Grounding, WHAT???

Being grounded. Grounding oneself. Groundedness. Has the word “ground” with whatever suffix attached to it sparked your curiosity? Like what it REALLY means. It has mine.

I have heard the word grounded often spoken about in a way that has elicited me to think that groundedness creates a more positive, down to earth way of living. Often, I hear the word associated with spirituality and our connection to Mother Earth. In Occupational Therapy school, centering and grounding were terms used in regards to helping children with Sensory Processing Disorder; words that described actions to facilitate with the child to help he/she become more self-regulated. I have also learned of different techniques that may help with grounding like walking outside barefoot, physical activity like walking, jumping, running and, of course, being in nature. Yet, I have never fully understood from an embodiment perspective why it is so advantageous to our well-being. Until now.

I recently finished a series of classes facilitated by the Kinesthetic Learning Center in Durham, NC, learning the Body Mind Centering® (BMCsm) approach to development. “Body-Mind Centering® is an integrated and embodied approach to movement, the body and consciousness.” http://www.bodymindcentering.com/about

I, along with 15 plus classmates, learned about Reflexes, Senses and Perception, and Ontogenetic Development (conception through first 12 months of life) through exploration of movement. Explorative activities that brought me back to my own embodied development through the modalities of movement, touch, and breathing.

Learning in this way reacquainted me with patterns of movement that I consciously and unconsciously utilize daily. The physical actions that both you and I currently use were built on primitive reflexes which were initiated through our lower brain centers and spinal cord. These reflexes developed in utero which helped us to respond to gravity and earth as we first came into contact with it, and integrated into more refined movement as we grew and became more aware of what we desired to explore.

Primitive reflexes become activated in response to a stimulus; gravity, sound, and touch are a few stimuli that cause an infant to have a movement response. These non-volitional actions appear until more intentional movements arise. This occurs after enough "tone" has been established through the body. Tone is experienced throughout the whole body. It occurs in our organs, muscles, tissues, digestive tube and cells. It is where our strength and counter strength come from, allowing us to move in a coordinated and efficient manner. It is the balancing of tone in the front and back body that prepares us to rise to verticality.

Now how does this all play into grounding you might be asking??? Tonic Labyrinthine is the first primitive reflex that is facilitated in response to the stimulus of gravity. Tonic Labyrinthine facilitates a yielding into the earth which helps to increase the tone in the digestive tube and organs and starts to prepare an infant as he/she comes up and has to yield into and through gravity. An infant has to learn through a multitude of experiences the increasing and decreasing of tone in their bodies, and they start doing this in response to building their relationship with earth. This is best facilitated as the infant is in contact with the ground (earth) in the early months of life.

I studied my relationship with earth by exploring what it felt like to yield into it verse collapse into it. I gained a sense of my own embodiment through exploring yield and collapse, really feeling the tone that I needed in order to rise up and move into and through gravity. I sensed through my yielding a relationship with the earth below me. I truly felt this sensation when I laid flat on my stomach with my body gently touching the ground. I felt that the earth rose up to meet me where I lay. I felt safe and supported as I explored my relationship with the earth. I also felt that there’s an active connection between me and the ground below me.

Tonic Labyrinthine gives an internal sense of oneself while establishing a relationship to the earth through the process of yielding. Yielding occurs when the body meets a surface without fully collapsing. This is done through changing the body’s tonality in response to what is being touched. When yielding, we maintain a sense of integrity of ourselves in relation to what we are touching through tone, verses when we collapse we lose that integrity.

It is through the Tonic Labyrinthine that infants start to get a sense of their own body, in other words their container, as they meet the earth below. It is this first encounter with earth and the first experience of the earth yielding back where grounding occurs. The earth below gently meets the infants’ body providing support and sensory input so that in the coming months the infant can use the support of the earth while yielding with less points of contact. It is in this relationship of yielding through the Tonic Labyrinthine reflex that grounding initiates from, and where support and stability are generated from as rolling, crawling, and walking emerge.

Me taking the time to once again establish my relationship with Mother Earth through yielding into her, acknowledging the support that she provides me with has helped me to have a more embodied and balanced internal experience. This experience has helped me to be more present and more in-tune with my body, helping me to feel a connection with the aliveness of my cells and the aliveness of earth. My body informs my mind in a multitude of ways, and it is through a grounded relationship with the earth that my experience is best supported. And this all occurred through my body’s intelligence, observed with a reflex present when I was born.

I invite you to go and ground yourself through exploring how you yield into the earth. And once you’ve established this connection, I invite you to explore it with your child.

Imagine your cells migrating to the ground that you lay on and sense the yielding, moving towards, that Mother Earth invites back to you. Find the alive and fluid relationship that you have with the earth, sensing the support that it provides you with. Explore the difference between yielding and collapsing, exploring both physically, and then reflecting psychologically the difference of the two.

One of BMCsm’ main principals is that support proceeds movement. Let the support of Mother Earth ground you so that you can move from a greater sense of stability and groundedness.