For many people, body-mind-spirit is a phrase that has been used to the point of exhaustion. In fact, it sounds an awful lot like something that belongs in the YMCA mission statement. It is also to be seen on the t-shirts of karate and other martial arts students all across the country. You'll hear these words coming out of the lips of a great many holistic practitioners, new age people, and, of course, those left-handed crystal wavers.
However, seeing and hearing the term, even with that level of frequency, doesn't meant that you understand or have internalized what it really means. The concept is really quite simple: the body, the mind, and the spirit are part of a whole. These three parts of yourself are simultaneously one, while still individuals in their own right. Your body has organs, for example, that are both part of your body as a whole, as well as definably separate from the rest of the body.
Let's look at a practical example: if you encounter a situation that makes you feel very anxious, you might experience mental anxiety in the form of worrisome and racing thoughts. Physically, your breathing and heart rates are likely to be faster and you might experience digestive upsets. You are likely to be less grounded and connected with yourself, which is just one example of how it affects the spirit. Now, if you were to make a shift on one of these fronts, the other two would be affected as well.
When you understand the connections, you can nourish them. Feeding your body wholesome and nutritious food can feed your mind and spirit as well. Spiritual practices that instill a sense of well-being in you will also bring about well-being in the mind and body, and so on. Using the tools available to you, you can maintain a balanced sense of being healthy in both body, mind, and spirit.
The second part of the grounding meditation is to call back any energies that may have left your body. First, you want to imagine your own personal sphere around yourself. It comes up from the grounding cord to surround you completely. At the top of this sphere is an opening. Through this opening, you receive energy and divine love from above. Imagine that there is a golden orb at this opening, and from it, divine love and light flow down into you.
Now, set about collecting all the energy you have expended and sent elsewhere. You might notice where you send most of your energy, but do not judge. Know that by calling your energy back, you do not diminish the work you may have done with it- that remains present. Visualize all of your energies collecting in a hazy cloud above the golden orb. When you feel that all your energy has been called back to you, allow it to pour down into the orb, which acts as a funnel, allowing the energy to pass back into your personal sphere.
Your energy fills your body and revitalizes you. Because it has passed through this orb of divine love and light, it returns to you pure. Concentrate on the feeling of wholeness that this gives you. Then, focus your mind on the connection points you have- your grounding cord which connects you to the earth, and the opening where the golden orb sits, allowing energies from the higher planes to flow in.
Now, sit still, feeling your body peaceful and grounded. You are connected with all that is, and you are one whole being. Sit peacefully as time allows, or until you feel ready to move on with your day.
If you have ever wondered if there was a specific meditation that you could use to help yourself feel more grounded and more connected to the earth and yourself, the answer is a resounding yes. Here is an example of a grounding meditation that you might use. It is also a good meditation to use when you feel you have taken on a great deal of others' burdens.
Sit quietly in a comfortable position with your feet on the floor. Imagine that you feet are rooted in place, drawn down to the earth by her magnetic pull. Then, notice how there is another grounding sensation that drops from your first chakra down into the ground, moving deeper and deeper, all the way until the center of the earth. This cord is your grounding cord. You are always connected to it, and it moves with you as you move about during your life.
Your grounding cord also has a magnetic pull-- it attracts anything that is other than your highest good or that does not belong to it and pulls it down into the earth where it is recycled into new energy. Using your mind, you can extend your grounding cord up to any part of your body to vacuum away anything that does not belong in you, anything you are having trouble getting rid of. Some people find it helpful to imagine everything they want to get rid of as a dark cloud, and the cord as a vacuum hose, sucking up all the dark clouds and funneling them away and out of the body.
The body is left feeling light and grounded.