Episode 14
[00:00:00] So many people are trying to heal, to manifest, to awaken, and to grow into this new version of themselves. And there's a sense that I'm hearing from people is that I have to be something different. This causes a disconnection, and this disconnection is taking away from your physical experience of this lifetime, which is why you came here: to play, to create, and to live in a 3D body.
Hi, I'm Nicki Kuurman, and welcome to the Practical Mystic Podcast, where universal wisdom meets modern life. This conversation around awakening is causing a lot of disconnection, and I know I've been battling this in myself too, and there's no one straight answer here. But let's [00:01:00] explore some different perspectives so that you can embody and fully be yourself through any challenge, no matter what's going on, no matter what you want to create, no matter what you want to manifest in your life.
I'm going to start with talking about the earth star chakra. Now, if you don't know what chakras are, they're energy centres in our body that help move and distribute the energy circulation within our physical body. So the earth star chakra is our connection to the earth.
It is the physical experience that we are having in this physical plane at the moment. Now, doesn't mean to say that we are not having energetic experiences, doesn't mean that we don't have different light bodies in different time, spaces, and dimensions. Not going to go into any of that for a minute. I [00:02:00] just want you to come back to this idea of you are having a physical experience. No matter how much you're awakening, no matter how much you're seeing ideas that you didn't know existed or programs that you weren't aware of, either within yourself or socially.
But this connection to Earth grounds our energy, and it's super important. Just like electricity has to find a path to the Earth to ground and to connect and to be utilised, we are that grounding rod. We are transmuting universal energy through us and into the Earth to ground us so that we can connect more fully and use that energy more broadly for whatever we choose.
That is why we are here [00:03:00], and some people think of grounding as just walking bare feet in the grass, and absolutely that is something that you need to do, especially if you live in a concrete jungle. However, it's not just that it’s about moving your energy fully through your body so that you can access all the energy available to you, all the power available to you.
We've been cut off from that power by being told that our mind controls us, that we are our mind. Hmm, I'm not going to go into too much into that in this video, but I just want you to put that idea on the shelf for a minute. Like, I am not my mind. Okay, if I'm not my mind, can I park my mind just over here on the shelf for a minute and imagine myself coming back into my body?
And sometimes I like to visualize it like a [00:04:00] staircase or a spiral staircase that you have to walk down from your mind, down through your body, down into your feet and into the earth And so if you took a moment to just imagine all that energy that you use in your mind, in your thoughts, in your busyness, in your doingness, and you move that slowly down your body, you walk that energy deeper into your body so that you can express more clearly, that you can feel more deeply, that you can sense and have a stronger sense of your own will and choices and desires.
Moving that energy down into the sacral, into the lower half of your body, where you can tap into your truer power and why you are here and using it in any way you like to fully live this experience. And keep walking that energy down through your [00:05:00] legs, through your feet, and into the earth. And the earth star chakra actually sits about a foot beneath your feet, 30 centimetres or so.
So just imagine pushing that energy down even deeper than your physical body into the earth. And this is why we use the analogy of tree roots, because it's easy for us to visualize that feeling of energy moving down through us and spreading out into the earth like tree roots And just like a tree, the deeper these roots are, the wider they go, the more stable we are, the more centred we can become when we are not falling all over the place to every fear, every topic, every program, every control mechanism in our lives.
We can't tap back into who we truly be [00:06:00] when we are bamboozled with noise from everybody else's opinions, information overload, everything else, right? Like just all the noise. So when you come back into your body and you ground your energy, it's not just a buzzword. It's not just a, "I'm spiritual, I'm doing grounding."
This is necessary for every plant, every animal, every being on this planet. We need to ground that energy, otherwise it just dissipates, and it's not very useful.
Modern life pulls us out of our body all day long. I know if you're anything like me, I've got five or six tabs open at any time.
There are pings from my email or my phone every few seconds. It's busy, it's distracting, and we've got used to that. [00:07:00] I imagine that if you live on a farm and you are just out tending to animals and looking after your farm without all of those distractions all day, that you're feeling much more connected to the ground around you, when we live in cities, we are more disconnected from the Earth because there is less Earth to connect to.
