The Reiki Cafe 

How do you know if you are grounded? I have done the visualisation thing, ie. feet on ground, roots going into ground, but I don't feel any different.

Thanks.

katswhiskers,

Hi.

How does one know he\she is grounded? Well, driving privileges revoked, no cell phone use, and in by 8:00 for two weeks would be highly diagnostic.

:)

Seriously though, can you say what, exactly, you expected to be different?

Cheers,

RC

Quite, I don't know. It's just that my Reiki healer said that my root chakra is unbalanced and I am not grounded.

I don't feel any different, so how do I know if I have 'used my imagination' correctly?!

katswhiskers,

Hi,

To be frank, imagination will not help you a whit. Mindfulness and intention may. As for your Root Chakra being 'unbalanced'? What qualifications does your Teacher have and what, if anything, did he\she do that allowed such an assertion? Besides, the grounding technique you were told to do may not do anything for balancing your Root Chakra. There are other techniques for that sort of work.

I suggest that you keep working with the grounding technique you mentioned (it is a fairly common and standard exercise). Be mindful of what you are doing and be focused when you make the intention to extend yourself into the Earth for grounding. After some weeks of these practices see what you feel when you do Reiki with and without the grounding.

Cheers,

RC

Dear Katswhiskers,

You may visualize the color brown around your feet and legs before you start any other color as the earth is brown and the animals that live in the ground tend to be brownish.
See if that helps.

peace,

prosperity

Otoharo!

Some years ago there was a group in this area who met together to meditate. The beginning practice was to breathe deeply while visualizing reaching up to the heavens to get the breath and taking down to the core of the earth. they got into a rhythm with this practice. Another group sent roots into the core of the earth.

azalee

There's also "running the energy"....breathing in Mother Earth accepting.....breathing out Father Sky transcending....until the energies are swirling through your body like a helix...very nice for calming down (or grounding) or pepping up....whatever you need in the moment.

The only time I remember needing grounding....and a friend helped me (she used the brain gym technique of wrapping one leg around the other & wrapping my arms around each other, then focusing on connecting with Mother Earth)....I felt calmer...more in charge...

Katwhiskers,

Namaste...

How do you know if you are grounded?

For me, if I'm feeling spacey, easily distracted, not focused, having difficulty making decisions, daydreaming, procrastinating my work...those things indicate I may not be very grounded.

If I'm focused, "on top of things", can make decisions without feeling scattered in my brain, manifesting my work well...I'm doing fairly well.

As far as a grounding technique...I really like using water. Either splashing some cold on my face or running over my hands, but my favorite is doing the sea salt soak in a hot tub of water.

It's clearing and grounding and relaxing...ah.

I hope this has been a help.

Abundant blessings,
Mammabear

Mamabear, such good woods....I always enjoy yours. How much sea salt would you use, please?

Ponderings,

Namaste...

Well, I have a rather large old fashioned clawfoot tub (my house was built in 1939) so I can easily use 1 cup of sea salt.

Oh, and a cold shower after to rinse well and really ground! LOL

I didn't know how beneficial this was until Firekeeper mentioned it.

I suspect there are quite a few of us here at the cafe who indulge in the salt soak.

:-)

Enjoy your day,
Mammabear

Namaste, sweet friend
Thank you, Mamabear. I'm definitely going to try this.
and you....yours.

Well first of all, forget the trying to ground yourself in the earth or the sky or wherever.
and just focus on your own self be it feet, crotch or head or any other part of the body.
visualising colours and threads and tubes and lights are very helpful, but it seems to me that you're focusing to much on outside stuff. Maybe I'm in the wrong, cause I had this problem myself.
I found that I wan't feeling the earth the trees, or the sky, or all that stuff but because I was focusing on all that.
So I began to focus on me. How I sat, how I felt, what I was thinking of, was my foot itchy, etc., etc.,
after a while these things began to quieten down, and I began to relax. I'm just begining to be comforable in my own skin, and even though I haven't done any groudning exercises in a good while, I'm going to start trying them again.
It seems to me that a lot of the good advice ppl give is in the grounding techniques, but it feels to me that a person needs to be grounded in their own self for starters before they focus all their energies on all of the above.
Ask yourself what is stopping you from being grounded.
Make a list. e.g. the couple next door are making an awful load of noise when their having s...
solution: earplugs.
well I hope you get the gist.

