Coming Back Down To Earth

What is the favorite place of a trauma survivor?

The land in between their ears.

                   ~Janice M. Burke

Taking care of ourselves is far more difficult when we are so wrapped up in our negative thought patterns that nothing else exists. It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re on the fast lane of the Angry Highway. There is no food on this highway, no sleeping, no exercise, no time outdoors in nature, there are no friends on this highway, no family members, no friendly neighbors, there is just you and your thought track. Because none of those other things exist on this thought track, they often go by the wayside and are forgotten or ignored. Of course, this makes the anger worse. This makes the “woe is me” worse. It makes the depression worse. It makes the chaos worse. Sometimes, it makes chaos all by itself because there’s actually nothing wrong other than our perception.

Breaking down self-care into what it really is can sometimes be shocking to people. They dismiss it and claim “Oh! Well, everyone knows that!” Yet, many of us do not follow through on it. We might miss out on one or two things and then the next day say “Oh well! Just one more day…”, and all of a sudden we have stopped doing it. We have stopped exercising, stopped going outside in nature, stopped meditating, getting enough sleep, doing laundry, showering…we have stopped caring. The thought track that we ride on every day has completely taken over our lives and nothing else exists. We don’t care to ground into our bodies when we’re in this state. Yet, the only way out is by bringing our soul and thoughts back into our body. 

We can begin by visualizing our soul slightly detached and pulling it back into the physical body. Next, we can focus on what our body is feeling (aka Somatics). Every sensation that it has, head to toe, beginning with the feet. The way our clothes feels against our skin, the temperature, the feeling of hunger or of fullness, our breath, the beating of our heart, every tiny sensation. When you do this, it accomplishes 2 things.

1. It slows our heart rate, our breathing and our parasympathetic nervous system down. 

2. It stops the revolving thought track that we were on.

When our Soul and our thoughts are pulled back into our body like this and we become   consciously aware of it, we are free to notice not just our body, but the senses it has to offer as well. Take a look around and what do you see? Practice deep listening and stretch to hear all that is around you. What do you smell? What can you touch around you? Finally, what can you taste, in the air or in a food around you? 

When we are on that Angry Highway, it is crucial to eat something…but definitely NOT something sugary, as sugar will only make the situation worse as it winds us up and crashes us down. Bread, pasta, potato chips, corn chips are also foods that turn into sugar and spike us up. We each have our favorites of these “comfort foods”. Incorporating different types of snacks instead, like nuts, pumpkin seeds or fruit will begin to get us to appreciate and get used to a different type of snack. The sugars from fruit will not give us that sugar crash. There are plenty of healthy snacks available, explore them, try them. Breaking out of our sugar fixation will be a game changer! We can carry healthy snacks with us so that when we notice our negative thought track taking over, we can begin the process of returning home to our body through taste and one of the Core Elements of Self Care…eating healthy.

Meditation is another great grounding tool. Sitting upright, looking down at a 45° angle, allow your vision to relax and stop focusing. Keep the tip of your tongue lightly touching the roof of your mouth, then, simply notice your breath without changing it and count it from 1 to 10 and do this for at least five minutes. When you start feeling more comfortable, take more time to meditate. A half hour a day is the ideal goal. With our busy lives, it seems as though this is an impossible feat, however, the more we ground into our body, the more time we will begin to notice is available to us.

Taking the word grounding to heart, we can do the simplicities of taking our shoes and socks off and putting our feet on the earth. When we are in an extreme state of emotion and we have a place to do this, we can even lay down on the earth until we come back into our body. Sitting with our back against a tree is a healing practice and can help us to calm our parasympathetic nervous system down rather quickly.

There IS a way back home to ourselves. It can be fun and exciting to learn new ways of approaching life and health. Enjoy exploring and know that each Path is unique yet the Core Common Elements of Self Care connects us deeply.

~Janice M. Burke

Image from WIX