Let’s talk about Chakras – Pinot’s first chakra is definitely out of balance

Hang with me here, I know that Eastern anatomy is not everyone’s thing. It’s not completely mine either. But I have physically witnessed the manifestation of an unbalanced first chakra in Pinot.

I was someone who stayed away from the yoga teachers that talked about your third eye and finding inner peace. And I certainly did not understand the chakra system until I completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training in June 2020.

Now I am not running off to join an Ashram or shunning my Rag & Bone obsession. But I have taken more time to understand how energy and experiences are stored in the body. 

What are Chakras? Chakras are energy centers in our body located from the base of the pelvis to the crown of your head.

Each chakra is associated with an element, a color, a right, a certain stage of development, and more. They each also have characteristics that are present when that chakra is balanced, excessive (too much energy coming into it), or deficient (restricted or useless energy).

In Eastern Body, Western Mind, Anodea Judith equates the chakras to the wind; just as you can see the wind through the movement of the leaves, we can see the chakras by what we create around us. I love this metaphor because it reminds us that not everything has to be visible for it to be tangible.

The first chakra, the Muladhara chakra, is associated with the right to be here and to have. Muladhara translates to “root” and the central issue of this chakra is survival or self-preservation. Its developmental stage is from the first trimester to two months of your life.

When we are balanced in this chakra, we have a sense of security, presence, and affirmation of our right to exist. Some ways that an excess can show are hoarding, obesity, or heaviness. Deficiencies in this chakra can show up as fearfulness, restlessness, being underweight, or a lack of discipline.

People can exhibit a combo of balanced, excessive, and deficient characteristics at any point in their life. Think of the beginning of the pandemic; people’s sense of security was threatened, and many responded by hoarding toilet paper and a lot of restless bread baking.

How does this relate to Pinot? 

Pinot is a rescue. She was abandoned at some point in her early weeks of life, found in a park, and brought to a kill shelter. This means that for some amount of time she had to fend for herself; no human brought her water or filled a bowl with kibble for her. 

However long that period of time was, I will never know. I was told that she was approximately 11-12 weeks when I adopted her, and she was rescued from the kill shelter about 2 weeks before I brought her home. Assuming that age approximation is correct, she could have been on the street for weeks.

Whatever that amount of time was, Pinot was in a pivotal developmental phase. A point in one’s life, human or canine, where you are dependent on others for your basic needs such as food and shelter. She was not provided these.

So, what does an unbalanced first chakra look like in Pinot?

The most obvious is her habit of ‘drinking the grass,’ my term for when she runs through the mildew covered grass with her tongue lapping up any liquid she can along the way. It doesn’t matter if she just drank from her bowl, Pinot will consume water from any source, every time it’s available. 

She’s not drinking because she’s thirsty or because she is sick. Trust me a google search had me in a panic she had kidney disease, but she’s medically healthy. 

After more research, I discovered that other people with rescue dogs had witnessed this. The hypothesis is that when a puppy has an experience of not having water when they desperately needed it for an extended period of time, they drink whenever they can. Fearful that water will not be available in the future.

I also think she has fun running through the wet grass, slurping some water to help her sensory glands in her snout to absorb more of every scent she’s picking up along the way. And I hope that this becomes (or has already become) the primary motivation for this behavior as she learns that she will never have to search for water again.

After watching training videos online, I realized that I often would give her food and walk away. Pinot is a vocal dog, but she has never exhibited aggressive or defensive behavior. Until I went near her while she was eating.

It took weeks of work for her to not almost bite my foot off when I got near her while she was eating. This level of resource guarding probably developed from having to protect her nutrients from other animals and/or valuing her kibble so much since she knows what it’s like to go hungry. 

Another manifestation is her behavior when we would leave for a walk. She used to cry until the house was out of view, walk erratically, and then start pulling as soon as the house was back in view. She was always so happy when we returned from a walk.

Car rides had a similar pattern. Inevitably the ride leaving the house was filled with cries, however, the second ride of the trip would be significantly quieter, and you could see the physical relief when we return to our garage. 

My interpretation of this behavior (and how it faded over time) is that she was scared that we were leaving, and she wouldn’t be returning. That each time we left the house, she would be taken to a new home.

There are other explanations for these behaviors, but I completed my teacher training about 10 days before I adopted Pinot and I can see physical manifestations of the conversations we had about the Muladhara chakra reflected in her behavior. 

I recognize the recency bias here, and yet all I’m really doing is taking time to consider how the beginning of her life may be affecting her behavior now. These considerations help us bond.

Instead of pulling her away from the damp grass because it might have some iffy bacteria, I make sure she always has access to clean water. Instead of letting her eat alone and warning people for the rest of her life to do the same, we slowly worked through her resource guarding. Instead of dragging her away from the house, we went for lots of walks and car rides of differing lengths until she realized we always go back home.

It’s my job to show her that the rest of her life will be nothing like those first few weeks. 

It’s her job to accept that she will be a spoiled ‘baby doggy.’

Now if only Rag & Bone made dog toys.