Grounding

Week 29 - Grounding

On physically being here now.

​

“Being grounded”, and “grounding” have various meanings across modalities of therapy, from talk therapy to yoga to meditation/mindfulness to somatic experiencing. Typically, grounding refers to bringing awareness into the body through your senses and/or figuratively connecting yourself into the support and solidity of structure supporting you and the earth itself. This results in a more de-activated (calmer) nervous system state, and ability to be present.

Some of us are naturally more “grounded” than others. We automatically and naturally ground ourselves all the time: eating food grown in the earth, being outside in nature (especially in or near water), pressing our feet into the ground when walking or exercising, relaxing and staring off into the distance spontaneously, etc. 

Learning how to consciously “be grounded” and ground yourself when needed is a super helpful skillset to learn, that can greatly help with pain, trauma, stress, relating to others, and many challenges of life. It is a way of accessing safety in the nervous system. 

There are countless ways and styles of grounding, so it helps to try out a bunch and use your own creativity to play around with what works for you, what is beneficial and what feels right. As with most things, the ability to a. Remember and b. Do grounding comes with practice. 

The idea is not to add another to-do to our list, 

but to develop awareness of a resource that is already here: 

your body and the ground. 

Some benefits of grounding:

• Presence: brings us back to the present moment, being here now

• Parasympathetic inducing (brings us back to safety, rest & digest)

• Trauma and PTSD treatment

• Slows brainwave states (down from beta to or closer to alpha)

• Embodiment: brings our conscious awareness back into the body and out of our head

• Reduces anxiety

• Reduces stress

• Self-Regulating – Grounding can reduce activation states to some degree most of the time.

• Reduces overwhelm, overthinking, and mental chaos

• Dynamic applications and techniques - countless ways to use, while going about regular life 

As you and your baby grow larger and heavier, it is a natural and easy time to tap into the experience of feeling grounded. Also, this can be a resource moving forward into the unpredictability and challenges of birth and beyond. 

 

Journaling

Part 1, before practicing: 

When you hear the word “grounded”, what comes to mind? What about “ungrounded”?

Write about any experience you have with grounding.

Practice

As mentioned above, practice is the only way to learn this, not by reading or thinking about it. It is best to practice and get the feeling of it in your body during non-stressful, easy times, before attempting to ground in a time of stress or high anxiety. It is a tool that will be invaluable in times of stress and high anxiety if you can remember to use it.

There are countless ways out there to practice grounding. Sensation, Visualization, Movement, Tactile sensations, and Sound are some of the ways. Here are a few of my favorites to try, of various categories:

 

1. Sensation of gravity

2. Sensory rotation

3. Visual environment scan

4. Visual open focus

5. Visualization imagery

6. Physical heel drops

7. Physical shaking

8. Physical body squeeze

This week, listen to this recording (below) I have made walking you through the above grounding techniques. Again, feel free to experiment, and to take what feels good, and leave the rest. There are so many more guided meditations and movement practices on the web if you love it! 

Journaling

Part 2, after practicing:

Checking in with yourself after practicing grounding, did you feel different? [if you didn't, that's OK, and doesn't mean "it's not doing anything". What else could it mean? Grounding is not a magic bullet to go from high anxiety to no anxiety (sorry! I wish it could!), but was anxiety reduced at all, by any percentage?] How did you feel before, and after? Was there any tingling, pulsing, or any other neutral-pleasant sensation in your hands/feet/body that you were not aware of before grounding?

 

• What were your favorite grounding techniques? Do you want to make a list in your journal to remember them?

• Are there any visuals that popped up for you, or resonated with you? (Mountains, trees, rocks, waterfalls flowing down into the earth are some examples of symbols that are used in meditation and/or visualisations to bring a sense of deep roots and connectedness into the earth). 

• When (or with what conditions) do I naturally feel grounded?

• When (or with what conditions) do I tend to feel ungrounded?

• Does grounding help me to feel safer and calmer?

• Does grounding help me feel more present?

• How could I effortlessly remember to practice and then actually practice grounding? [It is very important to go for effortless, to have fun with it and to use your own creativity. Some ideas: 1. link it to a certain daily activity such as showering, stepping out your door into the outside, sitting down to eat, reading to your child, etc. 2. Use a symbol that resonates with you as a visual reminder, and place artwork or an object around where you will see it. 3. Make it a practice that you enjoy as part of your self care routine, i.e. before/during/after exercise, meditation, or journalling]

Try to practice grounding whenever you remember or feel "ungrounded" this week.

Be well, and be you,

Anna