Grounding Techniques

[Joan Marie]

I'm beginning to understand more and more the importance of grounding.

I've found some really nice youtube videos that are guided grounding meditations.

Can anyone recommend any other techniques for grounding oneself?

[Junipera]

I was first introduced to grounding in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder recovery. The suggested "grounding" techniques puzzled me. They were ineffective and triggering, but I sensed that there might be something similar that would be effective. I did some research. That is what ultimately let me to tarot.

Base/red chakra techniques are a great place to start.

Try humpback whale sounds.

Base Chakra therapy is great for anxiety, but can be depressive. It is so effective that it actually has side effects, like a drug.

[Junipera]

Also really study earth element for tarot.

[Diana]

I don't think I've ever really grasped what grounding means. Perhaps it's what I call "centering". If it's the same, then the only way I've ever managed to centre myself is through meditation combined with gentle breathing, although the gentle breathing is just a result of the meditation, and when my breathing becomes almost imperceptible (without my trying to manipulate or control it in the slightest degree), is when I feel the most connected to what I need to be connected to. Without meditation, I've never been able to attain the same level of centering and confidence and clear headedness.

I apologise if centering is not the same as grounding. Don't want to cause this thread to go off in weird tangents.

[Joan Marie]

I apologise if centering is not the same as grounding.

I think both words involve a kind of focus of energy. Kind of like "self-reiki" which is something I just now made up (as far as I know)

I follow this one online grounding guided meditation exercise where you (after some breathing and relaxing) focus your energy on your feet, which are firmly planted on the floor. Once you have that going, your feet feeling very heavy, almost vibrating, you then imagine rods of light shooting downward from them, all the way to the core of the earth.

Then the meditation continues and all the while you feel fixed by these "rods of light" to the earth's core. When it's over, you start to move your feet and the intensity of the sensation subsides but you feel changed, connected, you could probably say, centered, balanced. There's a calm.

It's pretty intense!

I guess/imagine that grounding and centering always involve meditation. I think the idea behind walking meditation is grounding/centering.

I don't know if there is a difference either. But I think most grounding exercises are literally about connecting to the ground. And I think the point is the sense of connection.

[Diana]

Self-reiki is a good expression I think. I'll buy it and add it to my dictionary.

How you describe your grounding technique, I can well imagine that it's very intense as you say. Rods of light would startle anyone. And it sounds very valid and lovely. Anything that carries light is powerful and light always dispels darkness. That's not only natural law, but also cosmic law and beyond that, spiritual law.

Now after reading your post, I don't think that grounding and centering are the same thing. When one centres, one goes within oneself. Grounding is, as you say, connected to the earth (although the earth is also within us - everything is within us - so there is some kind of sister/brotherhood.)

I'm not very connected to the earth. I don't think I've ever figured out what "earth" would symbolise and signify for me individually, and also on a more universal level.

But in the end, if we connect to the earth, or to the spirit, or to whatever we connect with, it's all the same. Because the proof is in the pudding. If we attain a measure of peace or wisdom or whatever we need or are seeking through the Earth or through the Spirit, or through the goddess or god that we pray to at an altar, or through another means, it's the result that's important. The means to get there can differ, but we all end up connecting to something "higher". And I reckon in the ultimate "higher", Earth and Spirit are not two but One.

Joan-Marie : do you regularly or often use grounding techniques ?

[Joan Marie]

Joan-Marie : do you regularly or often use grounding techniques ?

I've only just gotten into it and have found it really helps me a lot.

It's hard to know what is meant by "connecting to the earth." I'm afraid it brings up images of barefoot hippie ladies, that "Mother Earth" image from the 60s and it doesn't feel that way to me at all.

It's more like realising something that was there all along. Or maybe it takes me out of my head and reminds me who/what I really am, just another person who exists on earth with a bunch of other beautiful persons, and trees and birds.... And that is a very calming relaxing thing. Maybe it just shuts the ego down some. I don't "feel the earth." I feel the connection itself.

I really am interested now because trying to put words on it is hard, but worth trying. I have to think about this more.

I used to have a neighbor who was a writer and if I ever said, "It's hard to describe" he'd look at me real hard, very annoyed, and say "TRY."

[Diana]

I used to have a neighbor who was a writer and if I ever said, "It's hard to describe" he'd look at me real hard, very annoyed, and say "TRY."

I would have looked at your writer neighbour real hard, and a bit annoyed, and say "SOME THINGS CANNOT BE DESCRIBED IN WORDS YOU SILLY MAN. What is felt by the heart can only be felt by the heart experiencing it".

Sounds absolutely wonderful the fruitage that you're gaining from these techniques. And thank you for reminding me that grounding is not necessarily about barefoot hippie ladies (but they were dear old things weren't they!!). It's possible that I have this image in my mind or all that new age-self development stuff that bores me to hell.

You've given me food for thought that's for sure.

[Junipera]

This children's cartoon about balancing the chakras is oversimplified and overly dramatized, but it is a great introduction that lays a framework for further study.

[Junipera]

Search google images for "chakra chart"

[Junipera]

As for being able to verbalize: If you are living life hard enough, survivors learn to FEEL things that they have not been taught a vocabulary to describe. Humans have more than 5 senses, but we only have a vocabulary for 5 of them.

