Grounding: The Easy Way To Deal With Difficult Feelings

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Video: Grounding: The Easy Way To Deal With Difficult Feelings

Video: Grounding: The Easy Way To Deal With Difficult Feelings
Video: Grounding - techniques to manage strong emotions 2024, March
Grounding: The Easy Way To Deal With Difficult Feelings
Grounding: The Easy Way To Deal With Difficult Feelings
Anonim

Fear, sadness, anxiety, despair, anger - these characters seem dangerous to many of us. They lie in wait in the most unexpected places and pile on with all their weight at the most inopportune moment. It is very difficult to curb violent emotions, and if a person is especially sensitive, then these insidious predators always have something to eat. So what to do when tears or fierce rage come to the very top of the head, when the whole inner world shrinks to the size of a billiard ball in the chest area, ready to explode like a red-hot supernova, and around, for example, colleagues are holding a meeting, or children are asking to play with them to hide and seek?

There is a fairly simple and accessible way for each of us to come to our senses even in the most seemingly unbearable situation. In body-oriented psychotherapy, this method is called grounding, as in physics, only here, instead of an electric current, emotional stress goes into the ground.

Conscious walking

Let's try to start simple. You can get up on your feet and just walk around the room or down the street, paying attention to the feet: what part of the foot touches the ground when the foot is lowered or lifted from it to take a new step? How are the toes involved in maintaining balance? How is body weight distributed between two legs?

How tight is the sole of the shoe to the skin or the fabric of the sock? If the situation allows, you can arrange a small experiment for yourself: walk alternately on the outer and inner edges of the feet, on the toes and on the heels, backwards - without losing attention in the legs. This will spur circulation and restore sensitivity in places that we rarely give attention to. If it is not possible to get up, you can do this mental exercise while sitting, in the same way examining the details of the contact of the back and priests with the chair: fidget on the seat, strain and relax the buttocks, stretch your fingers inside the boot, shift from toes to heels under the table while no one sees … At the same time, it is important not to forget about breathing and not to restrain it even at the most crucial moments of this difficult exercise.

The meaning of this unpretentious practice is simple

Firstly, when we turn our attention to the processes in the body, we forget, at least for a moment, about the worries to which so much space and power in our consciousness is devoted.

And secondly, if you think about contact with the ground, feel it, then, despite the emotional storm, you can feel your stability, restore balance - for a start, at the level of the body.

Just a couple of minutes of a playful, conscious walk (let's call it that) is enough to feel how the state is changing. After completing the exercise, stop and listen to what is happening in the legs.

Is there a feeling of your own weight, a pleasant tingling sensation, or maybe a slight tremor?

By focusing on the feeling of warmth and heaviness in the feet, you can feel how the force of gravity connects us with an invisible line to the center of the Earth in some very individual way. How could you describe your general condition in words now? With each exhalation, one can imagine how a gravitating tension comes out into the ground through the feet, and with each inhalation the legs come to tone and fill with strength, like the giant Antheus, whom Gaia's mother helped to win in any fight.

Try practicing mindfulness walking in more than just difficult situations. Every day, walking down the street or even from room to room, you can keep your attention on how the step is arranged, what muscles are involved in it, how the body weight moves. This is both a wonderful distraction so as not to walk all the time in a thundercloud of worries and doubts, and an effective meditation practice. The clearer the sensations, the clearer it becomes how to make yourself more pleasant and comfortable. Maybe it will become obvious that these shoes have been tormenting your feet for a long time, and it's time to change them. Maybe you want to slow down and enjoy the regularity. Or it may turn out that your gait is already perfect and natural, and from this realization it can become very pleasant on the soul.

Why do you need grounding

It may sound trite or too poetic, but the earth accepts whatever we give it. Whatever worries we carry on our shoulders, the earth can support our weight. Whatever waste of our life (of course, of organic origin) we have buried, it will process it and turn it into a new round of life. The earth gives a person the simplest and most understandable, always available and, most importantly, unconditional support - one has only to remember that we are in continuous contact with it.

