You're Grounded!

“It is only by grounding our awareness in the living sensation of our bodies that our real presence can awaken.” ~ G.I. Gurdjieff

Life can sometimes be overwhelming. Thoughts and emotions have a way of feeding off each other, often spiraling out of control, resulting in panic, anger, sadness, or confusion. As you probably know, the best way to prevent this is to ground yourself. But what does being grounded even mean? A good way to understand grounding is to imagine an ungrounded electrical circuit. It will function just fine but, if a surge of electricity occurs, the circuit will get hot, begin to spark, and eventually melt. By grounding a circuit, you create a pathway for excess energy to be sent into the earth before it can do any damage.  
 
What does this have to do with you? Like an electrical circuit, you also have energy running through your system. Although your physical body exists in solid form, your thoughts and emotions exist as energy. Your sense of self, memories, fears, hopes and dreams all exist as thoughtforms, which are essentially electrical currents running through your nervous system. When your thoughts and feelings begin to overwhelm you, it’s like an ungrounded circuit getting too hot. Maybe that’s why reaching an emotional breaking point is commonly referred to as having a meltdown. 
 
The trick is to ground your excess energy before it has a chance to do any harm. There are many proven ways to ground yourself, including walking barefoot on the earth, eating root vegetables, meditating, and taking mineral salt baths. You can also imagine a grounding cord that extends from your tailbone down to the center of the Earth. However, in line with this week’s quote, one of the most effective ways to be grounded is to bring your awareness into your physical body.  
 
You can sometimes get so identified with the energetic, metaphysical aspect of your being that you completely forget about your body. To remedy this, focus your awareness internally, all the way down to your bones, the most solid part of your being. The next time you feel your mental/emotional energy spiking, simply ground into your body. By bringing your awareness into your body, you create an anchor to something stable within, grounding your energy into your physical being before it becomes too much to handle. By grounding into your body, you can remain calm and centered on the inside regardless of what is happening on the outside.