The Root Chakra Reset

Season 2: Episode 16: The Root Chakra Reset

Why Your 2026 Vision Needs a Foundation First

As we step into 2026, many of us are setting intentions and dreaming about what’s next. But if those visions feel hard to sustain, the issue may not be motivation or clarity — it may be your foundation. 

In this episode, Kristin explores the root chakra, the energetic center connected to safety, stability, belonging, and nervous system regulation. Without a grounded foundation, even the most aligned goals can turn into stress, burnout, or survival-mode striving.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why New Year intentions often fail when the root chakra is ignored

• The difference between goal setting and intention setting

• How early experiences shape your sense of safety and resilience

• Signs your nervous system may be operating from survival mode

• Why sustainable growth starts in the body, not just the mind
  

You’ll also explore:

• Practical ways to support and reset your root chakra

• How grounding, breath, sound, and nature create real stability

• Why tending to your foundation makes everything else easier
  

Kristin also shares personal insights and simple practices to help you build your 2026 vision from a place of safety, trust, and support.

✨ When your root is strong, everything else becomes possible.

As always, remember: true abundance is success of the soul.

⁠Chakra Visioning Experience (January 14)⁠⁠

⁠⁠Four Elements Retreat in Tulum (April 2026)⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Learn more at ⁠kristinsvets.com⁠

💻 Visit  ⁠Kristin’s website⁠ or connect via Instagram @kristinsvetscoaching⁠ 

🎧 Subscribe to the Abundant By Design Podcast for weekly inspiration and energetic alignment tools.

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Subscribe to the Abundant By Design podcast for more insights and inspiration. Share your thoughts and connect with Kristin at hello@KristinSvets.com.

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Transcript

Season 2: Episode 16- The Root Chakra Reset: Why Your 2026 Vision Needs a Foundation First

Hello friends, welcome back. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and happy new year. We are officially in 2026. The calendar has turned and I hope you all just got a lot of great quality time with family, with loved ones. We had a very nice, relaxed holiday season. We mostly just chilled out at home, the four of us. One, our older son has just been working out. He graduated college last May, so he's only been working not even six months. So trying to figure out travel when, you you don't want to be the new guy and ask, does everybody really take off around the holidays? Right. So we didn't want to put him in that position. And then our younger son, who's a junior in college, he is studying abroad in the spring. So we didn't really feel the need to add travel to this short season that he was home with us. So yeah, we just saw some family and otherwise we just hung out and it was super nourishing and great. I spent a lot of time taking care of my dog. I don't know if you can hear her walking around in the background. You know, just getting her healthy. That's been a long road and she's doing great. She's permanently lost her vision in one of her eyes, but she can still see just fine for now in her other eye. So we're all okay. She's better. And it was just a really lovely, nourishing holiday season. And I hope it was that for you as well. And so now that the calendar has turned into the new year,

If you are like most people, you're probably, you know, feeling that mix of excitement because it always feels good to have a fresh new beginning, right? And then somewhere with that, there's a little bit of pressure and maybe you've already set some intentions. I'd love to do that on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. So hopefully when you're listening to this, you've already done a little bit of that work. Maybe you're thinking through, you know, figuring out what this year is all about for you. And maybe you're just feeling a little overwhelmed by all the new year and new you energy that swirls around. I don't know if you just heard my dog side, but she must feel overwhelmed by it. But today, what I wanted to talk about is something that most people completely skip when they are doing their New Year's resolutions and planning their year ahead. And this is the reason why so many beautiful visions and goals and even intentions never actually come to fruition. And what I'm talking about is your foundation, your roots. It is the energetic ground that you're building your life on. And so in the chakra system, the energy center system. This is your root chakra. It's your first energy center located at the base of your spine. And here's what I've learned in my own journey. And of course, working with other people is that if your root isn't stable, nothing else you build will be sustainable. And I have a really interesting revelation that I'll share later on from my own story and maybe like some childhood stories that have still been swirling around in my life. And that I've seen that it still gets in the way. So you can have the most inspiring vision, the most aligned intentions, the clearest sense of direction. But if you don't have a solid foundation beneath them, they'll just crumble, right? It's like the story of are you building your house on sand or are you building it on solid ground? What is also and if you're not building it on solid ground, then these visions and intentions and goals then can turn into a constant state of stress and survival. you know, this pushing, push towards your dreams while your nervous system is screaming that you're not safe. And in reference to the story that I'll share in a little bit is that what most people don't realize is that your body is holding onto these beliefs and patterns that you learned in childhood. And they are both conscious and unconscious. So your nervous system stores these memories of whether the world felt safe or threatening, whether your needs were met or denied, whether you could trust or maybe you had felt shame at some point. And so then you have to constantly guard yourself.

