Getting Grounded

One of the gifts of mindfulness practice is embodiment. As we build awareness, attention and concentration into the sensory experiences of the body the we come to inhabit our bodies more and more. In this day and age, where most of us live from the neck up and move through our jobs and lives at breakneck speed, multitasking, and cruisng the internet at 100,000 miles an hour, embodiment can be a great buffer and healing force against stress, anxiety, and dis-ease in the body.

For many of my clients, they are survivors of trauma…and much of the population in general has some sort of trauma. I define trauma as developmental or single incident. A developmental trauma is one that occurs over time. This is such re-occurring traumas as emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. It can be as severe as child molestation or rape occurring over and over again, over a span of years….or as insidious as having a parent tell you over and over again that ‘you are fat, stupid, never do anything right’, etc, etc.

A single incident trauma can include one-time incidents such as an operation, a car accident, a mugging; these incidents occurred once, not repetitively. Both types of traumas can occur on various levels of a continuum from somewhat hurtful to severely damaging, and personal resilience can affect how each of us is impacted by these events. Everyone reacts to these hurtful situations differently

It is important to remember that these traumas are held in the body.

For the reason that many of us hold trauma of varying degrees in the body, we have left our bodies or it is very problematic to occupy them. This dis-embodiment or dissociation is further complicated by a culture that values intellect over feeling and reinforces the value of living from the neck up. To be in our bodies is to be whole, and can, in and of itself, be very healing . It is our physical form, and as we are willing to contact it, and become more whole and more embodied; our healing begins as we engage our bodily felt sense.

As we pay attention and explore with mindfulness our sensory experience in the body (touch / feel space) we are naturally becoming more embodied. As our awareness explores the various experiences of the body we are strengthening our connection to our physical form. Working with sensation and emotional feelings in the body can be a wonderful way of both building our mindfulness skills and getting more grounded.

Grounding, a popular term in psychology, basically means that one is using a technique to get into their body, and in a bigger sense feel our connection to the earth and the outside world. Mindfulness practice offers a beautiful and simple approach to embodiment that can be a major resource for all of us, with ‘big’ or ‘little’ traumas.

Below I will offer a simple mindfulness exercise that works as a great and relatively safe grounding tool. I often use this myself, and with clients. For some who are severely traumatized, even this small explorations can bring up painful wounding held in the body. So please be cautionary in your exploration. If you are feeling overwhelmed please immediately come out of the exercise.

Please note that it is best to practice these exercises under the guidance of a mental health counselor or qualified mindfulness instructor.

• Let’s take a moment and take a comfortable seated position, upright and breathing normally. (alternately you can stand with knees slightly bent, with shoes off, feet contacting floor)

• Notice your breath. Notice where you feel your breath most strongly: chest, abdomen, at the nostrils, etc.

• Now bring your attention to your feet. Feel them contacting the floor. Notice the little bones of the feet, the soft tissues between the bones.

• Wiggle your toes a moment, scrunch the feet into balls, bring all of your attention to these movements.

• Notice how your feet feel, is there tension, relaxation, sensation, or no sensation?

• Gentle press your feet into the ground feeling a strong contact with the ground. Then let up, allowing your feet to contact the floor normally.

• Take a deep breath in then deep breath out. Begin to breath through the feet, On the next in-breath visualize the pores of the soles of your feet breathing in taking the solid foundational energy of the earth in. On your out-breath feel your feet discharging this energy back into the earth.

• Continue on like this taking in a deep breath through the feet, energetically connect to the earth. On your out-breath discharging through the feet.

• As you breath through the feet notice the dynamic energetic connection between you and the earth, breathing in through the feet…gathering the earth energy, breathing out through the feet discharging the energy.

• Continue this exercise for 5-7 minutes. If you find your attention wandering bring it back to the feet, deeply breathing in and out through the feet, feeling this grounding earth connection.

• When you are ready to end direct your attention back to the room. Notice the sounds in the room, the feeling of your body sitting (or standing) on the chair, the temperature of the air, the position of your body, the smells in the room, the feeling of the air on your skin.

• When you are ready, gently open your eyes.