The "Just Fold it in" Series: Grounding

This week I wanted to start a new series. I'm going to call it the, "Just fold it in" series. So if you're not familiar, there's a show called Schitt's Creek. In this show there's a scene where the mother is telling the son to just "fold in" the cheese into the dish that they're making. He didn't understand what she meant by "just fold it in" and she kept saying "just fold it in". This was a very funny scene, but I feel like it relates to a lot of these spiritual terms that people throw out, and a lot of times we're not always exactly sure what they're talking about. Most of the time they don't actually ever get defined well enough and we're left confused and unsure. So one of those terms for me was grounding. People would say you need to ground yourself or you have to ground your energy. I felt like in the beginning of my journey, everyone kept saying, "just ground your energy" and I was like, Okay? What? So it felt like that "just fold it in" scene for me. So I was hoping to do this series to hopefully bring a little more clarity to some of these terms.

For today, I want to talk about grounding, or grounding your energy. This practice is very important and helpful and it's not as complicated or involved as it sounds. So first I'll start with why what grounding is, why you might want to do it, and when you might need to do it. So grounding basically means to bring yourself back to the present moment, to immediately connect within, and to connect with your physical environment and your physical body. Grounding is pulling your mind back down, out of that other time/other place where it is. It's about balancing your energy between the spiritual, emotional, mental, and the physical. So, anchoring is another good word for it, anchoring yourself here in the physical body in the physical environment where you are.

Sometimes we can find ourselves getting lost in our mind and in our thoughts. Even possibly our spiritual connection can at times leave us feeling disconnected. We also need to make sure that we are balancing our energy and connecting back with the physical because we are here on Earth and in our physical bodies.

The question now is, when might you want to do this? You might want to do some grounding exercises when you feel scattered, or disorganized. When you notice that you are all over the place, when you're making mistakes left and right, when you can't get yourself together, it may be time for some grounding. Also, when you're feeling anxious or you're focusing too much on the future grounding will be helpful. Also, when you're feeling really disconnected from reality, or disconnected from others. Any kind of disconnection is a sign that it's time for some grounding. Lastly, if you're feeling really depressed, or really stuck on past experiences, and you find you are continuing to ruminate over and over, you might want to bring in a grounding exercise.

There are several different ways that you can ground your energy and there's no wrong way. Find what resonates for you and what feels right, or just doing whatever you can remember in the moment. I think sometimes we don't do practices that can be helpful for us because we get stuck on trying to do things perfectly.

The first way you can ground your energy is to connect with nature. Whenever you're in nature, that's a great start. Feeling your bare feet on the earth is a really great way, feeling the grass, or the dirt. Being in the ocean. Being at any natural water source, listening to the sounds of nature, or observing nature, just getting out there is the number one way you can start to ground yourself and bring yourself back to this physical connection with the physical.

The second way to ground your energy is through visualization exercises. This is one that I often do and is really my go to. I use this a lot as part of my Reiki sessions for others too. When I am working with a person who has a lot of anxiety, or has a very busy mind, I'll try to help by doing some visualization exercises during our session to ground them. These exercises will help to bring them back down, keep them feeling stable and steady. When we're anxious we're not feeling safe or secure. That's part of what grounding is about. So one type of visualization you can do is to picture roots growing from the bottom of your the soles of your feet, and then the visualizing those roots growing deeper through the building, down through the floor of the building, down through the ground underneath, and all the way to the core of the Earth. I sometimes visualize those roots going out connecting to all living beings. This exercise will also help us to remember that we're all one and that we're all connected. When you visualize that nice, deep root system, it helps to give a feeling of security, that we're connected to this earth, and that we have a nice stable wide base to help us be steady.

The next exercise you can use to ground your energy is a one-minute, 5...4...3...2...1 countdown. When we do this we're going to use our five senses, which are always here in the physical. For this exercise you will start by noticing five things that you can see in your immediate environment. Then noticing four things that you can hear in the present moment. Then noticing three things that you can feel in that moment. Then noticing two things that you can smell, and then ending with one deep breath. Don't worry if you mix up which number goes with which sense! It doesn't matter! This is another great exercise to pull you out of your mind and into the present moment, and help you to connect with your immediate physical environment. This is a great strategy because it only takes one minute to do, you can do it anywhere, and you can do with your eyes open. So, whenever you're feeling scattered or anxious, just do a quick 5,4,3,2,1.

