Tag Archives: Root Chakra

How to Use the Root Chakra for Deep Character Development

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I recently wrote about how, if you take into account the ideas that come from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theories on achieving flow along with Candace Pert’s findings about how human emotions originate in the exact locations of the seven main chakras and that “our bodies are our subconscious minds,” you can utilize the chakras to banish writer’s block, achieve flow, and tell your untold stories.

This is achieved through the Writing Through the Body™ method, which uses the chakra system as a practical tool for uncovering a character’s desires, wounds, and motivations. By exploring these psychological foundations, writers are able to portray their characters’ behaviors, reactions, and responses on the page with greater depth and emotional truth.

For example, the Root (first) Chakra rules Tribal Power and Tribal Consciousness, which is about identity in relationship to Tribe, or family of origin. Deep down, the Root Chakra relates to how an individual (character) sees themself and the degree of their feelings of security in the world. The Root Chakra says I AM.

In your writing, by considering characters’ places within their families of origin—even if the family members are not part of the present story—you can begin to uncover important information about your characters’ current behaviors and motivations, which will inform the story you tell about them.

Below is a brief explanation of the Root Chakra, its traits and characteristics, and some ways you might integrate its attributes into your character development.

First Chakra – Root Chakra

Location
Deep in the pelvis, just in front of the tip of the tailbone

This does not directly apply to your character but is used for visualization purposes when doing certain exercises within the Writing Through the Body™ method, offered here as an FYI.

Primary strengths
Tribal/family identity, bonding, support, and loyalty that create a feeling of security and connection to the world

This is about who your character is connected to or disconnected from, and how this impacts their sense of identity and security in the world.

Primary fears
Physical survival, abandonment, loss of order

Does your character have any of these fears to any degree in relation to anyone or anything—or in general?

_____________________

Writing exercise

Take some time to sit quietly, and think about the aspects of the Root Chakra as they relate to all your characters. 

Write a sketch of a character that may not be materializing as fully as you would like, and answer the questions below as fully and exhaustively as possible. 

Tip: Every time you arrive at a new place of understanding, ask “why?” Continuing to ask “why?” is how we get to the deep psychology of our characters. 

Example: You discover that your character had a falling out with her favorite aunt years ago and they have never resolved the conflict. Why?

Questions to begin your exercise:

• Who are they most bonded to in their family of origin and why?

• Is there any estrangement in their family of origin? If so, how has that impacted them?

• What is their relationship to money and their general ability to survive in the world?

Let me know what you discover in the comments.

As always… Sending you mad writing mojo…

Happy writing!

Johnnie
OOOOO

How Understanding the Root Chakra Can Improve Your Writing

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Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels

The first step in writing is to know our people, and when I say “people,” I’m talking about characters. The protagonists, antagonists, and supporting characters in novels, memoirs, and screenplays. This also applies to our Ideal Readers and clients if we’re going to write a book in the self-help/how-to category about our signature method, process, or program.

The first step in knowing our people is knowing their histories, or backstories. Whether we use these details in the actual story or not, we need to have a clear and compassionate understanding of the events that have made them who they are. Oftentimes, we start with an inkling of what that is.

Fictional characters rise up from our subconscious, whisper words in our ears, and make themselves visible to us in whatever way they can. They may show us what they want, but they’re not always able to tell us why. And it’s probably safe to say they don’t have the awareness to tell us why they can’t get what they want (Read: how they get in their own way). That’s why they need us!

With memoir, it’s easy to believe we already know all the characters inside and out – especially ourselves. It’s our story, after all, right?! But the reality is memoir can be even more challenging in this regard because we sometimes lack the objectivity – we’re too close – to truly make meaning of the story we want to tell. We have a tendency to write and write and write, as with journaling, giving ourselves the faulty impression that we’re “writing” our story when all we’re really doing is purging, or to use a metaphor I’m fond of, throwing the clay onto the wheel to be shaped into something usable in the future.

In the case of the self-help, how-to book, this deep understanding of character relates to your Ideal Reader – the person who will potentially want to buy your book – or your potential client – the person who already works with you or who may work with you after they’ve read your book.

The Root Chakra is about our origins, our Tribe, our backstories. Mining this information will take you to your characters’ emotional underpinnings because their pasts and the people from their pasts have all helped shape their identities.

