Ever since I learned that the practice of grounding was an essential factor in dealing with learning difficulties, I never omit to teach people how to make it a part of their lives when I work with them.  It’s free of charge, free of side effects, universally done, and inevitable for dealing with any learning difficulties.  I’ve received a lot of positive feedback as well as questions on grounding, so here’s more on how grounding can help you regardless of whether you [or someone you know and are thinking of while reading this] have [has] learning difficulties or not.

Even if not all of us know what grounding is, many don’t realize that they know what the opposite of grounding is, because they’d never think of giving it a name.  Being ungrounded is the feeling of being distracted, fidgety, unable to take to anything, pacing around aimlessly, and busy in the head when a thousand thoughts want to be attended to at once.  Stress is another form of being ungrounded.   Grounding is a feeling of calmness in the mind and body, a feeling of being at one with ourselves, a feeling of being in control of everything, a feeling of being on top of things, being connected with our bodies, and having clear, focused minds.  Different names are used for grounding in different parts of the world.  I’ve heard it being referred to as earthing and centering as well as grounding.

The metaphor of earthing reminds us of the electricity system in our dwellings, and we know why we need the electricity system earthed.  In exactly the same way we need to be earthed.   Another useful take on grounding is that of the practice of reflexology.  Reflexology is based on the principle that all the main energy channels that go through our bodies and connect internal organs have their endings in the feet.  So to make sure that we can access vital enegy from our environments, it’s essential that we have all the energy channel endings in good condition to be able to connect with the earth [ = walk on healthy feet].  If a nerve ending is damaged, the influx of energy to that ending is blocked and blocked energy hurts.  Trying to connect  a painful and congested nerve ending in our foot with the earth energy is like trying to put a plug into a defective socket.  [If something hurts in your foot, can you walk = connect with the earth properly?]  On the other hand, have you ever noticed a gentle tingling or a warm sensation of movement in your feet?  And what do your feet feel like when you’ve had a foot massage, a cold shower which stimulated the circulation, a hot tub, a swim, a good sleep, or a walk in the fresh air?  Do your feet feel revitalized and pleasantly tingling?  Does it feel almost like as if you can feel the blood flowing in the veins?  Do your feet feel lighter?

Connecting electrical equipment / appliances to the earth is known as earthing / grounding.  It protects the equipment from getting electric shocks, power surges, shortcircuiting, and interference.  Grounding protects the delicate electrical circuitry of our bodies from various types of interference from our environments.  Grounding facilitates the reception of free electrons and a vast array of energies from the earth.   Free radicals, which we pick up from our environments, are not healthy for us.  We can get over free radicals by a high volume of antioxidants which have negative electrons, but are available to free radicals.  The ground also has a lot of negative electrons which are available to free radicals.  But the soles of our shoes act as layers of insulation between the earth and our feet, and the negative electrons can’t access the free radicals.  Of course, lots of people now walk around in high heel shoes which is even less grounding!

Since grounding is a state of being in any given moment and not a constant, some people find feeling grounded where appropriate more natural, while others have to work harder to feel grounded.  Then there’re people who have been raised by ungrounded parents and thus never experienced grounding, so don’t know what it feels like.   NLP has 6 levels of dealing with any situation.   And these 6 levels beautifully apply to grounding and learning difficulties too:

• I’ve already described some examples of how grounding applies [or does not apply] on the level of environment 
• On the level of behavior you’ve already witnessed numerous cases of how people act when ungrounded: they feel fidgety, act inappropriately, have temper tantrum, can’t concentrate, comfort eat, and so on.
• On the level of capability people know what and how grounds them and what and how ungrounds them – and how they can make more useful choices in this area
• People’s beliefs and values play an important role in grounding.  If people hold very ungrounding beliefs [such as, for instance, that they don't deserve to be alive, healthy, or successful], this will penetrate their
• identity - who am I [and I don't feel like me anymore...]
• And beyond identity, we’re here on the planet and at some level we’ve chosen to be here… etc.

It’s easy to teach people how to be more connected to the earth = how to get grounded. Learn a few suggestions here.

