When fear catches you up inside, you can ground it if you don’t want it to have its way with you. You do not have to be at the whim of fear’s entanglements. You have a choice. Let’s talk about how to ground fear so you can experience subtle inner peace.

First, grounding fear does not mean that it is suppressed.

To suppress fear is to contain it within yourself. If you hold fear within yourself, the energy will have to release, one way or another. It’s exit strategies will be either through your emotions or a manifestation through physical or mental illness.

So if you do not want to be taken over by fear, when it grabs you, like a jujitsu artist, ground the fear and avoid letting it fester and morph into something else.

To ground fear is to send it down into the earth and out of your body.

How do you do this?

Use your imagination!

No seriously. Use your imagination. It’s a viable agent for transforming powerful emotions. Chances are you already use your imagination to amplify fear, so why not use that precious inner resource for your well-being?

When you feel fear, locate where it is in your body. Close your eyes if it helps and sense where the fear is most noticeable in your body. Random images or sensations may appear in your awareness of where it is, its size, and maybe even what it looks like symbolically.

Trust the imagery as a form of communication from your body-mind matrix. The imagery is a symbol for identifying the fear and its location in your body to be moved out.

Once you have a sense of fear’s location, use your imagination to push it down and out of your body and down into the earth.

Earth is a transmuter of energy. She’s good at facilitating change when allowed to work her magic. Just take another look at the magnificent Kapok tree photo for a reminder of her handy work. Really look.

According to Brian Luke Seaward, Ph.D., James Taylor look-alike and stress management expert known for his best-selling book Stand Like Mountain, Flow Like Water (1997), fear is a primary stress emotion, along with anger.

Fear and anger are expressions of flight and fight response associated with the nervous system. Fear predominately is a biological response to physical danger — intended to send blood away from the core of the body and into the legs so one can run and escape the physical threat.

In Seaward’s Achieving the Mind-Body-Spirit Connection: A Stress Management Workbook (2005), he discussed the variations of fear that often do not involve an actual physical threat. Common variations of fear include anxiety, doubt, embarrassment, apprehension, paranoia, insecurity, and an emotional need to leave or escape.

Taken further, Seaward points out that most rational fears quickly resolve when the element of actual physical danger is no longer present.

Unwarranted or irrational fear is the baggage of daily fear we may carry around on our backs unnecessarily.

“Self-promoted feelings of fear and worry are extremely prevalent in today’s society that has more to do with a perceived sense of failure, rejection, and fear of the unknown than any real physical danger” (p. 26).

Coming back around again to the idea of grounding your fear, after reading this, give it a go and see if it helps you regain a centered, grounded feeling in yourself.

I like to be barefoot and outdoors on the actual ground when I do this. However, you don’t need to be barefoot and out. Wherever you are in the moment is a fine place to do this exercise.

1. Begin by inhaling deep breaths through your nostrils, keeping your mouth closed, though your jaw relaxed. And exhale through your nose, mouth still closed. Try to ensure your exhales are slightly longer than your inhales.
2. After a few breaths, while continuing to breathe, as shown above, close your eyes for a moment to close out the environmental stimuli. If you’re reading this while trying out this practice for the first time, allow your eyes to softly close and open as desired while you keep moving forward.
3. Take notice of where the fear spontaneously pops-up in your body-mind matrix. You may notice it in multiple places or even on you.
4. Imagine drawing the fear all into one place — into a ball you hold between your hands.
5. Allow the ball to grow as needed so that all the pods of fear stored throughout your body-mind matrix attract to it, readying for its departure from your inner system.
6. When your imaginary ball has accumulated the fear, exhale and push the ball downward, toward the ground. Continue slowly pushing the fear energy ball down into the earth.
7. As you feel the energy releasing, give Earth gratitude for accepting and transmuting your fear bundle.

Now, that you’ve completed the grounding exercise, I invite you to take a moment and notice, how do you feel? Has there been a shift? A slight shift even? Just like when repairing a relationship that has been wounded in some way, noticing even the smallest expressions of relief, can help to build your sensitivity to noticing beneficial changes.

You have more abilities then you may realize to shift your emotional state. It just takes a bit of willingness to do the work, and to allow the shift to happen. Getting a break from the grips of fear is important for your well-being. You matter and that’s why little acts like this matter for you. You’re the only one really who can open those inner doors of harmony. You’re the only one who has the ability to make the internal shift, with a nod toward making slight changes.

Why should you ground your fear? Because you matter, and your inner self deserves to experience harmony.

Help make your inner world a more livable place. Ground your fear.

Peace, my friend.