It can happen to any of us. Everything is going well, you feel you are in a really great place in your life or in what you are doing, and suddenly something happens that completely throws you off your center. In an instant everything has changed and you feel lost with no idea what to say or where to go next.
Or in another scenario, perhaps it feels like little things just keep piling up, one on top of another. None of them by themselves seems like such a big deal, yet the combination of all of them together is too much. You can’t find “you” anymore. The circumstances are now controlling your life.
However, there is a very simple shift you can make to take your life back. Here is the key: you are not your circumstance. That may seem obvious at first, yet in the moment when we are thrown off center, we forget.
What is happening to you or around you is not who you are. Who you are at your essence is so much bigger than anything that can ever happen to you or around you. Yet when the unexpected happens or challenges seem to keep coming, it is easy to lose connection with yourself – with your essence.
Unfortunately, in that moment of crisis or overwhelm, it can be very difficult to bring yourself back to your own center and alignment quickly. However, if you have practiced alignment and centering when times are good, you then have a habit and practice to fall back on when the unexpected occurs or life gets hard.
It’s all about where you choose to ground yourself. Do you ground in the circumstance, letting the circumstance tell you who you are and dictate how you will react, or do you ground in your essence, your soul, your truth, and in your oneness with the creative and sustaining force of all? You might name that Consciousness, God, Spirit, Universe, Mystery. For me, the word that works the best is Consciousness, so I’ll use that word as we continue, but please substitute another word if that works better for you.
Grounding in self and in Consciousness can be accomplished in a simple four-step process. The first few times you do it, it will take about five minutes to go through the four steps – ok, maybe ten if you are reading the instructions and then doing it. However, the more you practice, the easier it gets, and the four steps come together as one flow that you can do in less than 60 seconds. And before you know it, all you have to do is “think” it and it happens. It’s very simple. Here’s the process.
Step 1
Begin by standing with your feet directly under your shoulders and your toes pointing straight ahead. Bring your hands into a prayer position in front of your heart center and allow your breath to settle into its own natural, steady, even rhythm. Then imagine a column of energy that goes from the top of your head down to the bottom of your feet and from the bottom of your feet up to the top of your head. Feel the alignment within this column. If you sense that something is out of alignment, simply intend it to come into place. Don’t worry about how to do it; just let your awareness bring your whole being into alignment.
As you sense this vertical column of energy at the core of you, notice what happens with your posture, your breath, your spine, your legs, and your overall energy and sense of well being. Then imagine that you are breathing in and out through every cell of your being, so you become aware of your whole energy system. You have just reconnected to you. You are now grounded within yourself again. Take a moment to rest in this reconnection before moving on.
Step 2
Remaining in this standing position, bring your arms down to your sides with your fingers pointing to the ground. Then allow that vertical column of energy at your core to extend all the way to the center of the earth. Feel this vertical column ground itself in the center of the earth so that you become aware of the column of energy from the top of your head, down through your body, and all the way to the center of the earth. At the same time, feel it from the center of the earth all the way up through you to the top of your head. You may experience a subtle shift in energy or alignment as you ground to the center of the earth.
When you sense that you are fully grounded in this energy and alignment, bring your hands back to the prayer position in front of your heart center. Take another moment to rest in this alignment and grounding before continuing on.
Step 3
Still remaining in this standing position and feeling your core column of energy rooted deep in the earth, raise your arms above your head with your fingers pointing to the sky. Allow this vertical column of energy to extend now out of the top of your head all the way out to the center of the Universe. Don’t worry about where that is. Just trust that your essence knows what to do. Become aware of the column of energy that goes from the center of the Universe down through your body to the center of the earth, and from the center of the earth up through your body and out to the center of the Universe.
Again, you may experience a subtle shift within you. When you sense that you are fully grounded in this energy and alignment, bring your hands back to the prayer position in front of your heart center. Take another moment to rest in this alignment and grounding before continuing on.
Through these first three steps, you have grounded first in yourself and then in the greater Consciousness. Notice your connection to yourself and to a greater whole.
Step 4
This last step is to re-enter your life circumstance from your place of grounding in yourself and in Consciousness. Still standing with your hands in the prayer position over your heart center, slowly bring your hands apart, stretching your arms and hands out to your sides. With this movement, allow yourself to be in your circumstance or situation again, yet now fully grounded in yourself and in the greater Consciousness instead of letting the circumstance dictate who you are and how you will react. Grounded in Consciousness, you are now able to respond to what is going on with clarity and intention. Keeping your arms outstretched and supported by your vertical alignment, you may even want to turn in place to fully claim your grounding in yourself and in Consciousness throughout your circumstance.
That’s it – four simple steps:
1) connect to the vertical column of energy within you – feel your grounding within yourself
2) extend that column of energy to the center of the earth – feel your grounding in the earth
3) extend that column of energy to the center of the Universe – feel your connection to the Universe and to Consciousness
4) stay in that grounding within self and Consciousness and step back out into the world
It is important to practice this when life is good, when things are flowing well. Practicing this every day when all is well builds a foundation that will support you when the unexpected happens or when circumstances become overwhelming. You will probably only need to actually do the physical exercise a few times. Then you will know the feeling and can call yourself back to that feeling with a simple reminder.
Starting right now and then throughout the next few days, check in with yourself – are you grounding in what is happening or are you grounding in yourself and in Consciousness? Stay with the practice until grounding in yourself and Consciousness has become your habit – until your system only knows this one way to respond, no matter what is happening. It will serve you well.
P.S. You can learn more about alignment within yourself and in the greater Consciousness in Chapter 4 of my latest book, Create A World That Works. If you don’t have the book, it’s available through our website store, on amazon.com, or in bookstores everywhere. It is also available in digital format for most e-readers, including Kindle, iBooks, and Nook.
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