Yoga helps us connect with and experience a deep sense of steadiness.
What conditions allow steadiness to appear in you?
To experience steady – we connect to stability.
Grounding is the process of developing a sense of stability in the body. When we have stability in the body, our interoception skills are improved and the nervous system can pay attention to breath, sensation and perception.
Finding a sense of steadiness deeply supports your mind-body relationship.
Self-regulation tools like breathing, gentle mindful yoga and somatic movements foster a greater sense of safety within us.
Sometimes physical or mental difficulties make it hard for us to connect with these practices. Emotions can feel unstable and become overwhelming.
In these moments grounding helps us in staying connected or bring us back into the present moment. Grounding is the relationship between the body and the ground, or earth. The ground provides us with stable sensory input, allowing our system to regulate in that understanding.
If we notice overwhelm, feel anxious or disconnected we tend to pay less attention to our bodies, particularly to the parts in contact with the ground.
Before we try to feel steady – it helps to start by noticing where your body meets the ground.
What does steadiness feel like for you in this moment? Reading this – where are you grounded?
Activities at Shanti Bee support cultivation and deepening of a sense of grounding, stability and steadiness.
Here are some methods of cultivating an experience of grounding. These might sound simple, but when was the last time you took five minutes to do these simple practices, if you do notice yourself before and after doing all 4.
Mindfulness – what are 5 things you can notice now? What are 3 things you can feel now?
Feeling our relationship to earth – what parts of your body can be connected to the earth or, if seated safely, can you feel the weight of your body being supported by a chair or bed – how does that feel, can you pour weight down evenly?
Breath awareness and yoga breathing techniques – Can you softly inhale through the nose, and experience the breath as it is, without wanting to change it. Just notice. Release the breath slowly.
Yoga offers many evidence-based breathing practices that can positively affect our mood and regulate our physiology. You can learn these in class.
Body awareness – Can you notice tension, can you feel softening. Perhaps you can tense and release your toes?
Rosie Mason