I've heard many terms on 'being grounded' throughout my life, even as a child. I remember such phrases as "come back down to earth", "get your feet on the ground", "get your head out of the sky" and so on. So 'being grounded' is not a new age term. It has been understood that there are times when we are out of our bodies or thinking in terms more related to fantasy than reality.
Although fantasy can lead us to using our imagination or artist center, and can be creative and healthy, it is easy to get caught up in this stage to the point of escapism. When we remain in a state of outward thinking we may become so lost in these pleasant thoughts that 'coming back to earth' doesn't sound so appealing when something difficult or challenging is going on in our lives. Summer is the perfect time to practice shoelessness. The primordial act of walking barefoot on the earth is the ultimate practice of grounding. Taking off your shoes and feeling moist sand, smooth dirt or grass on the soles of your feet and between your toes feels wonderful and it's healthy! There is good science behind this practice: the therapeutic touch of Mother Earth has amazing health benefits such as boosting antioxidants in our body, reducing inflammation, and promoting blood flow aiding in the relief of cardiovascular disease. It releases endorphins in our brain bringing on happier and more peaceful feelings, helping to balance the brain's chemistry that can cause depression and anxiety, and it even improves sleep. Walking barefoot helps remind us that no matter how old we get, we deserve the freedom to experience life to the fullest. And part of that experience is to actively participate in our physical form and all of our senses. Feeling the sun on our face, the ground beneath our feet, hearing the song of birds, tasting the fresh fruit of summer, seeing the baby animals experiencing their awkward and growing bodies, smelling the blooms of summer flowers,..... these are the gifts of our physical form. If we truly are spiritual beings having a physical experience then let's experience those gifts to our fullest! *Joanie Lane is the director of and a teacher at "A Positive Light" meditation center. For more information on Joanie and the center visit www.apositivelight.com or her blog Joanielane.com **These are original writings by Joanie. Any quotes by others have been identified.
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Monday Morning Insights-Wake up!:~Joanie Lane
What if one day you woke up and found yourself living in a paradise? An actual paradise with blue skies, green grass, flowers fragrant and birds singing; where you could do or be anything you wanted without fear or judgement! Where you could see other people doing and being whatever they wanted without it affecting you in a negative way. Instead, they would be adding more color and beauty to the world simply by their existence. Wouldn't that be wonderful? To wake up and see with fresh eyes the beauty in all that is around us. Wake up!! You are there now! The eyes that witness the truth of beauty or the lies of fear are yours! Only you can choose the filter in which to see and experience the world! "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- over and over announcing your place in the family of things. ~ Mary Oliver *Joanie Lane is the director of and a teacher at "A Positive Light" meditation center. For more information on Joanie and the center visit www.apositivelight.com or her blog Joanielane.com **These are original writings by Joanie. Any quotes by others have been identified. We have all felt happiness and sadness, pain and joy, fear and security....and we would not have one without the other. They balance each other. Often we find that there are levels of intensity with each of these emotions. Some are extreme and some are very slight. We even feel equanimity; a state of mental or emotional stability, balance, or composure. It can be described as a state of indifference or equilibrium.