And so these aren't just thoughts in your head. You don't have to be actively thinking them. They're encoded into your energy. They're encoded into your cellular memory. And with that, your body just responds to life. And that's why we get in loopholes or just repeating similar patterns that are not the patterns that we intend to create. And so think of it this way, like just like you can't get physically fit just by thinking about working out. Although the power of the mind has shown some cool studies where they did something with fingers and like people's fingers were actually stronger just with thinking. But we know that in addition to our thoughts being powerful, we also have to work our physical body to get physically fit. The mental understanding alone is not enough have to do the physical work. So with this, you also have to do the energetic work. You have to work with your nervous system, get into your body, not just in that physically fit way, which does help move energy, but it's to clear that energy. It's to clear the blocks that are stagnant, that are keeping you stuck in survival mode, even when you don't realize it, even when you are objectively safe. And this is the work that actually creates lasting change because you're addressing the root, not just the symptoms. So that's what we're doing today is we are going to go deep on the root chakra and we're going to explore why this is where your 2026 vision actually needs to begin. How to assess whether your foundation is stable and what to do if it's not because this is all fixable. We are in control, right? We are in control of our energy. We are in control of our life path. We have free will. And here's the truth. You can't build this life of abundance and purpose and soul aligned success on shaky ground, on a foundation of sand.

So let's start with the foundation of your 2026 vision and how to reset your root chakra to make that all come into fruition. So before we dive in, of course, I want to let you know that I have two things that I'm really excited about that will support you in this and they're both designed to help you create your most aligned year. So the first one is coming up soon on January 14th. I am hosting a virtual experience called the Chakra Visioning Experience. Create your year of joy from the inside out. So we'll be going deeper into what we're talking about in today's episode. This experience on the 14th is a 90 minute immersive class we'll move through all seven chakras, not just the root that we're exploring today, but your entire energetic system. And we'll combine chakra teachings with a 30 minute yoga nidra practice for this deep energetic clearing. And if you have not ever participated in yoga nidra, I am so excited to share this with you. It's very sound bath vibes. You you just get to lay down. It's a deeply guided meditation that you listen to while you're laying down and you're cozy and you're supported. And then also in this experience, we will be doing some guided journaling, I'll play some sound bowls at the end of the Yoga Nidra experience. And so what you're doing is accessing your body's wisdom. And you'll leave with this embodied blueprint for your year that honors every dimension of your life. And you can register for that. It's on my website, christensfetz.com. So I would love to see you there. Please come join us if that speaks to you. And secondly, if you feel called to go even deeper and do something in person and truly immerse yourself in transformational practices, plus just have a ton of fun, I'm leading a retreat in Tulum, Mexico in April. It is for four nights. It starts April 22nd, which is a Wednesday. It's Earth Day through Sunday the 26th. And we will spend this time together combining sound baths and meditation and breath work and yoga and movement and the medicine of this beautiful place that is Tulum. And it'll help you reconnect with your soul's purpose and reconnect with your inner wisdom and just have so much fun with the other women that are on the trip. And we're gonna create joy and we're gonna create from a place of overflow. And so this is an intimate, intentional, designed for women who want this type of renewal and deep connection. All the details are on my website. I would be happy to hop on a call with you if that is speaking to you. And for anyone who puts in their deposit to hold their spot for the Tulum trip, you can of course come to the chakra visioning experience on the 14th as a bonus for jumping into the retreat. Okay, so for today, let's focus on that foundation, the root chakra and why everything else you want to create this year depends on getting this part right.

