Grounding In Under Two Minutes

Your mind may be ready to “move on” after divorce, but your body might still be living in survival mode. When divorce shakes your sense of stability, even ordinary moments can trigger a surge of stress that feels bigger than the situation. In this episode I’ll want to give you a reset you can use immediately, wherever you find yourself.

I walk through a fast grounding technique designed to help your nervous system feel safe again. With this grounding technique you’re giving your brain and body a clear cue that you’re here, you’re present, and you’re not in danger. I also give a quick explanation to the “why” behind grounding, including how your system can react to perceived threats and why practices that reconnect you to your body can support healing after divorce.
 
If you found this helpful, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s rebuilding after divorce, and leave a rating or review so more women can find this support.

To download your FREE "Becoming You Again Podcast Map" click here. 

To schedule your complimentary consult with Karin click here.

Struggling after divorce to get to know yourself? Click here to grab my $7 guide to get started!

If this podcast resonated with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

Welcome And The Goal

Karin Nelson 0:00

Hi, welcome to Becoming You Again, the podcast for divorcing women who want to learn to reconnect with themselves, heal from their divorce, and live an incredible life. I'm your host, Karin Nelson. I'm a divorce coach with a passion for helping women learn to love themselves again. In today's episode, I am giving you a quick and simple grounding technique so that you can feel safe in your body and reconnect to yourself in the simplest, lasting way. And this one is so easy that you can literally do it anywhere. Let's get started. Welcome to Becoming You Again, the podcast where you learn to step into your power as a woman in this world, where you learn to reconnect to your wholeness, your integrity, and bring into alignment your brain, your body, and your intuition after divorce. This is the podcast where you learn to trust yourself again and move forward toward a life that you truly want. You are listening to Becoming You Again, and I am your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast, my lovely, lovely ladies. As always, I am so so happy that you're here, and this one is going to be so short and so simple, but so powerful. Because today I am talking about a grounding technique that is so, so simple that you can literally do it anywhere you find yourself, which I think is the greatest thing ever. When we can have things that we can take on the go with us or in any situation, and we can just do them and, you know, learn to heal ourselves as we're living our everyday life. Those are the best ways, right?

Why Grounding Signals Safety

Karin Nelson 1:32

Okay, so let me just talk about why grounding is so powerful. Because grounding is a really great way to send a message to our nervous system that we are safe. Because you know how our nervous system works, right? It gets heightened, our body and our brain think, oh no, something is happening and we are not safe. Like my survival is threatened. And even if it's not actually threatened, our brain and body doesn't actually understand the difference between what's real and what's perceived, right? And so we use these grounding techniques as a way to remind our brain and our body, like, no, we're actually safe. We're okay. Let's just like calm down a little bit and recognize that we're in the here and now. And in the here and now, everything's good. We're good. That's what we're doing with these grounding techniques.

The Electricity And Earth Analogy

Karin Nelson 2:26

So, in terms of electricity, when an electrician sets up a house for electricity, those electricians know that the electricity in the wires actually has to go somewhere. Now, I'm not like I'm not an electrician. I don't actually know the electricity science behind this. This is just like the most basic description of how this works. If you asked me to go in depth about this, I would be like, I have no idea. This is just what I was taught. And so I'm gonna teach it to you in basic terms. But basically, like there has to be somewhere for the electricity in the wires to go. It can't just like be floating around us, right? And so what happens is the electrician puts a wire that is connected to the house in the ground, and it's called the grounding wires. This is because the earth is a safe place for energy to be spread and released. The earth's ground has like negative electrical properties that somehow neutralizes the positively charged electricity, and it acts as a place for that to be discharged. So, as humans, we're essentially like these big balls of energy. We are forms of energy, and that energy is running through us constantly. And if we don't process and move through that energy, it can affect us, it can affect us physically. And so grounding can be a very useful thing for us as humans. Like quite literally, grounding can mean I'm gonna go touch the earth, I'm gonna go have contact with the earth in some way, the ground, the trees, the plants. I can do this through gardening or walking around in my backyard barefoot, walking on the sand, entering the ocean, like any of that stuff. It's like they're very grounding for us as humans because it's a way to reconnect ourselves with the earth. But grounding can also mean a way for us to reconnect to ourselves, to our own bodies. And there are so, so, so, so many ways to do this. I'm gonna give you a very simple one today. And I have other podcast episodes where I talk about other techniques, but the thing that I want you to remember about grounding techniques, and the same thing with somatic practices, we are unique human beings. And so there will be different things that help us feel safe in our own bodies that help us feel reconnected to ourselves that don't work for everyone. Like this one works for me, it may not work for you. But the best way, and the thing that I suggest to all of my clients and to you is to try one, try it a few times, see how it feels in your body after you do it. See if you notice any shifts that create like a greater sense of peace or reconnection to yourself or expansion or calm or something like that. And if it does, then keep it. Keep it in your arsenal of like, I'm gonna use these to help heal myself. I'm gonna use these when I get activated. I'm gonna use these to remind myself I'm safe. And if it doesn't, then find a different one. Like we can have multiple ones that work for us in multiple different scenarios and situations. You gotta try it though. So try this one today, see if it works for

Cross-Body Object Transfer Technique

Karin Nelson 5:50

you. This one is going to focus on crossbody movement. And what this does is it's gonna stimulate both sides of your brain. So I want you to just sit or stand in a comfortable position, find a small object that you can hold in one hand easily. Like for me, I'm gonna hold my AirPods case, but it could literally be anything. It could be your keys, it could be a tube of lipstick, an apple, some nail, like a jar of nail polish, anything that you can hold in your hand very easily. I want you to hold the object in your right hand, and with your arm held up to about shoulder height, I want you to then cross your right arm and your right hand over your midline. So cross your arm over your body to the left side, and then take the object from your right hand with your left hand. Now your left hand is holding the object. Then with your arm held up to about shoulder height, do the same motion. Cross your left arm across your midline to the right side and take the object with your right hand. That's it. We are just like holding an object in one hand, crossing your body, taking it with the other hand. Holding that object in that hand, crossing your body, taking it with the other hand, right? Just back and forth across your body. And just continue to do this back and forth for a minute or two. You can play around with the speed that you do this, you can do it slow, you can do it methodical, you can shift to quick and do it back and forth quickly and then go back to slow. Play around with it. See what feels right and just stay present in your body. Notice any shifts that might be happening within your body. Here's the reason why this crossbody stimulation works so well. Because this movement helps remind your body that you are safe. Because what it does is it's stimulating both sides of your brain, which do not tend to be activated when your brain perceives that you are in danger. Both sides won't be activated typically. And so what this is doing is it's helping to reconnect you with your body and remind your brain look, in this moment, I'm safe. We're safe. And that's all we're looking for with grounding ourselves, bringing us to the here and now, the present moment, reminding our brain and our body that we are safe, and having a place for that energy to process through. So try this one out. It's so simple. You can do it anywhere you are. And this may be exactly the one you've been needing. That's what I have for you today. I love you so much. You are incredible. You are amazing. You are so much stronger, braver, and more intuitive than you think. Thank you for being here. I will be back next week.

Final Encouragement And Coaching Invite

Karin Nelson 8:39

Hi, friend. I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life with weekly coaching, real life practice, and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to Karin Nelson Coaching.com. That's www.karin, N-E-L-S-O-N coaching.com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts. And for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married, make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.