For the past 20 years, I have guided many river trips in the Grand Canyon. Working on the river is back breaking and non-stop for 8 days; we rig the boats, we load the boats, we set up the kitchen and toilet, we cook, we unload the boats, we take people on hikes, we ride big rapids, we offer medical care, and stories, we load the boats, and on and on.... During my most recent trip, I managed to utilize just a few minutes in the mornings for a short meditation by the river's edge. In each of my meditations I was drawn to the river bed; the channel of earth within which the river flows.
The Colorado is a mighty river with an unbelievable force and power. I felt the river bed as mighty as well; a steady, unwavering, solid ancient power. I felt deeply connected to the essence of the river bed.
The Sanskrit word Patra means a goblet, a dish, a vessel... a river bed; anything that has the capacity to hold the focus of meditation. For this last river trip, the focus of my meditation was the river bed. It was a very powerful and grounding experience for me. The environment in the Grand Canyon is very extreme; the weather, the cold, the hot, the winds, the dryness. And the work as a guide is very challenging. Yet this connection to the mighty river bed allowed me to flow within the trip with grace and ease, it allowed the work I was doing to be sustainable.
During our goodbyes on the last night, one of the passengers gave me a good honest hug and looked into my eyes and said "You move with such a grounded confidence. I see you take a little time for yourself and because of that you are able to do your work and serve the rest of us in such an authentic way, thank you for this."
This is exactly what these classes are about; an opportunity for us to find our own way of grounding, and experience the deep and natural confidence that naturally grows from that. From Grounded and Confident we make our choices, we take our actions, we do our work in the world.
This is the most sustainable form of living…
This is how we move from feeling like we are merely surviving, to feeling and knowing that we are thriving.
(I am currently writing about this so... stay tuned.)
Grounded can mean many things…
It can simply mean that we feel our feet. It can mean we have awareness of what is going on in our body. It can mean that we feel connected to the place we are in, or feel the connection with the very core of the planet, and that we may be receiving energy from this core.
Being grounded offers a sense of stability and strength, a rootedness, a groove, a general inner calmness engendered by a sense of belonging where we are, in these bodies, in this life, on this planet. When most of our awareness is in our head, in our thoughts, or we spend too much time in our intellect we get a little top heavy. We are easily blown around by life's circumstances. We get out of our groove. Our mental awareness is a kind of buzz. Our body awareness is a slower frequency, a calming rhythm. With grounding, we move down into this steady, rooted place.
Confidence can mean many things…
There is a surface confidence that is kind of like a story we need to keep telling ourselves about all the things we have accomplished, about what we have, about our successes. This is how we 'big ourselves up', right? These stories live in our mental zone and they offer a buzz that can keep us going for awhile, like good cuppa Jo.
There is a deeper more sustaining confidence that is not based on our fueled by the stories we tell ourselves. This confidence is based on our capacity to ground. It is based our the awareness we have of our connection to place, our connection to our body and our body's intelligent design. It is a confidence that comes from the Love we have within us.
Our deep confidence comes from our daily practices of grounding into the deeper, slower, richer aspects of life. We feel the confidence because we know we belong here. We feel the confidence because we know we are worthy. We feel the confidence because we are choosing our life. We still can get blown around, but we have direct access to our roots, and they keep us grounded even when life's ride gets really challenging.
Every day we make so many choices. We make choices about what we eat, what we drink, where we go, who we connect with, when we sleep, what we watch, what we wear, how we want to show up, what we want to do with our lives, with our time. When we make our choices from Grounded and Confident, we make choices that work for us. We make our own unique and sovereign choices. We make empowering choices. We make choices that serve our intentions, serve our bodies, our minds, our emotions, our dreams.
In the classes we talk about food and eating, we talk about movement and exercise, we talk about our dreams and intentions. We talk about practical techniques for grounding. We practice feeling the confidence that comes from using our techniques. We get really connected to the mighty force that is the river bed of our own lives and utilize that energy to create what we want to create. We stop swimming upstream, we stop clinging to the rivers' edge, we stop feeling like we are being pushed around by the currents and actually start enjoying the ride. With a grounded confidence we flow within our own unique river, make our choices, move through our challenges, stay in our own groove.
The premise of the class is not to give you more to do, but allow you to do the things you are already doing with more grace and ease.
These classes are a great way to access my Consultation work and reap the benefits in a group setting. It is a body-centric class where we work with what is real and showing up in your life more that with ideas and theories. And like all the medicine of offer, the class will respond to your unique needs.
Each class…
uncovers and enhances Grounding techniques
covers one of the following topics:
food as medicine
movement as medicine
self-care as medicine
self-love as medicine
resourcing as medicine.
allows you to leave feeling empowered instead of overwhelmed
I offer the class every first and third Friday from 5:30 to 6:30pm.
Choose one class as a stand alone OR participate in the 5 topic series.
See you in class!
Reya