So before we actually go into just the root chakra itself, I want to make an important distinction that's going to shape how we approach this entire conversation. And that is there is a difference between goal setting and intention setting. I might have touched on this in one of my previous episodes, but understanding this difference is crucial and actually one of the women asked me about this on my very first retreat that I ever did and Intention setting is the point of my book. My book is called designed to shine living intentionally to discover your inner light so of course on my first retreat I had an intention setting workshop and She was like isn't this just setting goals and I was like, oh, I love this question because no it is not just setting goals goals are external. They're about outcomes, achievements, what you want to accomplish, maybe what you want to acquire. So I want to make X amount of money in my side hustle business this month, or I want to lose 10 pounds, or I want to get promoted or just whatever it is that you're wanting to accomplish or acquire. It's just that these goals are measurable and concrete and they're often tied to timelines and metrics. And that's great. I mean, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with goals. We all need goals. We need structure. They're super useful. But the problem that I'm saying is that goals live entirely in your head. They are about the doing and the achieving and the proving. And once we have your intentions for the year set, then we can set goals, but you have to have the intentions first because goals first are often disconnected from what your body and your energy and your soul actually wants and needs. So those intentions then are different. Intentions are internal. They are when we have taken the time to listen to our heart and soul. They're about how you want to feel who you want to be, the energy you want to cultivate. So I intend to feel grounded and safe in my body. I intend to move from a place of overflow and confidence instead of self-doubt and depletion. I intend to trust my intuition and speak my truth.

So intentions aren't about controlling that measurable outcome. They're about aligning your energy, and they're about creating these internal conditions that allow the right things to unfold naturally. And here is why this matters, because you can achieve every goal on your list and still feel empty and exhausted and misaligned. Think of how many people you know that do a lot of things and look really successful, but they're not happy. Why is that? Because it's the chasing of external markers of success without tending to your internal state. But when you set intentions and when you focus on who you're becoming or how you want to feel, the right goals will emerge naturally the right actions become clear and you create from alignment rather than force. And a lot of those measurable goals are fantastic when you know how to manage your energy to make those aligned goals come to fruition. So as we explore the root chakra, we are not just asking what do I want to achieve.

That's not it. We're asking, what do I need to feel safe and grounded and supported and what intentions will create this foundation for everything else? Again, this is the difference between building a foundation on sand or building on bedrock. So let's understand the root chakra. The root chakra, as I mentioned earlier, it's your first energy center in Sanskrit. It's also called the Mooladhara. It's located at the base of your spine and it's associated with the color red and the element of earth and the physical body itself. That earth element connection is so important because think about what the earth represents. It represents stability, grounding nourishment and support. The earth is what holds you, what sustains you, what allows things to grow. So when you're connected to earth energy, you feel solid and present and rooted in your body and in the current moment. You trust the ground beneath your feet, both literally and metaphorically.

So this root chakra governs everything related to your foundation, your sense of safety, your basic survival needs. And then it's also the sense of belonging, right? Being a part of community. So it's asking these fundamental questions like, am I safe? Do I have what I need? Am I supported? Do I belong? And when your root chakra is balanced and open, you feel that way. You feel grounded and secure and stable. You trust that you have what you need and that you're capable of creating it. You feel connected to your body, to the earth, to the present moment. And you have this sense of safety. You have a baseline of calm, even when life is challenging. Your root chakra when it is stressed or a lot of people say blocked. And I would say I like the word stagnant more. So when your root chakra is stagnant or depleted or overactive, everything feels like precarious, right? Like you might experience constant anxiety about like money or just basic needs, even when you have everything you need. It could be anxiety around staying present, that you have difficulty staying present. I think that's where a lot of us struggle with the root chakra, is staying present. And maybe you just feel ungrounded or spacey, like you're in the super transitional moment. It could be the scarcity mindset. I think so many of us struggle with that.

