Scarf (self portrait), © Sarah Marie Lacy. 18x24, acrlylic on canvas.
I am possibly the least grounded person I know. I can be incredibly neurotic. I worry a lot. I live in my head and overthink things like crazy.
And all this neurosis and insanity really just gets in the way of a lot of things I’d like to be doing. Like being calm and happy and relaxed. Enjoying myself. Not worrying as much. Being sane. Being un-overwhelmed (yes, I just made that word up.)
What I need is grounding, peace, safety. What I need are some rituals, some mindful practices of my own that help me to get grounded and keep me out of my head as much as possible.
It’s that whole blessing/curse thing
Not to be horribly cliched or anything, but it’s true. It’s a double edged sword, being stuck in your head. On the one hand, it’s part of what makes me super creative and artsy fartsy and able to communicate with myself relatively well.
On the other hand.
It can also be hard for me to distinguish between real fears and the fears that my head creates. It means I can get trapped by those awful voices that live in your head – you know the ones I’m talking about. The Inner Critic. The voice of that kid who used to bully you in grade 3. Your mother. The well-meaning but skeptical friend. I find it really hard to let things go because in my head, they take on a life of their own. And if I’m living in my head…well, you can see my problem.
So while I’m grateful for the creativity that living with my head in the clouds gives me, sometimes the side effects get so loud, it can be hard for me to actually go use it.
This is where grounding comes in
I am nothing if not a creature of habit. I know all humans are, but I need it. I need it to keep me focused on the world outside my imagination. It’s not that I’m not open to change – I am – but at the same time, I really need some things to not change.
I need to know that I have the safety of a routine, something I can depend upon. Right now, I don’t really have anything, except for my journal and a cup of tea every morning when I wake up. I also like waking up early – I love watching the world wake up around me.
But I need something more, something else. I think I need a list of things that I can do, safety nets, small rituals, rescue remedies, that I can fall back on when I feel myself losing touch with reality. And to help me integrate it better, I want to tackle it from a bunch of different levels – mentally, physically, emotionally and for my business.
1. Meditation (mental grounding) – I know this helps whenever I remember to do it. I just always get frustrated because it’s not how I picture it in my head, ya know? Peaceful, quiet, silent. Meditation for me is like listening to a chattering monkey for 20 minutes. It just never shuts up. But I read a quote by Pema Chodron (who I adore) yesterday at the bookstore, and she said that meditation isn’t for silence, or for being happier, or for being more peaceful. It’s for just meeting yourself wherever you are, and being okay with whatever that is.
I need that. I need that daily. But I need to make it easy for myself to do, or else I won’t do it. I’ve decided to put Fabeku Fatunmise’s Remembering Through Resonance songs on my iPod, so all I have to do is sit down, turn it on and listen. Nice and easy.
2. Systems (business grounding) – Hey man, businesses need grounding too. I spoke a while ago about wanting to create systems for my business, but I’ve pretty much gotten the square root of nowhere on that. Hopefully by putting it here, y’all will hold me accountable for this? I’m not even sure what systems would look like, but it’s something I definitely need to look into.
3. Yoga (physical grounding) – I absolutely adore yoga. I know that it makes me ridiculously happy. And yet I actively don’t do it. Why? Because I’m human. That’s about all I’ve got. So again, I need to make it a really low threshold for me to do it. I’m going to create a really gentle routine, something that I know won’t exhaust me completely and that is so gentle, I won’t have any physical resistance to it either.
4. Journaling (emotional grounding) – This I’ve done every single day since I was 16. I’ve got miles and miles of writing from this. One day, far into the future, someone will read them and get a good chuckle I’m sure.
This is all I’ve got right now, but it’s got me thinking that maybe I could do with some sort of creative grounding exercise as well. And maybe some way of grounding myself energetically as well. This could just be tackled from so many different levels, and I figure the more ways I ground myself, the more I’ll be able to just get on with life and stop getting so trapped by the junk in my head.
I’m open to suggestions too, or things that you do to help yourself get grounded. (However, I’m not really in the mood to be psychoanalyzed right now, so if you could just keep that to yourself, I’d really appreciate it.)