Another way is holding, carrying or meditating with grounding crystals. So there are certain crystals that are really great for grounding. One that I used a lot in the beginning of my journey that I really like is, hematite. Hematite is a darker gray crystal that is usually very shiny. Black Tourmaline and obsidian are two other crystals that are great for grounding. Those are just three, but there are many other grounding crystals. Usually you'll find that they are a darker color. They're going to be gray, black, or dark reds. You can put them in your pocket and keep them with you (my favorite), you can sleep with them under your pillow, or you can do some kind of meditation while holding them.

Lastly, physical exercise, outdoors would be better because you can connect with nature at the same time.

So, those are five ways that you can ground your energy. I'm hoping that this, "Just fold it in series" will be helpful for you.

The first term in this series that we talked about was grounding. Basically I am trying to bring some clarity to these spiritual terms that get thrown out a lot. Grounding again is, pulling your energy back to center, back to the present moment, feeling connected with your physical body, your physical environment, and feeling safe, stable and secure.

I hope that that is helpful for you, and please let me know if you have any more terms that you would like to see explained or talked about further. Also, let me know in the comments if you have any other grounding exercises that you'd like to do.

Worthiness ... Time for Healing

We've talked previously about the awareness of our body, our physical body, emotional, energetic bodies, all that it entails. I talked a little bit about how Reiki can help on all levels on all three of those levels and even in ways that we don't realize. In addition to awareness, we also need to feel worthy. I think many of us struggle with the worthiness of healing. Do we deserve to have this healing? This may not be on a conscious level, but if we felt worthy, then would we put the time aside for it? So I feel like that's the first part of the worthiness right is using our time. How do we prioritize our time? What are we allocating time for and who or what is at the top of the list? If we really are in search of healing ... if we really are in search of something more and better for ourselves ... if we want to be free of pain ... if we want to move forward with goals ... if we want to heal from past issues that we've been hanging on to, then maybe worthiness is the place to visit. Are we worthy enough to receive healing for ourselves? Do we deserve to put this time aside for ourselves every day, every week, every month towards our healing?

Addressing our healing can take place in many forms. I just wanted to put that out there today and see your thoughts. Maybe it's time to check in with your worthiness, check in with what might be stopping you for prioritizing your healing, prioritizing time for yourself each day. It might be time to schedule a doctor's visit, schedule a massage, an counseling appointment or maybe an appointment with an energetic Reiki healing practitioner ... whatever it is that you feel like might be on your healing path right now. Are you putting that time aside for you and what you need? If not, maybe it is something to think about in terms of worthiness. Do I feel worthy enough for this or are others more important than my own healing than my own well being? This might be a tough question. I send this message out with all the love in the world, because it is something that I also need to constantly look at and address myself. I know that you nurturing, loving, giving people want everyone else to be well and we want them to feel loved.

There was a message that came through on one of my morning messages from spirit ... "Heal thyself, heal the world". I think a very important message to remember that if we do want to heal the world and help everyone starting from within, is first. Really starting to address our issues, give ourselves the love and compassion that we deserve, and provide ourselves with the time to do this work and to refuel, refocus, reset and heal.

The Chakra System

Today I’d like to talk to you about our energetic body. Over the past couple months we've been talking about our physical bodies and our mental and emotional bodies. We discussed how our emotions and our thought patterns all have an energetic frequency to them. Our energetic body consists of many things, but one of the main components is the chakra system. So chakras are our main energy centers that are located along the midline of our body, and they run along the line of the vagus nerve, which is the main nerve of our body. I find that very interesting that there's an acknowledgement of the energetic effect on our physical body and our physical well being. The vagus nerve innervates all the organs of our body and that also is something that we'll see in the patterns of our chakra centers. Each chakra will correspond with a physical part of our body as well as the emotional side. Today I wanted to just talk a little bit about each of them and what they govern ... what are the areas that they oversee.

So, the first chakra, the root chakra, is at the base of our spine. It is represented by the color red. This deals with our safety, stability, connection to nature, and connection to our tribe. Financial security would be under this this chakra as well. So, if we're seeing any disturbances in any of those areas there may be blockages in our root chakra.

