We often think of the ground beneath our feet as fixed, while the world around us is loud and mobile: the clouds move, leaves rustle, cars and bikes and people swish past us.
The practice of “grounding ourselves” is often similarly perceived as still—as an antidote to the chaotic flux in and all around us.
Yet when we look a little closer, grounding is anything but still.
Imagine standing on the ground now, the soil under your feet. From your view, it might look like nothing is happening (which can frankly feel like a relief).
Now, imagine bending down and leaning in for a closer look. As your eyes focus, you begin to observe a world of activity. Insects crawling. Sprouts blooming.
Now imagine if you could sink one layer deeper. You would discover even more life: microbes in movement, fungi sporing, roots reaching for other roots, creatures decaying to dust.
You can only notice all that movement in the ground when you pause, get closer, and observe the patch of ground beneath your feet—when you get to know it just as it is in its most natural state.
And the same goes for our own internal terrain.
Portal to Possibility
Our inner terrain is made up of subtle internal sensations, often unnoticed until we slow down and turn away from the bustle that normally distracts us. And when we do attend to those sensations—when we build the skills to notice and map them—we can find whole worlds of images, memories, and emotions.
But how do we slow down when we’re racing along with the world around us?
We do this by learning to work with the body and nervous system. When we tap into this foundational level of perception, we can tune into the sensations of our inner terrain instead of ignoring them. Our capacity expands, our sensations deepen, and we can feel and absorb our most raw and natural states.
And in this way, grounding becomes a portal to the underground, where a multiplicity of stories live and move and breathe beyond what we first perceive.
Stilling vs Distilling
Grounding as a creative practice isn’t about coping with the chaotic flux around us, searching for some stillness, and planting stakes. Instead, when working with deep principles of neuroplastic learning, grounding gives us space to discover what lies beneath our own surface and to listen to our deep urge to create.
Because we know enough to know that a patch of trampled dirt beneath our feet is actually a living, breathing mosaic of activity. We just have to lean closer to notice and make sense of it.
Our attention to these deceptively still or remote landscapes isn’t a departure from our creative process—it is the creative process itself.
Grounding is not only a way to be present with what is (including our restlessness, overwhelm, even illness), but a portal to what is possible.
In the next blog in this series, we’ll get a little bit into the science of all this. We’ll learn about how we can work with the body and nervous system to shift away from more activated states to organic states of learning and growing.
And the best part is that, just like lying in a field listening to the grass grow, there’s nothing you need to fix or try to remedy. Everything you need is already right here.
