Finding Your Ground
As I was sipping my tea this morning I noticed that I felt very much at home in myself. Nothing was different on the outside: the world was still in turmoil, there was a long to-do list waiting for me. It was as if they all were a crowd outside my door urging me to get busy and get on with it. But I simply wasn’t compelled to answer the door and let them in.
I just savored the familiar taste of my tea. I made space for the two cats to sit with me. I listened to the birds, noticed the sunlight, felt my chest rise and fall with my breathing. And all of this noticing took place within just a few moments.
This kind of ‘coming home’ is one way where I’ve found grounding and stability. The wisdom traditions call this the still point within, a source of quiet potential. This is the place where everything begins. Where thoughts stop, feelings come to rest and there’s a sense of renewal on all levels of my being.
This looking inward is intentional but effortless. It happens when we move our awareness away from the frantic noise of the world and direct our attention inward.
Most of us forget this aspect of ourselves. We feel the pressure of time or lack of money or having to prove ourselves. That’s how we end up skimming the surface and feeling disconnected to who and what we really are. We find ourselves caught up in the routine of getting everything done: managing responsibilities at work, responding to family obligations, keeping up with the news, and on and on.
That’s when we start feeling that uncomfortable flatness that comes from not being present to ourselves and reverting to habitual reactions.
We’re just going through the motions.
When we learn how to come home to ourselves, what we’re needing is revealed. We have a world of thoughts and feelings inside us that we don’t share publicly, and that makes sense, given what’s going on around us. But when we push down those thoughts and feelings, that adds to our sense of flatness or instability.
This is where, over and over again, I’ve seen the value of using simple forms of creative expression to make our inner world more visible to us. And the more we can see what’s blocking us, the easier it is to find our way again.
It’s profoundly freeing to express yourself creatively in a way that allows you to make visible what’s been hidden. Not only to see what’s been undermining your own sense of possibility, but also to find that place of internal grounding inside you.
When you respond instinctively rather than intellectually, there’s an honesty that becomes available that logic and analysis often obscure.
For example, you put an image on the page by letting your hand lead the way, not your head. Something in you chooses an unexpected combination of colors that perfectly expresses something you previously couldn’t name. As you step back and look at it, you find the words that give it meaning. You have a moment of recognition, followed by insight and understanding.
And all of those moments are held or witnessed by this inner source that allows you to access the deepest, truest, wisest part of you.
The beauty of this realization is that no matter where the question comes from, the answers always come from you.
Not fixed or cured, but sourced in a wisdom that’s never been sullied by experience. When you’re in contact with it, you wake up to your life in a new way. You see what’s in your way and how to get beyond it. How you respond to your daily tasks becomes less formulaic and more intentional.
And that’s what finding your grounding can be.
Not controlling every thought or emotion or trying to force an outcome, but reconnecting to the part of yourself that can respond honestly, instinctively and fully to the moment you’re actually living in.
I just savored the familiar taste of my tea. I made space for the two cats to sit with me. I listened to the birds, noticed the sunlight, felt my chest rise and fall with my breathing. And all of this noticing took place within just a few moments.
This kind of ‘coming home’ is one way where I’ve found grounding and stability. The wisdom traditions call this the still point within, a source of quiet potential. This is the place where everything begins. Where thoughts stop, feelings come to rest and there’s a sense of renewal on all levels of my being.
This looking inward is intentional but effortless. It happens when we move our awareness away from the frantic noise of the world and direct our attention inward.
Most of us forget this aspect of ourselves. We feel the pressure of time or lack of money or having to prove ourselves. That’s how we end up skimming the surface and feeling disconnected to who and what we really are. We find ourselves caught up in the routine of getting everything done: managing responsibilities at work, responding to family obligations, keeping up with the news, and on and on.
That’s when we start feeling that uncomfortable flatness that comes from not being present to ourselves and reverting to habitual reactions.
We’re just going through the motions.
When we learn how to come home to ourselves, what we’re needing is revealed. We have a world of thoughts and feelings inside us that we don’t share publicly, and that makes sense, given what’s going on around us. But when we push down those thoughts and feelings, that adds to our sense of flatness or instability.
This is where, over and over again, I’ve seen the value of using simple forms of creative expression to make our inner world more visible to us. And the more we can see what’s blocking us, the easier it is to find our way again.
It’s profoundly freeing to express yourself creatively in a way that allows you to make visible what’s been hidden. Not only to see what’s been undermining your own sense of possibility, but also to find that place of internal grounding inside you.
When you respond instinctively rather than intellectually, there’s an honesty that becomes available that logic and analysis often obscure.
For example, you put an image on the page by letting your hand lead the way, not your head. Something in you chooses an unexpected combination of colors that perfectly expresses something you previously couldn’t name. As you step back and look at it, you find the words that give it meaning. You have a moment of recognition, followed by insight and understanding.
And all of those moments are held or witnessed by this inner source that allows you to access the deepest, truest, wisest part of you.
The beauty of this realization is that no matter where the question comes from, the answers always come from you.
Not fixed or cured, but sourced in a wisdom that’s never been sullied by experience. When you’re in contact with it, you wake up to your life in a new way. You see what’s in your way and how to get beyond it. How you respond to your daily tasks becomes less formulaic and more intentional.
And that’s what finding your grounding can be.
Not controlling every thought or emotion or trying to force an outcome, but reconnecting to the part of yourself that can respond honestly, instinctively and fully to the moment you’re actually living in.