What do you know about your protagonist’s or your Ideal Client’s family of origin, and how does this it inform her/his desires, motivations, and behaviors?

Please leave comments below. I’d love to know what you discover.

To learn more about the Writing Through the Body™ on the About page.

How understanding the root chakra will improve your writing

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One of the first steps in creating a character is to understand their backstory. Whether we use the details about each character’s past in the actual story or not, we need to have a clear and compassionate understanding of our characters’ histories.

Oftentimes, we have an inkling of our characters – even when writing from real life experience in a memoir – and our tendency is to write and write until we stumble across their desires and the motivations for those desires. In fact, it is likely even more difficult to get to the core of characters in memoir because we’re so very close to it all – so emotionally attached to our version of the story.

Whether we’re writing fiction or memoir – or something in between – we need a way to approach characters’ emotional inner workings, and an effective method to accomplish this is to explore the Root Chakra because this chakra is about our origins. It will take you to your characters’ emotional underpinnings.

What do you know about your characters’ family of origin, and how does it inform her/his desires, motivations, and behaviors?

How understanding the Heart Chakra can help your writing

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Recently, I wrote about how understanding the Root, Sacral, and Power chakras can help your writing. This week, I’m writing about how understanding the Heart Chakra can help.

indexBut first, remember, we always want to begin with a framework of a character. In this case, let’s say a 35-year-old man.

Now, from a generative standpoint, we can begin with one of the primary fears or negative manifestations of the heart chakra (because we want to give our character something to struggle with, consider, or transform): inability to forgive oneself or others.

What might he have done that he can’t forgive himself for? Imagine all possible scenarios and pick the one that resonates most with you. Get him thinking about it. Get him moving around in a space. Start to write.

From a corrective standpoint, let’s imagine that we already have the 35-year-old man who we know is racked with guilt and can’t forgive himself for some act or decision he’s made. We can begin to look deeper at the Heart Chakra and ask these questions:

  • Who does he love?
  • What makes him happy?

Even better if he’s done the very thing that makes him happy but is not able to forgive himself for it because it will hurt the person he loves. That will create some good tension, which is just what we want.

 

Where did this lead you?

Leave an excerpt here.

 

 

 

How understanding the Root Chakra can help your writing

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The Writing Through the Body™ process is both generative and corrective. It’s generative in that it can help you build a character or a story from nothing, and it’s corrective in that it can move you forward if you’re stuck. Here’s how.

Oftentimes with writing we’re faced with a chicken-or-egg scenario. Maybe we want to write but we’re coming up blank. Or maybe we’ve started a story but it just isn’t going anywhere.

Generative

To clear that block and generate story, we can simply begin by imagining a character (think simply at first: gender and age – woman, 35 years old).

"Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange

“Migrant Mother”
by Dorothea Lange

Then, give her a Root Chakra (located in the area just in front of the tailbone) problem: survival fears or fear of abandonment. This can take the form of her literally not having enough money to buy food and shelter for herself and her kids. It can be an irrational fear of not being able to provide even if she does have the resources. Or it can be her fear of her husband leaving her, which makes her suspicious and on edge. The fear doesn’t have to be founded on any evidence. It just has to be present.

Next, pick a setting, the writing element I pair with the Root Chakra, because setting plays significantly into the shaping of our identities. (Think of your childhood home.) If we put her in her kitchen (a logical space for someone struggling with survival fears… food, sustenance, or lack thereof) and get her to move around, we’ll bring her to life. What’s she making for dinner? Can she make dinner? What are her kids doing in the background?

Corrective

image credit: lightworkers.org

image credit: lightworkers.org

On the other hand, if we’re already well into a story and we have a character who is already struggling with basic survival needs (sometimes these things just come to us organically), we can consult the chakras and know that she’s struggling with a Root Chakra problem.

The Root Chakra governs our Tribal Power. Generally, we think of this as our family of origin. So when our character is struggling to put food on the table at home (or fearing that she won’t be able to) or fearing she’s going to be left, we can begin to look back into her family constellation and dynamics (her back story) to understand her relationship with money, “having enough,” or “being enough.” We can then begin to know why she has this fear and let that information inform the story. We might even try bringing a family member into the story to see how it helps character development and storyline unfold.

We don’t always have to tell our readers every detail about our characters’ back stories, but we, as the writer, have to know them.

Who’s your character and what’s your setting?