Grounding practice.
This practice explores four grounding anchors,
The feet,
Contact with the body on the chair.
Hands.
And the breath.
So begin by finding a comfortable position,
Either seated lying down or standing.
And if you're seated,
Allow your feet to rest on the floor.
And if you're standing,
Feel the weight through the legs and the feet.
And if you're lying down,
Just feel the support of whatever it is that you are lying down on.
You can close your eyes if that feels comfortable.
Or simply soften your gaze.
And now bring your attention down to your feet.
Noticing the contact between your feet and the floor.
Aware of the ground beneath you.
Noticing pressure.
Temperature.
Text chat.
Without having to search for a particular sensation.
Simply noticing what is already here.
Feel how the ground supports you.
You don't have to hold yourself up,
The ground already does that for you.
And if your attention wanders,
Just gently guide your awareness back to the sensations in the feet.
Over and over again returning your awareness with kindness.
And patience.
Now let your awareness expand.
Include a sense of your contact with the chair.
Or whatever you're lying on.
Or even if you're standing,
A sense of the contact with the air around you.
Notice where your body meets the chair.
And notice the sense of the body being held.
Noticing texture.
Contact.
Softness.
Pressure.
Noticing what it feels like to be held and supported.
Sensing the stability.
Beneath you or around you.
Now bring your attention to your hands.
Noticing where the hands are resting.
On your lap or on the chair.
Or perhaps.
.
.
In contact with each other.
Feeling the sensations in your palms and the fingers.
Backs of the hands.
Any sense of tingling or temperature.
Pulsation.
Stillness.
And if the mind is busy,
That's okay.
Simply returning again to the felt sense of your hands just as they are Now allowing the attention to move to the breath.
I need to change the breath in any way.
Just noticing where you feel the breath most clearly.
Perhaps at the nostrils.
Around the throat and the chest.
Or down in the beddy.
And just feel the natural rhythm of breathing in.
Breathing out If at any point the breath feels uncomfortable or too hard to detect,
You can always return your awareness to normal.
The earlier anchors or feet.
Hands in contact.
So you can choose where your attention rests.
As best you can,
Just sensing each breath as an opportunity to arrive a little bit more in this moment.
And for the last part of this practice,
Perhaps choosing whichever anchor feels most comfortable for you.
And now begin to widen your awareness to include a sense of your whole body.
The feet,
The body,
The hands,
The breath all together.
Noticing how you feel now Is it any different to when you began?
And if you like,
When you feel ready you might invite a deeper breath in and a slower breath out.
You can readily open the eyes or lift your gaze.
Taking the sense of grounding and presence into the rest of your day,
Knowing that whenever you need support you can return to any of these anchors.
And perhaps thanking yourself for taking this time.
To ground and to anchor.
