Welcome to the Delicious Dignity Podcast. Let's settle in securely and ever so nicely into the brilliance of our own dignity. Hello, lovelies. This episode is a very... unsexy episode for some people. And that's talking about grounding because so many people misinterpret what that word means and they don't understand the highest vibration of this word being grounded. In episode 14, through the lens of Rose Mysticism, I talked to you about how groundedness is actually a function of practicing your heaven on earth. In episode 16, I talked about being a Groundedness is your portal. It's your easy access, fast lane to intuition and accessing the deepest wisdom of your being. That's what groundedness is. So many people think that being grounded is about being calm. Nothing could be further from the truth. Being grounded is about being at peace and in peace. So you can be angry and you can still be grounded. You can be excited. You can still be grounded. I want you to remove that word calm from your vocabulary. Has anybody ever told you to calm down? What has it done? It's only made you more ungrounded. It's not about being calm. It's about being at peace and living in peace. And so much of ritual, I was thinking the other day, I was like, so much of any ritual you will ever do is about grounding. We're going to talk about grounding in the form of what is grounding, what is not grounding, the pitfalls of the way grounding is taught today, and also why we resist grounding. And the most important part is I'm going to tell you simple, easy grounding practices that will bring you back to yourself. You're not forcing yourself It's a natural ease into grounding. And nobody talks about these methods, at least not in this way that I have found. So you're in for a real treat today. I want to talk to you about all of the different ways being grounded shows up in a person and in yourself. All the ways that people have not taught you to think about grounding. And you may not have all these aspects. And some of these aspects will indicate to you where you are, what's your special flavor of being ungrounded or where you are at in the spectrum of grounding. Because we all have our own special flavor, our own special brand or style of being ungrounded. And it's not as basic as just not being calm. Let me just show you the different aspects of grounding. And you will kind of see what I mean. So the first thing that you see with groundedness is a certain practicality and a certain clarity of mind. So your mind is clear. There's no confusion. There's no muddledness. You're not thinking about 50 million things at once. It's not focused either. So it's not single focused. There's a broadness to your focus and a clarity to it. And it's practical, as in your head is not in the clouds. You can daydream a lot, but your ability to take your dreams and impact your earth, that practicality is there. And that's why in episode 14 in Rose Mysticism, I talked about the practice of heaven on earth being grounded. That's one of the first aspects of grounding. The second one is emotional stability. So there are no extreme emotional highs or lows. Now, of course, you're going to have reactions to things, you're going to have responses to things, but your baseline has a kind of stability to it, an emotional stability. It's about bringing you back to a place of peace, not necessarily calm, but peace. Groundedness also appears in the form of being present focused. You're very in the present. You're very available to the moment in front of you. And when you're grounded, you're also more self-aware. You're aware of your thoughts, your emotions, your beliefs, what you're doing and why you're doing it. And therefore, you're a more authentic version of you. Your authenticity is related to your capacity to ground. The more of yourself you can bring to the world is determined by how grounded you can be. That's also an aspect of grounding. The other aspect of grounding, and this is where I become the most ungrounded. So this is my special flavor of being ungrounded. My specialty flavor of being ungrounded is when I have excess energy. What grounding does for people who generate too much energy is discharging it, giving an outlet for people to discharge that excess energy and this is something nobody talks about when it comes to grounding. I'm going to attempt to explain this from another perspective which is from the perspective of electricity. You hear a lot about grounding the electrical current so that it doesn't pass through a person or other sensitive equipment and literally shock them. That's grounding. Grounding discharges excess energy that you might naturally produce as a person. And also grounding makes you available to connect to someone or something. It's connection. It amplifies your ability and capacity for connection. And it also amplifies your ability to feel full and fueled from the inside out. These are all the aspects of grounding and none of them is about being calm. So just take a minute and remember what I said about all of these different aspects and maybe pick two or three areas where you see yourself is your special flavor of being ungrounded and ask yourself, where does it occur in your body and how does it feel? So for example, I told you that discharging excess energy, so I produce a lot of energy and I need to discharge it. And that's when I can get unstable and ungrounded. That's going to inform what grounding technique you will use. For example, for