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A word on being grounded-Jo Tucker-earthing, grounded, grounding, mindfulness

A word on being grounded.

“I’m so ungrounded.”

Have you ever thought or heard that? And then thought “well what does that really mean and why do I even want to be grounded?”

Everything on this earth is grounded. Similar to an electric charge, we need to be grounded to be energetically stable. Grounding can allow you to be centered and balanced in any situation. As women, we tend to pick up a lot of other people’s emotions and take them on as our own, grounding is an essential skill for living a more easeful life.

Signs that you’re ungrounded
  • Forgetting or stumbling on your words or ideas mid-sentence
  • Feeling rushed everywhere, and generally running a few minutes late
  • Forgetting to make eye contact with people
  • Forgetting where your car keys/ water bottle/ everyday items are
  • Losing patience quickly over small things (road rage, anyone?)
  • Inability to listen to others
  • Inability to concentrate on one thing and not multitask
  • Feeling disconnected from yourself or your emotions

The big thing here is to not take on any of this personally! The majority of the population could use more grounding in their lives because we live in a very overstimulated time. And the more time we spend in transactional relationships, including the ones with our devices, the more ungrounded we become.

Staying grounded therefore requires regular maintenance. There are lots of activities that we can do to stay grounded, such as yoga and meditation. Below, I’ve listed a few simple, easy techniques for getting grounded.

 

  1. Walk barefoot. This isn’t always an option in my homeland of Canada, but it’s the quickest and best way ground. Try and stay out there for 30 minutes.
  2. Grow your roots. Stand firmly with your feet hip-width apart and focus on your feet. Feel them really meetingthe ground beneathyou. Imagine them growing tree roots into the ground. Grow your roots deep, and spend some time here breathing in and out. 
  3. Plug in. Stand firmly with your feet hip-width apart and focus on your feet. Stomp your feet one at a time into the ground, imagining electric prongs on the bottom of them, intentionally “plugging” yourself into the earth. Stay and breathe for 3 cycles.
  4. Set up a circuit. Stand firmly with your feet hip-width apart and focus on your feet. Feel them really meeting the ground beneath you. Imagine a circuit of energy running between you and the earth, giving and receiving energy. Stay and breathe for 5 cycles.
  5. The Wayne-Cook Posture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPT19Im8vnU

New evidence is emerging that supports regular grounding as a way to reduce stress, reduce inflammation, reduce chronic pain, and improve circulation. So, for me that makes it a no-brainer to living a long, joyful life.

Give a few of these methods a try and let me know about your experience in the comments below.

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Conflict Series #2: How to Deal-Jo Tucker-becurious, breathe, conflict, reflect, resistance, mindfulness

Conflict Series #2: How to Deal

“How to Deal” is the second part in a three-part series on Conflict. If you missed #1, hop on over and check it out.

In Part One of this special conflict series, I illuminated a paradox in our lives- as women we’re often taught to avoid conflict lest you be labeled a bitch, overly emotional or too needy. But there are really healthy outcomes to conflict if we use an approach that is built on open-hearted communication.

But what does that actually look like?

The first thing we need to do when we’re feeling a conflict creep into our lives and our relationships is to get curious.

Notice how it’s often just a small event that tips us over the edge? This is because this is often something in our system that we’ve been soothing or ignoring over time. The event that made us explode isn’t the core issue, it’s something more.

As I mentioned before, this ignoring/soothing pattern is in place for a reason- it has served us well in our lives. But each conflict presents us with a new opportunity to be more skillful in conflict and lean into solving, rather than continuing our perpetual cycle of suffering.

The only hard part about this exercise is to actually catch oneself before the ‘blow up’. It requires mindfulness and a resistance to simply reacting to the situation in front of us.

We pause. We breathe. We reflect. We act. 

What am I really upset about? Am I feeling unheard/misunderstood/insignificant/unsafe? What is it that I truly want? Is this actually true? What do I need to remedy this? Is it something I can give myself, or do I need something from someone else here? And then, act accordingly.

Here’s the hard truth: sometimes conflict in our closest relationships are about someone else and how they are treating us. And sometimes, the conflict is really about ourselves and how we’re treating ourselves.

How do I know this? Because I learned this the hard way, babes. When I was feeling stagnant in my life and choices, I would turn to my partner to blame him for the lack of excitement in our lives. When I was feeling like my life was out of control, I tried to control my partner. When I felt not enough, I became a stage-four-clingy-jealous-insecure monster that judged everything he said or did.

I took my whole pile of unresolved issues and I shoved them into our relationship in a super-fun-passive-aggressive- ticking-time-bomb way that really, really sucked for the both of us + nearly destroyed our relationship on many occasions.

This is not to say that he was always perfect and that my feelings weren’t justified. This isn’t a way of excusing and allowing ourselves to be treated poorly. There is a fine line between mindful curiosity and taking radical self-responsibility and a very cunning path to soothing. It is up to us to discover where that line is.

And because we are both constantly evolving beings, just when you think you’ve got the habit nicked, it shows up in a new and exciting way.

So we remain curious. We keep leaning in with an open heart. We keep showing up in love.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and if you have any further questions about conflict. Let me know in the comments.

 

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