The concrete, the asphalt, the steel, the chemicals, everything around us is man-made, synthetic
You can tell the difference when you walk into an environment that feels more grounded and connected to the earth because your energy drops. You become more still and quiet. It's not as loud and busy in your head
I'm lucky enough to live quite close to the [00:08:00] beach, and that is my grounding space, to be able to put my feet in the sand barefoot. And even if it's too cold in the winter to get them wet, I'm still connecting to that energy and the natural environment. Even if it's just on the edge of our suburban reality and our concrete world, it's the closest thing I have to a little bit of nature. For you, that might be a park or the bush, or you could take yourself for a walk once a week, drive somewhere that is in a more natural environment where there are big trees.
Because when you have more connection to things that are natural, that are not man-made, that are not zapping your energy, you fill your cup. You fill your cup from your feet up as well as from spirit down, and that meeting [00:09:00] place is in your heart. And that's why it feels so good to be in nature, because our heart swells.
It's so exciting. It's peaceful. It's fulfilling. And it doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be hours and hours a day. It can just be moments, but it's conscious awareness of where am I placing my energy? Where am I placing my thoughts, my feelings, and my power? Can I utilise them in every cell of my being by connecting to the Earth and feeling that energy emanate everywhere?
Not just here in your head, not just the buzzing, because this creates the talking head where we're talking, talking, talking, and we're busy rushing around, and it's not mindful at all. In fact, most of the time it's only concerned with what the mind [00:10:00] thinks to be true. When we stop, when we find some stillness for a moment, we allow other perspectives in, other truths in
Our soul self is actually witnessing this reality. It is not the mind. When there's too much mental energy in our body or in our head specifically, we create fear, we create unconscious loops from the unconscious information in the back of our head. So if you think about riding a bike or driving a car, when you're first learning, it takes all of your concentration, and then it becomes a skill, and it becomes easier, and then it's unconscious, and it moves to the back of the brain as just this skill that I have that I don't actually pay any attention to.
And [00:11:00] we have lots and lots of these programs and beliefs. Things like how we should dress, how we should feel according to the social or cultural, system that we had grown up in. So much of our opinion is unconscious feedback and loops from our upbringing and the environment in which we were raised in Our anxiety and overwhelm come up when we've got too much information coming in for that unconscious system to process at once.
So there's too much feeling for the habit to just be normal, and so that's when our system gets overloaded or overwhelmed. I liken this with anxiety all the time with clients. They come in, and they've usually got 3,000 things going on. The phrase I hear the most is, "My anxiety is really [00:12:00] bad. My anxiety is stopping me from XYZ."
I want to challenge that with what is it that you are avoiding that the anxiety is giving you an excuse to not do?
So for example, for me, anxiety will often come up when I'm going to speak or when I'm going to do one of these podcasts, Because it overwhelms my system's belief that I'm not good enough, I'm not pretty enough, I'm too fat, I'm going to get the words wrong, nobody's going to listen to me. What, what makes me an authority to say what I have to say?
Like, all of this patterns and loops of self-doubt that have been sitting in my subconscious my entire life come to the surface, and as I try to overcome them, as I try to move [00:13:00] through them, the anxiety comes up because the ego mind says, "Oh, hold your horses. It's not safe to go and record that podcast. It is not safe to be doing what you're doing.
Come back here. Numb out. Distract over here. Go play a game. Go check your email." It's pulling me away from that that I want to be doing because the anxiety and the fear are trying to keep me safe from these unconscious programs that are telling me that I'm not good enough
When I'm grounded, when I'm disconnected from the chatter in my mind, then I can get in front of the camera and talk to you Does it take me work? Yeah, some days it takes a lot of work. Some days it's easier than others [00:14:00] It's not a perfect science for me yet, but it's a practice. It's showing up even when the chatter wants to have a lot more to say.
It's showing up even though I'm scared, and it's showing up for myself because I feel like this is really important information that-- and things that we struggle with on a daily basis. I see many women a week who come in with this exact same problem. They are stressed, they are overwhelmed, they are anxious.
They are not living the life they want to be living, and they don't know how to get out of it
And I know I sound like a broken record player, but grounding is the first step. Now, you could look at that as stop or pause. I want to say it's a similar kind of feeling, right? We have to stop the [00:15:00] death cycle. This spinning around in a loop, got to put an end to it in order to stop it in its tracks. And the first thing that stops it is being consciously aware of it, and you say, "Enough.
No." And the minute you say no, your energy comes back into your body. This is why it feels good when we put up boundaries, right? 'Cause it's like, "No, come back in here." And we have to place our attention now on our body. We have said no to the pattern and loop. We have said, "No, we're not going to continue this right now.
