This week I thought I’d say a bit more about the term ‘grounding’, as it’s such a commonly used concept in many yoga classes, and key words can sometimes become overused - or there might be an assumption that a term is understood, which may or may not be the case.
One way to think of grounding is via the concept of gravity. Gravity exerts a constant and predictable pull on our bodies downward, enabling us to move about and, crucially, to rest and find support, so that we have a sense of solid ground beneath us. Our bodies, too, have mass and substance, and we (usually) experience the body as being solid and weighty. When we feel our own weight is reliably supported both by our bones and by the ground, we can release muscles from overwork. It means we are more relaxed physically, and we more feel secure, more easily “at home” in our bodies: we feel grounded.
Physics tells us that there is also an equal and opposite force - one that keeps us upright. Otherwise we’d be crushed by gravity, unable to support our own body weight or move about. By way of contrast, if we were astronauts in space, the feeling of floating and of weightlessness would substitute that of weight and gravitational pull. Our ability to coordinate our limbs in the ways we are deeply familiar with - to know up from down, to recognise familiar bodily sensations of heft and weight - would be absent, presumably a deeply disorientating experience!
Another way to understand the feeling of being grounded is through relaxation. We can’t spend all day relaxing on the sofa, but, when we do lie down, we instinctively know that don’t need our bodies to “do” anything at all in terms of actively supporting us: the sofa, floor, or bed takes on that role entirely. We can sink down with a sigh of relief.
In almost all other positions, we need our bodies to take up some of the effort of supporting us, so that we can maintain that position in a steady, non-distracting way. Some of that work will carried out by muscles and connective tissue, but our bones play a major role and, unlike muscles, bones do not get tired. This means that the more we learn to use our skeletons for support, the less we ask of our muscles. We feel more relaxed and comfortable, we are less stiff, and we move with greater ease. So relaxation and grounding could be thought of as synonymous.
We all carry tension in our bodies. Tension is unnecessary work in muscles that, over time, stiffens joints and soft tissues and reduces our range of movement. By learning to give our weight to the ground, via our bones, we start to lose this tension. We free up our joints, and start to move from softness rather than stiffness. We are working with this repeatedly in our asana practice because it requires close attention, not least because some of this tension is unconscious and therefore, by definition, difficult for us to notice. It means we have to keep asking ourselves questions around effort - what is too much, what is too little - and around the familiarity of habit - what am I actually feeling and is it comfortable (if indeed it is!), because it’s my “normal”. Over time, we learn to make these fine distinctions - and to look more closely and curiously at other patterns we have adopted in life, such as in our thinking and behaviour.
The absence of unnecessary effort affects our hormonal secretions and the way we experience ourselves. Learning to find support - and to ground ourselves through this support with appropriate effort - leads to states of being that are calmer and more responsive. It means we can learn to regulate ourselves more effectively: a calm body will be better able to self-regulate than an agitated one; a calm mind can think more clearly than an agitated mind. These steady feelings in us are generated at the interdependence between mind and body.
It means that the experience of being grounded is rooted in the body and is also a quality of being, one that we experience in relation to the internal sense we have of ourselves. Even if we are busy and moving about, engaged in the external world, we can do this from a place of inner quiet. This is sometimes called being centred - and I think this is also a useful synonym for being grounded. Really we are talking about a set of qualities that seems to depend on the relationship between the physical and the mental, stemming from the way we inhabit our bodies but conveying a deeper sense of ease, quiet, at-homeness. We recognise it as an inner stability, and it feels deeply reassuring. Other people recognise it as reassuring too, and their nervous systems respond accordingly.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist teacher, adds something more - that grounding - especially through the practice of walking meditation - helps us arrive where we are, in the present moment:
With every step, we can feel the miracle of walking on solid ground. We can arrive in the present moment with every step.
(from How to Walk, by Thich Nhat Hanh)
So, to sum up: some synonyms for grounding could be gravity (maybe we could play with the verb “gravitate”?), relaxation, being centred. And, perhaps most importantly, presence.
Such a helpful explanation. Thank ou Frankie. And Happy Easter! xx