How are you Staying Grounded?
- Tree Ryde
Thought
Have you ever felt in limbo? Disconnected? Lost? We all have been there at one point or another. We lose our footing or grounding from time to time because of change. Change happens everyday but when there is a big change we end up in fear and if we let the fear take over, we lose our grounding. We all have various things that give us the sense of grounding in life but if one or two get pulled out from underneath us….it can make us fire off undesired behaviors.
When we lose our grounding it is like being on an ice rink with no ice skates, your feet slipping from underneath you losing your balance and if you reach out for something to grab and nothing is there it can be a scary feeling indeed.
Ponder
All of us as humans need to have a sense of being grounded, know that there is something out there for us to grab. This can mean something different to everyone, we all have different things that make us feel safe. Being grounded could mean that you have a strong family connection, spiritual connection, connected to nature or have a strong connection to a community that allows you to feel supported. We all need to feel connected to something, that is what being human is. Sometimes we end up creating a community that fits what we need.
Sometimes the needs of being grounded changes over time, we get ungrounded and then grounded again with a new connection that aligns with where we are at the new moment in our life. It can be a writing group, knitting group, fitness team, religious community, hockey community and so on. We as humans need communities to survive. We also need a sense of groundingness within ourselves. So what makes you feel grounded? With your health and wellness? Community? Relationships? Goals? Finance? Work? How do you feel grounded when alone?
Action
If you are not grounded, you are just wandering around with no mission or outcome, you could end up in stress and overwhelm. So how do you get grounded? It is all about how you FEEL. What makes you FEEL good. For some people, just knowing they have their next vacation booked grounds them, or they have self care time ahead of them… that is the thing they reach out for.
What in your mind and nervous system allows you to feel comfortable, safe, secure and supported? Who are the people, places, tasks or systems involved to allow this safe feeling to happen?
- Make a list of your feel good people, places, tasks or systems. This is where you get your grounding pathway from. Write out a list, then you have your “Go To’s” of what you reach out for to make you FEEL good.
- Then what are the potential “Throw you off situations?” (Things that would put you in an ungrounded state) Make another list. THEN what or who are the people, places, tasks or systems that can beat situations, this creates the path to get you out of what you do not want and into what you do want.
- Draw lines from what keeps you grounded (People, Places, Tasks and process to the potential ungrounded) You may have to refer back to these lists at first but over time you will get the repetition of doing things differently.
- Learning more about yourself allows you to choose to be more balanced, grounded and get to your outcomes faster. You are less stuck on old patterns and common tendencies. The faster you are resilient to change the easier it is to step into new patterns that are useful for you.
