Put Your Feet On the Ground (Otherwise known as: Feel Your Feet)
Put your feet on the ground. (Not meaning what my mother used to say when I sat on my legs on the couch or a chair.) Feel your feet. Breathe into your feet.
These are a few of my favorite sayings. Why, you might ask?
Well, since you asked, I’ll tell you. In my work with people, who are in situations an circumstances of all kinds – some in grief, some worried or stressed, some overwhelmed; some feeling lost or not knowing what to do next.
Even those whose ideas are flowing so creatively and fast, or who are celebrating a grand accomplishment, I tell them all the same thing.
I say, “Feel Your Feet”, or “Put Your Feet On the Ground,” as a reminder, a tool, a technique to consciously direct your awareness.
Feeling your feet has a number of benefits:
- Becoming conscious of your physical feet brings your awareness down from the mental realms where many of us spend our lives, into our bodies and onto the planet.
- Become aware of the magnet field between your feet and the ground. This exercise brings a sense of rooting or being connected.
- Draw your energy, send it from your head and thinking space down into your body and through your feet, dropping it into the ground. Send it further down through the many layers of our beloved earth, landing and wrapping around its core. This connects you to the something oh so much greater than you, the evolutionary core of creation.
- Breathe into our feet. We are so often shallow breathers. This deepens our breath, bringing the air we breathe all the way thorugh our bodies, enlivening and empowering the very cells of our being.
- Feeling our feet shifts our focus of attention off the mundane (or crisis) into our bodies, grounding, anchoring and centering our awareness into something tangible.
- Simply receive. Feel the energy of life, support, nurture to fill your body mind and soul.
Take a few deep breaths and become like a tree aware of its supporting root system below the surface. Notice how you are feeling, how you are thinking and how you are being when you consciously put your feet on the ground.
I’ve witnessed people’s lives being changed by putting their feet on the ground. Here are some examples,:
- MM – a highly spiritual being. She lived in other dimensions much of the time and had difficulty living in the ‘real’ world. By feeling her feet as a practice, she was able to be in the world but not of it; walking and managing physical life with greater ease and success.
- AC a young woman lost her father in a tragic accident. Her dad was her best friend, confident, anchor and hero. He stood beside her in the healthiest way I’ve even seen with love, support, deep appreciation and respect. When he died, she was absolutely devastated. By putting her feet on the ground, she was able to get up every morning and do what needed to be done. She was able, by focusing on her feet, take the next breath and the next step and walk her grieving journey fully coming out the other side strong, open-hearted and an even greater lover of life.
- LB – deeply embroiled in an un-just legal battle. She can get so angry she can’t breathe and then makes matters worse. As she has learned the spiritual practice of putting her feet on the ground, she has found ways to process through the anger and come into moments – like a courtroom – with a greater sense of Self; less of a victim and blaming, more empowered.DD– a screenwriter who was trying to complete a screenplay. She had a fabulous inspiration and ideas and absolutely knew it would be a hit, but couldn’t get the project from her head and imagination to written form, much less sold. By putting her feet on the ground as a spiritual practice she was able to ground the project – to draw it from the ethers in imagination and inspiration into the material world.
- MW – walking through a very scary medical diagnosis and intense treatment. By putting her feet on the ground as a practice she finds the strength and courage to continue on the hard days. She finds joy and gratitude on the better ones.
- MS – a young man, 14 yrs old with a broken neck, ribs and internal injuries sustained in a car accident. In those first very painful, scary days of recovery, I would put my hands on his feet and other than thinking I was very strange – his breathing would change and his pain would begin to lesson, if only a bit. He learned to shift his awareness from the intensity to his feet.
- KR – living with her adult son’s heroin addiction, wondering every day if he lives or dies today. She has found a way to take the next breath, the next step and continue living her life, even in the unknown.
For me – putting my feet on the ground pulls my awareness from my spinning, loopy mind into my body, allowing me greater access to my heart. It connects me to that which is within me and oh so much greater than me. It frees me from my mind. It grounds and center me in a way that I’m even more deeply connected to my soul
For you – What will it do? How will it help? Try putting your feet on the ground and feeling your feet as a practice for the next week or so then drop back here and leave a comment and let us know how its’ going and what you noticed.
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