Emotional Grounding
When you experience fear, anger, hurt, or any other unpleasant emotion intensely, notice any inclination to bury, devalue, or resist it. When we do any of these, we lose an opportunity to learn from what we’re feeling. It also frequently means that we stay stuck in these emotions. The saying “what we resist persists” is true!
At times emotions can seem so strong that they feel as if they will overwhelm your ability to cope with them. Remember that emotions are not good or bad, simply clues to pay attention to in order to further our growth. They are proof that we are alive!
However, in order to learn from our emotions, we may need to manage our experience of them. If you are having trouble with this, here are some ways to ground yourself so that you can use the emotions in self-enhancing ways. Grounding your emotions through nature can be very helpful. Take some time to walk or sit in nature if you can.
When this isn’t practical, here are three possibilities:
- See yourself taking a walk in some natural surrounding, sitting in your yard or in a park, or leaning against a tree. Imagine that cords or roots are growing from your feet down into the earth, connecting you with its nurturing elements and energy that gives life to all things. Feel these roots anchoring you in the earth. Imagine that the intense emotion is flowing out from your body through these roots into the earth. Know that this release serves you by reducing the intensity of the emotion but does not disconnect you or hide it from you in any way. Also know that the earth is nurtured by this exchange, creating the conditions for growth and renewal in the earth. Now imagine that you are absorbing through your roots the nurturing elements of our earth mother, creating the conditions for growth and renewal in you. Feel the rich energy from deep within the earth, from the rocks, soils, and springs being drawn into your body and your soul, feeding your spirit. Feel this mutual connection with earth, this interdependence and nurturance. Notice what you feel and journal about it.
- If you like to garden and it’s a good season for it, work with your hands in the garden by pulling weeks, fertilizing, planting, mulching, or just feeling the soil with your fingers for the sheer physicality and joy of it. Image that your hands are a conduit linking you to Earth. Imagine the strong emotions flowing into the earth through your hands and the richness of the earth’s soil and elements flowing into your body. This creates a balance in you emotionally. Dwell in this balanced place and breathe.
- Stand or sit in nature and breathe. Imagine that your emotions are like the carbon dioxide that you breathe out which so enriches and nurtures the plants. Imagine when you breathe in, you breathe the oxygen the plants manufacture and take in other aspects of the earth that ground and nurture you. Imagine also that any strong emotions you feel are breathed out and recycled into something useful for the earth, just as the carbon dioxide we breathe out gives plants what they need to live. Feel yourself balancing and releasing some of the intensity of your emotions. Notice yourself connecting you to a place of clarity.
