Welcome again to health and wellbeing tips for a new year!
It is traditional to face the New Year with optimism and goal setting, with the objective for growth and new accomplishments.
If we are to be successful in this, it is necessary to keep focused and grounded in the present moment.
Often, dwelling on the past or thinking anxiously about the future take our attention away from being fully present in the here and now.
This makes it more difficult to live with ease and to follow through with our intentions.
The Grounding Meditation Technique is a simple method to come back to the present moment.
It is particularly useful for people with stress, anxiety or an over active mind that tends to ruminate about the past and worry about the future (most of us have minds like this!).
Use the Grounding Meditation Technique to help bring you back to the present moment, with the benefit of feeling much more at ease and relaxed.
Grounding Meditation Technique
In a sitting position:
1. Push your legs into the ground by pushing hard onto your knees with your hands. Then relax.
2. Take 3 deep breaths (breathe from the abdomen and focus your attention entirely on your breathing – watch your stomach inflate and deflate with each in-breath and out-breath.
3. Close your eyes and listen to one thing you can hear. Place all your attention on this particular sound, noticing everything you can about it (such as the volume, tone, pitch, location, distance from you etc).
4. Shift your attention to another sound while keeping your eyes closed. Place all your attention on this particular sound, as you did for the previous sound.
5. Shift your attention to one more sound and focus again as per the previous sounds.
6. Open your eyes and focus on one image. (The image can be anything at all –
an object itself or a part of an object etc.). Place all your attention on this image, noticing everything you can about it (such as the colour, texture, shape, location, dimensions, distance from you etc).
7. Shift your visual attention to another image and place all your attention on it as you did for the previous image.
8. Shift your attention to one more image and focus as per the previous images.
9. Take 3 deep breaths (breathe from the abdomen and focus your attention entirely on your breathing – watch your stomach inflate and deflate with each in-breath and out-breath.
10. Push your legs into the ground by pushing onto your knees with your hands. Then relax.
Until next time…
Marg Lambert
