WHAT IS GROUNDING? (And why do we need it more than ever?)

I’ve been working as an Acupuncturist for almost twenty-five years. One of the buzz-words in pretty much all Complementary Medicine is ‘grounding’, and that is something I have been discussing with clients for a very long time. Now, in the midst of a highly challenging Covid-19 pandemic, the need to manage our anxieties and stay focused seems greater than ever. Over the years I have lost count of the number of people who have come to me saying they want my Acupuncture to help them ‘feel more grounded’. I’d like to think that it really does, but this blog is not about Acupuncture as such.

So, if being ‘grounded’ is such a common ambition, why does it seem so hard to achieve? My observation has always been that a failure to ground oneself is much more a matter of clarity than ability. In other words, you can’t take the necessary steps to ground yourself until you know exactly what you mean by ‘grounding’.

To get a feel for this, I think it’s useful to take a brief look at what being grounded is not! What would be the exact opposite of that happy state? Here’s a provisional checklist just to give a flavour, although no doubt it could be longer:

In my experience, being grounded is NOT:  

Feeling nervous or anxious. Feeling distracted. Feeling overwhelmed. Feeling like you’re just not coping. Having your head in the clouds and being a bit of a ‘dreamer’. Swinging between emotional highs and lows. Being inconsistent. Focusing on the relatively trivial at the expense of what really matters to you. Being unable to concentrate. Dividing your time and energy in a haphazard way that limits what you actually achieve. Feeling that you’re just getting through each day, rather than actually living it. Not being able to switch your mind off, especially when you know you should be sleeping. Distracting yourself with, for instance, TV or shopping. Having great plans, but never seeing them through. Procrastinating. Being unrealistic. Feeling you’re going round in circles. Ignoring daily practicalities. Putting your personal wellbeing on almost permanent hold. Not allowing yourself enough time to rest, either mentally or physically… in short, running around like the proverbial headless chicken!

Any of that sound familiar to you? I’ll be the first to put my hand up and admit that I am sometimes guilty of pretty much everything on the list! But that’s ok, because this isn’t about being perfect or ‘getting it right’; at least not at first anyway. This is more about taking appropriate steps to slowly but surely bring your life ever more under your own conscious control. So now we’ve had a look at what being ungrounded might mean, how about its opposite? To me as a therapist, a grounded person usually looks a lot like this:

Calm (well, most of the time!). Focused and not easily distracted. Able to set and achieve realistic goals, without getting sidetracked. Able to think and act flexibly, adapting well to new situations and challenges. Rested and relaxed, but fairly energetic when the need arises. Sleeping well, and putting some consistent time into personal wellbeing. Feeling that life is fully under your control without force or excess effort. Having your feet firmly on the ground. Having a sense of realism and clarity. Being basically content and happy.

Well, that’s all very well, you might say, but how would you ever get there? It’s always been my observation that for most of us, ‘grounding’ takes a bit of practice. It’s a life skill, and one that doesn’t always come naturally, especially in the midst of 21st Century information overload. But where to even start?

 Fortunately, at least one group of people spent a great deal of time (actually, centuries), trying to answer just that question. They didn’t invent ‘grounding’, but they certainly came to know a great deal about it. These were the ancient Chinese Daoists; philosophers who gave the world such technologies as Acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, T’ai Chi (and its cousin, Chi Kung); not to mention highly sophisticated meditation, martial arts and exercise techniques. Engaging with any one of these would be extremely useful in helping you ground yourself. But that’s really not the point: any good Daoist would also have told you that grounding is not really a matter of technique – it’s more a matter of attitude.

By ‘attitude’, I mean that any one of us can adopt a certain mindset that includes the firm intention to stay grounded. We can start this today: right here, right now, and we don’t need to be a special sort of person or know anything about obscure Asian practices. (Those would help tremendously, of course, but they often require a lifelong commitment and are not to everyone’s taste). Fortunately, you don’t need to be a wise old meditation master to get the results you want. What one really needs are qualities like: honesty (with oneself), consistency, a sense of humour, a commitment to wellbeing, a willingness to always ‘see the bigger picture’ and to always keep a sense of perspective. Finally, what is needed is a willingness to accept ourselves as we are, which includes our inevitable daily failures.

Those ancient Chinese Daoists were extraordinarily practical and realistic people. They knew that to constantly get things wrong was simply to be human. They also knew that with the right attitude and a little application, we could all be happier and far more grounded humans. I think that has got to be something worth trying!

This blog is designed to pique your interest. It’s clearly not an attempt to provide a ‘how to do it’ guide. If you have any questions about anything I’ve written here, please feel free to contact me. An email would be just fine!

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