Grounding: A Superpower for Everyone

Take a deep breath and feel the ground beneath your feet. That is the first step to grounding yourself. Grounding is the meditative practice that calms your body and mind and connects you with your senses and the Earth beneath your feet.

It can be one of the most powerful tools in your spiritual toolbox and one of the easiest skills to learn. It is the foundation to all energy work, magick, and spirituality. It is also a helpful tool in the battle against stress and anxiety.

The practice of grounding can go by many names: i.e. Mindfulness, earthing, body-focusing, self-regulation, calming, refocusing, self-soothing, etc., but they still all have one goal and that goal is to bring you out of your frantic mind and back into your much calmer body. It is helpful to do on a daily basis, but extremely helpful when you are feeling unfocused and hyper, you feel you are dissociating, are triggered, or are overwhelmed with unwanted intrusive thoughts. Grounding stabilizes your energy while releasing excess energy, reconnecting you to the Earth you stand on, making you aware of your body, and shifting you into a more positive state of mind.

It is a simple, basic skill that allows you to improve so much of your other skillsets. When I first started to study witchcraft, one of the first skills I learned in the Coven I studied with was grounding. It was done before every ritual and ever study group. Grounding was practiced to the point that you could ground yourself just about anywhere quickly and effectively. It became almost like second nature. We even taught it to our children because it was so easy and effective. I still ground several times a day and it’s my go to when I am stressed or need to focus.

So how do you learn this superpower? There are a lot of resources out there on the internet; everything from guided meditations to grounding music to yoga poses designed to ground a person. My favorite technique is to take a deep breath in through your nose, hold that breath for a count of 3, and then slowly release it from your mouth to the count of 5. Do this several times and focus on becoming aware of your body (focus on the feeling of your feet touching the floor, the sound of your heartbeat, the feeling of air in your lungs, and feeling of your skin touching your clothes or surfaces.) Basically, you are focusing on your breathing and your body rather than the chatter going through your mind. Try it and over time it will get easier to ground yourself and calm your mind. If you feel like you need to have a little extra kick to your grounding, do the breathing exercise while touching a tree, the grass, or even a favorite crystal.

When is a good time to ground? Anytime you need a little calm focus or need to relax your mind. Once you master the breathing, it becomes unnoticeable that you are doing a grounding exercise, you can do it anywhere. Part of my life involves working retail, I ground every time I am frantically busy so I can focus on getting the work done, I ground whenever I have to deal with a difficult customer so I can handle their complaint in a calm, efficient manner, or even at times when I am tired and need a boost of energy. Outside of work, I ground before I write, before I do any metaphysical activity from reading cards to casting spells, and I ground before bed at night so my brain will quiet down enough so I can nod off.

Being grounded is go to for you on many levels. Physically, grounding has been shown to increase the levels of the good body chemicals, has been shown to lower heart rate, and some people have noted a lowering of inflammation. I’m not saying that being grounded can cure any physical ailments, but it can’t hurt you. It helps stabilize your energy and releases excess energy that is not serving any purpose. Being grounded improves your mood and puts you in a more positive frame of mind. It also, creates a mental state where you can take in information and rationally analyze it easier, this is really good when studying and learning new things. With time and practice, you will find that your ability to focus will increase. This can be very important to individuals with ADHD, autism, and other neurodivergences, studies have shown.

In today’s frantic society, the ability to ground yourself is vital. Will it make all your problems go away? No, but it will help you deal with the inconveniences of life a little better. Take a deep breath, calm yourself, and conquer the day.