5 Ways to Ground Yourself

Grounding myself has been a problem that I’ve been struggling with for a long time. I live close to nature now, so it’s been a lot better, but there were times where I was just anywhere else except in the here and now. AKA ungrounded. In this article, I’m going to talk about 5 easy ways to ground yourself. There are a couple of fun grounding exercises involved as well, which makes it good as well to release your inner child ;).

 What is Grounding?

For those who’ve never heard about the word grounding, it’s simple, it’s about being in the here and now. Or better said, making sure that you are with both feet on the ground. I can even give it a technical explanation as well. Electricity always has to be diverted into the ground to release its charge. And that’s the same with humans. We are also electrically charged, but then I’m talking more about energetically charged, this we can only release if we are grounded.

But what are the “symptoms” of being ungrounded? Well, there is a wide range of symptoms, and I’ve even heard some people say that a lot of psychiatrical disorders, like an anxiety disorder, stay intact because the patient itself is not grounded. I’m not sure if I’d like to follow that reasoning, but it can be.

For highly sensitive people, they’ve probably already heard from it and they also feel the symptoms a little bit harder than any other person. This because they are already super aware of everything that is going on, and everything that they sense and feel is even getting hyphened. Anyway, here are some symptoms of being ungrounded:

– Forgetfulness (but forgetting about everything)

– Clumsiness (running into everything around you)

– Feeling tired

– Having the feeling that you can’t save any other information

– Unfocussed

And there are many more signals that might point that you are not grounded. And I also have to say that it depends on person to person. It’s good to look for yourself to see what your symptoms are when you are not that grounded. With me for example, and this is a very recent example (like 10 minutes ago and also the reason why I’m writing this article), I went into the garden to look in the pond at the fish that a friend of mine salvaged out of the river that was running dry. When I stood up again I walked into a big massive pear! You might say that this isn’t such a bad thing, but it was a quince. For those who know this piece of fruit, they are big and hard!

And I’ve got many stories like that. Like last week, I was going to the beach with a friend of mine and we were having a small stop to have lunch. When we were ready to walk away I tripped, I tripped over my chair. And not only that, but I bounced off the table as well and fell flat on the floor.

You might think now, for someone who is doing yoga and meditation, you are quite unaware. But that’s not so true. Being grounded is a constant process. It’s not something you can achieve and have for the rest of your life. Some people are naturally very grounded, but some people aren’t always that grounded.

The fact just is that everyone has moments in their life where they won’t feel that grounded. Let me know if you have any stories like mine, that way I won’t feel alone at least.

Some things can trigger you not being that grounded. Being in an unsafe space, for example, can make you feel ungrounded, as your mind will try to find an escape for you. This can be going into a conflict with someone for example. Sudden emotions also have a great impact on how grounded you are. If you feel after a conflict that you still run around with that emotion longer than usual. That might be a symptom of not being grounded enough.

Luckily there are some things that we can do about it and some things are pretty easy as well actually. There are even fun ways to ground yourself and that you can do with your kid to have some extra quality time! Besides that, it might also be helpful with healing your inner child.

How to ground yourself

#1 Bear Meditation

This one is already a fun one to do with your kid. It’s called the bear meditation. And it does what it says it does. You are gonna play a bear. Of course, you just don’t do it out of anything. Here is the guided plan on how to do it:

1. Put your feet shoulder-width apart

2. Bend your knees a little

3. put your arms up in the air, with your elbows bend

4. Focus a little bit on your breathing

5. Start to growl like a bear

With the last step, you have to be aware that the growling is coming from your belly. Try to make sure that you feel the vibrations coming from your navel.

You can do this exercise for as long as you want or as long as you feel like it’s necessary. If you are doing this with your kid you might even make some movements. You can combine this meditation for example with the next one, which is about stamping your feet on the ground.

#2 Stamping your feet on the ground

This one is a little similar to the one above. With this one, you are not going to focus yourself on the sound though, but you are going to stamp your feet on the ground, with the whole surface of the foot. Try to make sure that you are not only stamping with the ball of your feet. You must stamp with the ball of the foot and the heel of the foot.

A fun way to do this with your kid is acting like you are doing a rain dance like the native Americans. Best would even be to do this outside on the grass. If you even have the possibility, try to make a small campfire.

This one you can also do as long as you please. I’ve learned this technique from a shaman and he even said that if you do it right, you won’t get tired. I must have done something wrong though, as I was always exhausted after 10 minutes.

