Two Words That Get Used Interchangeably, Describing Two Different Things, Requiring a Fixed Order That Cannot Be Reversed.
Many people talk about grounding. Very few of them can explain precisely what they mean or how it is effectively done. Almost nobody talks about rooting. Grounding and rooting are separate skills, they do different things, and rooting is impossible until the grounding is successfully in place.
Grounding Is Anchoring
Grounding is the act of anchoring into Mother Earth. It gives you the ability to withstand and redirect external forces that come your way.
Think about a large tree in a windstorm. What keeps it standing is not the leaves and not the trunk, it is the buttress roots spreading wide and deep beneath it. The tree does not resist the wind by being rigid. It resists by being anchored and remaining flexible so that the force passes through it and into the earth instead of knocking it over.
That is grounding. It's what allows you to stand in a difficult conversation, or a room full of grief, or your own fear, and not be moved off your center by the forces around you. The external force arrives and it drops downward to be absorbed by Mother Earth. You do not need to push back against the force, and it does not uproot you.
Rooting Is Drawing Upwards
Rooting is something else. Rooting is the act of drawing nourishment from Mother Earth. It is the upward movement of life force into your being; the same way a tree draws nutrients up out of the soil. And it is only possible if you have first anchored into the ground.
Grounding is how you navigate the energies around you. Rooting is about drawing vitality into you. One is stability, the other is nourishment.
"Rooting Is Only Possible After We Have Effectively Established Our Grounding."
Why the Order Cannot Be Reversed
This is the part that is often overlooked.
You cannot draw nourishment up through a connection you have not yet established. The tree cannot feed without its anchor. The channel that draws sustenance upward from the earth is the same channel that releases excess energy downward. The practice must be built downward first or else the structure fails. This is the principle of the water path applied to your own two feet. Sinking before rising.
When people try to root without grounding, what they usually get is a lot of upward energy with nothing holding it, which brings us back to the vulnerability, agitation and depletion I have written about elsewhere. The upward current can only be managed effectively after the downward current has been established. The downward current is what makes the upward current safe.
How to Begin
First, feel your feet. Many people have minimal proprioception of their feet and only feel them when they are in pain. Feel the weight of your body settling into your feet and spreading out to the full outer boundary of your feet. Begin to develop your feeling awareness. Do both feet hold your weight equally? Or is one holding more than the other? Can you balance them? Is your weight towards your heels or your toes? Ideally, in a neutral position, you want your weight to be received by your feet at the crease of your ankles. Take some slow breaths while standing and feeling your feet, and on your exhale, direct your energy down from your center to feet.
Now feel the bottom of your feet. Most people never feel this. Feel how the bottom of your feet contacts the earth. Explore the sensation of being barefoot on the earth, or if there is no safe place for you to do this, the sensation of being barefoot on a comfortable, flat surface in your home. Continue your breathing while directing your energy down to the bottom of your feet where they contact the earth.
After you have explored the sensation of the bottom of your feet on the earth, feel one inch below your feet, into the earth below you. Again, direct your energy downwards in coordination with your breathing, this time below the earth. Take several breaths and then move your awareness deeper, try three inches down, then six, then a foot, then three feet.
Continue directing your energy flow downwards as you breath. This is the grounding process. Feel your energetic roots grow down and branch as you go. You are building the structure that will support you. As you anchor into Mother Earth, also connect with Grandmother Earth, is the spiritual aspect of Mother Earth. As you move through your day, check in on the connection below your feet. Pause and feel, is your connection still strong? Use the times that you need to stand and wait as an opportunity to practice, the line at the store, or the bank, or the airport can be transformed from a nuisance to an opportunity to practice.
Establishing our grounding is one of the most important things we can do. When I am working on a client, I always check their ground path. More often than not, there is healing which needs to be done in order to make that connection stable. When a person's roots have been severed, reconnecting them is often only enduring if it is done in combination with shamanic journey work, because the cause of the disconnection is usually tangled up with deeper levels of trauma that can only be resolved in the spirit world. I will share more about that in a future piece.
For now: Ground First - Root Second. Do not try to draw energy upward until your downward current is properly established. If you want to learn more, my course Cultivating the Energy Body provides the foundation that prepares our nervous systems for more advanced spiritual work.