#3 Releasing Stress And Anxiety By Grounding – Art of Life Podcast

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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Art of Light Podcast. I'm Kanika, I'm a meditation teacher and host. My purpose with this podcast is to share tips on how you can start creating a better life simply by playing with your imagination. You can heal past pain and traumas, and you can create the high vibration lie that you wanted simply by being in a kid's space and just playing a little bit.

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[00:00:29] Kanika: Hi Natalie. It's so nice to see you. You've been really inspirational to me because I've seen you, , as a teacher. I've obviously worked with you as well. It's just really great. And today I just get to chat with you normally around your journey. So I'm just excited about that.

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[00:00:48] Natalie's Meditation Journey

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[00:01:01] Natalie: I have explored meditation throughout my life on and off various types of meditation but never in a way that really stuck, until really, until I started this journey into clairvoyant meditation.

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[00:01:35] Natalie: And then over the proceeding months or the following months rather, there were a series of events that led me there. So I actually ended up moving there. And then when I went there, I had some extra time. I don't know if it was just also the environment as well. It was very open and accepting and supportive of that type of work.

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[00:02:04] Guidance From Meditation

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[00:02:10] Natalie: It was in a dream, actually, and I was at a point where I wanted something different. I wanted a big change. I wanted a change of environment and I had always had goals, ideas to go deeper and look within, and you'll find out the things that I truly love and enjoy and maybe look at some themes in my life as well and get some clarity on them. So everything just came together and led me there and then consequently led me to the clairvoyant work.

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[00:02:52] Natalie: Yeah.

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[00:02:54] Natalie: Yes.

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[00:02:57] Natalie: Yeah.

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[00:02:57] Kanika: Okay. I'll share maybe before I dive into you as well around my meditation journey. So mine was very different. And now that I look back, I'm thankful at it all most. Because my life was just crashing, like I was just depressed. I really wanted to even end my life. The only problem was problem or thing was that I had my little child, he was two years old at the time, and I was like, okay, can't do that.

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[00:03:42] Kanika: But then that's how meditation happened for me. It was literally like a way to breathe. I couldn't have done anything. It was the only way that would settle me down and I kept meditating. It was more, okay, I've got a little bit more control in my life. Now I can do this. I've got a little bit more breathing space. And then eventually, as I practiced and practiced, just became better and I had more room for myself.

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[00:04:14] How Do You Know If Meditation Is Working For You?

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[00:04:26] Natalie: I have to say the very first class I took, I was just exploring it and I wasn't really sure what it was, and I didn't quite understand how it worked, but it was the first time I ever truly explored the concept of grounding, creating a grounding cord. And when I sensed that release, it was like this epiphany, like it was this moment like, oh, I don't need to hold on to other people's energy. I can actually let it go. What is this grounding? Like it was very powerful, just that one act. So I would have to say right from the beginning, it just completely floored me that first of all, it was possible to do something like that and that it was so simple. And yet so effective and provided a lot of calm and focus in my life just with that one tool.

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[00:05:19] Kanika: I love grounding too. I think amongst all the tools, it's probably one of my favorite tools. Just grounding and there's just so much to it. So I've actually written an ebook on it, but to me, how I understand grounding to explain to the listeners is grounding is just a connection from us to the center of the earth. Now the Earth really supports us all the time. Earth gives us food, gives us water, gives us place to live. Without the earth, we wouldn't be there.

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[00:06:09] Kanika: And I personally, I don't need to know what I'm grounding. If it's not working for me, I don't need to know it, I don't need to see it. I can just ground it.

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[00:06:19] Kanika: So what do you ground, how do you work with grounding?

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[00:07:02] Kanika: Yeah, totally. Like when I do the grounding and I do it with other students as well, and you can just see the relaxation that they have. Like you can just see it from their face. You can feel the energy shift as well. Yeah, and it's very funny because it is very simple. Like you say, all it is, it's just a connection between us and the earth and we just imagine it. However, whatever shape and form we want that. So it's really good.

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[00:07:44] Kanika: We feel in this world that it's got to be very complicated. If something is effective, it's got to be like, you take 10 steps and you do this, and then you do that, and then that's something. But grounding is simply just thinking that there's a connection. So there's a connection from your car to the center of the earth, and then whatever energy is there, it just drains off.

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[00:08:07] Kanika: When I've done that, I've noticed like changes and I've noticed that maybe the drive will go smoother. Have you had experiences like that?

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[00:08:38] Natalie: I never experienced that.

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[00:08:59] Natalie: But I also ground things as well, like my day. I'll just ground something simple. Going into class to teach or just going out and doing some errands. It can be very simple. Also, if I've had difficult conversations or I know that there's a challenging conversation that I need to have with someone, I will ground that conversation before it happens. It's a very practical tool.