#3 Gardening

This one may sound weird, but gardening is a good way to ground yourself. And everyone can do it. Alas, I don’t have green fingers myself, so I don’t like to do it though. But now and then, when I feel that I need to ground myself, I go into the garden barefoot and with no gloves to pull some weeds. It makes sense that grounding yourself through your gardening is possible. From there the term grounding.

Grounding is quite a new term to use. Because we are more and more turning our world into a concrete jungle, we are slowly losing our touch with nature. In the old days, no one had to work on it, as everyone was always doing something outside, there were no skyscrapers yet, and there were plenty of fields.

Anyway, if you don’t have the place to make your garden, then there are some things you can do. Try to find and see where the possibilities are. A friend of mine lived in an apartment in the city, and she was even growing a banana plant inside. I don’t know how she did it, but it was very important for her to have many plants in her house. These days you can even buy ready-made boxes that are about a square foot big, where you can plant some things.

#4 Tree hugging

This has been popular a decade ago and although people were still looking weird at it, the name of tree huggers was born. It works a bit the same as cultivating your garden, but with less work. You walk up to a tree and you put your arms around it. It’s that simple. The benefits of tree-hugging are the same as all of these other exercises. You’ll get grounded just by being aware of your bond with nature.

Because if you haven’t noticed, the common factor in all of these is that there is something out of nature involved. Animals or plants they don’t have to ground themselves as they still have a great connection with the nature surrounding them.

But don’t worry, if hugging a tree doesn’t fit into your head, it’s also possible just to sit at the trunk of the tree. And maybe like Newton you’ll learn about a new rule of physics!

#5 Food

It might come as a surprise that food can also help you with getting grounded. All the vegetables coming out of the earth, like potatoes, yams, carrots, etc. Are very good foods to ground yourself. Besides that, all of the red fruits and vegetables are also good to have when you are feeling ungrounded. And orange fruits and vegetables will do as well, just a little bit less. This is all coming out of the ayurvedic science, I’m not going to talk about it too much, but there are some great articles to find about it.

What to avoid to eat when you are not feeling grounded are sugary things and cold, light types of food. Salads, for example, are not bringing you a grounded feeling. Although, if you add some beetroots, it might balance things out more. So you don’t have to leave everything that doesn’t make you grounded, you just have to make sure that everything is within some kind of balance.

Cooking with your kids is a very nice thing to do, and although it might seem very hard to make anything with the ingredients that I’ve given you right now, there is something very extraordinary that you can make: Sweet Potato Cake! Which kid doesn’t like to help out while making a cake? Not only is it fun to do, but this version of a cake is also much healthier.

Well, it’s sweet potato bread, but you can make it look like a cake and that will make it more attractive to your kid to eat ;).

1. First, bake a sweet potato in the oven for about an hour on 450°F (230°C), make sure it’s unpeeled and wrapped in tin foil. You can also do this already the night before if you have a kid that’s inpatient.

2. When it’s nice and tender you should see it’s a bit caramelized on the outside, peel it and mash it afterward.

3. Put two eggs in a bowl together with one cup of sugar add after that a cup of brown sugar or coconut sugar (this will make it a bit healthier and keeps you grounded).

4. Whisk this until it looks light and airy.

5. Add half a cup of vegetable oil and a third of the water and whisk it again.

6. Put in another bowl 1 and 1/3 cup of flour and a teaspoon of baking powder.

7. Add a pinch of salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon and stir this mixture together.

8. Add the dry bowl into the wet bowl.

9. And mix this all together into a cohesive mass.

10. Add the mashed sweet potato and mix it again.

(11. If you want you can add some nuts like walnuts, or raisins, dried fruits, etc. into the mixture.)

12. Put the mixture into a loaf pan and let it bake for about 70 – 80 minutes in the oven at 350°F (175°C)

13. While in the oven, you can do some of the exercises above here to entertain your kid.

14. Let it cool and cut it into slices to enjoy it!

Conclusion

That was it for now about being grounded. There are way more techniques than I just explained, but I always enjoy doing something that is fun and easy. This way you don’t have to do it alone as you can also involve other people in doing these exercises with you. There are also a lot of visualization techniques if you are more into that. But that’s for another article.

Please let me know what you thought of these exercises and how they have benefitted you.

And for now,

Nama-stay Grounded everyone!