Permission to come home to your body

There are times and seasons in life that feel like your roots get pulled out from underneath you, where you feel displaced and uncertain.

On any given day, anything, from the monotony of ordinary living to disruptive and unexpected twists and turns, can make you feel spun out like you're caught in a hurricane; adrenal pumping, heart racing, like you're feet are off the ground and you're floating with no control. Uprooted. Unbalanced. Ready to fight, flight, freeze or fawn your way out of there.

This is why the practice of being grounded can be so helpful and healing.

The Apostle Paul said something that I think in essence describes the feeling of groundedness when he said: 

"A sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down."*

And interestingly, Paul was talking about prayer when he said the above verse - prayer not being a ritual or words said at the right time and in the right order, but prayer, being the practice of awareness.

Prayer is a grounding practice. And yes, it might involve rituals and words, forms and functions, but they are only ever the vehicle, not the destination. 

To be grounded is to connect into your centre, that gravitational force of love within you.

To be grounded is to have your feet, proverbial and physical, firmly planted on the earth, in the life that you have, the life that you are.

To be grounded is to be here, now, when all you want to be is someone else and somewhere else. And because those feelings can be so strong and heavy and influential, because it's so easy to be tossed to and fro by the things that happen around you and in you, because it's so easy to be pulled into the shoulds and coulds and woulds and the things you don't have and the things you are not and things that you have and are that you're made to believe are pulling you back...

Stop. 
Settle. 
Soften. 
Breathe. 

Hand on your heart. 
Feet on the Ground. 
Here as you are. 

There's a story in Genesis about a man named Jacob who had a dream about a ladder that connected heaven and earth. It was a revelation of oneness, of two realities infiltrating each other, becoming one, blending, mixing, and being together. In some sects of ancient Judaism, Jacob’s ladder came to be seen as a tree; its roots firmly planted in the deep, dark, rich soil of the earth, and its branches reaching up and hugging the glory of the heavens. The tree exists in both places because trees know that to go high, to be all it can be, to be itself in all its fullness, to experience the abundance of the heavens, it must dig down deep into the dirt, be planted firmly and truly into the earth. 

And the other thing with trees? They bend, they sway, they lean into the wind, embrace the sun, drink the rain, adapting and stay present to all the seasons it sees until it once again, as all things do, turns to seed to be planted again, and again, and again. The thread of life working its miracle through it all. 

May you feel that thread of life moving through you. May you find your centre. May you give yourself permission to come home to your life, to your body, to your heart. May you discover that peace and healing and strength aren't waiting for you on some holy hill, at a church altar, inside the words in the mouth of a celebrity pastor or church leader, but that they are here, with you, in you, even in this, even as you are, of course, as you are.

Mindful Prompt: "Anything can become a spiritual practice once you are willing to approach it that way; once you let it bring you to your knees and show you what is real, including who you really are, who other people are, and how near God can be when you have lost your way." Barbara Brown Taylor. 

Liz xo 

From my upcoming series, "How To Be Grounded" this week with a subscription in the App.

Written by Liz Milani.
Instagram: @thepracticeco