When I get stumped on something, I become ambitiously determined to learn more about that particular concept, and challenge my perspective. Last night, during my grounding meditation class, one of the class -goers brought to my attention that the guided meditation didn't help them to let go, but rather made everything they were already feeling intensify. For lack of better words, they became painfully aware of all the emotions they were feeling. I got slightly tripped up on this question, because I knew that it was benefitting them in SOME way, but the class and this particular grounding method wasn't in the way that they had hoped.
I'm sure when you hear Meditation class you think of a calm, relaxing type setting. But if you are someone who is in your head already all too much, it can feel overwhelming. AND if you are new to meditation, where are you even supposed to begin?
I personally love meditation, and as a Mindset Transformation and Results Coach, I can't express how important it is to hop on the train and give it a go. But today, I want to talk about another way to build emotional resilience. Meditation is just one of those tools that we want to strengthen, but it isn't the only one.
In a grounding meditation, the goal is to bring yourself back from the chaos, to see it from an outside perspective and to ease your thoughts, essentially. But what if that's just not what is working at the moment?
So how do you shut your thoughts off, especially in a situation when you are already dealing with intense emotions. Because that's truly the moments where we want to, right?! Each body is so different so finding the perfect way to achieve this, is going to take a little practice and a little reflection. The goal of this exercise is be able to know exactly how and in what way your body needs to move, in order to distract yourself well enough, for the thoughts to subside.
You can start by asking yourself these questions:
What are some things that when I'm doing, my brain and body shuts off where even if I wanted to, couldn't think of anything else?!
What are your tendencies? Are you naturally a high energy person, or low?
How does your body like to move?
What are some activities that you enjoy doing? My personal answer: I naturally have high energy, high anxiety and tiring myself out physically is something that helps me and my mind. My body naturally loves to move in a flowy slightly awkward type of way. And I love to sing and dance. But singing at times makes me think of the lyrics, and again, isn't the activity that pulls me out entirely of my own head. So for me, it's choreography dancing. It's something about how it allows my body to move in new ways, the magnified focus it takes to learn each step, and something about my lack of rhythm self attempting to learn the steps that pushes me to be fully there in the moment. So let's say I am anxious, and can't just fit in a dance. A grounding technique that this could translate to is headphones, and tapping to the rhythm and saying the numbers in my head. The beautiful part of grounding is finding a technique that works for you, that you can also do anywhere, at anytime without anyone knowing that you are doing it. Once you find the thing that makes you completely get outside of your head, the way to find your everyday grounding technique is to take that situation and make it practical for any moment.
Sometimes, all it takes is getting outside of your head, in order to be able to come back in with a fresh set of eyes.
What are your grounding techniques, and unique ways that you move your body? Let me know what answers you come up with and some questions that arise for you while reading this! - Natasha