me, because it's in my head, I prefer grounding into my belly or my feet or my hands. I don't prefer doing anything with my mind. For example, when somebody says count to 10, from my mind, that does not work because my ungroundedness feels like it's in my brain. I can't contemplate or think anymore because there are lots of thoughts. I need something more embodied to focus on my grounding. Now for someone else, they might have the same issue that I do, not being able to discharge energy or being ungrounded in that area, feeling it in their head. But for them, maybe a contemplation technique does work. Again, there's no right or wrong here, but you just have to analyze what's your own special flavor of being ungrounded and how it might influence your choice of technique, especially all the techniques we're going to talk about right now. You want to know a funny story? I actually recorded this whole episode from start to finish and because I was so excited and therefore so ungrounded and I was having so many thoughts in my mind, I forgot to turn my microphone on. And it was only at the end when I tried to listen to the episode that I realized the audio was blank because my microphone was off the whole time. It was almost right on the nose because it was like the sign that said, practice what you preach, be grounded first, and then record the episode. And I used a couple of the techniques I'm about to talk to you about right now before I did this episode. And now we're recording much better. What it is So what grounding is not is, like I said, it's not about being calm and it's not about being connected to the earth necessarily. This is where a lot of people might be like, what? What did you just say? Because the ground is the ground. I mean, how can it not be about connecting to the earth? When I was studying in all these new age tools and techniques, and I was very much entrenched in learning all of the new age stuff, every single person will talk about getting grounded and pushing their energy into the earth. So growing roots from their feet and pushing their energy and visualizing it going into the earth. And now for me, every time I did that, I got sick. I felt sick. I felt dizzy. It did not feel good. It never worked for me. And I kept trying to push myself. to do that technique, it was not the right technique for me. And I know why that happened, which I won't get into much detail right now. But the point is, it did not suit me. And I was trying to fit a mold that I didn't belong in. One of the things I will say that I do understand now about why it didn't suit me is when you are crazy empathic, you're not even level one or 100 of empath. You're like on the level 500. I'm talking, you're someone that can just walk by another human being. And if that human has an upset stomach, you will get an upset stomach. That level of being an empath. When you're that level of empathness, and I use that word very lightly, and I am going to talk about thriving as an empath, but I just want to say that if you identify with that level of empathy, then pushing your energy into the ground makes you feel like you're sucking up or you're absorbing or you're feeling all of the energy of the earth, which may or may not be very pleasant. That was my experience with these grounding techniques, and it just The other thing a lot of people recommended was listening to crystal bowls and crystal bowl sessions where people are playing these crystal bowls. And it was like my entire energy field was breaking apart into pieces when I listened to crystal bowl sounds. And I just can't listen to them. It's far from being grounded. It made me extremely ungrounded and kind of defragmented. Pieces of me were just leaving me, but not in a good way.

Thank you.

It's different for Tibetan bowls or drums or any other kind of solid bowls, but crystal bowls don't sit well with me. Now, again, crystal bowls might be very good for you. Grounding into the earth might be very good for you. But my point is, is that you don't have to make yourself fit a grounding mold that you don't belong in. And there are other ways of grounding that are very supportive that don't require an external being or an external tool or an external technique to help you ground. For example, as far as using something external, if we were to just focus on that, if I were to use something external, I am more comfortable grounding in water, especially when I'm floating on water. I'm more comfortable grounding there. It just feels excellent. I'm more comfortable grounding in front of a fire, just staring into a fire and getting grounded. But grounding into the earth doesn't feel as good for me. Okay, so that's an example of something external. Anyway, I want to talk talk to you now about the techniques of grounding and simple, easy, in-the-moment grounding techniques that you can use that don't require external things. But before I go into that, I want to talk to you about the basics. And this is what nobody talks about as much. You have to have the basics. You have to have enough sleep, enough water, enough food, not a lot of caffeine, and not a lot of other substances in your system in order to be available for that grounding energy to happen because you can do all the techniques in the world and work very very hard at grounding or you can do the basics and work very little at being grounded if you take nothing else from this episode as an example just for the next two weeks just focus on