The Gift of Grounding

Whether you’ve just been given another demanding project at work, or your child just spilled something on the carpet, everyone has moments in their day where they would benefit from taking a moment to reconnect with themselves and feel grounded. When someone is grounded, they may feel less tense, more centered, and more balanced in their emotions. Grounding is an excellent tool for when we need to take a step back or take a breath after dealing with something frustrating or stressful. 

Grounding can also be a vital practice for working through conflict with your romantic partner or your family. Studies have shown that when couples attempting to resolve a conflict are asked to take a twenty-minute break and read a magazine, they come back together to have a much more productive, empathetic conversation. Although sometimes in our society couples are encouraged to “not go to bed angry” and so on, sometimes it can be beneficial to take some time to cool off and ground yourself to re-enter a discussion with a clear head. 

If a situation is particularly distressing, specific grounding techniques can be used to calm our nervous system and center on our breathing. One of these is the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise, where you take deep breaths while counting 5 things around you that you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can feel, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. Another way to ground yourself is to simply count your breaths, either with box breathing (5 seconds in, 5 second hold, 5 seconds out, 5 second hold) or counting 10 deep breaths and then starting over. However you prefer to do it, deep, intentional breathing helps us to regulate our emotions and indicates to our bodies that we are safe. 
Utilizing grounding to work our way through tough conversations and stressful situations becomes more intuitive and natural the more that we practice. Even if we’re coming out of a casual or less hectic day, grounding is a skill that can help us connect to our bodies and our surroundings in a mindful, balanced way.