01 Dec Letting be versus grounding

Visualising roots extending from the soles of your feet, growing through all the layers of the earth until they reach its core; attaching a cord from your tailbone to the ground; or drinking beetroot juice—search briefly, and you’ll find dozens of techniques for grounding. In all these methods, the idea is to reconnect with the earth’s energy. This allows you to release negative energy, and the earth, in turn, helps you recharge.

What I find particularly interesting is understanding why we become ungrounded in the first place. Two primary mechanisms are at play. First, there is the embodied sense of identification with your experiential world. It is deeply convincing to believe that what you feel, think, and experience is an absolute truth about who you are or what you possess. For example, when you feel fear, you are certain that you areafraid or that you have this fear.

Second, the mind immediately latches onto these feelings, thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, constructing a narrative around them. Whose feeling is this? Where did it come from? Who is to blame? How can I ensure I never feel this way again? In short, how can I fix this?

The energetic effect of these two mechanisms is that tension is created around feelings, emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations—tension that these phenomena do not inherently possess. Buddhists refer to this concept as shunyata, or emptiness. No aspect of life is inherently good or bad, positive or negative. It is neutral yet full of potential. This potential is activated by how we engage with these phenomena. Ironically, by identifying with your experiences and allowing the mind to fixate on fixing them, you activate the “negative” aspect of their potential, creating toxic energetic charges within your system.

This accumulated tension not only has a destructive impact on you but also influences your surroundings, including the earth itself.

The Root of Ungrounding

The tension you have accumulated over the course of your life is the primary reason you feel ungrounded. In daily life, this unresolved tension is continually triggered by other people and your environment. Your mind becomes preoccupied with finding its origin or anticipating its destination. This unresolved tension in your metaphorical “backpack” pulls your attention away from the present moment, instead anchoring you in the past or projecting you into the future.

As a result, you are not fully here. And therefore, you are not grounded.

To be grounded truly means to be present, to bring your attention fully to this moment, to experience what arises completely, and to see life for what it truly is.

The Role of the Compassionate Heart

This is where the compassionate heart comes into play. By fully experiencing life and allowing it to simply be, you release old tension without recreating it in the same habitual ways. With less tension in your system, you are less easily and less intensely triggered. Consequently, you find yourself less entangled in your narrative. Gradually, you become more grounded, as life feels less personal and you feel less compelled to “fix” everything.

You return to the earth, seeing things as they truly are—unveiled.

By embracing life, you also take responsibility for your role here on earth. When you welcome life into your heart, you not only enrich yourself but also cease burdening the planet with the aspects of your life that you have yet to embrace.

The compassionate heart is uniquely equipped to engage with life’s intensity without creating the tension that later requires grounding exercises to discharge into the earth.

Grounding as a State of Being

Grounding is more than merely connecting to the earth—it is being on the earth with all that is. It is about embracing your humanity in its entirety.