What emotions really boil down to is being in an emotional state of love or fear. When something wonderful happens we feel joy; an expression of love. We may laugh out loud, smile or giggle depending on how deeply we feel the emotion. When we feel fear we may lash out verbally or physically. It may be fear of someone taking something from us (our joy perhaps) or a threat to our safety. Whatever occurrence has triggered the emotion of fear, it too has levels of intensity and we react in measure to the occurrence. These extremes show us that our emotions are out of balance. Before I had my practice of meditation I noticed something interesting in my reactions when in a state of fear as compared to the state of joy; when I was ENJOYING something I didn't really think about it so much as I just laughed or smiled and experienced a feeling of lightness in my spirit. But when I experienced fear - especially extreme fear- my mind began to race, not only from the adrenaline that was triggered, but I also saw my entire laundry list of negative experiences, my entire history of negative events, race through my thoughts creating more fear and a domino effect of emotion began to tumble into waves of fear that grew larger and larger. This extreme experience rarely seemed to happen when I experienced joy. For me there were only a small number of times in my life when the feeling of joy was so big that I felt I would burst from happiness. And I don't seem to be the only one who has had this noticeable difference in these two emotions. The search for happiness has become an epidemic of sorts in this country. Neuroscientist have shown that some of this fear we experience is hard-wired in our brain from family history (literally passed on from one generation to the next), some fear is created in the family we grew up in and creates a base from which reactionary responses to society is a survival skill we develop as we go through our lives. And some extreme fear reactions are a form of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Something I see from many of my meditation students and life coaching clients is a desire to find a place where we can live in a perpetual state of happiness. And while we can train our mind, through meditation and other mindful practices, to choose a response of love or equanimity over fear - it is impossible to never experience fear. One thing we can do is choose to respond to fear with a loving and compassionate heart. In consciously responding to fear with a compassionate heart we are dousing the flames of fear with love, creating balance in our emotions. And in doing so we will find that we experience joy more often, and in turn experience fear less often. Happiness will never be a constant. It comes in bits and pieces that we can learn to savor. And in savoring these moments we are on the path to growing a larger garden of love in our hearts, creating a happier more balanced life. "Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony." ~Thomas Merton *Joanie Lane is the director of "A Positive Light" meditation & spiritual center. For more information on Joanie and the center visit www.apositivelight.com or her blog Joanielane.com **These are original writings by Joanie. Any quotes by others have been identified. Monday Morning Insights-Allowing to trust:~Joanie Lane
What if you could learn to ALLOW yourself to trust everything, wholly and completely? How would it be to feel entirely at peace with absolutely nothing bothering you? Generally we walk through our lives in this state of self importance. As if we know what's best for us and those in our life. We fool ourselves into thinking we have control over what happens in our lives. But when something happens without our having a hand in it, we suddenly come to the realization of the truth; that none of us has any control over the events that occur in our lives. Certainly not the outcome. Because although we can plan an event we never know how it will turn out. And if we are unhappy with the end result because it isn't what we planned then we experience disappointment and suffering. Often something dramatic has to happen before we realize that we have no power with the outcome of anything. We may try to guide things into going our way by planning, and sometimes that helps to keep things going in a certain direction, but when the train is rolling down those tracks there is no way to stop the result. When we learn to make our plans and then ALLOW the plan to unfold itself to us, we are trusting and accepting that since we have no control over the outcome we do have control over our response to whatever happens. We can accept it, find the positives in it and be grateful for it. Using humor is an excellent way to practice allowing trust. By laughing at the unexpected outcome we aren't taking it or ourselves so seriously. We are simply enjoying the outcome to the fullest. One reason we humans try to control things is because of our own inner turmoil and self doubts. We have this dialog going on inside our minds that we've created and perfected over the years. It could come from a parent or from our peers but wherever it comes from or how old this dialog is, it's running our thoughts out of fear of losing control. <----- THIS is what we might want to laugh at because thinking we ever had control is actually funny! In taking ourselves too seriously the joke is on us. And we have the choice to be upset and suffer or laugh and enjoy life. In order to find happiness in the events of life we must accept that we have no control over anything. We must have faith. We must release the doubts in our mind. Look at it this way, all of us are on a giant rock flying through space, controlled only by the precarious balancing points of planets and the sun. And we have absolutely no control over anything. When we come to a place in life where we have no choice but to have faith we find trust in the very energy that created us. The same energy that we are a part of. When we leave the pretense of control behind and accept that life goes along the way life goes along, then we ALLOW ourselves the freedom of just going along for the ride. We may choose a preferred destination, and sometimes we can choose who we ride along with, but we never know how bumpy the ride might be during the trip. If we learn to accept the ride as it is, even if we have to hang on tight, we may just learn to enjoy the ride. We may see that in the surrendering to just ALLOW we find that freedom, joy and peace was there all along. *Joanie Lane is owner & operator of a "A Positive Light" meditation & spiritual center. For more information on Joanie and the center visit www.apositivelight.com or her blog Joanielane.com |