Understanding Grounding: Earthing, Spiritual and Therapy

Types of Grounding:

One of the confusing parts of grounding is that there are many types. So, when you head out to trusty Google, you may not get the information for your needs. Let’s dig into the three types so you can understand better exactly what you need.

Earthing

Earthing is the practice of physically connecting to the earth so that you can take on its electrons. Thus, grounding yourself. The idea being that originally, we had little contact between our feet and the ground. Plus, we were sleeping on the ground. So, we were very grounded.

Now with shoes and sleeping inside, we are losing the benefits of being connected to the earth.

Scientific research is starting to increase in being able to show exactly how it can help. With two of the main benefits being better sleep and better pain management. I am not going to dig into the research, but if you are interested in it, I recommend you start here.

How do you know if you need earthing?

• I would say based on the research we all need it, no matter what.
• You have been struggling to sleep.
• Your stress levels are high.

Spiritual Grounding

When you have a spiritual practice, it can be very easy to not stay connected to earth. We can drift into different realms, astral travel, and a variety of other ways to leave this plane.

It is important to reconnect with the earth, so we can integrate our spiritual experiences with our daily life.

If you do something such as a past life regression and don’t fully come back to the now. You are not able to apply what you learned. Your relationships will struggle because you can’t listen. And you don’t heal what you discovered.

Without grounding you stay disconnected from life.

How do you know if you need spiritual grounding?

• You feel like you are not here, that you are disconnected from this life.
• You recently completed a major spiritual growth or experience. Even if you feel fine, it is wise to do a grounding practice just to be sure.

Mental Health/Therapy

Grounding when it comes to your mental health is when you are stuck in panic, worry or fear. You are living either in the past or in the future. You are disconnected from today.

When you are grounded you are present, calm and able to clearly see what you need to do. You can understand how you are feeling and what may be triggering it.

Instead of your feelings causing emotional distress, grounding helps you identify and manage them.

Additionally, if you are an empath, it can be difficult to determine if your feelings are yours. When you are grounded it is easier to determine this.

How do you know if you need mental grounding?

If any of these apply to you then grounding can be beneficial.

• Negative thoughts
• Anxiety
• Feeling flighty/spacey
• Empath’s unsure of source of emotions
• Can’t calm your mind

Grounding Techniques

There are many of the techniques that will work for the different types of grounding. Many of the techniques will help for multiple types. Allowing you to combine them to save you time and get more benefits! It’s okay to mix and match for all the types of grounding.

A few that work: grass, beach, trees, and rocks.

Yet, I do realize this is not possible for everyone. You may be in a hospital or have a busy schedule. In this case there are new products that allow you to ground while you sleep.

As far as I can find there are not a lot of independent studies on if this works. Although anecdotal stories show there may be at least some placebo effect. It may be worth it for you to try one of the mats if you can’t get outside. Check out a popular earthing mat.

For more information on grounding this is the source that I trust.

Mental Health/Therapy

The best tool for grounding your mental health is to use mindfulness techniques. These techniques focus on your senses: what do you see, feel, smell. They are a great way to bring your thoughts and emotions back into the present moment.

• You can do this by interacting with what is around you. Pick something up and study it. How does it feel? What does it smell like? What color is it?
• Slow down and pay attention to what you may be eating. What is the color? How does each bite differ from the last? Does the taste change as the item cools down or heat up?
• Focusing on your breath. You can count your breath or “watch” it flow through your body.
• You can do a meditative walk where you notice each step. You can even stop on your walk, slip off your shoes to get earthing benefits while noticing the sounds of what is around you.
• Counting backwards, refocuses your mind when it is scattered. It requires attention and being fully present. Just don’t stress about messing up. Acknowledge it and move on.

Spiritual

Many of the same techniques you would use for grounding for therapy, you can also use for spiritual grounding.

However, there are some that are slightly different that will help bring you spiritually in the present moment.

• Root chakra sound therapy.
• Meditation. While mediation can be the cause of ungrounding, there are types of meditation that will help with grounding. The meditations for grounding include visualizing nature or balancing your chakras. The goal is more about earth connection, than higher-self connection.
• Use crystals to connect with the energy of the earth. There are many crystals that are specific to grounding. They include brown stones, smoky quartz, hematite, jasper, and black obsidian. (Whenever I need to know what a stone is good for, I turn to one of Judy Hall’s books.)

Hopefully this helps you better understand what grounding is and why it is so important!