BE like a mountain. You know when you have those moments, hours, days, weeks, months or years even when you feel like you’ve been swept up in a constant current of ‘doing’, hopping from one task, role, crisis, project, mind wander, internet rabbit hole, to the next, and it feels like you never really get to LAND? we can feel disconnected, scattered, flighty in our minds, restless, washed away in our bodies, disorientated and cut off from our wider perspective (hell what perspective I’m in the water and can’t see?!) and we get easily caught up, overwhelmed in a sea of emotions-wanting to come up for air..
Inspired by the form of Tadasana (mountain pose) from yoga and a meditation by the great John Kabat-Zinn,founder of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Programme. A practice I work with myself and as a coach (and it is a practice!) is that of GROUNDING and I call it “Be like a mountain” The invitation? to tap into and EMBODY your own inner mountain daily (and in response to noticing any of the above). It can take as little or long as you see fit.
Mountains are to me, the essence of presence, of stillness of groundedness. Whatever the emotional sky at the time, whatever the business of the landscape down below, the mountain remains, silent, whole, part of the wider context but also contained, poised, observing it.
The practice:
?stand or sit inside/outside, barefoot or in shoes feet hip distance apart
? picture in your minds eye (or look out if you are so fortunate) a mountain (there is no ‘right’ kind of mountain!)
? notice it’s qualities, it’s base-broad and deep, rooting into the earth, it’s sides, it’s front, it’s peak (notice any snow, clouds, height, jagged edges) notice it’s presence and the impact this has on you
? now start to connect with the mountain within you, the sense of rootedness-spreading your weight evenly in both feet into the support of the Earth beneath you
? in your minds eye travel up the face of the mountain and connect to a sense of lift in your chest building on your foundation, your feet below
?now bring your awareness to the top of the mountain within you through your shoulders, neck and head, connect to the mountain top, notice how it remains the same in day and night, in rain, hail, snow, sun-through it all it remains, you remain, strong, stable, capable. It is not about denying the weathers and storms of life, but learning through our embodied mountain experience, that we can trust, that this too shall pass. And so it is.
Thank you for reading and do let me know if you try this what you noticed? What else offers you a way to ground, to reconnect? If you want to find out more about the kind of coaching and practices that I offer you can find me on Instagram @kateoloughnan
Image by Paul Gilmore on Unsplashed