Night and day our five senses are continually downloading information from the external world that we process. We can be overloaded by all this input.

Your day might start with an alarm, or the call of a child, the flow of water in the shower and clothes against your skin. How do you feel on a sunny day, or windy, or cloudy or wet? How are you affected by information from your phone and laptop? How are you affected by the traffic? Have you been driven out of a shop by the music? How are you affected by other people?  Or by being alone? What about the stack of laundry or the dirty dishes?  How are you affected by the feel of the room, café, office you are in?

With all that information all around us and all the processing of it, we can lose touch with ourselves.  We can feel small in a big world.  By the end of a day on the go we can feel anxious, overwhelmed and inadequate and not know why!

So how can we support ourselves through the day?  How can we redress that imbalance so that we feel equal to the day?  There is a very simple skill that can be very empowering.  It is focusing on our body and its connection to the earth, known as grounding.  This drops us out of our thinking and takes us to a place where we have form and substance. This can feel comfortable and safe.  This calms the central nervous system and slows the racing mind.

Pause for a moment, take a couple of slow, deep breaths into the belly. At first you may need to rest a hand on your belly to check it is expanding with the inhalation and relaxing on the exhale. Visualise your breath filling your whole body.  Imagine you are feeling into your body, coming home to your body.  After a minute or two of this you might notice your shoulders dropping and your body relaxing.

Then feeling the connection of your body to the earth will have a stabilising affect.  You can do this by imaging that your spine has a tail that extends deep down into the earth.  You could see it anchoring you.  Or you could visualise that you are like a tree, maybe a Morton Bay Fig, with roots going from your waist down into the earth.

This grounding be very stabilising and supportive in a world of constant change. With practise you will develop a feeling of presence in the world, feeling solid, secure and stable, no matter what is happening around you.