getting your basics right People often avoid doing simple things because they think it's not going to be as effective. People have this thing of, oh, the more complex it is, the better. Actually, that's not true. Simple is the foundation on which a lot of complex things are built. But if we don't get the basics right, the complexities either won't work for you or you will have to work for the complexity extra hard. And all I'm saying is, let's take the easier way. Let's take the easeful way. So the basics are get enough sleep, have enough water, have enough food, don't consume too much caffeine and don't have enough substances. If you do nothing else, just do that for two weeks and measure your level of groundedness at the end of two weeks. And you'll see what I mean. Because I never want you to just believe what I say. I want you to apply this in your own life and your experience will be your own teacher. Okay, I think you get my point. Okay, so start with the basics. Now, assuming you have these basics done, let's start with going through the body as a map for grounding. Okay, we'll start with the head first. Usually, a lot of grounding techniques focus on contemplation. Not all the time, but some of the time. So they ask questions like, what am I thinking? How am I feeling? What am I doing? These are three questions you can ask yourself to contemplate using the power of contemplation to ground. Because you're aware of your thoughts, you're aware of your feelings, you're aware of your actions arising from these thoughts and feelings. That's a way to ground. This is especially great for people who are more comfortable being brainiacs or being intellectuals or just very mind-focused. So for them, asking themselves these three questions can be incredibly grounding. The other way to use contemplation energy is to use the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. I believe it came from Navy SEALs. Don't quote me on that. But it's basically, you have to acknowledge five things that you can see around you, four things that you can feel that can be physical sensations or feelings as in like experiencing the way your clothes are touching you. So you're either seeking out physical sensation or you're just noticing what you already have that you can feel. Three things that you can hear. So you're paying attention to external sounds. Two things you can smell. If you're having trouble finding a smell to smell, you can move in a different area to smell the smell. And one thing you can taste. If you don't already taste something in your mouth, you can pop a mint in your mouth and that gives you something to taste. These two contemplation techniques will give you some relief and some openness for grounding and it brings you back to the present moment as a way to ground. And I start with this mostly because a lot of people are more comfortable starting with the mind than they are starting with the body. We're starting here. From the contemplation, let's just go back to your feet and work our way back up to the mind with your feet. The easiest way to ground with your feet in the moment in a simple way is to wiggle your toes. And wiggle them stronger than you normally would like. I'm wiggling them right now. And sometimes I like to close my eyes, sometimes I don't. But I think it's a really fun, simple way to start your grounding practice. You might use this as a technique alone. You might use it with a contemplation technique. You might use it with another technique I'm about to mention. It doesn't matter, but using this is a fun way to ground. When something is not fun, you're unlikely to do it again. Do not underestimate the power of this. I know it sounds simple and a little bit kooky, but I'll just give you an example. Every time I have to record a podcast, I always get signs from the universe that it's aligned and what I'm saying is true and good for the world. One of the signs that happened to me as I was preparing this podcast episode was I got randomly, I just came across a video where the pilots were talking about refueling in air So another plane has to refuel from another plane mid-air. They were talking about how it required an extreme level of focus and it's so stressful. And because it's so stressful, sometimes the pilot can overcorrect and overcompensate. And the tip that they're given for fixing this overcompensation is wiggle your toes. That was literally the video I got. So these are pilots mid-air who are wiggling their toes to get to refuel their plane mid-air. So don't underestimate this practice. Wiggle your toes, take a breath, Do it in combination with another practice and you will find that it immediately grounds you in a way that is pleasant and even fun. Now, of course, with your feet, there's all the typical grounding practices like walking barefoot on the soil or on earth. And while I completely support that, I'm talking about practices that you can do in the moment that are simple. And sometimes, let's say you're in a conference room, you might not have access to take off your shoes and go to a park and stand on the ground. I will mention that practice of walking barefoot on the ground. I believe it's called earthing because it does help. But for the purposes of this episode, it doesn't really fit within the simple, immediate grounding practice. Wiggling your feet is so easy. You can do it even in your shoes. Okay, so let's move up. So now we go to the belly. This is really important for me because it