Meditation as a Revival Technique #1 in the Chakra Series - Root Chakra

I'm afraid I don't hold the secrets to resurrection.. but I what I mean by revival is simple. After a hard day at work, or a hard day generally, meditation can breath life into fatigue - even a short session. How?

Well sometimes fatigue is based on stress, not on physical exhaustion. For example, and we all do this at one time or another: you're hard at work, multitasking, doing about 5 things at the same time, and you're doing really well. You're burning through your work and achieving a lot. But your brain starts to get tired of so much mental clutter!! It wants to relax! Another example: your family demands a whole list of things for you to do at the end of the day... you've already done so much - and your mind thought you were done for the day, so it's all geared down for less activity. You start to do that list of things, but your mind just doesn't work properly.. it's like it's just turned off. It will be able to do your tasks, but with less efficiency, more spelling mistakes (figuratively or literally), and it'll rebel against you. You know what I'm talking about.

So how can meditation curb this?

Sometimes your brain needs to be reset, like a computer - rebooted. Or, on a nice Earth-based side - it needs to be grounded - connected to the Earth and centered. That's a big buzz word in meditation: Centered. To find your center, to plunge your root chakra into the center of the Earth, to focus the mind and quiet it..

How do you Center yourself?

There are a couple of ways, my preferred way is to use the Root Chakra - Muladhara Chakra in Sanskrit. Let's get to know it a little bit before we begin!
This red, four petal flower is very important to the Chakra system, and the best one to work on in the beginning. It's an Earth element, which connects us to the ground, the Earth, our Center. Symbolically it's pictured as a square, which is used in several meditation techniques to come. Being the most primitive of Chakras, this controls scent, instincts, biological imperatives, and regulates the entire body's support systems - including your bones, spine, and blood filtration. To name a few.
Imbalances can show up in many ways, least of which is fatigue, and even if you don't believe in Chakras (which is ok!!) - the technique can still work.

Also, before this meditation, it's important that you have a meditation space, somewhere picked out for meditation. In my introduction to meditation, a brief article about meditation - click here to read it I say a bit more about meditation space. In future I'll post about it some more. Anyways, go to your meditation place for this, and we'll begin!

Okay, so that was the little bit you needed to know before we begin.

The Meditation - I

1. Sit in a comfortable chair, or lay down on your stomach.
2. Breath in through your nose a count of 4 gently raising your shoulders every few inhalations, and out slowly through your nose to a count of 6.
3. Close your eyes and visualize yourself in a red box, one large enough for your comfort level (if you're claustrophobic, I suggest a red cube-shaped room)
4. Visualize the walls glowing this red
5. Visualize and even more vibrant warm red soil as the floor, with red and brown roots moving and attaching themselves to you.
   
6. Imagine that the base of your spine, at your tailbone, out from you blooms a four petal red flower, which rotates as it blooms.
7. Visualize that this bloom is fed by the roots, and the negative and fatigued energy is being absorbed into the soil to become fertile again. This may be a slow process, take your time, just visualize this and breathe, until you find a perfect balance and rhythm.
   

Meditation #2

1. This is simple, fast, and effective. Breathe in 4 seconds, breathe out slowly 6 seconds.
2. Chant "OM" (aka AUM) or "Lang" as if you are calling to your Chakra to awaken it.
3. While you chant, 4 seconds breathing in, 4 seconds chanting out, visualize the Chakra (image above left) becoming more vibrant, flowing, glowing, and activating.
   

Try these two, see which one works better for you, and see how you feel after. How long should you practice? That's up to you, up to your schedule and how long personally you feel you should. Everyone's different.