By Toid Hussain | Source
The concept of earthing or grounding is touching soil, sand, or grass with bare skin, which can improve sleep quality, lower stress, and decrease pain and inflammation.
Three weeks after signing divorce papers, I found myself in my backyard before dawn, dressed in clothes from yesterday, carrying the sorrows of tomorrow. I had not read to completion any of the self-help books that had piled up on my bookshelves. I had sent up thousands of prayers but nothing had ever come back down.
I was spiritually empty. Not in a metaphorical sense, but at a cellular level.
Then I had an irrational moment. I took off my shoes and stepped onto the cold, wet ground with my bare feet. I could feel the ground pushing back against my body with purpose, like the way my heart beats each time.
An ancient thing inside me cracked and began to open.
The next day, I returned to my yard at dawn. On the following 89 days after that, I walked barefoot on bare ground before the rest of the world was awake.
During the course of those 90 days, I became a new person from bottom to top.
The Electrical Current Beneath Our Feet
What’s referred to as “earthing” or “grounding” is simply having skin contact with the earth’s surface. It may sound whimsical, but it has shown some legitimacy as a potential healing method via electromagnetic energy.
Recent studies indicate that scientists have discovered a tremendous amount of free-electron energy richness on the earth’s surface. Therefore, by placing bare skin on the ground (soil, grass, sand), the free electrons from the earth enter the body and work as natural antioxidants by neutralizing free radicals, which cause inflammation.
Clinton Ober, author of Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever! has found remarkable results in multiple studies demonstrating how grounding lowers cortisol levels, increases sleep quality, and improves the ability to withstand stress. Participants repeatedly reported improved mood, decreased chronic pain, and a sense of reconnection that is difficult for scientific terminology to adequately describe.
When our bare feet touch the ground, we are completing an electrical circuit that rubber-soled shoes have interrupted for nearly two centuries.
Indigenous Peoples Never Disconnected
For thousands of years, before we had sophisticated tools to measure electrons, Indigenous communities around the world created a relationship with the earth through their footprints.
For many of the Cherokee people, the earth is part of their family, alive with healing energy that can be accessed through direct contact with the soil. Walking barefoot is not just a choice; it is a way of accessing spiritual medicine. To lose contact with the earth is to be disconnected from a primary resource.
The Aboriginal people of Australia believe the land is the sacred body of their ancestors. One of their cultural traditions is to undertake a walkabout, a complicated spiritual practice involving walking barefoot for thousands of miles across their ancestral lands. Aboriginal people see the land as being fully alive, breathing, dreaming, and healing through direct human contact.
A 5-Minute Grounding Ritual
The following practice is a combination of movement, breath, and intention to reset your sacred alignment.
1. Take off your shoes. Stand on the natural ground. Close your eyes. Allow your weight to be welcomed into the earth below you with the gentle hug of gravity.
2. Breathe. Inhale four counts. Visualize energy coming from the earth and rising up through the soles of your feet into your spine and heart. Exhale six counts. Release all tension into the earth. The earth will compost and nurture it.
3. Intend. Place one hand on your heart. Say a word softly and meaningfully to the ground beneath you: gratitude, healing, surrender, etc. Stand for five breaths. Walk slowly. Each step is a way to have a sacred conversation with the earth as a living being.
What the Ground Taught a Broken Soul
Ninety barefoot mornings did not repair my marriage or remove grief from my heart, but they did reconnect me with something deeper than any loss—something eternal and unbreakable that existed before my pain.
The earth accepted me without rejection, without judgment, and without my having to perform something impressive.
It just held me for 90 mornings. Quietly. Completely.
Take off your shoes, go outside, and take the opportunity to reconnect with the earth. The ground has not forgotten your feet, and it has been waiting to put you back together again.