I'm going to pause. I may not know what the next steps are. That's okay. I'm going to pause, and I'm going to breathe." The breath is the gift of life. The breath connects us to our true self. The breath connects us to [00:16:00] every living being on the planet
We are breathing in life and exhaling all the waste products. Everything that no longer serves us, we let it go
And so coming back into your body, pause in that moment, breathe
The longer you can take your breath out, the exhale, the less hold anxiety has because you cannot breathe out and be anxious at the same time. When you're anxious, you'll notice your breath is short and up here, and it's quick, and there's lots of inhaling and very little exhaling
When you're grounded, the breath is even. It's [00:17:00] slower It moves through your whole body. It's not rushed
It allows you the time and space to recalibrate and to choose again. What I want most right now. Maybe it's water, maybe it's a walk, maybe it's saying no to something
Just ask yourself simply
What is it that I really need right now? We can't get to that place without the pause. We can't get to that place without the grounding. When your energy comes back in, you say no to the distractions. You turn your attention inward, and you just allow your energy to drain into the ground, and you feel your feet [00:18:00] on the earth.
They'll start to tingle or feel heavy, and then imagine breathing in that grounding life force energy from the earth back up into your body, energising yourself from the ground up as well as from the top down. This constant flow of energy through us and up the other way causes a torus effect. We are the centre of that energetic field, the electromagnetic current that runs through us.
Our soul self is the centre of that. Our physical body is the conduit
That's it. You are just that life force energy moving through this physical body. But you cannot use this physical body in a really meaningful way if [00:19:00] you're disconnected from it
And when I say meaningful way, I mean in a way that feels meaningful to you, that feels fulfilling, that feels fun Our soul self came here for novelty, to create, to play To enjoy this physical experience of touch and the senses. Manifestation is wanting something to happen in the physical, right? So how can we disconnect our physical body and stay in the upper etheric energetic chakras at the same time?
We can't. We have to bring it through the entire body in order for us to see it in our 3D touchy-feely feeling world. So if that energy stays on the mental plane, [00:20:00] it becomes unstable. It's got nothing to anchor into. It's just thought creating thought creating thought
When you're mindful of your own energetic pathway and it's connected from your soul self to your physical body to the Earth, you don't waste as much time in the thoughts. everything that we have been taught is that our thoughts are what we need to control in order to live And I think that's true, but we've been taught to think like everybody else.
We've been taught to behave like everyone else. We've been taught to be a good girl, a good man. Be strong. Don't show up too, opinionated or too weak.
None of it's important. What do you want to manifest? What [00:21:00] do you want to create? What do you want to have show up in your life? Your soul needs somewhere safe to land. That is your body. Your soul needs your body to transmute the energy, and you need to ground that energy as a soft place to land to feel stable
And when you feel stable and steady, it is so easy for the soul to step in and show you even more joy, love, and abundance than you can possibly imagine.
So if I take it back a couple steps and signs that you're ungrounded, there's still this hum of chasing answers.
Even meditation can sort of have me chasing answers because I will go off looking for things in other realms. Another sign can be when you're emotionally reactive. Everybody's opinions throw you off centre. [00:22:00] This is a big one for empaths. They lose their grounding really fast. Hands up for me.
When we place more attention on other people's feelings than we do our own. We care more about everything else and everyone else around us than our own needs being met. I think many women experience this, but empaths for sure. That emotional reactivity is one of the biggest things they need to overcome in order to feel grounded and safe in their body.
A client of mine recently said to me that they just never feel anything in their body, like nothing. And when I ask them to place their attention upon it, they couldn't actually even get a sense of their hand or their foot. they knew it was there, but they couldn't really place their attention on it or feel anything in their hands and feet.
And it was really interesting to me because they had been in their head for their entire lives, just spinning around, hearing the [00:23:00] loops, operating from that space, very, very fearful, very scared about taking steps. And when they did take steps, it was usually because they were forced to. The universe was pulled out from under them, and they were forced to make a decision in their life.
It just made me realise that we can operate just from this headspace we have been. And I think more and more people right now, since the invention of social media, spend much more time in their virtual reality than they do in their physical reality. And that disconnection from the body, it's a really good kind of numbing-outness that you don't really matter in the world.
Your opinions don't really matter. You can't really affect change. And I can't help but think that this has been deliberately placed in our psyche to be powerless, to not rise up and stand in our truth. [00:24:00] Because holy moly, if we only knew how powerful we actually are, what would we do differently? So what actually creates grounding?
