ENLIGHTEN UP! a blogSelf-awareness stories: lighting our way to clarity, contentment and resilience in a complicated world.
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ENLIGHTEN UP! a blogSelf-awareness stories: lighting our way to clarity, contentment and resilience in a complicated world.
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This post explores the concept of core qualities and suggests an accessible practice to include in your everyday life. A core quality is a specific characteristic like a strength or a skill. Examples of these are balance, contentment, endurance, grounding helpfulness, resilience, and surrender. We may think that core qualities are external goals we need to work toward but they are already part of our being. Consider this line from the poem Auguries of Innocence by William Blake: “To see a world in a grain of sand...;” If we are a grain of sand, we are also a world and everything in that world, including core qualities. How we experience our lives, with its joys and sorrows, can be attributed to how deeply we recognize, embody and express this understanding. Core qualities can be expressed in positive or unhelpful ways. For instance, helpfulness without boundaries can be unhealthy, surrender without wisdom can result in a loss of self-determination, and endurance without balance may lead to exhaustion. However, when consciously realized and viewed through self-awareness, core qualities are more likely to be expressed in positive ways. Of course, this is easier said than done since the journey to true and deep self-awareness is long and often difficult but embodying core qualities we are drawn to is an effective way to experience deeper aspects of self-awareness. In this post we’ll explore the core quality of grounding. We can think of grounding in two ways. The first is grounding as a core quality or a value that connects us to all our layers of being; body, breath and mind. The second is grounding as a practice called earthing, which refers to making direct skin contact on the earth with bare feet. Now it’s not always possible to stand on the ground with bare feet – think winter – Brrr! Or due to a health condition or disability this practice may not be accessible. Thankfully, there are other ways to experience the direct benefits of grounding, which help you:
To successfully ground and connect with ourselves we first need to inhabit our bodies – no matter their condition or ability. Feeling at home and relaxed in your body can be an indication that you are grounded. However, many of us may not feel at home in our own skin because:
Here’s a personal story. While recovering from an emergency hysterectomy, I had trouble feeling and being ‘in’ my lower body. I lost touch with it. It was there, it functioned and was fully operational with the exception of my missing uterus and ovaries but I couldn’t ‘feel’ it. On the suggestion of my naturopathic doctor, I made an appointment to see an acupuncturist. Instead of inserting needles, he hooked me up to a computer with a series of sensors. The printout and his explanation stunned me. He explained that the surgeon had expertly sewed my physical body back together but my energy body was misaligned and that was why I couldn’t ‘feel’ my lower half. The graph showed this clearly even as my rational mind told me BS and ‘no way.’ Then he inserted needles all over my body (upper and lower) and left me to rest on his table for 20 minutes. During that time, I experienced fits of giggles and laughter at nothing in particular. After 20 minutes, he came back, removed the needles and hooked me up to the computer again. This time the graph showed alignment between top and bottom, and I was able to ‘feel’ and fully inhabit my lower body for the first time since the operation. Wow! was all I could think as I drove home. There are many ways to integrate the quality and practice of grounding into our lives in spite of mental/emotional struggles or physical limitations. Research suggests that practicing visualization promotes relaxation, enhances sleep, reduces pain, and increases creativity. As a grounding practice, visualization can increase feelings of safety, security, and connection to self. The Roots Visualization is my favorite practice for grounding. I learned it many years ago from a teacher during my 200-hour yoga training. I still use it to ‘stand my ground’ in stressful situations instead of giving in to my first impulse to flee or freeze. I also practice it when I’m feeling spacey and distracted and need to focus. If parts of your body are missing due to amputation, or removal by surgery, it is important to know that the missing parts are often experienced energetically and this should not prevent anyone from experiencing the benefits of grounding through the practice of visualization. If you need confirmation of this phenomenon, read Matthew Sanford’s book, Waking, a Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence. Matthew is a yoga teacher who was paralyzed from the waist down as the result of a tragic automobile accident when he was 13 years old. Roots Visualization, Instructions 1. If appropriate and accessible, take off your shoes, connect your bare feet to the ground and close your eyes. 2. If you find yourself in a situation, place, or time where you cannot take off your shoes or close your eyes, direct your attention to your legs and feet to sense a deeper contact to the earth, floor, or wheelchair footrests beneath you. 3. Begin to visualize roots growing from your body, starting from the base of the spine. Feel roots reaching down through your legs through the bottoms of your feet to pierce through the earth’s crust. 4. Visualize your roots branching and spreading, growing stronger and reaching deeper into the earth. Sense the strength, support, and the stability that your branching roots send back to fill your entire body. 5. With each inhale, begin to draw in strength, support, and stability and allow that feeling to deepen your connection to the physical world and your place in it. 6. Draw the quality of grounding through the bones of your feet and legs to the base of your spine and all the way up to the crown of your head. Feel your entire body safe, secure, stable and connected to the physical world allowing you to stand your ground and speak your truth. As you do this you may feel some tingling or pulsing in your feet and legs. That’s a good thing because energy flows where intention goes. You can shorten or lengthen the visualization as needed. When you attune yourself to your need in the moment you can stand your ground assertively, appropriately, and confidently. Placing focus on core qualities offers us an opportunity to move ourselves a bit further along on the path to self-awareness. In my book, Enlighten Up! Finding Clarity, Contentment and Resilience in a Complicated World, I offer a down-to-earth relatable and often humorous look at the five layers of self-awareness and how to use this model to understand, and embody core qualities in positive and helpful ways in your everyday life.
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November 2024
AuthorBETH GIBBS started her yoga practice in 1968, four months after her son was born and she’s been practicing ever since. She currently teaches all levels therapeutic yoga classes for adults, and specialty classes for seniors in the Hartford, Connecticut area. Beth is a certified yoga therapist through the International Association of Yoga Therapists and is guest faculty at the Kripalu School of Integrative Yoga Therapy. She writes for the blogs, Yoga for Healthy Aging, and Accessible Yoga. Her master’s degree from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA is in Yoga Therapy and Mind/Body Health. Categories |
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Enlighten Up! a Blog
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