gets me out of my ping pong brain that I talked about before and it takes me into my belly area. I just breathe really big into my belly. So really deep breaths into my belly. And it's a little bit forceful, but it's not really. I'm just guiding my breath to go directly into my belly in and out because we carry a lot of stress in our bellies. Just breathing into my belly just feels like it discharges some of the over focus in my mind. Just taking deep belly breaths in and out really works for me. And it especially works for people who are really mind or intellectual focused, provided they're open and available to going into the body. So now we're going up and when we go into the hands, this is where you stretch your hands in and out. So you're closing your fists a little bit tight and you're opening them really wide and stretching your fingers and palms out. So you're doing it over and over again. And this helps not only with present moment awareness, but also with, again, discharging the energy. But also I feel like every time I've seen a client in like a full-blown anger release doing this hand opening and closing, it helps them to feel their anger, but not letting the anger take over them. That's how you can remain grounded, but still angry. You're allowing the emotion without allowing it to control you. This hand practice really works. Just open and close, open and close, but doing it in a very exaggerated, stretching sort of way. Then we move up. Now we're going into your mouth. This is where you can take a sip of water and just follow the water from your lips down in your mouth, down your throat and into your body. So you're just taking small sips of water and following the liquid as it goes down. And that's a beautiful way to ground. That's especially really good for present moment awareness and being in the present moment. The other thing that I find super grounding is the jaw. Your jaw has these masseter muscles They're called, and you can go on YouTube and look up two-minute masseter release or masseter massage. Basically, you're taking the knuckle of your index finger and massaging your masseter from top to bottom. And that opens your mouth. It opens your jaw. It releases tension that we often hold in the jaw. I even do this on Azhar, my dog, because even animals carry so much tension in their jaw. It's a beautiful way to release any kind of charged, unstable energy or unstable energy. That being said, we carry so much tension in our face. You know, I look at gua sha videos, like where people are doing lymphatic drainage on their face, and that can actually be a beautifully grounding technique is gua sha. And you don't need tools for gua sha, you can just do it with your hands. So sometimes I just use my index fingers to separate the muscles in my forehead, almost giving myself a head massage. And that is incredibly grounding and relieving. It gives you relief. The other thing I do with my face is I splash cold water on my face. I don't like cold plunges and cold water in general, but on my face, it's incredibly grounding. Those are some of the techniques that you can think about when you're thinking about grounding as a spiritual practice, as a mental health practice, as an emotional health practice, as a physical health practice. And I also want to say with your mouth, is sighing, forcing a sigh. It's kind of like you're inviting a sigh. We want to invite a sigh or invite a yawn. Yawning, sighing, these are all a trick, a way to sort of release that over-activation or even sort of anxiety that can make us unstable and therefore ungrounded. To that effect, I want to talk about why we resist grounding in the first place, because for the longest time. I think for a good portion of my life, I resisted grounding. I resisted being in the present moment. I resisted feeling my emotions. I resisted discharging that extra energy because grounding requires a certain amount of body awareness or being in the body or emotional awareness that can feel very triggering because that's where all the pain is. I resisted grounding most of all because of the grief I felt. Just grief. Pure unadulterated grief and this is the reason why I used to smoke too it was a substitute for filling my lungs with smoke as a substitute for filling my chest with love or feeling love I would substitute it with smoke because I just couldn't get the love I wanted so I would fill my chest with smoke and I know that's a very odd way to work with that energy but that's what I used to do and it was a way for me to calm down for being grounded by not dealing with my grief. So it was a cop-out. And that's what substances do. They make you sort of go around the thing you need to address instead of going into it. So I just want to say, for that reason alone, you might also be resisting grounding because there's some unacknowledged grief or you're scared of the pain you may or may not feel. That's why I say grounding should be an invitation. It should not be a force. It should be fun. You should want to do these practices even when you are grounded. That's why it's so important to treat this as an invitation because it can be a beautiful practice and it can be very honoring. I mean, if that's not dignity, I don't know what is. So yeah, let me know which one was your favorite practice, which ones you tried, which ones you liked or didn't like. It would be fun to see. Until next time, my friends, may your dignity find rest in the ground of your being. Bye for now.