Again, even when we have everything we need, there's this background of like, what if the other shoe drops? What if everything goes wrong? And that can show up in physical symptoms too. So physical symptoms of the root chakra are often shown in like lower back pain. I actually had that. So I've done a lot of my own work on the chakra systems and I worked with a Reiki energy healer for a long time. And when we were doing my root chakra work and going back on some childhood things and working through relationship with my father, my lower back like went out. It's just fascinating how those are actually connected. But so in that space of a stagnant root chakra, energy flow. is a difficulty in following through on intentions because you're always in this survival mode and you're probably just recreating it because your root chakra is shaped by your early experiences. So how safe you felt as a child, whether your needs were met, how stable your environment was, but it does also respond of course to your current circumstances. do you have financial stress or actually, you know, I feel like more in the world that I am in, it might be more about like health challenges or major life transitions, right? Like the kids leaving for college or marriages, you know, being at a really difficult moment in time or actually ending. So those are all things that rock your foundation and stability, right? So even when you're so excited that your kids are going to college, that rocks your root chakra because it is a major change in what your family life has been like. So, you know, in our modern world, so many of us are walking around with, you know, is it stagnant root chakra or just depleted root chakras? And we're trying to say like manifest more abundance, more love, more ease, more freedom. We want to live our purpose while our nervous systems are stuck in fight or flight. Our nervous systems are convinced that we're not actually safe. hopefully that helps you see the problem here that you're trying to build a vision for your most aligned year while operating from a place of survival. And so if you're setting intentions, just from your crown chakra and spirituality or your mental mind and all those structured goals, but your root chakra is screaming for attention. That is why intentions fail. And it's not because you're not disciplined enough. is not. is because you're trying to build this second story before you've secured

the foundation. And so why does your vision for 2026 need to start with the root chakra? Because energy is moving from the ground up. I mean, of course, energy can go both ways, right? I love in meditation, I always direct people to see like beautiful, healing, divine light coming down over them. But when we as humans in a physical body need to move energy, we have to start from the bottom, we have to move from the ground up. So in the chakra system, the current of liberation is that energy is flowing from your root to your crown. And it's from your foundation to your highest spiritual connection.

And so that's why you want to pull all these together. You can't skip steps. You can't bypass the lower chakras and expect the upper ones to function optimally. Think of it like a tree. You cannot grow a healthy tree without strong roots in the earth. So you can't build a life filled with ease and freedom and purpose and joy without this solid energetic foundation and your root chakra is your earth energy and it's your foundation for all of that. It's where you build from.

And so whatever it is that is calling to you that might be included in your vision for the year, if it's maybe that you want to launch something new or you want to work on your physical health or there's a creative project that you want to work on. For instance, the year I wrote my book that required a lot of root chakra work because putting my voice and sharing my stories out into the world, that felt scary. That feels unstable, if you will, right? So when your vision, is including things like that that will set off your nervous system, that your nervous system wants you to play small and stay stock because it's safe and secure. And so your body isn't gonna let you take that leap because it doesn't trust that you'll be okay until you learn to and your body won't let you take the leap because it doesn't trust that you'll be okay. And so this is where we struggle to stay grounded. And this is actually an interesting part where like doing just spiritual practices also isn't enough because you can do a lot of spiritual practices and connect your intuition and feel good.

But then you just crash back into anxiety about survival because you haven't integrated the wisdom that you're receiving through your nervous system, through creating an overflow in your foundation. So that's why we're tending to it first. So it doesn't actually mean that you need like perfect stability before you can dream and grow. I mean, my nervous system likes to make up a lot of things just to repeat what my childhood was like when in reality, my every day right now is really great. My marriage is great. My kids are great. like our life is great. And then when I try to do things like write a book or make a podcast or launch a retreat business, there's always self doubt. There's always a struggle that my root chakra needs some clearing and I do that through creating nervous system safety. And you can do this too because when your root is nourished, when you feel fundamentally okay, when you trust that you can handle what comes, when you're connected to earth energy and feeling supported, everything else becomes possible. So your vision for 2026 doesn't start with the destination. Like my example of the year I wrote a book, it couldn't start with that. It has to start with the ground beneath your feet, the safety that you're creating every day, the motivation and love that you're giving to your foundation. And so how do you do this? How do you like check in and see what kind of attention your root chakra needs? So there are a lot of somatic things to look at as well as intellectual and emotional things to look at. So you start with asking, do you feel safe in your body? So not intellectually, but do you feel it when you tune into your body? Do you sense safety or do you sense underlying? And can you take a full breath? Because your body will always tell you the truth about all of your energy centers. And breath work is one of the best things to connect to your root chakra, to your body, to your nervous system and create that sense of safety. And then there's questions about, your basic needs being met? So of course we typically think about that of like, you know, the basic resources of like money and housing and food and healthcare and are those secure? And I do feel like a lot of you listening to my podcast probably do have that sense of security, but then it's looking at other things in your life, like family dynamics changing. Are there things going on in your life that are causing you to operate from scarcity? And maybe it's even a childhood wound that is just causing you to always operate from the sense of that scarcity feeling you can ask yourself, I feel connected to the earth and to the present moment? Because the root chakra is earth energy. So when it's balanced, you can be right here, right now. One of my favorite mantras to share right here, right now. And so if you're chronically in your head and disassociating or just like, you know, spaced out and running around, your root chakra is calling you home to your body.