We've talked about bare feet on the ground, the ocean, natural environments, sunlight. Really, really, really important: sunlight. We've lost our connection to the sun. We smother ourselves in sunscreen. We don't allow the energy to penetrate our skin. We also know the benefits of sunshine and sunlight, and we cannot live without it.
We become depressed when we don't get enough light, when we're not exposed to sunshine on our face. Doesn't mean you have to spend all day in the sun, but I think it's like [00:25:00] seven or eight minutes a day in order to help create vitamin D, to energize ourself, and to move our body more freely We know that slowing down and stillness creates space for the soul to come in and for us to hear a different voice other than the head chatter.
The breath, a gateway to all life body awareness practices like yoga Nidra are also really helpful if you have trouble connecting to your physical body. Hydration, pretty important.
Rest, we know. Sleep, good sleep, all of those things that have great health benefits. Physical movement, dancing, things that aren't linear.
Just play with what shows [00:26:00] up when you're in that flow, and it doesn't have to be so hard and rigid and direct anymore.
Let that energy ground in different ways, circuit old patterns, old behaviours, and reprogram you into a better alignment, a truer version of yourself. Less structured, more connected, more flowing, more life. Real spirituality is not escaping life. It's not zipping out and zipping around the universe, although it's kind of fun.
But it's becoming fully present inside of that, fully conscious to this 3D physical reality and all your other [00:27:00] dimensional realities. It's not just about bypassing how you feel and blaming the universe for it, or letting fate take a hand. You can certainly have a say in your life.
You have the power to create everything. Grounded spirituality feels calm, and clear, and embodied, and steady, and strong, and it's not frantic. It's not this zzz of the head. It is fully present, deliberate
And calm to the point of almost stillness. And that's when often the most dramatic movement or the most dramatic shifts happen is when we're so still we can [00:28:00] actually hear our soul guiding us towards joy, towards what feels good next, to the novelty, to the fun, to the creating for creating's sake When we keep trying to avoid how we feel, avoid taking responsibility for our choices, chasing signs and symbols and synchronicities
We forget that we need to come back in here and do the work to be a part of it. If things are showing up and they're giving you a nudge and you're like, "Ah, yeah, that. I want that," it's because it's available to you, and something inside of you needs to change its frequency in order to receive it, and you cannot do that until you come back into your body and tune into it.
If you're [00:29:00] distracted and not present, you won't receive nor create the thing that you're after And we often are whimsical about it and say, "Oh, well, in divine timing." Sometimes there's an element of divine timing. Sometimes there's an element of just not actually focusing on it and really choosing it for yourself.
The first thing I do when a client comes to see me is ground them, is ground their body, clear away the blockages that are stopping them from being connected to the Earth. It's the first thing I do in every session, whether that's with kinesiology, whether that's them lying on the table and me energetically moving stuff, or whether it's during our conversation and I'm helping them energetically clear things while we're talking.
Clients arrive scattered. They feel overwhelmed, and [00:30:00] immediately they start to drop down, and they can feel quite drained in that moment because the energy's moving down their body. When women come in and they are carrying too much mentally and emotionally, and they don't know what to do with that, it gets stuck in their heart.
We have to ground it. We have to ground it in order to really unpack it, to feel it, to process it, and to shift it. When nervous systems are overloaded- they're scattered, frantic, burnt out, exhausted, any of those things- we need to ground our energy to repair
When there's a physical ailment, when something's physically going on, the pain has come into the physical body, it's because we've missed the spiritual cues, we've missed the mental cues, we've missed the emotional [00:31:00] cues, and now it's showing up here to get our attention and say, "Hey, could you please come and pay attention to me? There's some work to do."
Presence matters. Focus matters. Stillness matters. These are
The fundamental building blocks of life. Rest, digest, recuperation, processing or meditation, physical exercise, nourishment, sunlight the building blocks to all life
When we bypass noticing our physical self in the world, we do not get the full benefits of wellbeing. And our body wants to be well. Our body wants to feel safe And when we feel [00:32:00] safe, we can open up to all the other things that are going on in our life. We can relax and trust into who we really are and be the full version of ourself, healed, connected, loving, compassionate, fulfilled.
If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who's feeling frantic and overwhelmed, disconnected, or emotionally exhausted If you'd like to come and work with me and clear some of this, come and try a soul guidance session or have a chat with me through the Aligned Journey conversation about how I can help you stay grounded, get connected, and live fully in your own intuition, presence, and joy.
