The choice to ground ourselves, the dance of balance
Photo by Monica Uszerowicz
Most mornings, my dog and I walk east - straight into the sun. While stepping directly into the South Florida heat might sound counterintuitive, I want to be reminded that I have a body. And so I sweat and feel the rhythm of my mildly labored breath. I feel the pleasure of being present.
But then the sense that I’ve overindulged creeps in and I look at the time on my phone, feeling my awareness spin up into my mind and on all that asks for attention: to-do lists, news feeds, emails, messages, appointments, what’s for breakfast…to name a few things. If I don’t keep my attention in check and in balance, I notice that my feet and toes get cold, my head feels dense, and my neck and shoulders become tight and caved in. Time feels scarce. I feel unfocused and anxious.
It’s taken me a while to realize that when I enter a state of imbalance, I don’t have to stay there. I am learning that balance is an active and ever-shifting process. I am learning that grounding my awareness into my body, into the present, and into the Earth can be a choice.
I continue to return to shamanic practitioner, teacher and author of Deep Liberation Langston Kahn’s thoughts on grounding. An excerpt:
“When you begin moving your energy out of your head deeply into the whole of your body, out of the future or past and into the present movement, and out of the screens of your devices or your family of origin and into the Earth, everything changes…pulling yourself up and out of your body is often a survival strategy that takes some steady time, attention, practice, and compassionate patience to unlearn.
[Grounding is] a choice to stay rooted in the present moment, rooted in the current environment you are inhabiting, rooted in your body, and through your body, rooted in the Earth. Grounding is a choice to stay awake and alert rather than spin out into fears and addictions.”
My clients, peers and friends also have a lot to teach me. I recently guided an outdoor group session. The atmosphere was unexpectedly noisy, but through all the stimuli, environmental sounds and other elements, I was amazed at how — through gentle, compassionate guidance and willingness — each person was able to find a quiet place within to ground, tune into their bodies & engage their imagination. I invited everyone to share their experiences after the session and glimpsed each person’s capacity to access their inner resourcefulness. (You can find a version of this guided grounding trance, along with hypnosis basics, here.)
The experience of grounding varied from person to person, teaching me to release old ideas of what a “grounded” or “balanced” person looks like. Finding a sense of groundedness or balance is not a destination of perfection. You do not arrive there and stay there. Perhaps it feels more like constantly meeting and consciously navigating a dance with ourselves from the present — that is, starting right where we are, whether where we are is a state of panic or one of calm. We do this so that we can, hopefully, engage with ourselves, others and our environment from a place of agency and adaptability.
I am also learning that to ground our awareness is to remember that we are truly not just our mind, but a body within a larger, interdependent one. Earth. To ground into our bodies is to ground into the Earth, for we are of it. This perspective provides me with a sense that maybe I don’t have to carry all my worries and fears alone. And perhaps, part of grounding is allowing myself this feeling of relief.
Some questions to consider:
What does it feel/look/sound like in your body when you are not grounded? What fears might be beneath this? What contributes to this experience?
What does it feel/look/sound like to be grounded in your own body? What contributes to this experience?
In what ways can you make grounding a consistent practice for yourself?
With gratitude,
Kristen
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