Grounding meditation for stress reduction

Ground yourself in this peaceful meditation which will help centre busy minds and reduce stress. Kate Zourkas will guide you through a meditation which includes grounding practices to balance your mind and body and reduce stress. This meditation will help to balance the energy between your mind and body and is great for a busy overthinker who wants to achieve better balance.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to this grounding meditation.

So today I'm going to be honoring your energy with a grounding meditation.

And staying grounded or learning how to ground yourself is an amazing technique to help your mental well-being.

So we often spend so much time up in our head intellectually as well as mentally that to ground ourselves means to help shift some of that energy down from our head and into our bodies and down into our feet and to the earth below us.

So there are lots of great techniques that you can do to ground yourself.

A grounding meditation like this is one of them.

Other great grounding techniques include yoga,

Breath work,

Getting out in nature,

Bushwalking,

Exercise.

Being in salt water is fantastic.

You know that's why the ocean is amazing.

The beach,

Having a bath,

They're all great techniques to help ground your energy and get you into your body.

And sometimes we forget that our bodies are here and now and that is what is present and our mind can take us into the past or into the future.

So I'm here to invite you to ground your energy here in to the present with me.

So get yourself into a comfortable position.

You can either stay seated in this meditation or you can lie down.

Just ensuring that your spine is straight.

Your shoulders are down.

So taking a big deep breath in now.

Gently relax those shoulders.

Relax your chest.

Relax your arms.

Just feel your torso,

Your hips,

Your legs,

Your feet.

Just feel your body just gently relaxing.

Feel the connection to the ground below you.

So whether you're seated or lying down,

Just feel the connection where your body meets the ground,

The bed,

The couch below you.

So just notice those points and just feel really supported.

So if you're sitting just feel how supported you are by the ground below you.

Feeling where your sit bones,

Your feet meet the floor.

If you're lying down just feeling where your back and your sit bones,

The back of your legs,

Your heels.

Just feel where that is meeting the ground below you.

Just gently noticing your body starting to get a little heavier.

You can gently close your eyes if you haven't already or downcast your eyes.

Whatever is comfortable for you.

This is about you and what you feel comfortable with too.

So gently just making sure that you are comfortable.

You are settling into your space.

Just observing your body.

Observing your body getting a little heavier.

Just start to take your attention to your breath.

We're going to be using our breath today to help ground our energy.

Big deep breath in.

Big deep breath out.

I want you to take 10 breaths in and out here.

Counting back from 10 to 1.

So taking a deep breath in and out.

10.

Deep breath in and out.

9.

I want you to continue at your own pace till you get to 1.

Just counting backwards.

Breathing in.

Exhaling out.

Breathing in.

Exhaling out.

Using this time just to let go.

Unwind.

Settle your space.

Just inviting yourself into the present moment.

Into the here and now.

When you get back to 1 and you finish your counting,

Just gently focus on your natural breath.

On your inhale and exhale.

Just of your natural breath.

And gently start to take your awareness to the tip of your nose.

Breathing in and out.

To the tip of your nose.

And gently starting to invite your breath.

Move your breath further down your body into your chest.

So breathing in to your chest.

And you can place one hand here on your chest and one hand on your belly if you like.

Breathing in,

Feeling your chest expand.

And breathing out,

Gently feeling your chest fall.

Breathing in and out.

Gently feeling your chest expand.

Feeling your lungs expand as you're breathing in.

Gently exhaling out.

And now seeing if you can feel your ribs expand and seeing if you can bring your breath right down to your ribs.

Feeling your ribs expand and fall.

As you're breathing in and out of your chest.

Breathing in and out.

Big breath in.

And the last one here,

Just breathing out.

Now inviting your breath a little further down your body.

And see if you can breathe into your diaphragm.

So just below your ribs.

See if your diaphragm can expand.

As you're breathing out.

See if you can ribs and your diaphragm expand and fall as you're breathing in and out into your diaphragm.

Sometimes you might find this a little tricky at first.

So just follow your breath.

Just concentrate on breathing in and out into your diaphragm.

Just feel here at the back of your ribs.

Starting to expand as well when you're breathing in.

Just feeling that body.

Really bringing that breath down into our bodies.

Down through our chest into our bodies.

See if you can really start to draw that breath down right into our belly.

Expanding,

Feeling that belly expand out and feel it fall.

As you are exhaling and breathing out and just letting go.

Breathing in and out.

Taking that breath right down into our belly.

And now gently see if you can explore your breath a little bit more.

And see if you can breathe right in right down to your tailbone.

Right down into your tailbone.

This is right down into your base chakra.

We are really grounding ourselves here.

So you can draw that energy right down.

Our root chakra or our base chakra is a red color and is our foundation and is our center for grounding ourselves.

Deep breathing like this right down into our belly right down to our tailbone really helps to activate our grounding.

Really helps to balance the energy from our mind right into our bodies.

And I want you to see if you can explore your breath a little bit further here too.

And as you're breathing just see if you can really feel your breath as you're breathing in.

Move down your legs.

So as you're breathing in see if that breath can really move down into your thighs.

And exhaling out.

See if you can move into your knees.

In to your legs.

Really breathing in to your calves.

Into your ankles.

Exhaling out.

Breathing this energy down into your legs.

Down into your feet.

Activating your feet.

Often if we get too caught up in our minds and in our heads sometimes we can experience cramps in our feet.

And often that is our feet crying out for grounding because there's not enough energy flowing down into our feet.

So your body talks to you.

Listen to your body as well.

Be aware of what your body is needing.

Your body will tell you if you need to ground yourselves.

So breathing in taking that beautiful energy right down into your feet.

Just being aware of your feet.

Just sending that energy through our bodies.

It's entering in through our nose.

Breathing in that energy right through our body down to our feet.

And exhaling that down into the earth below us.

So we're really starting to connect with that earth energy below our feet.

Breathing in and out.

Connecting with this beautiful earth energy.

Drawing and inviting now that energy from the earth back into us.

Drawing it up through our feet into our bodies.

Recharging ourselves through the earth.

There is an abundance of energy in the earth that we can tap into.

Drawing that up through our feet into our bodies.

Just focusing on your breath.

Exhaling out while you're still here at your feet.

You can also visualize and a great technique for grounding yourself is visualizing that from the soles of your feet you've got tree roots that are growing out and then connecting with that earth energy below you.

Just visualizing that is really connecting you to the earth grounding you anchoring you to that energy.

When you need to ground yourself it's a great visualization to use.

Just feeling that connection there.

The tree roots coming out from your feet into that earth and they can go deep down into that earth energy right down into the dirt.

Just connecting.

Taking two more breaths here.

Inhaling in and inhaling out.

Keeping this beautiful grounding energy with you.

Balancing your energy out from your head to your toes and way below your feet to really connect with that mother earth energy.

Just take one big nourishing breath in here.

One big nourishing breath out.

Keeping this beautiful grounding energy with you into your day and into the week ahead.

And exhaling out.

When you are ready you can gently open your eyes and get on with your day.

Namaste.

Thank you very much.