Grounding with Nature

Grounding with Nature

Apr 22, 2022

Anxiety is my middle name. I am not good at relaxing, and if I do relax I start having anxiety because I am not used to feeling "Normal". I have struggled with this for the past few years and have seen many different therapists. Every therapist I have seen explains to me the importance of grounding and practicing your 5 senses.

So what is grounding? Grounding is a self soothing skill to use when you are dealing with a lot of stress, or having intense anxiety. It helps you live in the present world or the here and now reality.

Why should you start practicing grounding? it helps you connect to the earths natural healing energy. It reduces inflammation, pain, and stress; improves sleep, your blood flow, and liveliness. It is very simple, so why wouldn't you try it ?

Some things that I do to help myself feel grounded is walking barefoot outside, digging my hands in the dirt to plant flowers/vegetables, smelling the fresh pines, listening to the wind between the trees, and sometimes I am even lucky enough to taste wild plants surrounding the homestead. I have not practiced any of this in a while since we have had so much snow on the ground, which has been hard to deal with mentally.

Recently our friends from Ohio had visited. They love being outdoors, so we made sure we spent a lot of time outside. This past Monday we had decided to hike to the other side of the property to show them around. It was a beautiful day, a little chilly but tolerable. Zach had started to build a fire to warm us up. We started to look around and talked about living in natural Teepees and how the natives used to live like this, and how far along society has come from then. We all decided to try and build a natural Teepee.

We had found a tree nearby with a perfect base to start our shelter. Zach and Cody started knocking down dead trees to lean up against the base of the existing tree. Erin and I had started to collect pine boughs to lay on top of the shelter frame. This will help block the wind and keep the shelter warm. We also dug a hole inside the shelter and laid pine boughs down as well. That also helps keep it warm and makes it soft to sit on. Once we were done we decided to crack open a cold one to enjoy in our shelter. This was a perfect example of grounding, using our sight, touch, and sound. This also challenged us to be creative by using only our hands, no tools at all.

"Nature is the greatest place to heal and recharge" -Anonymous

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