The term ‘grounding’ has had a resurgence of late, and there is some beautiful research and wisdom about it, doing the rounds. It is commonly understood to mean bringing balance and harmony to the physical/mental and emotional systems through conscious connection with the earth and nature. The science-peeps are now able to confirm what most of us have always known and felt. Some of the wonderful and measurable benefits of ‘grounding’ are:
- Decreased levels of inflammation and pain through resetting cortisol hormone secretion
- Reduced stress levels, depression and anxiety
- Improved circulation and cardio-vascular health
- Improved sleep
- Slowed aging
- Stronger bones
In the main, our modern lives have disconnected us with the vast healing benefits of direct contact with the earth underfoot and with the wilderness. We live out of season. We wear shoes, everywhere outside. We override our own bodily requirements for seasonal nourishment, sunlight levels, hydration, rest and play; and we live in highly engineered environments low on natural light, colour, scents and cycles. I think all of us at some level crave a wild-hit of nature and we all know how it feels to escape to the wild when we can. The crave for grounding is one of the most common responses I can feel in private energy sessions. When I place my hands at the client’s soles and open a conduit to the earth, sometimes the rush from their energy body can nearly bowl me over. Us humans, despite appearances, are all wild at heart!
Anyone on my social media channels would know my love-affair with the wild and thankfully they happily endure endless photos posted of jungles, moons, dawns, dusks, trees and critters (Thank you!). I do this not only because it’s pure beauty, but because the wilderness provides a sensory dialogue with Spirit, which I affectionately call Wild Medicine. I can’t get enough of it and there’s nothing like the equatorial wild field to deliver.
During this time of the year, when teaching and private sessions slow-down due to holidays, I make a conscious effort to re-wild on spiritual retreat and so lately I have been delving into a spiritual exploration of ‘grounding’. Conscious connection with nature, and re-wilding the mind/heart/body are integral to spiritual grounding, but I am learning that the process involves far more that achieving stabilisation and calm. It’s not just about ‘bringing the system down’, it’s also about converting healing, revelation and new energy streams into operational systems within ourselves, in our ordinary lives. There is an aspect to ‘grounding’ that I call the High Ground.
Finding the High Ground is necessary whenever we experience something that vastly widens our perspective on self and life and strongly challenges our existing paradigms. A birth or loss of life, illness, pain, a second chance, exposure to an enlightened person or group, a powerful energy session, and especially upon return from spiritual pilgrimage, are all examples of when finding the High Ground is just as important as receiving the new perspectives. Re-entry into ordinary life after these kinds of experiences can be a bumpy ride. Some typical markers I feel when the requirement for High Ground presents are: an inability to think clearly and a lethargy towards mundane tasks; everything once familiar looks new; people notice physical changes to my appearance, especially my eyes; erratic sleep and high dream activity; strong impulse behaviours; high bliss, followed in a split-second by high anger or sadness. When I feel and experience these things after returning from pilgrimage I know that I am in a process that requires High Grounding. It’s not just about landing back into ordinary life and becoming operational again; it’s about incarnating the spiritual experience, making it flesh, realising it and it requires a conscious effort.
My pilgrimage season started last month with an intensive retreat in the US, with Native American ceremonies and medicines. Whilst seven days seems a short spell, the spiritual intent of pilgrimage opens a vertical depth within that timeline of radical experiences and growth; a gateway to deep dive; and I went for it. The wilderness, people, guidance, rituals and medicines all combined to deliver (and continue to deliver) a reboot of my system and a vastly expanded view of life. My intent for the week was to experience an embodied state of Divine Love and what transpired was far beyond anything I could have imagined. I was laid bare and rebuilt several times over. I will share more of the experience as it integrates, in my circles and writings, but the upshot of it all upon returning to ordinary life here in Singapore was that my heart had been broken, expanded and re-set. I was experiencing the deepest forms of love on all levels, for everyone and everything, a merging, a oneness; and at the same time, I was filled with a fierce longing for union with it all too.
