Mother’s Day Grounding
When was the last time you put your feet on the earth?
This seems like an easy answer, but when you actually think about it, I bet it’s been some time. I was trained as a massage therapist over 15 years ago, and for years, clients would seek my help for inflammation and chronic illness. I started asking my clients this question, and most responded:
“I can’t remember,” or
“Do you mean, like, dirt?” or
“When I was on vacation last year.”
I was consistently shocked by their answers, with 90% giving answers in the weeks, months or years. Humanity was not always so insulated from the earth. Our current culture puts space between us and the earth via shoes, beds, and cars, often made of some form of petroleum. The reason why this is so important is not just the more vague notion of “grounding”, which is the idea that we can connect to the core of the earth’s energy by imagining a cord connecting us.
It’s important because the earth literally heals us.
In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes describes a Kiche tribeswoman who once said she’d worn her first pair of shoes when she was twenty years old and was still not used to “walking con los ojos vendados, with blindfolds on her feet.” The skin of the sole feels everything, and the idea of “earthing” is not new, but our understanding of the science is. With over 100,000 nerve endings per foot, there is more to our feet than just ticklish toes.
Essentially, according to the Earthing Institute, “connection with the Earth restores a lost electrical signal to the body that seems to stabilize the complicated circuitry of our essentially electrical body.” All disease begins as inflammation, what the medical industry informally calls Inflamm-Aging. Name a disease, and what is really happening is that diseased or damaged tissue is flooded with free radicals, which are doing the brave job of removing the disorder. However, if the body does not have enough negative electrons (antioxidants) within to bind to the free radicals and release from the body, we get too many free radicals remaining. Electrons are this source of the neutralizing power of antioxidants.
The health industry tells us to constantly consume antioxidants in our diet.
But perhaps there is also another way.
The surface of the earth is filled with billions of negative electrons. This is why we have grounded outlets, grounded electrical appliances, and why lightning dances with the earth from time to time. The simple act of putting our feet on the earth allows our body to recharge with negative electrons, reducing inflammation and drastically altering the root cause of disease.
Humans used to walk barefoot on the earth and sleep on the earth. But with the invention of rubber soles, we now continuously keep a distance between us and the Earth. We keep ourselves away from the source of our lives, and often wonder why we feel so fatigued, or how we feel so refreshed from a day at the beach. (Wet feet are an even better conductor for negative electrons.) Even the hippiest of the hippies I know will often forget to take off the Birkenstocks.
This concept of earthing has research to back it up. Numerous studies have recorded the connection between earthing and reduction of blood viscosity, better mood enhancement, better sleep, injury and exercise recovery, better blood flow, prevention of chronic inflammation, faster wound healing, prevention of auto-immune diseases and overall reduction of pain.
Perhaps it’s time to go a little deeper with our idea of grounding by taking the time to touch the earth. What better time to start than Mother’s Day?