Staying Grounded
It’s taken a lot of work to help me learn how to stay grounded. When I was first traumatized, I survived by disassociating, or basically leaving my body. I didn’t know I was doing this until I began to do more in-depth healing work with bodywork and Reiki. Even therapy, which had many benefits, didn’t really help me too much to learn how to live in my body.
In addition to being traumatized, I had some spiritual inclinations. Honestly I believe that these two things can go hand in hand. As one healer I worked with put it, “when the physical world doesn’t take care of you, the spiritual world does.” Or as the Bible says, “When you are weak, God is strong.” Both my trauma and my spiritual sense led to a tendency for me to become ungrounded. It seemed so much safer and nicer away from my body.
On top of that, our modern society with its prevalence of screens, smart phones and technology also encourage ungroundedness. And honestly, it’s ok to become ungrounded. It’s not a bad thing. But for me to fully heal, I had to learn how to fully live in my body. As with most things, this is still something I work on.
Some techniques that help me are breathing, any kind of mind-body movement (yoga, mindful movement, pilates – whatever floats your boat), being in nature, and practicing feeling my feet on the floor. I like to do a body scan where I focus internally on my body, as well as chakra visualizations, where I imagine bright light shining into each chakra. I kind of do my own thing with this as I feel called to, which can end up being really powerful.
Being grounded can take work, and can feel scary at first, but I felt I could only truly heal once I learned to feel safe in my body. It has helped me feel alive and claim my space, and is allowing me to create a life I truly love, right here and now.
On that note, I’ll leave you with an awesome article I happened to read this morning, about the use of somatic experiencing in healing trauma. I haven’t tried this technique formally but it sounds extremely helpful.
http://www.dailygood.org/story/2231/in-an-unspoken-voice-the-changing-face-of-trauma-peter-levine/
What do you do to stay grounded? Thank you for reading and I’m wishing you safety and beauty today & always!
