Get Grounded
For many springtime is a time of joyous re-engagement, both with friends, community and the natural world. Certainly it is also the first spring in a few years where we have felt so “back to normal” in terms of the Covid-19 pandemic. Regardless of what was, it is important to see, feel and be with what is NOW.
So how is spring treating you? Or how are you finding this season…in your body, your mind, your heart? There are many factors beyond the blossoming of plants and flowers. Life continues to be full of ups and downs, no matter the time of year. For me, spring is notoriously a time of big energy and feeling a really big push to DO MORE! Not like spring saddled up next to me and asked, “are you ready?” Because it never does. And while the joy of new life popping all around me is without a doubt a win-win, heart wide open experience, I also struggle.
I struggle to keep up with the daylight demands of work and garden and socialization. Even more I struggle to stay connected. Connected to my higher self, to my rational self, heck even staying connected to my body. Quite literally my feet to the earth!
So this is my new intention for the month of May—find my feet, feel the earth.
If grounding, in the sense of finding your truest connection of body, mind and soul, is something that you crave, need or want more of, here is a few thoughts on the topic.
From a physical and energetic grounding perspective, the most important place you can connect is through the feet. Literally, our life force energy enters the body here at kidney 1, which sits at the ball of each foot. The wise and intelligent system of Chinese Medicine shows us the way.
Physical
1. Thus one classic way to ground, is to take a few moments, whip off your shoes and socks and make contact with the dirt. Stand tall, breath and imagine that fresh vital chi/prana/mana, or energy, rising up through the feet into and through the whole body.
Mental
2. When the mind is wandering (which is it’s default) and or spinning out with the winds of spring, we can literally anchor it by focusing our attention with a mindfulness practice like this:
Stand in stillness, body connected somewhere to the ground or earth beneath you, and bring the minds focus to an anchor of your choice. Popular anchors include: the breath, sensations in our body, mantra or sound. Breath and feel the body, feel the mind, relax.
Heart & Soul
3. Take time out to do a loving-kindness practice—my favorite one at the moment is placing one or both hands on my body somewhere I feel I can nurture myself the best, and whisper, “you are loved” “I’ve got you sweet girl” or “I am here for you.” In this way we can ground our fears and our amped up nervous system into the spacious heart center. When I touch into this layer of myself, I can instantly feel all the bull**** drop aside and my body settles deeply, dropping it’s anchor into the earth.
You are a unique being, with a unique body-mind-heart system, and yet we all have similar life stresses and circumstances that cause us to lose our connection. Take heart in the fact that you are not alone and that together we can DO THIS thing called—Life!