With everything that’s happening lately, I’ve been feeling very off-center and disconnected. My emotions feel big and raw. I feel like Vanessa from Little Mermaid when she realizes that Ariel is back to reclaim her voice and Vanessa loses it. A feeling of misplaced anger – that I lost something that was never mine to begin with.
Credit: martoseguera
From years of experience, I know that real, sustainable change only comes from being grounded and connected to Self.
This rooted connection to our Being allows us to experience our emotions and gain the intelligence we need from it to inspire real, productive action. In this example, we turn from Vanessa to Ariel and take back what has always been ours – healthcare as a basic human right.
There are so many calls to action, so many battle cries and so many voices shouting now, understandably. In many states, American women will likely be denied access to certain forms of healthcare to which they are accustom.
For many others, healthcare access has always been inaccessible. It’s too expensive, or they are discriminated against, or there just aren’t providers.
Why can Americans not access basic healthcare? Because in America, healthcare is still not considered a basic human right.
We have no right to healthcare. None. It’s not written into any of our laws, including the Constitution.
If you really dig into how the healthcare industry came to be, it started in earnest after The Great Depression when companies, who were not able to offer decent pay, started to offer access to doctors and medical treatment as part of employment.
Access to healthcare was offered as a benefit of employment – a way of increasing the productivity of a workforce and adding another way of competing for talent.
That’s why even today, even after the Affordable Care Act, Americans still have trouble accessing care and are finding their access restricted even more. Because we never really had a guarantee to access in the first place.
So where do we go from here? How do we proceed when the environment around us denies us access to healthcare which most of us feel is inherent to our survival?
We Ground and Connect.
First we need to take all of the energy that’s been stirred up and channel it through our bodies and into something else. Check out Better Understand Your Emotions in 5 Steps for more information about emotions and energy but the TLDR is that emotion is energy in motion = e-motion.
You’ll often hear that people recommend harnessing the power of emotion to incite action; anger and rage especially – channel it into physical action in the form of protesting, riots, and often violence. I have yet to see movements such as these create successful, sustainable change.
If we pull this energy of emotion into our bodies and channel it down and out, we get something more solid and firm than anything one could imagine – we get a foundation. We get deeply connected to ourselves and the roots of our Being or our Self.
How Do You Ground?
Everyone is different in how they release pent up energy but here are some options that work well for many people:
- Think cardio = Move your body, get your heart rate up, break a sweat, listen to music
- Relax muscles = tighten and release one muscle group at a time, lift something heavy, push against the wall or the ground
- Move air over your throat = Deep breathing exercises, mantras, scream: in your car, or into a pillow, or in the shower
- Pet an animal
- Work with soil or sand – think gardening or even a sand tray
- Walk barefoot outside
- Smell pleasant scents
- Draw or color
- Immerse yourself in running water (river, stream, ocean)
- Go outside – could be to just sit in the sun, or go for a hike and just be in nature, moon gaze, hug a tree
The outcome for this is to feel a deep relaxation of tension.
Sometimes I can actually feel a sense of being supported by something much stronger than me – a sense of solid ground or a deeply rooted foundation.
Emotions are still there but are less intense. I’m able to connect with them in a much gentler way that doesn’t feel as raw or powerful (in an overwhelming way). l have a greater sense of internal spaciousness, openness and more curiosity while still being able to access the intelligence of the energy.
From this grounded, rooted place, we can begin to connect. We can connect with ourselves, with a Higher Power, our environment and each other.
Establish a Connection with Self
Yesterday, I worked with one of my favorite energetic healers – Kate Powell of Wild Sacred Journey. She gave me an exercise that truly helped me deepen my seat (horseback riding reference for all you fellow riders out there) or in other words helped me collect all of my scattered parts and focus them into my center so I could connect with myself.
One of my favorite Wild Sacred Journey Exercises:
The breath and hand on the ground creates a physical connection to yourself and something in your environment, deepening a felt sense of being physically grounded.
- Start by sitting firmly on the ground. Sit tall with one hand over your heart and one hand on the floor beside you. (This also can be done standing).
- Breathe in deeply through your nose and imagine your breath passing through the middle of your body and out into the floor.
- Breathe in several breaths while focusing on the breath moving in, expanding, then down through your body and out through your seat.
- You can reverse the imagery and imagine the rooted seat lifting the breath out of the ground, pulling it in, feeling the expanse in your belly and then releasing out of your mouth.
Another exercise I like to do is just to lay on the floor and feel my whole body being supported and grounded into something strong and solid. Sometimes I’ll add pushing into the floor for a heightened sense of support.
Once we can physically connect with ourselves and secure our attachment to the ground, we can begin to connect with others; including parts of ourselves.
Connecting with Others While Staying Grounded
Getting to this point already takes so much skill and practice. Maintaining a felt sense of being grounded and centered is already hard enough for me and for most people with whom I’ve spoken.
I like to lean on Marshall Rosenberg’s Non-Violent Communication tools when I want to connect from a grounded state. We can even use Rosenberg’s tools when connecting with parts of ourselves.
In his book on page 6, Marshall lays out the NVC process, the dialogue examples are my own:
- Our observations – “I see that the dishes are still on the table even though I asked that they be cleaned up”
- Our feelings – “I’m really mad, disappointed and sad that the dishes have not been cleaned up”
- Our needs – “I need to feel respected in my own home and I need feel heard and cared for”
- Our requests – “I feel very mad and disrespected when the dishes are left on the table after I’ve asked you to clean them up. Having a clean table makes me feel cared for and respected. Can you please put the dishes in the sink now”
While the dishes example likely seems lacking in comparison to talking about healthcare as a basic human right, I wanted the example to be relatable.
The major takeaway of NVC is that no one can argue with your feelings and by making observations, you are not engaging in direct conflict. This method opens a place for a dialogue to unfold between the two conflicting parties. It creates space for everyone to be heard and to have their feelings validated.
Putting this in Self-terms – you can note where tension resides, ask for guidance from your body about what it needs, listen to the requests, notice what is coming up in terms of physical sensations.
You can imagine any thoughts that arise as clouds that gently float by. You can see them, honor them, listen to them, and even enjoy them without letting them attach and settle into your mind.
Sometimes that’s not enough for me so I write them down in a journal. The Artist’s Way Morning Page exercise is a great release for me when my thoughts are numerous and demanding attention. The page gives me a place for them to land without allowing them to land in my head.
Cultivating Self-Led Action for Real Change
We, now more than ever, need to start having conversations about basic human rights from a grounded and connected state.
But these tools do not only apply for this scenario. Any time an unprecedented, unexpected life event happens (think getting a diagnosis, getting laid off, getting life-changing news, winning the lottery). cultivating this kind of deeply grounded and connected state produces the same real, lasting action.
For when we are grounded and connected to Self, we take action that is Self-Led and respectful to our needs, our values, and our beliefs.
So much of the dialogue and the rhetoric has been heated by the flames of raw energy – the kind that often incites violence and accomplishes very little, if anything, over the long-term.
Action is necessary, action is even required but we will not get sustainable change until we learn how to handle conflict from a grounded and connected place.
It starts with us as individuals – we have to learn how to ground and connect to our own internal conflict. We have to learn how to validate our own emotions and our own needs. We have to create that solid foundation, grounded in our Being that says: I am worthy of having my fundamental rights as a human being respected and this is what I need.
Until each of us is able to find that solid ground, until each of us is able to connect with our own Voice and speak our needs, we will not find our rights respected.
If you have found your grounded presence and your Voice and are ready to connect with your legislature and ADVOCATE for healthcare as a basic human right, find their information here.
