A Nod to the Power of Getting Grounded

Dear reader: Sometimes I feel called to re-run a blog from the past because it’s just so relevant to where we are, right here and right now. Seems like this one’s a good fit for today, as the world cranks up the challenges. This first appeared here in October of 2020. May it soothe you today.

Where are you with appreciating the raw stuff of life?

It your gratitude parked somewhere on a shelf, as you focus instead on everything that’s hard? That’s worrisome?

That’s scary?

I know I woke up with a mighty case of anxiety this morning. And the only thing that cracked that particular egg was self-care. I put off work for a few hours, knowing I could work from 11 to 6 instead of 9 to 5.

Then I lay down on my bed, and indulged in a good twenty minutes of Yoga Nidra. (This is a guided meditation that leads one into a restful ‘yogic sleep’ in which you are relaxed, yet awake.)

I fought off the demons in my head that kept endlessly repeating frightening tidbits in the media, and what someone said to someone. While I could see that none of it was cause for general alarm, my central nervous system hadn’t gotten the message. So I fretted. In a loop.

Honestly, I was a mess until I fully, completely relaxed. After meditation, I spent a little time being grateful for specific things. This always makes me feel infinitely better, as I tune into the many blessings I’ve been given in this small life.

Then I took one more self-care step and went grocery shopping. For me, my weekly visit to our local grocery, Berkeley Bowl, is an exercise in community and abundance. Here I really can get anything I want. I found Mexican hominy for pozole. I found my favorite Japanese furikake seasoning, that I have on my poached eggs in the morning.

I shop alongside the grandmothers from Central America, India and Little Italy, the professors from Cal, the tech kids buying Impossible Burgers. Once I even saw one of the Golden State Warriors there, shopping with his mother.

And yes, I found a damn good bottle of Sauvignon Blanc at a reasonable price, as well as my all-time-favorite must-have-every-week dark chocolate bar. (Alter Eco’s Brown Butter bar.)

Somehow walking the aisles of Berkeley Bowl puts me back together. It gives me a realm in which I have total control for a little while. As long as I can cook a really good dinner for my wife and myself, life will go on as it is. This is a central fact around which my world revolves.

Once I got home, put the groceries away, and got the pozole going in the slow cooker … well, then I was ready to work. And not one moment sooner.

This is being in flow, and it’s a process that relies on being present in my body. It requires real trust as I head for what folks in Recovery call ‘the next right thing’. As usual, my body tells me what and where it is, and I’m grateful for that highly precise navigation.

(Try it for a moment… just close your eyes and listen. Is your body trying to tell you something?)

To get there, I simply have to tune in to my body, my heart and soul—sometimes with my hand on my belly—and listen. Then I must be willing to do what it says, even if it insists I start work a few hours later than usual. It usually understands far more about how to proceed than I do, so I go with it.

Now as I work, I am calm and grounded. I’m actually efficient. Gone are the gremlins that chewed at my serenity a few hours back, and the always tempting desire to procrastinate.

Instead, I tick items off my list, one after another. I’m in flow and it feels so very, very good.

Maybe what I’m doing is what my late daughter Teal used to call ‘just being’.

Thich Naht Hanh put it this way: “Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.”

And while you’re at it, consider cooking a lovely meal for yourself along the way. It will help you become far more at peace.

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