On one hand this river of new energy was incredibly useful. In my private healing sessions, the quantum of energy moving through me to my clients amped considerably, as did the clarity of revelation as my aspect as healer found union with their desire to heal. My dreaming took on a new level of lucidity as my subconscious and conscious minds found union as I slept. My meditations reached new depths as my spirit found union with my nervous system. My runs through the jungle each dawn presented very deep movements in beauty and metaphor as my system found union with the wild field. But on the other hand, I was on very unstable ground. Physically, my sacral had filled with an energy of nuclear proportions. My inner world was transforming through expansion into aspects Divine Love and my physical body was responding with an unprecedented level of sexual energy. As wonderful as these new energies and perspectives were (and felt) unless I could ground them they were potentially going to cause a few problems. Finding the High Ground became very important for lots of reasons!
With very dedicated focus, a return to disciplined practice and A LOT of introspection, I was able to stabilise the energy movement and bank the learnings. And while the process is still in motion, I know I’m on High Ground now.
So here are some approaches that have vastly helped me in my post-tee pee assimilation:
1. Bring awareness into presence and then split the focus evenly between spiritual and mundane aspects.
Present awareness is key to High Grounding. If your system is going through a rewiring to accommodate new perspectives and energies, it can sometimes feel very uncomfortable, raise old patterns ready to be dissolved and cause some big mood swings – not always, but in my experience, usually. Staying present enables a pause point between what’s happening internally and our response. It allows us to bear witness to the process rather than slip into contracting reactions to it, therefore maintaining choice and inner space. Regular meditation, time in the wilderness and journaling all achieve this. You can also work with your base chakra, or hui yin point. Gently contracting and releasing the perineum throughout the day, and when in meditation sits, stimulates the base chakra, our energy centre for presence and grounding, and also helps to circulate vital life force through the energy body – which cleanses and harmonises.
Dreaming, intuitions and revelation during inner practice are also key. There is a constant dialogue happening between self and Spirit guiding the assimilation process. It’s not a reach to find it, as it is happening within. It’s a matter of creating still, present awareness and observing. The mundane becomes a metaphor for the spiritual activity and the spiritual activity, reciprocates. When we can follow the threads and themes, the assimilation process becomes far more efficient.
2. Honour the physical aspect
Over the last few weeks, post tee pee, I became very aware of my physical aspect being an integral vessel or container for expanded awareness of Divine Love. I used different ways to reconnect my awareness far more deeply into my body. Every third day I fasted and leant fully into the feeling of hunger. I have run in the jungle at dawn every morning, relishing the rhythmic contact between myself and the Earth and speeding up my metabolism which in turn sped up my detoxification and release. Employing moving meditations – like Qi Gong has also been very beautiful. I have taken regular massages to align my spine and open my chest area for deeper breathing and heart-expansion and have been anointing my body with beautiful oils and soaking in salt baths. These are simple but powerful ways to acknowledge that High Grounding is about running new energies and information through the entire aspect of self – from Spirit to Cells.
3. Connect with a wider energy field – the wilderness and stay open to receive.
The more commonly understood process of Grounding is hugely useful during these times of assimilation. Bare feet to Earth, conscious exposure to moon and sun light, scents, botanical pheromones and colours are all medicines for harmonising the system. Elemental practice is also fantastic. If you see the wilderness as a living field of intelligence and energy, this enables engagement. I was seeking stability, traction and grace and found myself taking my meditations outdoors and into rocky glens and stone circles. I had run past this place nearly every day, but ‘saw’ it for the first time as the structure, solidity and symmetry drew my awareness. If I was to describe it to someone over the phone who could not see it – I would be describing exactly the features (energies) I was seeking. This is the best test in choosing which elements best serve your process. At other times of High Grounding it has been water, wind or fire, but for this last process it has definitely been rock, earth and solidity. Aren’t these Stone Spirits and skies beautiful? They served me very well indeed! On several occasions whilst running in the morning, some heavy sudden tropical rain set-in, or I would happen upon a flock of singing birds or chattering monkeys. I followed the response in my heart and received all these elements as essential to my healing and process. Sounds, water soaking my skin, dawn light, fiery sunsets and silvery moons are all subtle forms of very beautiful vibrations and in the spiritual plane, nothing is experienced by chance. I received every wild kiss offered to me fully and it yielded.
