7 Ways to Calm and Ground Yourself During the Holidays

What can you do to resolve this feeling? How can you enter a state of calm? Below, I'll present 7 ways that help you ground yourself and achieve serenity.

My first recommendation is to find your favorite, most comfortable armchair and sink into it for an enjoyable meditation. Focus on the experience, not the result. 

Close your eyes. Place your feet firmly on the floor, so you feel yourself connecting to Mother Earth. Sit up and press your back firmly against the back of the chair. Feel the contact between your entire body and the surface of the chair. Observe how the chair feels on your body and your skin. How do your arms, hands, and legs feel as they connect with this chair? Really sink deeply into the chair and become one with it.

Now allow your muscles to relax and let go, for you have nowhere to be, nothing to do, no concerns in the world. Just be. Allow the tensions and cares of the day just melt away and fall away by your sides. Feel your muscles becoming softer and heavier as they no longer hold any purpose and are just pulled by gravity like they were asleep. Imagine the energy draining from your mind and body, down through your feet, and getting sent to Mother Earth who lovingly recycles it.

Bring your awareness to your breathing. Follow your in-breath gently through your nose and your out-breath softly through your mouth. Observe you chest rise and fall on each inhalation and exhalation. Allow your breathing to find its own natural rhythm. 

Become aware of a soft white light in your heart space. Feel that light begin to grow by itself, without effort. See it fill your chest, then your arms and head, then your torso, and finally your entire body. Recognize you are now filled with a brilliant white light that shines within you and beyond you. See your room filled with this white light. 

Allow your light to expand beyond your room, into nature, and out into space. As you see your light shining outward like a beacon in the stars, notice another light, even brighter, reach towards you and envelope you, tenderly and lovingly. Feel yourself becoming one with this beautiful light, and absorb all its love into your being. Stay here for a few minutes without analyzing and just be.

After a while, slowly feel your light returning back into your body, notice your feet on the floor, arms on your legs, back in the chair. Wiggle your toes and fingers. Slowly open your eyes. Welcome back. Smile and embrace the peace and love that now fills you.

This second technique I find very useful. It helps you change what you're paying attention to or focusing on. By changing your focus, you're brought back to the present. First sit comfortably, close your eyes, breathe through your nose. Breathe in for 3 seconds, hold for 3 seconds, breathe out for 3 seconds. Repeat.

Now open your eyes and observe what's around you. Identify things in the following way:

1) Seeing-name 5 things you can see (in your room and outside). By looking all around you and seeing all the varied objects and amazing things in your sight, you quickly become immersed in a visual cornucopia or eye treats that quickly force your to change your focus to the present. As you do this, you become calmer and feel a soothing sensation wash over you as you're brought to the hear and now. This is true even if you're looking at a mess all around you. 

2) Feeling-tell yourself out loud 4 things that you feel. Perhaps its the softness of your skin. Maybe its the coarseness of a sofa. What does your hair feel like? Reach out and touch something and find out what it feels like. How about your emotions? What emotions are you feeling right now. Get in touch with feelings both in the physical as well as the non physical.

3) Hearing-pause for a moment a listen to all the sounds around you. Name 3 sounds you can hear. Identify them as unique sounds perhaps nestled within other sounds (even better). Maybe you hear the birds chirping. Do you hear the sound of a leaf blower in someone's yard? How about a jet plane flying way up in the sky. Do you hear car engines on a nearby road? Perhaps you hear children laughing and playing. What do you hear?

4) Smelling-as you sit in your chair for a moment with your eyes closed, what 2 aromas can you smell? Maybe it's a pie that's been baked or is fresh out of the oven. Do you smell someone's perfume? How about flowers nearby or even in your house? Perhaps there's food cooking that is slowly wafting up to your nose. Just choose 2 smells that you can detect nearby.

5) Tasting-what 1 taste can you identify in your mouth right now? Maybe go to the kitchen and take a bite of your favorite food (chocolate anyone?). Savor the flavor in your mouth and begin to think of all the sensations you can identify that explode in your mouth as you taste this piece of food. Enjoy whatever you taste.

At the end of this exercise, take a deep breath and come back.

Another way to help yourself get grounded and calm that inner storm is putting something in your hand that you REALLY admire or that captures your attention. Maybe that might be a beautiful crystal with lots of lines or different colors and shades and angles. What is it about that object that makes you want to just STARE at it? Maybe it's a gemstone with all its many different facets that reflects the light in so many amazing and beautiful ways. 