The inventor of the idea of sex education being taught from early grades in mainstream education thought that it’d be beneficial to societies in the same way as I’ve been maintaining for years that teaching NLP from early grades in schools would.  So how?  What payback would governments get in the long term if they invested in the implementation of this idea?     Read the rest of this entry »

Can lawyers and legal professionals affected by learning difficulties get help for them without incurring too much cost in time, money, and energy?  If yes, how?   Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps you are, which is why you’ve come to this blog post.   But then, there’s so much information out there, there’re so many life coaches within Toronto or London UK alone, and there’re so many areas all these life coaches specialize in… so where do you start?  And how’s the service of life coaching administered anyway? Read the rest of this entry »

Here we are past the doorstep of a new year again, but how many of us have actually become “better people” with the clock’s strike of 12?  Read the rest of this entry »

Your mind is one of your most precious assets.  You must be continually working to increase the quality of your thinking.  So how can you make every minute count in your professional development no matter what professional field you’re in?   Read the rest of this entry »

The NLP principle of chunking information is described here and, as mentioned in that entry, it’s good for your memory.  But that’s not where NLP and chunking information ends.  It’s also beautifully used and usable in helping individuals in dealing with learning difficulties.   How?  Here’s the lowdown:    Read the rest of this entry »

This is the age of achievement.  Never have more people accomplished more things in more different fields than they are accomplishing these days.  More people are becoming successful at a faster rate than ever in history.  There have never been more opportunities for you to turn your dreams into realities than there are at present times.   Despite this fact there’re always plenty of people whose lives are the opposite of fulfilling…  So how come?  If it is really so hard to make one’s life fulfilling, how come there’re a those who do know how to make their lives fulfilling?  Well, here’re the 7 launching pads of this rocket science… Read the rest of this entry »

Your major source of stress in life is the fear of rejection, criticism, and disapproval.  This fear of rejection manifests itself in an overconcern for the (dis)approval of others.  The fear of rejection is often learned in early childhood as the result of a parent giving the child what psychologists call conditional love.  Many parents made the mistake of giving love and approval to their children only when their children did something that the parents wanted them to do.   A child who has grown up with this kind of conditional love tends to seek unconditional approval from others all his / her life.  When the child becomes an adult, this need for approval from the parent is transferred to the workplace and onto the boss.  The adult employee can then become preoccupied with the boss’s opinion.  This preoccupation can lead to an obsession to perform to some undetermined high standard.

This behavior varies from mild to extreme forms.  People who display forms on the extreme end of the continuum usually put so much pressure on themselves to perform in order to please their bosses / partners / others that they burn themselves out.  They often die of heart attacks before the age of 60.  This behavior, triggered by conditional love in childhood, is a very serious stress-related phenomenon in the Western workplace.

2 things you can do immediately to deal with the fear of rejection, criticism, and disapproval:

• realize and accept that the opinions of others are not important enough for you to feel stressed, unhappy, or overconcerned about them.  Even if they dislike you entirely, it has nothing to do with your own worth and value as a person.
• refuse to be overconcerned about what you think people are thinking about you.  In reality, most people are not thinking about you at all.  Relax and get on with your life.

Prior planning prevents poor performance is the original version of the 5Ps, but I’ll now modify it to prior preparation prevents poor performance.  Almost the same thing, but I’ll expand on the preparation p in this entry.  So be prepared!   Read the rest of this entry »

Implement these 2 tips on a regular basis for the rest of your life to keep yourself focused on getting your most important tasks completed on schedule.   Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve met many people who don’t know how to relax due to being stuck in living in the fast lane.  These people live the paradox of wanting to be highly productive all the time to please everyone [at once], yet often achieving the exact opposite.  That’s partly because regular relaxation is essential for a long life and personal effectiveness. Here are 8 techniques for relaxing physically that are used by the most successful and highest paid people.   Read the rest of this entry »

You need to stand back on a regular basis and analyze yourself, your life and your time usage.  You need to become a master of your time rather than a slave to continuing time pressures.    Read the rest of this entry »

If you travel by air, you know that when your plane takes off, the pilot tells all the passengers to stay in their seats with their seatbelts buckled.  At times during the flight the pilot will warn “We expect some turbulence for a few moments, so please stay buckled up.”  When you start any new lifestyle, job, business, or transition, you too will experience turbulence.    Read the rest of this entry »

One of the greatest success principles of all is the law of accumulation. This law dictates that everything great and worthwhile in human life is an accumulation of thousands of tiny efforts and sacrifices that nobody ever sees or appreciates.  Everything accumulates over time.  You have to put in many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.  It’s like a snowball.  A snowball starts very small, but it grows as it adds millions of tiny snowflakes and continues to grow as it gathers momentum.    Read the rest of this entry »