That is why grounding is a key aspect of any bodily practice of self-discovery, and also a simple tool for working with complex feelings. The worries that fill our heads are often associated with events that have already happened, past events, or with anxious expectations of the future. In this abstract mess, it's hard to take care of yourself and remember basic things like hunger, warmth, or, say, a comfortable posture. If, in a moment full of emotions, we remember how we stand, sit or walk, this immediately returns us to the situation "here and now", and in it, perhaps, completely different things will seem really significant.

It is no secret that not only body-oriented psychotherapists work with grounding. It can be called in different ways, but in fact this tool is used in yoga, and in tai chi, and in other martial arts. The ancient Slavs and buffoons also worked with grounding. An important point of their teaching, lyubkov, is the ability to be a master to oneself. This means being able to master your body perfectly - and to begin with, at least keep your balance well. There is a very simple exercise for training such a masterful position. Let's try to stand up steadily, bend our knees slightly, shift the body weight to one leg, and begin to smoothly swing the other back and forth in the air, lifting it off the ground. At first, the amplitude may be small, but if it turns out to be too simple, you can swing your leg more and more, and for the most stable there is a complicated option: "draw" a figure eight with your foot in the air. Let the movement be not tense, no special effort is required - the secret of success is relaxation, natural balance and gravity.

If it is possible to achieve a state where the leg, like a pendulum, freely and calmly draws loop after loop in the air, you can change legs, but as a rule, one side is more difficult for us than the other. After this exercise, stand on both legs and listen to what is happening in them and throughout the body. Remember your breathing during and after such experiments: if you manage to synchronize your breaths and breaths with movement, you can achieve special ease and noticeable changes in well-being.

Grounding and bioenergy

Experiments with breathing, grounding, and conscious movements came into psychology not so long ago. One of the pioneers of body-oriented psychotherapy was Alexander Lowen, who called his approach bioenergetic analysis. Do not be afraid of this word - energy. This is not shamanism or esotericism, it is a completely obvious physiological reality that can be tracked by various devices and sensors. A simple example: when we breathe deeper, more oxygen enters the body, the brain and metabolism accelerate, more strength appears for movement - the energy level in the body rises. If you strain in some place, then the access of energy to this place will be blocked, especially if this tension is chronic.

A striking example is pinched knees, when the legs are fully extended in life. Try standing up straight as you normally would, and pay attention to the position of your legs. Almost certainly the toes are slightly apart, and the legs are straight and tense. In bioenergy, this posture is considered unhealthy and unstable. The knees are our natural shock absorber, both literally and figuratively. If you push a person standing on straight legs, he will lose his balance and will have to step to the side so as not to fall. If the knees are slightly bent and mobile, then any tremors can be softened without giving up their positions.

It is also a vivid metaphor for life's upheavals: a person who is mobile, ready for change, standing steadily on his feet is easier to cope with stress and emotional shocks. Therefore, in bioenergy, grounding is both a contact with the ground in the literal sense, and a person's connection with reality: the adequacy of the perception of the surrounding world, the ability to withstand difficulties. A person is actually not very different from a tree: it also has roots, albeit not so obvious, and the more firmly a person takes root, the more confidently he goes through life.

Finally, let's try to carry out one exercise from the bioenergetic analysis: "Basic experience of grounding." In just a couple of minutes, it will help relieve stress after a long day at work or calm down after a conversation in a raised voice. It is best for him to find a quiet place where no one will bother you. Stand straight with your feet slightly wider than your hips, feet strictly parallel to each other or even slightly turned toes inward. Knees slightly bent - try to find the optimal position that does not require much effort. We breathe regularly and easily, best of all with an open mouth. Slowly, without straightening our legs and without holding our breath, we bend forward to touch the ground with our hands - but only touch the tips of all fingers, and all the weight of the body still falls on the legs. The head is down, the neck is completely relaxed.

In this position, we will try to barely noticeably straighten and bend our knees until a tingling sensation, trembling, and warmth spreading over the legs comes - at this moment, the position of the knees can be fixed and 8-10 deep breaths can be taken. After that, you can take your hands off the ground and begin to gradually straighten your lower back, shoulders, and only lastly raise your head. Listen to yourself and do not rush to switch to your usual speed mode. The state that comes along with grounding will want to be kept longer and not spilled.

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