You can ask yourself, I have a sense of belonging? Because the root chakra is about your tribe and your community. And do you have people that would show up for you? Do you feel like you belong? And how can you support yourself in creating that? And then even asking yourself, what is your relationship with your own survival? So do you trust yourself to handle challenges or do you live in constant fear that that bottom will fall out? So your root chakra holds your fundamental beliefs about your own resilience. And if that belief is shaky, then everything else feels shaky too. So I actually did a program a couple of years ago. I created it called the art of resilience and it really resonates here of what you want is to pause and to breathe and to check in honestly and to listen to your root chakra and listen to what it's asking for. So here are some practical things that you can do to help balance your root chakra. If you are feeling or realizing in this conversation that it does need that support, then here are the practices that you can use to strengthen your foundation. The first, of course, is physical grounding. I actually start my book with the chapter on grounding.

Being connected to the earth is literally the foundation of everything, and I did not do that on purpose when I wrote the book but it's the first chapter because it is inherently, intuitively the starting point of everything. We have to be connected to nature. So, you you always hear walk barefoot on the earth and then I live in Chicago and it is the middle of winter and it's cold and I'm not gonna walk barefoot on the earth right now. But then that's where I love yoga. So grounding yoga poses. You can still connect with nature even if it's cold outside. know, sitting in a sunroom or just spending time, this might sound silly, but literally giving yourself to spend time looking out the window. Look at the trees if it's cold. If it's nice out, go outside and sit against a tree and look at the sky and garden and touch the earth. And just anything that you can do that immerses you into nature. These acts remind your nervous system, I am supported, I am held, I am connected, I am safe.

And it's so powerful. It's really one of my favorite things to do. And I'm going to plug Tulum again. That is what I love about retreats is when you spend time away from your normal life and you spend so much more time in nature. And on this Tulum trip, our yoga room is open air with an ocean view. I mean, come on, it's going to be amazing. Okay. Other fun ways to support your root chakra that are nice and practical is actually connecting with the color red and eating foods that are red. So wear red clothes or put them on somewhere just to be intentional about connecting with your root chakra. You can eat red foods, beets, peppers, strawberries. You can eat root vegetables like carrots and what else is red? Radishes. So just foods that grow in the earth. yeah, carrots aren't typically red, they're more orange, which is the sacral chakra. But just anything that is a root vegetable that's actually grown in the earth, it carries grounding energy. So that is gonna support your root chakra. You know, I can't talk about this without talking about sound and vibration. And you may have heard me say before, the sound of our voice is the most healing vibration we have. And each root chakra also has a bija mantra to go with it. So you can say the sound loom, loom. And it's spelled L-A-M. So if you prefer to say it lam, you can do that too. See what vibrates at the base of your spine when you say it. And that's what's cool about when they made these mantras.

