What grounded feels like

POD #8: What grounded feels like

What does grounded mean to you? What does it feel like? What can you do when you’re in that space? How does the world feel different or seem different from groundedness than from ungrounded? How do the people and tasks in your life feel different?
When was the last time you recall feeling grounded? What were you doing, or noticing, or feeling then? Who were you with? Where were you?
Are you there now?

Up until recently if you asked me if I was grounded my answer would be a firm yes.  I have always felt like if I had one solid area in my life I could be grounded.  When my marriage was a wreck, I found that grounding in work.  When work was chaotic, I could find the grounding in my family.  I just need something that feels solid to keep me grounded.  Something to hold on to that has a firm foundation.

Usually if I can  retreat to that place of groundedness for just a little bit each day, I am ready to conquer the world, regardless of what it brings against me.  I can balance all the negatives that life throws at me as long as I have one solid thing to set a foot upon.  People can demand things of me, and I can meet their demands with reason and resources.  Things can get stacked upon me, and the weight does not seem to bother me when I am grounded.

On the opposite side of that, when I am not grounded on something solid, the slightest thing seems to tip me over.  When I feel like life is out of balance and I can not find that place to steady me, everything feels off kilter.  Everything feels like a challenge, even simple mundane tasks.  Everyone typically feels like they are pulling from me what feels like a very limited resource.

The reason I said up until recently is because right now, if I am honest I feel ungrounded. I can’t put my finger on a specific area where I feel like it is not solid, but regardless I do not feel grounded.  Maybe it is the subtle things in each area of my life where there have been differences to my normal routine.  Maybe it is the accumulation of little things that are off in every area that has me feeling ungrounded.  Maybe it is because I am charting a course that I have never attempted to walk before.  I only know that it is a definite struggle to not respond differently under stress right now.

I am trying to think of the last time I felt grounded.  I think I have been trying to tell myself things are okay for so long, that I have to struggle past my own masks.  It has been at least a good six months since I felt grounded.  I have tried to do what I know to do to regain my grounding, but I have been unsuccessful.  There are moments where I think I am getting grounded again, times when I am so focused on the positives of life, yet even in the positives I don’t find a stable footing that lasts right now.

I know that my grounding will come, I am just not sure at this point how to get there.  I know that regardless of how I feel, I am rooted and grounded in faith.  Eventually my feelings will follow, where my faith leads.

This post is prompted by Tara-Nicholle Nelson’s 30 Day Writing Challenge for Conscious Leaders.