More than one of my friends have mentioned to me over the last few days about their struggles with grounding lately. Now, many of these people would have significant experience in working with energy and being focused and in generally, could usually ground in their sleep – and, I’m fairly certain, have done so!
I’ve had some difficulties myself, to be honest, but it’s manifested in a slightly different way than usual, so it took me a while to figure out what was happening. So I thought I’d go through some of my techniques for grounding that don’t really require training as such.
First and easiest for me is to stand barefoot on the ground – grass or sand or clay or earth. Tarmac/concrete/floors work as well, but the natural base helps significantly. Stand barefoot and feel the ground beneath your feet. Imagine yourself being rooted to the earth. It should help a lot.
If you want to go even further and your local weather allows is, lying on the ground, particularly again in nature, exposing the maximum amount of your body to the earth, is very helpful. If you have hair like mine, it might be easier to tie it up, rather than allow it to attract every leaf, cobweb and other natural debris in the local area, but it’s not necessary. Some would say loose hair is a necessity for this, but I say those people don’t have wild, curly hair with a mind of their own! 🙂
Next up is standing in moving water – anything with a current or a wave, regardless of how small it is. So, lake, stream, sea – now, I’ll be honest, a lot of the time, the initial cold takes my breath away when I do this and you need to be careful about safety and not be wading hip deep in a heavy current – water safety is always important! But even that shock to the system of cold water is useful for bringing you back to yourself (as long as you don’t have a medical condition where that shock of cold would harm you) If you can submerse yourself as well, even better. But with Irish weather, this might not be advisable. Although rain would work as well – you’d just have to deal with your Mammy giving out to you and threatening you with pneumonia for standing out in the rain.
Next one is to eat something mindfully. By this, I mean, select something and put some time into eating it. Focus on the taste, the motions you use to eat, to chew, the sensations in your mouth, your throat, on your hands as you move the food to your mouth. Think about the smell, texture, sight. Does the food make a noise? Narrowing your focus like this is a handy way to bring you back to the presence. Think about the journey this food has had to reach your plate. Contemplate the movement around the earth (or down the road, or from the back garden), the work that went into producing it and moving it and getting it to you. Think of all the times this food has touched the earth, moved across the earth, as part of this massive ecosystem of ours.
Finally – and this one is a bit controversial, but bear with me. Go to the toilet. Defecate if you can. It’s hard to feel ungrounded while pushing faeces out of your body. This activity is one of the natural times of the day (or week or month, depending on your body’s cycles, I guess) to consider our bodies, our physical selves and our connection to the other physical bodies around us and beneath us. And yeah, I get it, it sounds yucky. But here’s the thing – our faeces and urine are the waste we expel from our bodies and return to the earth. There is a connection there between us and the earth. OK, these days, we mostly treat our waste before returning it to earth, but nevertheless, at the end of the sewage system, or in the septic tank, that’s what happens.
So there you go – a few quick and handy techniques I find useful for grounding. Let me know if they help!!
