- Start by placing both feet flat on the ground. No scrunching with the toes, and no balancing on the outside blades of your feet. It’s the open palms of both feet on the ground.
- Hands gently find the legs, anywhere that feels natural.
- When you’re ready, close your eyes and allow your attention to begin to turn to the matters inside your own body. Feel your skin or your stomach stretch and relax as you breathe.
- Take 3-5 deep cleansing breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Make your breath audible, so you can hear the sound of yourself breathing.
- Don’t cheat yourself out of your exhale; you can probably exhale twice as long as you inhale. Experiment with the sensation of “empty”. I find a lovely, floating quality there.
- After those initial deep breaths, release control and allow your body to begin to breathe naturally, however it wants to breathe.
- Begin to look for the place that feels like the centre of your body. Centre is equidistant from all of the surfaces. When you find it, begin to bring more of your energy, self, and attention there. You could even choose to place a hand there, if it helps you connect.
- This is your one true home. Nobody can ever take this place from you, you’ll always have it, it’s totally private, and you can come here anytime you need to. Only you have the keys. You can jump to the final step now, or:
- Option A: if you’d like, you could create a Healing Room here. If you had unlimited budget, time, space, and permission to design the most relaxing, restful, recovery room with everything you desire for your healing (which you do), what would you put in that room? It can be all of your favourite colours, textures, and furnishings. It can play only the music you love. Does it have a pool, a lake, or a bubble bath? How would you spend your time in this room? What would you eat? Who would you let in? Often, our ancestors come to sit with us when we’re healing – look around, see if you can find any signs of them visiting you.
- Option B: energy exchange with the Earth. As you sit, try to experience the sensation of growing a long root from the base of your spine. Let this root break through your chair, the floor, the ground, and find the rivers that flow deep underground. As your root finds the water, let it begin to drink in this refreshing resource. Let it flush your body and when you exhale you can send with it any tension out through your root and release it into the deep Earth, into the water. Know that your waste will not contaminate the soil, it will only be composted and turned into something good. Enjoy as many quiet breath cycles as you can here, drinking in nutrients with your inhales and rinsing out any toxins with your exhales.
- When this process feels complete, take three final deep, audible breaths, exhaling deeply each time. Then, you can flutter your eyes open and return to the room.
Do this as often as you’d like to. I know someone who sets an alarm on their phone to ground themselves for one minute out of every hour of their workday.