The Importance of Clearing and Grounding.
The clearing of negative beliefs is the critical first step in many processes that expand and improve the human experience. In order to understand beliefs, and how they affecting you, it is important to first be aware of what it is you believe. Then, the process of replacing the beliefs that are harming or impeding your life can begin, and this is super exciting, because, perhaps for the first time in your life, you can be an intentional, mindful creator of your own life story. I use clearing techniques to identify my own beliefs and thought patterns, hand in hand with physical, mental, spiritual and emotional grounding tools and techniques, which center, reduce my anxiety to a massive degree, bring me back to the physical truth of now, and help anchor the beliefs that I chose to serve me.
I am so excited to help others take even the first, baby steps in this direction, because through clearing people are able to understand empowerment, and what it feels like to have true empowerment, often for the first time, even just in glimpses at first. Also, I understand more and more, that every experience I have with another person is both a reflection of, and healing for, myself. The more I learn, the more I understand that we are all, every atom of the universe, utterly, lovingly, connected.
EFT is a good place to start for many people because it is incredibly impactful and the results feel miraculous. A lot of people have heard about EFT as it’s success is becoming more and more well documented. EFT is like hot sauce- you should shake it on everything.
I am a big fan of EFT is because it is one of what I consider to be “active” meditations, and at a time in my life that my anxiety and fear was so great that it was impossible for me sit in meditation as I always had been taught. I didn’t know that I was doing it at the time, but I had always practiced a form of this in coping with the trauma in my own experience. As a child, I developed a system in which I would count the letters of every word I heard and said on my fingers, and always with the goal of landing on a multiple of five, so it would be “even”. I had a classification system for each letter of the alphabet separating them into two types based on their sounds. It was very powerful to me when I met someone else who did a similar thing, and I realized that, along with my counting letters- I was tapping each one out on each of my fingers, comforting myself, and somewhat limiting the input, as I was processing at the speed of my counting, not the stimulus. This was a natural human reaction that I shared with other people, when I had the nerve to talk about it, and we were all doing a rudimentary form of EFT, and that both had aspects of EMDR to them.
In my own practice, I often use affirmations, mantras, etc., as a grounding tool for meditation and EFT. Affirmations, also like EFT, are a really great general purpose grounding tool, and are helpful in all areas of life. This is the other tool that I found myself coming to naturally, before I had studied exactly what I was doing, and why. Not unlike most of my fellow humans, when I was up a certain creek without a paddle, I found myself repeating things like “please protect me, please protect me, please protect me”, and that when I was waiting, feeling anxious, I would find myself counting.
As I learned more about affirmations, I realized that although I had been doing a sort of unconscious affirming to myself, the power would be so much more impactful if I was intentional about what exactly I was affirming.
When I traded my ways of counting (which are also valid grounding techniques, which I thank myself for innately knowing), for a structured form of EFT, or “tapping”, like the one developed by Dr. Joe Vitale, and I added switch words, a powerful type of affirmation, or other intentional mantras, the magic began. Every time I would make time to tap it out, the issue would be soon relieved in my life. When I say magic, I mean real, practical magic: the powerful, powerful brain magic that happens when you are grounded, beginning to feel the light of empowerment, and intentionally moving in that direction. Magic: making a grand intentional change.
One clearing and grounding technique that I have really aligned with more recently is Ho’oponopono, and in a very short time using it in my practice, I felt a major shift in my own emotional reactions. I love you, I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you. They are so simple, but when I explained them to my partner, I noticed a resistance to a couple of the phrases that I was prepared for because Dr. Joe addressed it in his training. I’m sorry, please forgive me, have a feeling about them for some people that puts them on the defense. Why apologize if you’ve done nothing wrong? I think this is very common, especially as many of us are apologizing for ourselves way too often, in ways that strip of us power, rather than leading to enlightenment.
True to the lesson, as I studied more, and learned more, and listened again to the lesson, without trying to convince my partner of anything, I came to an understanding of what those phrases meant to me. I realized that resistance was vulnerability, but when you let go of the concept of “blame”, you can truly feel compassion in saying, simply, I’m sorry. Through this, my partner also came to see the leveling humanity in this practice, and we both have learned a new tool. I have loved every single one of my neighbors more since incorporating this practice into what I was already doing- waving hello.
I have decided to make every decision as if I loved myself deeply, and let it reflect outward in my life. Although not always easy, even remembering when I am not doing this is a crack in my resistance, and as such, I realize that you have to be so careful what you put inside, emotionally, physically and spiritually.
One of the places that I wasn’t consciously aware of the programming was in music. As I studied, I realized that, where once I had always had music on in the background, I now found it distracting more than I used to, and I wasn’t sure why, but more and more, I would listen to meditation music, chanting, or similar, going throughout my day. By getting intentional about what I put in, and out, some music just wasn’t sitting with me well any longer. I still listen to all kinds of music, but I do it consciously, and I’m far less likely to let anything play mindlessly in the background. To let the “deprogramming” happen of what amounts to a state of hypnosis, the brain in alpha mode, receiving repeated mantras in the form of catchy lyrics that might be. very self-defeating is not in line with intentional, mindful care of my own well-being. I began to “unlearn” or at least limit the background music, un-believing those unconscious affirmations, led to the next step: replacing it with new mantras, that are in line with what I want to believe.
These Clearing, or grounding techniques, along with several physical grounding techniques, I have found to be very useful for me to come to the present, be in my body, and calm what was once almost constant, shattering anxiety disorder and ptsd. These include breathing techniques, like box breathing, sprays that it is impossible to experience any other way than in the moment, and body scanning, releasing tension and constant reminders to breathe, drink enough water, and unclench my jaw.
As each clearing and grounding technique that I have come across so far has deepened my own practices and allowed me to share with others techniques that make a real, tangible, measurable difference in daily well-being, and in this way, make the entire universe a little bit easier for each of us to live in.
Because this has been such an impactful and massive difference in every part of my life, I know that I am just beginning on my path of learning, building my library of techniques and tools, and increasing my ability to share these techniques and more with others who are seeking a mindful, free Soul Led life.