Thanks everyone. Some good advice here.

jaguar,

Hi,

Sticking something in your ear will not, I would say, contribute much to grounding yourself (just as sleeping masks typically are not helpful to insomniacs). Self-centeredness will not, I would also say, lead us to a better understanding of Self.

:)

Cheers,

RC

reikicurmudgen

Good points.

maybe I should rephrase.

why is it that whenever you make a comment on anything I put on the board, that it seems like an attack?

I put it down to my low self-esteem.

My personal experiences aside, No-one need pay much heed to by the way, are just that.

Self-centerdness?

Hardly.

or maybe, perhaps. something to ponder on, or meditate....

Thank you r.c. for your wisdom and humility.

You've put me in my place right nicely.

I guess it's down to the old drawing board again...

I guess I'm not as grounded as I would like to wish.

Peace all round.

jaguar,

Hi,

Simply disagreeing with someone or offering another view is not an attack since it does not put the other person down. To say someone's point of view is moronic would be an attack, I would say. And yes, I suspect we all have at one time or another taken the disagreeing views of others a bit too personally for our own good or for the good of the discussion.

Cheers,

RC

Thank you rc,
If it wasn't for the fact that I'm not very grounded at the moment, I wouldn't have felt that way.
Reiki, gave me a nudge, just then. Probably what I needed.

This one needs a nudge now and then to put oneself straight. :op

walk in peace

Dear jaguar,

Just tossing this out there but i think your grounding exercise could be way more simplified. What you described sounded like too much mental straining to visualize this and that.

A simple prone positioned relaxation technique/pose/asana with Mindful breathing will do the trick. Then just visualize the grounding stuff leaving the soles of your feet for instance, and going deep into the Earth.

It's been my experience and others that it seems that one starts to experience/feel/intuit/see/etc. things it's when one has somewhat given up trying or expecting and returns back to the basic exercises of practice.

Namaste,
Michael

P.s. the sea salt bath is an excellent primer of course.

Dear Michael,,

Sea salts?! You've lost me..:o0

Thank you for simplifing. I think that' was somewhat of what was in mind, but got lost in transit from brain to keyboard.

So whatever I wrote got lost in translation, so to speak.

walk in beauty

( the follwing post has been reprinted with shameful disregard to copyright laws and regulations governing intellectual property pirating )

--Arati

Dear jaguar,

Ponderings,

Namaste...

Well, I have a rather large old fashioned clawfoot tub (my house was built in 1939) so I can easily use 1 cup of sea salt.

Oh, and a cold shower after to rinse well and really ground! LOL

I didn't know how beneficial this was until Firekeeper mentioned it.

I suspect there are quite a few of us here at the cafe who indulge in the salt soak.

:-)

Enjoy your day,
Mammabear

Yikes!@cold shower!!

If nothing else grounds someone, it'd be that!

I had a bath with epsom salts once, never thought of taking the shower though...

I'll try it!

Nameste all

Otoharo!

I have used it both. Years ago while in Inner Peace Movement, Francisco Coll our teacher recommended cold showers upon arising each morning to reaise our fire energy which he called Intuitive. I did that for six months and it did wonders for my energy. I was the camp manager and each morning the dogs met me at the door to "report" on the energy of the night. these dogs were guite disgruntled at the change in me.

finality

Greeting All,

I am new to the group and enjoyed everyones input on grounding. The salt bath followed by a shower works for me. That old claw tub sounds wonderful.
I have found that the Sacral, Solar and Heart Chakras are floaters. For various reasons they can float out of alignment. When this happens I simply move them into place with my hands. I can feel the energy moving more freely and my imbalance leaves.

Blessings
Ashkee

Hi,

I guess I was never really concerned with being grounded. I just assumed I was. Working in concert with nature and the earth. Not that I feel like a dirt ball or anything. I am short, so my feet don't always reach the floor, but I tend to sit on the floor by choice. Isn't ignorance bliss?

I remember the first guided grounding I did with a class. I really didn't feel any different than before we began. Am I missing something? Everyone else seemed to enjoy it very much. I daydreamed and went off track and made mud pies and squished dirt between my toes like I did when I was little. If anyone would have tested me on that guided grounding I would not have passed! It would have been a big sad face on my paper.

I'm not saying I don't feel flakey (Lighter than air) at times, but it's usually a good feeling. Being connected is the best way to explain it. It's tough when that feeling goes away.

Happy grounding,
Birdy

made mud pies and squished dirt between my toes like I did when I was little"

I'd say that was pretty grounded, my sweetest birdy. You're so much fun, love.