Intro to Spirituality

Spirituality is something that is SO important to include in our self-care routines but many have the belief that spirituality=religion. While religion is a form of spirituality, spirituality is not religion. Best put, religion is a sub group of spirituality. In order to better understand the differences, here is a great chart comparing the two.

So, lets define spiritual self-care! Spiritual self-care ENCOMPASSES EVERYONE and yes I mean everyone- religious, atheists, agnostic, etc. Spiritual self-care is the act of engaging in and connecting with your soul. This can be nurturing it, supporting it, spending more time with it and more. What it boils down to is that you must connect with the inner-spirit in order to care for your soul’s spirituality. One way to begin introducing spiritual self-care into your daily routines is through “grounding”. Grounding, or earthing, is any activity that reconnects us to the Earth, usually with skin contact on the Earth (walking barefoot, smelling flowers, feeling tree leaves/bark etc).

There are SOOOOOO MANY benefits of grounding such as, but definitely not limited to:

1. Reducing inflammation. 90% of all chronic health conditions are linked to excessive or persistant inflammation
2. Decreasing pain
3. Decreasing stress and stress responses (lowers cortisol levels). We live very stressful lifestyles where our cortisol levels are elevated for long periods of time which can have many adverse affects on our health. Our cortisol levels are meant to vary throughout the day so by lowering these levels during grounding you are helping these levels have a healthier variance. (See upcoming posts with more info on this under our physical health page)
4. Decreases our heart rate and increases heart rate variability (the interbeat between our heartbeats). This improves our autonomic nervous system which in turn improves our emotions, overall health and aids in recovery (including but not limited to wound recovery) .
5. Improves sleep
6. Reduces blood viscosity which therefore improves your cardiovascular health
7. AND SO MUCH MORE! For more fun info read about Forest Therapy here https://www.natureandforesttherapy.earth/about/the-practice-of-forest-therapy

So here are some examples of grounding that you CAN and SHOULD practice this month:

1. Pick a tree that looks beautiful and bring your favorite book along and spend at least 30 minutes reading under this tree.
2. Go to a local Home Depot or store that has begun to open their garden centers and walk around smelling and feeling at least 10 different flowers/plants.
3. Find a lake, river, stream or the nearest outdoor body of water and bring some paper/pencils and write a short story about the body of water. Keep the story positive, light and uplifting.
4. Take a walk in nature and try to identify at least 4 different nature sounds you can hear.
5. If weather is permitting, lay down on a patch of grass and close your eyes. Think of your happiest memory and replay that memory in your head. You can also cloud watch and try to identify different shapes and things you see.

Try these different techniques and tell us in the comments how your experience(s) were! Or feel free to share your own examples of grounding! Stay tuned next month (May 7th, 2022) for our post on Mindfulness and the importance of BEING.

As always,

Much LOVE

Emma