Bring your full focus on that object. Drill your attention and your mind down onto it. Look at all the different surfaces, reflections, shades, colors, striations and formations. Look for different patterns or veins or sparkles or shadows. Does it feel heavy or light? Does it feel sharp or smooth? Is it big or small? 

You can do this with any object and allow your thoughts to just get captured by what's in your hand. If you're in a stressful situation, for example, just take your favorite object, place it in your hand and closely examine it for a while. Find something new every time. Use this calming exercise everywhere you go.

Often, you may find that when you get anxious your thoughts rapidly spin round and round, yet seem to go nowhere productively. It seems the internal chaos just builds without any release. Has this ever happened to you? Do you feel like your thoughts are constantly spinning out of control and draining your energy or worse, making you increasingly stressed? 

One problem is that whenever you try NOT to do something, you wind up doing MORE of that exact thing. Why does this happen? It's because wherever you focus your attention is where you exert more of your energy. Think about a positive thing and you get more of it; of course the opposite is also true. 

You need to pay attention to your thoughts. If you feel your thoughts are starting to control you rather than you controlling them, then it's time you push them away. Imagine placing your thoughts on a leaf on a gentle stream. Watch the leaf and the thoughts you placed there float softly down the stream and away from you. Just let your thoughts FLOAT AWAY. 

You can also imagine your thoughts are a subway train puling into the station. Allow the train doors to open and shut, but just stand on the platform without getting on and allow the subway train to leave the station without you on it. In both situations, you're controlling what you do with your thoughts, not the other way around. 

When you feel stressed out or worried about something, you need to find a way to take your mind off it. You need to find something to focus on that's not emotionally charged or driven. There are three ways I find particularly effective.

The first is picking a color and finding how many different objects in your room or around you have that color (included different shades). Keep doing this with 5 different colors, each color held in your mind for 60 seconds. 

A second method is choosing 5 different shapes and then starting to place each new shape within the previous shape. For example, start with a square. Then imagine a circle inside the square. Next imagine a triangle inside the circle. After that, imagine placing a rectangle inside the circle. Finally, place an octagon inside the rectangle. 

The third way to distract yourself is to count backwards from 300 by 7. This will definitely challenge your attention and grab your attention away from what was troubling you. To make it more challenging, practice that each time you make a mistake, you have to RESTART from 300! Thought counting sheep helped you fall asleep? This will make you zonk out in no time.

If you're feeling tense or worried, one exercise you can practice is using your imagination to draw an imaginary line around both feet. Get your imaginary pencil, choose your favorite color and in your mind begin tracing your right foot. Start with your heel, move up to your pinky toe, then draw around each individual toe and finally come back to your heel where your started. Repeat this with your other foot.

Another way to shift your attention away from what bothers you is to begin flexing your toes while they are in your shoes. Start with your right foot. Flex each toe. How does this feel to you? Wiggle your toes and pay attention to the sensation you get as you move each toe. Are the toes moving together or independently? Now tense your foot and then relax it

As you focus on your body, especially your feet, you become more grounded and centered. This helps you regain you sense of calm. Once you've decided which of these grounding exercises you like, keep doing them whenever needed. 

One thing I often hear from people is they can't meditate because they are too filled with energy and they can't sit still. They feel like a failure because they feel they should be able to do something as simple as not moving. Does this sound like you? However, you're hardwired to constantly be moving, so it's not always that easy. In fact, many times you may have so much energy you can't do any grounding exercise. In that case, you need to find a way to remove the excess energy. you've got to do some physical activity or exercise that exhausts all that pent-up energy. Below are a few of my favorite recommendations:

1) Run or walk up and down the stairs until you're exhausted

2) Run or walk on a treadmill or elliptical machine if you have one

3) Go outside and walk quickly so that you're worn out

4) Channel your excess energy into something productive by cleaning up the house, the backyard, or your room

5) Turn up your favorite music loudly and start dancing around the house like you were 14 again (you may want to pull down the blinds) 

With all these exercises, not only will you shift your attention away from what bothers you and towards what calms you, but you will also improve you attention and mental health (not to mention your physical health by moving a lot). This is all just a matter of where you place your attention and how you allow your thoughts to control your life...or not. Remember, YOU are always in total control of your thoughts. You just need to make the choice.

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Tags: calm, grounding, energy, meditation, non-physical senses, shift focus, happiness, appreciation, satisfaction, living spiritually