Anxious? Overwhelmed? Try This Grounding Exercise

Try my 9-minute guided audio version of this tree meditation here.

Tree Visualization Exercise 

Preparation
Close your eyes. Breathe deeply in through your nose, and exhale through your mouth, focusing on the sound of your breath and the bodily sensations of breathing. Stay with it. Use your breathing to focus you and help you slow down your body’s internal activity.

Grounding
Now imagine that you are a tree. You are standing in an open field with the sun shining down upon you. You are tall, strong, and solid. You are old and wise. Bring awareness to your feet and first notice them in contact with the ground. Now feel them firmly anchored to the ground. Now imagine strong roots extending from the bottoms of your feet, pushing downward through the surface below, eventually reaching into the soil below. Feel your roots reaching even deeper into the earth, winding around rocks, and pushing deep through the many layers of cool, dark earth. Your roots grow and spread both downward and outward. Feel yourself anchored very solidly to the ground by your extensive root system. As you become more anchored, feel your tree-body stand up straight and strong. Feel your leafy branches extend upward toward the warm sun.

Discharging bothersome thoughts and feelings
With each exhale, push excess or unwanted energies downward toward your feet and out through your roots into the surrounding soil. Feel tension draining from your eyes, your jaw, your shoulders, your chest, your belly, and all areas of your body. Similarly, send upsetting or bothersome thoughts downward and out through your roots system. Notice the earth is receptive and simply absorbs all of this for you. Feel grateful and lighter as you begin to “clear”.

Bringing in feelings of wellbeing
When you feel properly grounded, take a deep breath and reverse the process. You will now replenish the energy you have discharged to the earth with a kind of positive and calming energy. As you breath in through your nose, imagine with each breath that your roots are absorbing white light. Feel the nutrients of Mother Earth being absorbed and slowing climbing your root system until it reaches the trunk of your body. Feel the light entering your legs, your belly, your chest, your arms, hands and finally your head. Concentrate on this feeling of oneness with the earth. Feel the earthly energy enter your body and wash over you with feelings of wellbeing. Feel the sun shining down on your tree-body, and know that with each ray of sunshine, it is giving you the ability to create your own energy within you. Now step back from yourself and look at the tree. See how you are one with the earth, and one with the sky – solid, steady, and expansive.