Of course, there's intention behind those as well. And each mantra for each chakra vibrates at that energy center. So play with the lam or loom and chant it and let the vibration resonate at the base of your spine. You could also just listen to root chakra frequency music. You could find that on Spotify. You can find it on insight timer and all of those things will support you to release stagnant root chakra energy, release fear and insecurity. then what about like truly practical, right? So practical life foundation work, because oftentimes that is what the root chakra needs more than meditation, is it needs you to address real circumstances. So if it is the financial stress that is destabilizing you then just take one concrete step towards that. Create the budget or have that conversation that you've been avoiding. If your living situation or your family situation is changing, if you're moving homes or if somebody's moving out of the home because they're going to school, you know, do things that make your space feel beautiful and loved and sacred and just feel more connected to your body in those spaces and feel more connected to your emotions around whatever is creating a lack of stability and support yourself with the really the the practical things that we talked about before of being intentional with supporting the root chakra in those spaces. So if there's gonna be an empty chair at the dinner table, because somebody goes to school, or for me, somebody's going overseas, then there's ways that you can really honor that change in the family dynamics and create that sense of safety. And create a plan to commit to an embodied practice around it. And so even if that actually means setting up the weekly phone call with your kid that's studying overseas or weekly FaceTime or more than that, but when your body knows that that safety mechanism is in place, you are able to release that energy that's just getting in the way of everything else for no reason. So that is where root chakra work is both an energetic practice and practical action. You can't just like meditate your way to stability while ignoring the circumstances that need attention, but you also can't just fix external but you also can't just fix external circumstances without addressing internal wounds. It's the both and in terms of the story that I mentioned earlier that I would share, I found an old diary the other day of mine. I was doing some deep organizing and just clearing things out and I found an old diary and I just can't even believe what was in there because I was writing in it in the nineties. So literally 30 years ago. So I was in my early twenties and the stories that I had in there of the struggles that I had and I had not yet met my husband and I had not yet like hit career success that I wanted to. So all of these issues that I had and what I wanted to accomplish like, I want to work out more and I want to pray more and I want to do all of these things are very similar. was so fascinating to read that because 30 years later, I have the life that I've always dreamed of. I have the happy family. We've been very blessed and very lucky. And then I have created like a work situation where I get to channel those same nervous system messages towards my work because the family's all good and the work that I'm doing is great, but I'm creating a situation for my nervous system to still tell those stories. So that was a huge revelation to me that I am letting go of in 2026, that those old wounds get to be released. They do not serve me. They do not serve all of you if I'm not like sharing the work that I love and sharing my voice authentically and I just think the human experience is so fascinating. It's fascinating that that is still there from 30 years ago and 30 years ago it was there from my childhood, right? Because I'm 54. So affirmation work that you can use for the root chakra is to just say, I am safe. I am supported by the earth. I am nourished.

I have everything I need. I trust myself to handle what comes. I am grounded and stable. I belong here. The earth holds me. I am worthy of security and overflow and abundance. And so what I've shared today is just one chakra, one energy center, one dimension of your life. So if this deep dive on your root chakra has revealed things, imagine what happens when you work through all seven chakras systemically. And again, that is what we're doing in the chakra visioning experience. It's going to be condensed because it is just 90 minutes to get through all seven. Again, that is January 14th and we'll move through all seven energy centers with specific journaling prompts. We'll do a 30 minute yoga nidra for this nervous system support and energetic clearing. There'll be a little bit of sound healing within that and you'll leave with a comprehensive and embodied vision for your year and that these intentions that you set will honor every dimension of your life and registration is on my website in the show notes, kristinsfetz.com. And again, that retreat in Tulum, it's going to be amazing. The medicine of Tulum and truly being immersed in the four elements of nature there. We will do yoga. We will do sound baths and yoga, nidra, meditation, breath work. We have fun excursions. We're going to go to the ancient ruins. We are going to swim in a cenote. We are going to do a cooking class. So this is really for you if you are looking for that level of nourishment and connection with other women and with inner truth.

The details are also on my website and feel free to email me at hello at KristenSvets.com for more information. So whether you join the online chakra visioning experience or if you come to Tulum or you just work with what you've learned today on your own, the invitation is the same. Start with your foundation, tend to your roots, connect to the earth and build your vision for the year ahead on stable ground. Because when you feel safe and resourced and grounded, when your root is strong, when you're connected to earth energy, everything else becomes possible.

So in closing, I want to thank you for being here. I want to thank you for doing this deep foundational work. And just remember that your vision for this year doesn't start in just your thinking mind and it doesn't start with just the dreamy visions in the clouds. It starts with the earth, with your body and with your foundation. So answer those questions first. Set intentions that nourish that foundation connect to the earth element and watch what becomes possible when you're building from stable ground.

I'm so grateful for all of you being here. Happy 2026. And until next time, remember that true abundance is success of the soul and the journey is the purpose. So let's be intentional and build from the foundation up. Sending so much love to you guys.