Grounded: What is grounding and why is it important?

Have you ever described someone as grounded?

When someone is grounded, they are stable, balanced and seem to operate from a strong sense of inner peace. We may also call someone “down to earth,” which means they are unassuming and easy-going. Often, we don’t think about it much, it’s just a feeling we get about a person. At times when we are around someone like this, we may feel grounded too, just by being in their presence.

From a place of being grounded, we have clarity, feel relaxed, make good decisions, communicate clearly, exude confidence, feel open-hearted and open-minded, and tune into our intuition.

However, at times, we all feel ungrounded. Our modern busy lives can easily throw us out of alignment and into a state of stress, disconnection, and discomfort.

When I am ungrounded, I feel like I could flutter away. My attention is either in the clouds daydreaming or scattered all over the place and in all directions. I might feel anxious and restless. When I am frantic, disorganized, and hectic, it is usually because I am ungrounded. I am short of breath, confused and lost.

Not a good feeling.

This is not a personality trait but a state of being that can be altered with a few tools and practices called grounding.

Grounding is to make an energetic connection to the Earth.

There are small scientific studies that show that walking barefoot or lying on the ground may help with inflammation, cardiovascular disease, muscle damage, sleep, chronic pain and mood, but it is still an under-researched field. 

Physicists have shown that all atoms in the universe are vibrating and that when different vibrating things encounter each other, they will often synch up and vibrate at the same frequency. The general idea behind grounding is that the cellular and intracellular matrix of our body, which is always dynamically vibrating and can transfer information through vibrational chemo-mechanical energy, requires occasional recharging by conductive contact with the Earth’s surface to be optimally effective.

One way I love to ground is to connect with the Earth by going outside into nature and breathing slowly and deeply. Tune into all your senses--sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell--as well as your heart sense. Listen to your heart and let it guide you to a safe spot where you can sit down, or even better lie down, and breathe with the earth beneath you. Imagine your body melting into the earth with each exhale, allowing yourself to sink, release and relax. As you inhale, imagine you are breathing in the earth’s energy and calming your spirit.

Another simple way to ground, especially if you can’t go outside, and the practice I use every morning in my nature intuition meditation, is to create a grounding cord.

Consider how we use grounding in electrical engineering. Electrical grounding is when excess electricity is directed to the ground via a grounding wire as a safety component. This grounding wire will discharge extra electricity to the ground so that it doesn’t short circuit and cause a fire. Our grounding cord is essentially a metaphysical grounding wire; it sends all our extra energy down into the Earth, so we don’t implode.

Find a relaxed position and close your eyes. Sense a grounding cord, like roots sprouting from your tail bone and the bottom of both feet, easily penetrating the floor beneath. Allow your roots to be broad and hardy. They can widen as they wade through the water table, swirl through thick bedrock, reach in all directions, digging deeper past the Earth’s mantels, heating up as they near the core. Sense your roots merge into the Earth’s molten living core and anchor in.

Pause for a moment and feel completely and fully welcomed by the Earth just as you are without conditions. You are a part of all Earth’s creation, a loved and perfect portion of the whole.

When you are ready, you can begin to release.

The Earth’s core has the power to burn up anything. Singe it to nothingness and transform it. The Earth can compost all your shit and turn it into fertilizer for something better, something necessary. Send down all the insecurity, anxiousness, fears, self-loathing, negativity, all those weighty things that return each day anew, and clear them from your energy. Freely release and the Earth will gladly receive.

Once you have cleared, you are ready to be filled. Wait for the spark. Call up the fire spirit of Earth and sense it rapidly traveling up your intricate root system like a bridge to your body, into your feet and tailbone and filling you up until you are completely absorbed with Earth energy. Now, you are grounded. How does it feel?

You can do this practice anytime, anywhere. You can also use this technique to ground other things. Right before I switch my car into drive, I ground all four tires with roots to the Earth. Sometimes if I am in a group with someone who has frenetic energy, I might give them a grounding cord to help them calm. I like to ground my home as well, sending a grounding cord from the foundation into the Earth. You can play around with this and notice how the energy shifts around you. Practice often.

Like all beings on this planet, we are earthlings and in tune with the rhythms of the Earth. Reconnecting to the inherent vibrations of the Earth reconnects us to our core calm and ease and allows us to feel grounded. Earth medicine is always at hand; it’s been right under your nose this whole time.