Grounding Exercises
Below, find two examples of Grounding/Centering Meditations
“Imagine a soft, flexible green cord is attached to the base of your spine… Clearly observe this cord… The cord is slowly moving from your spine toward the floor… Imagine two more green cords that are attached to the soles of your feet…Now visualize all three green cords meeting at the earth’s surface and forming one large, strong green cord…
Observe the large green cord as gravity pulls the thick rope deeper toward the center of the Earth… The cable is now traveling through layers and layers of solid rock… deeper and deeper… You can clearly see the cord traveling as it slowly moves toward the center of the Earth…
Finally, the green cord arrives at the very center of the Earth… The rope anchors itself to the Earth’s center, and you begin to slowly inhale calm, centered, and stable energy from the Earth’s core… Visualize the energy slowly rising toward the Earth’s surface with each inhalation…
The energy easily ascends towards the ground level… Observe the grounding energy arrive at the Earth’s surface…. The powerful energy ascends through the floor and into the soles of your feet… You feel the energy rising up your legs… You feel solid and centered, like a rock…
Now feel the Earth’s energy enter the base of your spine… The serene, grounded energy feels so soothing… Feel the earth’s energy slowly travel up your spine through your lower back… mid back… upper back… neck… all the way to the top of your head…
You feel centered, calm, and strong as this core energy circulates throughout your entire being… filling every cell of your body… Breathe in the earth’s energy for a few moments… You are calm, centered and happy… You are calm, centered and happy… You are calm, centered and happy…“
—- Ted Zeff, Ph.D., The Highly Sensitive Person’s Survival Guide
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“Grounding begins with the breath. Try this: clench your stomach, tighten your muscles, breath up high in your chest. How do you begin to feel? (People often say, "anxious,” “Tense,” “Panicky.”)
Now relax your stomach, let your breath drop down into your belly, into your toes as your belly expands. Do you start to feel different? For some of you, this might be hard to do. At first it might seem unnatural. Put your hand on your belly, breathe so that your belly pushes your hand out. Practice this, sometimes you need time before you can do it easily and naturally.
Now close your eyes for a moment. Imagine that breath pushing down through your feet, through the base of your spine, as if you were a tree pushing down roots. Let those roots go down through the floor, through the soil below us. Imagine they can feel something of the quality of that earth, what it likes to grow, how healthy it is. Push down through the waters under the earth, down through the bedrock, down into the fire below us. If there’s still any tension or fear, let that go into the fire and just burn away into pure energy.
Now imagine you can draw some of that fire up. Feel it as the earth’s living, creative energy, and bring it up through the rock and the water and the soil. Bring it up into your legs and feet and the base of your spine. Bring it up your spine and let your spine grow like a flexible tree trunk, reaching up to the sky. Bring some fire into your heart, into any place inside you that needs healing or extra energy.
Bring that energy up through your arms and out your hands, and up through your neck and throat and out the top of your head like branches that reach up to the sky and then spread around you and reach back down to touch the earth. They create a protective filter around you. Take a moment, look at that energy web, notice if there’s any places that need to be repaired or strengthened.
Now feel the energy of the sun, shining down on your leaves and branches. Breathe deep, draw that energy in. Breathe it down through your leaves and branches, down through your heart and your belly and your hands. Take it in, feed on it like a tree feeds on sunlight.
Now open your eyes. Look around you, notice how others people look to you when you’re grounded. Notice what’s changed.”
— Excerpt from Starhawk’s “Grounding and Centering for Activists”