In trauma recovery I was taught these rights:

I have the right to do what I WANT.
I have the right NOT to explain myself.
I have the right to CHANGE my mind.

It is a technique of abusers to convince victims that they only have the right to do what they can justify verbally according to the belief system of the abuser. We do not need permission to do what we want, and we do not even need to explain ourselves at all. "I want to do it that way," is enough.

I want: it takes some getting used to for some of us.

[Joan Marie]

This children's cartoon about balancing the chakras is oversimplified and overly dramatized, but it is a great introduction that lays a framework for further study.

I've read LOTS on chakras and chakra cleansing and to be really honest, that cartoon was maybe the best explanation of it I've ever heard.

[Junipera]

I like it too. LOL.

[Charlie Brown]

Grounding, centering, or whatever, I could probably use some of it right about now.

[Joan Marie]

As for being able to verbalize:

I understand what you and Marigold are saying. But just to make it clearer, I took what my neighbor said quite differently, He meant it not unkindly at all but more as a way to push me from lazy thinking, which at that time I was extremely prone to do. He didn't let me get away with describing something as " a real trip" which was a favourite expression of mine back then. And he was never mean about it. Challenging yes, mean no.

As a writer he always had to dig for the words. That means digging into yourself, and using the skills of language for expression. It means developing those skills and lifting yourself up. He knew it was work and he also knew how rewarding it is to find those words and to express yourself, clearly, beautifully, poetically, no matter what you are describing. Words don't just have power. They give you power. He taught me that and it's one of the most valuable things I've ever learned in life.

[Diana]

As for being able to verbalize:

I understand what you and Marigold are saying. But just to make it clearer, I took what my neighbor said quite differently, He meant it not unkindly at all but more as a way to push me from lazy thinking, which at that time I was extremely prone to do. He didn't let me get away with describing something as " a real trip" which was a favourite expression of mine back then. And he was never mean about it. Challenging yes, mean no.

As a writer he always had to dig for the words. That means digging into yourself, and using the skills of language for expression. It means developing those skills and lifting yourself up. He knew it was work and he also knew how rewarding it is to find those words and to express yourself, clearly, beautifully, poetically, no matter what you are describing. Words don't just have power. They give you power. He taught me that and it's one of the most valuable things I've ever learned in life.

I know what you meant. What I said was a bit tongue in cheek. Through poetical language I think it is possible to describe these moments of bliss. Poetical language can convey things that ordinary words are unable ever to describe. I often write in poetical form when I'm making notes of my experiences, because that's the only way I've found which can come close to what I have experienced.

[Joan Marie]

This children's cartoon about balancing the chakras is oversimplified and overly dramatized, but it is a great introduction that lays a framework for further study.

I know I said this already but I really like this cartoon. I love that people make things like this. It's just wonderful.

I just watched it again.
When they get to the 6th chakra, it really sort of dovetails into the idea I expressed earlier about how grounding feels like the essence of connection.

The 6th Chakra is insight and is gets blocked by illusion, the greatest illusion being that of separation. Cleanse this chakra and you understand and feel the connectedness of all things, all beings.

It's funny to me because it's a kind of contradiction in a way, the idea of connectedness (which is a kind of close, tight feeling) and the expansiveness of that connectedness, expanding to all things through all time.

I feel like I need to move this topic to "exploring the spiritual paths"

That escalated quick from what I thought was a kind of simple almost banal question about "techniques" to something far bigger.

[Diana]

Grounding, centering, or whatever, I could probably use some of it right about now.

How are you today Charlie Brown? Anything we can do to help?

[Charlie Brown]

That's kind of you. I'm fine at the moment. The day is young of course.

[Junipera]

That's kind of you. I'm fine at the moment. The day is young of course.

Young days are so full of possibilities to "learn". LOL.

[Junipera]

Words don't just have power. They give you power.

Yup.

[Diana]

It's funny to me because it's a kind of contradiction in a way, the idea of connectedness (which is a kind of close, tight feeling) and the expansiveness of that connectedness, expanding to all things through all time.

When I read the quoted paragraph above, a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson sprung to mind. It's when you speak of the closeness that I was reminded of it, particularly further down in the poem when he speaks of "Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet". I also find this poem to be very "Tarotic".

The Higher Pantheism

The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains,-
Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?

Is not the Vision He, tho' He be not that which He seems?
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb,
Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him?

Dark is the world to thee; thyself art the reason why,
For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel "I am I"?

Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom,
Making Him broken gleams and a stifled splendour and gloom.

Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet-
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.

God is law, say the wise; O soul, and let us rejoice,
For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His voice.

Law is God, say some; no God at all, says the fool,
For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool;

And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see;
But if we could see and hear, this Vision-were it not He?

[Diana]

I've just been reading an interesting article on chakras and our Western misconceptions and wanted to share with you : https://upliftconnect.com/truth-about-the-chakras/

It's a weird website but the article seems sound enough.

And another one I found worth reading is this one on chakras and Buddhism : http://thezenuniverse.org/chakras-and-buddhism/

[Joan Marie]

I mentioned earlier that I had a couple of nice Guided meditations for grounding and I thought I 'd share them.

This one is 13 minutes long. I'm really liking it lately. She has a nice voice, very American accent if that doesn't bother you, but like I said, a very sweet voice.





And this one is a 10 minute chakra grounding exercise. I like this one a lot too.




if you try them out, I'd be interested in what you think.