop judging yourself over it.
So, this is what I talk about in Rose Gold Goddesses, I actually, I’ve had so much like creative energy during this quarantine, so I’m just like, “I’m just gonna record an entire workshop right now on my phone” and I did that on healing and embodiment through dance. So, this is a full workshop experience where I actually give you prompts on different ways to dance; I talk about different energies within dance and how to work with them; how to ecstatic dance if you don’t feel like you know how to; how to be comfortable in your body; how to heal; what this embodiment really mean; all of the things that I am so passionate about that have changed and saved my life. I talk about, in this bonus workshop, which is available for you in Rose Gold Goddesses. Rose Gold Goddesses is the sacred Sisterhood collective, all about embodying the goddess within. It is my membership community, where for a very low monthly price, you have access to dozens of my workshops, master classes, expert guests from many of your favorite Highest Self podcast guests from Chandresh Bhardwaj teaching us about embodying Goddess Kali Ma, to Gina Devee talking about working with your Queen archetype; we have our members teaching workshops to working with how to have financial abundance, how to do breath work, how to feel confident, how to channel your past lives, how to work with Vedic Astrology. Like, it is a spiritual wonderland. It is the biggest spiritual membership for spiritual women, but really what it’s about is making the spiritual journey fun.
So, if you are a Queen out there that’s like “Yes to all this, I love to twerk, I love to get down, maybe I don’t know how yet, but I love the vibe of where this is going and I want more of it and I want to meet more people who are on this vibe, I want to be connected by people who are just like in alignment taking me exactly to where I know my soul is calling me to go”, then I am inviting you, Queen, you have been crowned, I am putting my spiritual crown on you right now, do you feel it on your head? Yes, Queen, you have just been crowned, welcome to Rose Gold Goddesses, we are excited to have you.
So, come join us there – rosegoldgoddesses.com – the link is in my show notes and I am soul excited to have you there.
If you loved this episode, I would love to send you a free gift which is the first half of my unreleased book “Eat Right for Your Mind Body Type“. This is a different book than “EatFeelFresh“. My first book ever which is not released anywhere, and I am gifting it exclusively to those who leave a review of my podcast in the iTunes store. So all you gotta do is head over to iTunes where you’re maybe listening to this podcast and leave a review, take a screenshot that you’ve left it and email it over to me at [email protected] and I will send you back the first half of my unreleased book “Eat Right for Your Mind Body Type“, which goes all into Ayurveda, Doshas, plant-based nutrition, body types – all of the things in a really fun and engaging way. So this is my gift to you for free for supporting the podcast. Every single review I personally read. It really helps the podcast be listened to by more people so we can raise the vibration of the planet together, and I am soul grateful to have you on this journey.
Thank you so much for listening and I’ll see you on the next episode. Namaste.
Episode 285: Why You Need To Get Into Your Lower Chakras NOW
By Sahara Rose