GROUND CONTROL: Grounding exercises and visualizations

This article was published in The Mindful Word journal of engaged living (http://www.themindfulword.org)

Grounding is the preparation of mind and body to absorb energy from the Earth. To be grounded is to be in right relationship with God/Spirit and the world you live in. Grounding and spirituality don’t oppose each other. Rather, grounding enhances spirituality.

Benefits of grounding

• More energy in everyday life to accomplish your goals
• Improves health
• Improves concentration so that we can get things done amid distractions
• Aids in performance under stress, such as working under a deadline, going to court or surviving confrontations
• In the healing arts, grounding makes your work on others more effective, and leaves you less fatigued

Are you grounded?

Body awareness is a good indicator of one’s current level of grounding. For example, martial artists performing with grace and ease of movement often show exquisite grounding.

Body awareness includes feeling inside your entire body and all of its parts. Feel your body with your hands. If you don’t have much sense of how your various body parts feel, if feeling isn’t equal within your body, or if certain parts of your body are cold (such as your hands and feet), your grounding could be improved.

Good body awareness also includes knowing if your body is fatigued. When you get sick, is it a surprise, or did you notice that you were dragging? Aches are clues to stressors held in the body, rather than energy flowing usefully through the body when you’re grounded.

Grounding exercises and visualizations
Visualization: The volcano

One simple way to improve grounding is to focus on the red and orange spectrum of colour. Gazing or meditating on red and orange and bringing awareness of those colours into your mind and body is a great way to get grounded.

Standing comfortably, visualize the red, hot, molten lava deep within the Earth. It seethes with power, constantly in motion. Picture the lava from the Earth moving upwards, toward you, erupting in a volcanic blast between your legs. The volcano invigorates and strengthens you. As you absorb the energy contained in the lava, see the orange-red energy swirling low in your belly. Feel this power, always available to you from the Earth.

Exercise: Using awareness

Another way to increase grounding is to recognize body mannerisms. While driving, for example, check if your shoulders are up. Are you leaning forward? Clutching the steering wheel? At home, while going about your normal activities, occasionally check your knees. Are they locked? Are your hands or jaw clenched? What part of your body aches or feels tension? As you notice your body mannerisms and identify the places that clench or hold, you also discover where you lose energy.

As an exercise of awareness, draw your attention to your feet. Practice contacting the ground with the whole bottom of your foot. Get your socks and shoes off and walk around on grass, carpet and other surfaces with texture. Focus on what your feet feel. Play with increasing foot movement, awareness and flexibility by picking up marbles with your toes. The following visualization focuses attention on your feet as the means to tap energy from the Earth.

Visualization: The tree

As you stand, imagine roots growing from the soles of your feet, reaching down into the Earth. Allow your feet-roots to absorb water and nutrients and feel these energy aids course up your legs and into your body. Feel your strong trunk (from legs to waist), firmly anchored to the ground. From this firm foundation, your branches reach upward and outward, and take in the vibrant energy.

Get grounded!

To increase grounding, be sure to eat well. Including the following roots in your diet may help: carrots, potatoes, onions, rutabagas, ginseng and ginger. Because these roots grow in the ground, they help to promote grounding. Alcohol does not help you ground, nor does sugar.

Mental activities can also help us to ground. Too much mental activity, however, detracts from grounding, so be sure to balance your mental activity with physical activities such as lifting weights, aerobics or the martial arts. These disciplines help to increase awareness of the whole body. The parts that get sore are the parts that need increased body awareness.
To increase grounding, choose physical activities that focus awareness on your body and the Earth, not ones (such as trampolining) that lift your focus to the heavens. Remember, ground first so that you can accomplish your spiritual goals.

Read about how drumming can help ground us

image: Scot Nelson (Creative Commons BY-SA)

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