Date #27

Grounding

Google ‘grounding techniques’ and you will be inundated with any number of exercises such as counting in categories, focus on an object, putting your hands in water and stretches.

None of these even get close to what I consider grounding to be.

So what exactly is it, and where does it fit in with body confidence?

What Is Grounding?

An incomplete answer is: Grounding is being in your body.

This is incomplete because a full description of what it is like to be grounded is impossible, because you feel it in your body. You just know when you are grounded.

I was checked out of my body pretty much 100% of the time until The BCP.

On date #21 - the formula for body confidence - I describe a strong feeling of being grounded.

It is no coincidence that this came at the end of the week where I proved to Cavebrain that I could handle threat (as it perceived it).

So this is my theory about grounding yourself:

Cavebrain’s two questions - Am I in danger? and Is my place in the tribe secure? - essentially boil down to physical protection. Fight/flight/freeze is a response designed for physical threat. If the tribe rejects you, your physical survival is uncertain.

The Body Confidence Project encourages grounding, because it is all about calming Cavebrain down and telling it that there is no immediate threat either from outside or within the tribe - but that if there was, you could handle it. And because Cavebrain thinks ultimately in terms of your physical safety, telling Cavebrain you can handle yourself allows it to relax and consequently you can relax and be in your body.

So if you are asking: How do I ground myself? The long answer is carry on with The BCP after date 30. Go back to date #1. I bet it will feel different the second time round.

The short answer is to do less of the things in column #1 below, and more of the things in column #2:

What To Do On This Date

Pick one thing from column #1 to stop doing today, and see if you can replace it with something in column #2. For example, turn your phone off and go for a walk in nature.

And Now For A Funny Bit About Yoga...