This is a YouTube video titled "How Can You Ground When You Have That Buzzy Feeling From Too Much Input?" featuring a conversation between Rick Wilkes and Kathy Bertulli recorded in 2017. They discuss techniques for grounding oneself amid overwhelming external stimuli, including breathing exercises and tapping points on the body to regain presence and clarity.
Have you noticed that when you're getting so much external input, it can make you feel sort of fuzzy and irritated and frustrated and you're kind of like.
Ah, yes, make it stop. And the really sad thing is, a lot of times people turn to food or shopping or TV or the very things they promised themselves, what to not do in order to escape that buzzy feeling and kind of ground themselves. This is Rick Wilkes from thrivingnow.com and I'm Kathy Bertulli from thrivingnow.com and theintimacydojo.com and what do you suggest, Rick?
Well, that concept of grounding is one that I didn't understand growing up. It was, you know, you just kind of fought your way through things.
Yeah. Or hoped it went away. Willpower. What's your problem? Come on.
What's your problem? Yeah, pull it together. Come on. Calm down, settle down, sit down. And even those things are external commands and imperatives and we've internalized those. And so grounding is an invitation. It's different. You don't have to be grounded. Most people running through life and making decisions aren't necessarily grounded.
Yeah.
But a body centered way of walking in the world. You've heard maybe of mindfulness and presence, it does mean that there's a portion of you that is really in your body and aware of it.
Yeah. I remember early on my dad would be like, my mother would just cry if I didn't behave well enough. And she'd like, you just make me so upset. And she wouldn't tell me what I should do differently. And my dad would say, if you can't pull yourself together, I'll spank you. So I learned to shove it down, but nobody ever told me how to pull it together, so to speak. And grounding is the way to do that, to become present with yourself, what's actually happening in the world right now versus the past that might be haunting you or all the external stuff that might be really pinging off of you right now.
And the truth of the matter is that there are things that are grounding for people, like going on a hike or sitting under a tree and taking a nap. But we believe that from a very practical standpoint, if you're out there in the work world, if you're busy taking care of kids, you need something that works in about 17 seconds. And so the things that we focus on are things that you can do in a breath or two. Like taking a breath.
Yeah.
And when you take a breath and it's kind of external, it's More like huffing a breath that's internal is really feeling it come into you. Just for a moment, close your eyes and feel the breath come into your lungs. Follow it down and follow it out and let feel your rib cage do that. Just do one more.
Some people like to imagine breathing to their toes or. I really love when I'm stressed, if I can calm down enough to notice how the inhale is slightly cooler than the exhale. That's really great because I'm noticing sensations in my body.
Right. And we use tapping. It's a way of both sides stimulating and soothing the body. And there are points right here on, we call them collarbone points. And if you tap those points, you can do them like this. At the same time, you can use this. If you really want to, you can tap them. Yeah. And again, just close your eyes for a moment and just notice what happens in your body. Just notice you may feel like a tension comes up. Take one of those breaths and let it out. Notice Kathy's moving her neck. What a great idea.
I sometimes just hold the points if I'm in a meeting or I'll just like just some gentle support. Because sometimes if you're really rattled, the tapping motion can feel somewhat agitating.
And notice this also is about getting back in your body.
Yeah.
Because that's where you start allowing yourself to move from just being a brain delivery system and a talker into someone that has lungs, has a heart, and put your hand over your heart and also a gut. Like even just putting your hand on your. On your belly, just for a moment, just touch your belly, take a breath, let it out. And then if you were really just asking yourself all these questions like, what do I do? I don't know what to do. You know, you have this lot of noise, the hamster, hamsters in your head. Ask a question, is gravity working? And let your body answer. So when I ask the question, is gravity working? And I ask my pelvis, what I feel is a weight in my sit bones and in the muscles of my butt. And when it answers that way, it also opens up all of the information channels between your pelvis and your brain. All of those pathways start opening up and there is wisdom there, there's awareness of what's going on in the world, but there's also a clarity about what's going on with you. And I use this before. If I'm having a difficult time making a decision about what to eat, this is really important that I get my pelvis, my gut, my heart and my head all online and connected. You notice it doesn't take very long?
No. So if you're rattling around in your head, what do I do? The first thing to do? Take a deep breath and ground yourself. We'd love to hear what you think. Please leave comments below. Questions. We love answering them and we hope this helped.
