Grounding Comes First

Grounding, to me, is a simple thing. A practice of pulling yourself out of the noise and back into your body. Spiritually and mentally. The act of leaving the room in your head and stepping back into the room you're actually in.

A lot of what we call leadership is just managed disconnection. We get good at staying in our heads. We get rewarded for it. The cost shows up later, in the decisions that should have been simple but weren't.

I learned grounding from a teacher named Sura. This was after my mother passed, when I was rethinking everything. The career, the work, the version of me that had been running the show. I started exploring meditation. I took her course. One practice stuck.

It was a way to reconnect with the earth. With nature. With the frequency the world is already running on, before we layer all our noise on top of it. A way to release the tension and the anxiety and everything that pulls you out of pure awareness.

I do it daily now. Sometimes for ten minutes. Sometimes for ten seconds, between meetings, before a hard call, when I notice my chest is tight and I don't know why.

How I use it in coaching

I open almost every coaching session with a grounding practice. Some clients we go deep. Others we touch it once and move on. Either way, I always send them home with it.

Here's what I've watched happen, over and over. A client comes in carrying a decision that feels impossible. Two paths, both bad. They've been running the math in their head for weeks.

We ground. Two minutes. Sometimes five. Then they describe the decision again and the impossibility is gone. The path is right there. It was always right there. They just couldn't see it through the noise.

When you're grounded, the difficult decisions stop feeling so difficult. The path of least resistance becomes obvious and clear.

That's the work. Not figuring it out. Getting quiet enough to see what's already there.

The practice itself

I'm not going to recreate Sura's teaching here. She does it better than I ever could. The video below is the one I send clients. It's the same one I've been using myself for years.

A few honest things if you try it. The first time will probably feel like nothing. Try it again. If it feels weird, that's the point. You're so used to being in your head that being in your body feels foreign. You don't need an hour. You need consistency. Two minutes a day for a month will do more than one ninety-minute session. It's not about emptying your mind. It's about letting your body show up to the conversation again.

Try it before your next hard call. Try it before you respond to the email that has you spinning. Try it before you make the decision that's been keeping you up.

You don't have to take my word for it. Just notice what changes.

Grounding doesn't add anything. It removes. It strips away the layer between you and the answer that was already there.

Most of what I do as a coach is help people get out of their own way. Grounding is the first tool I hand them. It's the one I trust the most.

Start there. The rest is easier.