Next is our sacral chakra, which is represented by the color orange. It is located right below the belly button. This center involves our creativity , our passion, and our sexuality. This is our birthing center ... birthing literally or birthing ideas and and projects. Each chakra also has a physical area that you could see some disturbances in if they aren't functioning. In Sacral Chakra we're talking about the organs of reproductive organs.

Then we have our solar plexus chakra, which is represented by the color yellow. It is located right above the belly button, and physically it governs our digestive system. The emotional counterpart deals with our personal power, our self esteem or self worth. You may see someone who's struggling with self worth ... struggling with self esteem, will also have issues with their digestion.

The next is our heart chakra, represented by the color green, and located at the heart center. This is our love center ... self love ... love for others ... giving and receiving love. It involves feeling worthy of love, easily letting our guard down and letting people love us freely and giving love to others without fear.

The next is our throat chakra, and is represented by the color blue. This area involves our true expression of ourselves ... the genuine, authentic expression of us. It involves speaking up for ourselves ... holding boundaries that we need for our well being. Expressing our true selves is the key there. Speaking up when we need to and not always biting our tongue and keeping the peace. Physically this chakra governs the structures of the throat (i.e. thyroid, etc.).

The next is the third eye chakra, located between the eyebrows, and that is represented by the color indigo. This centers around our intuition, that's is ... trusting ourselves, trusting that what we have inside of us, trusting the messages that we hear, trusting our gut instincts. Physically this area governs the pituitary gland, eyes, head, and lower part of the brain.

The last is our crown chakra, that's our seventh chakra, up at the crown of our head, and it's represented by the color violet or white. It is our connection to the divine, our connections to Universal Consciousness ... to God. It is that connection to divine and feeling connected, feeling like there's that communication.

So those are our seven main chakras, that run the midline of our body. The idea is that we want all of these to be functioning as a system. We want the energy to be flowing through the whole system without any impediment, without any blockage. What you'll see, it's like the circulatory system where we want our blood to flow freely through all of our veins. It's the same concept with our energetic system. We want this energy flowing through our body to promote optimal wellness. If there any blockages, if there's an area that we're not taking care of, then that's when we'll see some manifestations of physical or emotional unwellness.

If you have any questions about the energetic system please let me know!

Stress Stored in our Body

Our stress can be stored in our bodies and if this is not addressed if it's not released, then this can lead to those long term health effects such as illnesses, pain or other ailments that begin to develop or persist. This can include physical stress. For example, this could be a physical incident, such as where you were involved in an accident or suffered an injury of some sort or your body underwent surgery. This can also involve other emotional stress that we encounter such as a specific instance or the long term day to day stress that begins to build up.

I find it very interesting to consider two different things when you're talking about this stored stress in our bodies. The first one is looking at the chakra system, our energetic system. We have seven main chakras that run down the midline of our body and if you're looking at a certain area that you're having issues with, for instance, if you're having digestive issues, you can look at the solar plexus chakra, and the associated emotional areas that it governs. So for the solar plexus, that's where where our personal power is held, our self esteem and our self worth. So, if you're having those digestive issues, you may consider looking at those emotional counterparts, and seeing if some work that can be done in those areas. That goes for all the other areas as well. If you're interested and you'd like some more information, please let me know and I can send information to you about what area chakra covers. Sometimes you'll see a connection between that physical ailment that you're experiencing, and maybe you will recognize that there's some work to be done on the emotional side as well.

Then the other area that I'd like you to consider is looking at the time in your life when this ailment began. Was there an incident or some major stress that you were under when it began? Then maybe looking into working through that issue.

Lastly, I'd like you to consider energy work as a piece of that puzzle ... a piece to the puzzle of the healing process. So, I would love to help you in that area, but I want to first say that I'm not a mental health professional. First, I'd like to make sure that that is covered for you. If there are any emotional stressors or any traumas that you're dealing with, that you have the appropriate support in that area. But there also can be the energetic piece where some of this stress, some of this trauma maybe being stored in your body. Energy work can help to release that ... to help stuck energy, that toxic energy, be released from your body, making room for more positive energy to come in ... making room for more of what you want to receive into your life and help you to move forward and away from some of that stress that you want to let go of.

I encourage you to really start thinking about these physical ailments and realizing that we don't have to accept always not feeling well. We can look at putting all the pieces together to help with our healing and help move us forward.