The Root

Drive

At the bottom of the life chart sits the square centre of the Root, the launch pad for all activity in life because it houses our adrenaline and processes stress. As the second of the two ‘pressure centres’, it applies the pressure to act.

The Root exists in a condition of stillness and joy, providing a sense of being rooted and grounded. If the other pressure centre, the Crown, applies an urgency to rationalize life, then the Root applies pressure to engage with and perform in life. It is, by nature, a centre of raw energy, but if it were to have a voice, when triggered, it would scream at you, ‘Lights, camera, action!’

The modern – day world heaps expectation on our shoulders with the pressure to be effective, profitable, productive, brilliant and able to complete a laundry list of tasks. The Root blindly provides the push to get on with things – and cope.

Ambition is one of nine characteristics of this centre. The others are joyfulness, stillness, contentiousness, restlessness, limitation, neediness, provocation and imagination. These individual characteristics are determined by which gates are ‘on’ and are explored later.

Anatomically, the Root relates to the adrenal glands, providing us with the stimulus that turns us into adrenaline junkies or provides that adrenaline rush. But, of course, we can also become stressaholics and permanently maxed out.