Standing Grounding Practice

This practice is a short standing grounding practice. It guides the listener through mindful standing then noticing the five senses, thoughts, emotions, body sensations. Time is spent on finding our sense of grounding and arriving in our bodies. The audio finishes with breathing with some gentle arm movements. This can be a great practice if feeling a little "ungrounded" or agitated or "in our head'.

Transcript

Dr Adele Stewart here.

The standing grounding practice.

Finding yourself a comfortable position to stand in.

Feet about hip width apart.

Knees slightly off lock.

Your feet really spread out.

You might like to take your shoes and socks off.

Feel every part of your feet contacting the floor or ground beneath you.

You might like to bring a hand to your heart or some other place in the body to remind yourself that you're bringing loving awareness to this practice.

You might like to spend a little bit of time noticing what you can see,

What you can hear,

What you can feel on the skin,

Maybe even what you can smell or taste.

Spending a few moments paying attention to any thoughts passing through,

Any emotional tones or welcome,

Stressed,

Calm,

Anxious,

Curious,

Open,

Tender,

Irritated.

Really finding your ground here now.

How is it to press down with the feet?

You might even want to rock them a little bit.

Roll from one foot to another slightly.

Maybe even a slight swaying sensation.

Perhaps coming to rest and noticing the solidity of the floor beneath us,

The earth beneath that.

Maybe noticing that you can have a little reach up through the spine and down through your feet.

Kneeling into the whole length of you.

Maybe even having the sense that you have roots growing at the bottom of your feet.

Extending down,

Down into the earth.

Noticing the whole body.

Best you can,

Allowing any body sensations that might come and go.

Paying attention to the breath now.

If you like,

You might allow your arms to gently float up as you inhale and gently release down as you exhale.

Allowing this to be a very easy practice,

No striving.

Perhaps your hands only just move away from your sides.

Perhaps your arms come right up with the hands pointing up to the ceiling.

Doing a few rounds of breath.

Allowing the arms,

Hands to come up as you inhale.

Releasing them down as you exhale.

Finally,

Coming to stillness.

Noticing the effect of the standing rounding practice and going about your day.