4. Choose company and content very carefully
Sometimes these intense situations are so big that you might be tempted to share what’s going on in your inner landscape, however not everyone is able to understand or cope with this kind of information which is difficult to capture in words anyway. I am aware there will be some who find this article pretty out there, and it has taken some editing to tone it down to a digestible form! Seek company and content that is affirming and spiritual in nature. Speaking about the process before it has run its course is also a sure-fire way to deplete the energy and momentum from it. Best to talk with self, Spirit, some trees and your journal until you can feel your feet on High ground.
5. Keep a sense of humour about the whole shebang
I think perhaps this may be the most important tip of them all. This Spirit in Matter gig that we are all engaged in can get pretty whacky at the best of times. Spiritual enquiry, immersion and assimilation is a vibrational intelligence and energetic art, and most of the time on a logical, mundane level, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. There is hilarity in this disparity and when you can find it and enjoy the insanity rather than deny it, you maintain a far wider field which allows for greater movement and rotation into new paradigms and realities. Laugh at yourself! It’s healing, soothing and way more fun. In my observation it seeds the shifts more deeply.
6. Lock away all weapons
The old emotional rollercoaster is going to be part of any assimilation. Dense, defuncted energy which gets knocked out of the system when new higher vibrational energy comes in, will almost always release through the emotional body. There will be tears, bliss, melancholy, anger, sadness, joy and all degrees in between, sometimes within seconds of each other. Being present with these vibrations as they move through the system is key as is not blaming or projecting onto others. It’s your spiritual assimilation, so take full responsibility for it. If you are being triggered into an awareness by someone, feel it, remove yourself and take it into nature. Better to scream at a rock, than ninja kick the channel for your learning. Last week my daughter asked me why I was so quiet one day. I showed her this and she nodded and then quietly asked if I had been for my run that morning!
7. Get your Ju Ju on
Making actions sacred through simple ritual that weaves in corresponding elements is both beautiful and highly effective in finding High Ground. It’s an expression of the conversion process happening within and it brings beauty and sensory engagement with the process. A morning shower can be transformed into a powerful cleansing action with presence, a candle, essential oils and mantra. Meditation sits to find clarity and guidance can be transformed with setting sacred space and using correspondent power objects. Even a meal, of nourishing grounding foods that grow in or close to the earth brings these vibrations deeply into the system. I love meditative ritual for all these reasons and I know that the greater the thought, preparation and intent when entering any ritual, the more vibrant, useful and efficient the energy and revelation received. This is the sacred space I created to enter ritual for a brother also going through his own post – tee pee integration who asked for guidance. I used the earth elements of copper, bone, selenite, dagger, parsley and blue sage and the read received was clear, beautiful, and very helpful for us both.
8. Nurture Gratitude
The final tip I can offer is to constantly remain in a state of gratitude. Gratitude heals and expands and keeps a direct channel of love and dialogue open with our highest aspect and Spirit. This game of life is a powerful, dazzling mystery and there’s no point wasting a second of it in victimhood, separation or dullness. Gratitude keeps us sharp, observant and humming – the perfect combination to find our High Ground!
Spirit-led change and growth is our sovereign rite and the whole point of this game of life. Keep moving and experimenting and you will always find your Self on High Ground where a new horizon will appear to beckon your spirit on. Go in joy.
All my Love
Dani
If you would like further information or guidance on anything in this article, please feel free and happy to contact me at [email protected]
Some great pieces on the physical benefits of Grounding:
The Invisible Benefits of Grounding.
Blog from Kimberly Snyder
Grounding the Human Body: The Healing Benefits of Earthing.
Article by Clint Ober and Gaetan Chevalier and Martin Zucker.
Originally published at themeditationteacher.net