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[00:10:01] Kanika: And it was amazing. When I finally did the conversation with him, it was almost as if there was just no charge to it. He was truly supportive. He was like, yes, I wish you all the best. And in fact I was telling him, oh, I really feel bad that I'm leaving you when you don't have another person to take the space. He's don't worry about it. You're doing really well, all the good words, said thank you. It was just amazing and all I did was I just grounded the situation.

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[00:10:38] More Examples Of Grounding

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[00:10:54] Natalie: I notice it quite dramatically, actually. An example is I teach, I'm an educator as well as meditation teacher. And so when I start my day, I will ground the day, I will ground my classroom and all of the steps there related to the course of my day. The times that I forget, I do notice that things are a little more lively, a little more ungrounded where there's some surprises or, perhaps, there is over excitement in the classroom, or colleagues are very energetic or something comes up around that. But then when I ground it, it's almost like this sense of calm. Everything just feels like it calms down. And it's to the point where, and of course I don't talk about this in the context of my teaching . However, I've had colleagues come into the room and say before oh, it feels so good in here on the days when I've grounded the room and set the energy for the room, and they wanna stay and hang out. So that's validation for me that the grounding is working.

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[00:12:29] Natalie: This is true.

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[00:12:41] Natalie: if there was one takeaway from any of this I would say it would be grounding. Grounding is pivotal and has so many applications and can really change the course of your life in a lot of ways.

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[00:13:12] Integrating Grounding Into Daily Life

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[00:13:16] Natalie: No, actually I explored this in a workshop that I gave several years ago as well. I wanted to explore using these tools and grounding as one of them in a way that could just seamlessly go throughout my day.

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[00:13:59] Natalie: So it's very practical. I think a lot of times when people look at this type of work or consider this type of work, they think that they have to have all these special circumstances or the perfect environment where there's the right ambiance, completely silent, going into a trance-like state for hours on end. And it, the truth is that you can access these things in your daily life. You don't need anything special. They're actually there to be used that way in a practical, everyday way.

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[00:15:25] Natalie: Very much. And it's not something that requires, like I mentioned before, a perfect environment, a perfect setting. Of course. It's nice, it's comfortable. And it's ideal to have a quiet setting, at least for meditation here or there, or maybe one meditation session a day.

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[00:16:25] Natalie: And also, people can sense that so they learn, oh, like maybe without even having a conversation, they just sense something as different in you. They look at it and go, okay, there's another way of being. I'm curious. I wanna explore that. So it has this ripple effect that impacts not only you, but all the people around you.

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[00:16:45] Kanika: Totally. So yes, we can actually meditate and we can just ground while we are out and about doing our things and just do it that way. What do you think actually happens when we ground?

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[00:17:20] Natalie: And so when we ground, it's not that we're freezing ourself in a point in time or we're grounding ourselves to the point that we're immobile, we're grounding in order to release and let go. And that letting go is not that we're losing something. Not that we can't get back our energy. Rather, it's that we're releasing the things that we do not need in our space. We're effectively making more space for ourselves and releasing the energy that is not you.

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[00:18:24] Natalie: For sure. For me, I'm thinking of even throughout childhood and throughout different points in my life. But even as a child in like early formative years, sometimes you take, you think that's part of what you are supposed to do when connecting with another person is to take on the energy of that other person. You may not call it as such, but it happens. And so, I only started to truly understand that when I started to look at using a tool such as grounding and noticing the shift in my space and how it feels in the body and my mind as well.

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[00:19:33] Kanika: Yeah, it's very practical that way. Like you're right that when you are grounded, it's not that you become less empathetic to someone else. But when they're talking, you can actually be more neutral, maybe even better because you were not giving your worry to them, you're not getting worried by them, you can just be there, they can be themselves. You're giving them space to be themselves and you're giving you space to be yourselves. Like the whole day, the whole thoughts, everything frees up. You're not getting that noisy chatter or just a worry in your mind. It can be more present.

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[00:21:10] Kanika: Absolutely. I think what you're saying is that when we ground, when we just be ourselves in our space, we are giving permission to others as well to be in their space. And especially children, they are just more connected, and so when they sense that sense of peace, they channel into their own peace as well when they find that zone.

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[00:21:42] Kanika: Yep. And my son continues to remind me of the same thing as well.

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[00:21:48] Kanika: Thanks so much for your time, Natalie. This has just been absolutely amazing.

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[00:21:56] Kanika: Thanks a lot. I'll put up a link for the grounding ebook in our podcast notes, and we'll still continue chatting with you after this because I do want to explore later on around your meditating classes as well.

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[00:22:12] Kanika: Thanks so much and we will have you again. Thank you.

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[00:22:17] Ending Notes and Links From This Episode

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[00:22:37] Kanika: So thank you. Thank you, thank you. If you can just pop in a review wherever you are listening to this podcast. That really helps other people find it as well. It helps me share this message far and wide with more people around the world. If you wanted to share or listen to some of the resources that I've mentioned in this podcast as well, you can just browse through the show notes or you could.

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[00:23:21] Kanika: Till then, keep grounding, love your life. Bye-bye.