Finding Your Ground - Tend To Your Roots
Hey all, so your girl has been gone for A WHILE. We all know that 2020 has been like a real-life episode of Black Mirror. Needless to say, I know we are all feeling A Lot. From unjust verdicts causing civil unrest, leaders in the community transitioning, this deadly pandemic, and what seems like so much uncertainty in the world on top of the day-to-day layers of our lives, I know it has forced a lot of us into unfamiliar spaces mentally and emotionally. As a collective, I know it has pushed us to the deepest, darkest parts of ourselves. I had to take a break from it all because it pushed my depression to whole new levels. Even as I attempted to shield myself from the chaos by focusing even harder on my work and running from things I felt would trigger me, it caught up to me. The effects of the pandemic on my life were that it slowed everything down for me and I was grateful for that. I was initially excited for this much-needed break. Coming into this year, I asked for and was manifesting change (as I believe many of us did). We just knew that 2020 was going to be THAT year. I truly believe that the universe provides but what I don’t believe we were expecting was the TYPE of change that was going to happen and is taking place.
For change to take place, habits and expectations must shift. I know I’m not the only one who has felt like the rug has been pulled from underneath them. I was in a place where I didn’t know what was up and what was down so I sought out to do something about it. Each month, I attach a theme to what the month will hold for me, what the focus will be. And in this space, I attached the theme “FINDING YOUR GROUND.’ Little did I know that finding my ground was going to take a lot longer than expected.
What does your environment look like right now?
If a tree is dying or sick the first thing you do is look at its roots. You may ask, has the environment that it's growing on changed? I think we can all agree that the world has changed. Okay, what actions do you take to make the soil or environment right again? You look to the roots, assess the damage, and start tending to the soil and watering accordingly.
Assessing the roots is a simple process, for me, it’s getting back into my daily practices and healthy habits. Starting with taking that extra minute and a half, 90 SECONDS, to check in with my body, check in with my spirit, and check-in with my mental, only 90 seconds. During this time I like to focus my attention on clearing space for meditation and other spiritual/mental health practices. When I do this I have more capacity for the day, I have more space and because of this, I have the capacity in me to receive.
What does your daily practice look like?
What are 3 things that could ground you right now, back to this moment?
To enhance my grounding practices, I also like to set the stage for what I am about to do. As mentioned before, I will meditate but I also partake in journaling. I am a #CertifiedJournalJunkie. When I journal I am intentional and I set this habit every time I go for my pen and notebook. I light my candles, I get my mind focused, I nourish my body if needed, I make space for myself and I make space to listen. In the past I have played music to set the vibe but because there has been a great deal of noise and chaos in the world I find it’s important that we take the time to sit with ourselves in silence. Give space for your Inner God to speak and then truly listen. Allow yourself space to think about what’s going on in the world around you, what you have, what you are grateful for, what blessings you acquired, what obstacles you overcame, and what you've accomplished thus far. When you are “grounded” with your thoughts, you learn things you’d never knew before. This also opens space for you to do the most uncomfortable thing, tend to the soil (i.e. deal with the damage itself).
Right now the focus should be on you and your environment, your inner environment. Focusing on life outside of social media, which is what I had to do for my own mental health, was a necessity. My advice would be, before you even try to assess, deal with and put action towards what's going on in the world, deal with who you are in this new space within this changed environment. 2020 will continue into 2021 if we don’t change. The clock doesn’t reset magically at 11:59 p.m. on New Years Eve, it doesn’t work like that. This shift is here for you now, you have to do the work in order for 2021 to look different compared to your 2020. None of this is changing unless YOU change and figure out what’s going on with you first. A lot of us are stuck like a deer in the headlights due to the events of this year, not knowing what to do, which is why I stress going back to ground zero and figuring out who we are and why we do the things we do. What is your purpose? What is it you want to work towards? People tend to say “In a perfect world, I would do this or that” but what about now? What can you create now for yourself because everything that was, is completely wiped out, the rules no longer matter. Move.
Traditional work settings and people’s ideas of career goals look very different than before the chaos. Purposes are being birthed because people are now being true to themselves and doing what feeds their soul. Now the balance is being restored and boundaries are being set and it falls in your hands to allow these shifts to happen. Our particular generation has seen trauma after trauma all before the age of 30 and while we’ve overcome those traumas and we’ve learned what we need to do, we still have to actually deal with these traumas, now more than ever. Having this experience we now know what a growing and flourishing world could look like and do something to make that happen. So go back to your roots and have those conversations, talk to your parents and grandparents and hear them out. I was told recently by my great grandfather that “You get more living out of life and life out of living when you’re self preserving and you take care of yourself”. This is the theme for the times, you need to come back to self. ”You learn by experimenting with yourself” and planting that seed and that seed is what will also bring you back to you.
“You get more living out of life and life out of living when you’re self preserving and you take care of yourself ... You learn by experimenting with yourself.”
Just think, you’ve come to this point and you are presented a new day and opportunity. Opportunities in the past may have knocked you out but you’ve always managed to bounce back, being resilient in all ways. You’ve overcome that situation that you may have thought would have no end, just look at how you've evolved over time. The things you know now compared to what you knew then and the goals you hoped to reach then compared to the goals you have now, are all anew. Things are being birthed and called to you, put them into perspective, look at where you are in this moment and that’s where you’ll find your ground again. That’s how you can feel the dirt under your feet and the grass tickle your toes. Even if you are unable to physically go out and be in this space, one way or another, close your eyes, put yourself there, and rest in that space for 90 seconds and I promise you’ll find your ground.
A special Thank You to Quinn Barbour for assisting me in using my voice again. Please check out this amazing writer and author’s book: Momentum: A Shadow Work Guide & Journal
