Racing thoughts or too many thoughts prevent you from being grounded. With uncontrolled thought, you cannot refine your focus like a broken microscope. Human civilization has been meditating for thousands of years. Ancestors knew what it meant to be grounded and free from thought. The present world has forgotten. The information era works against being grounded.
As a predatory species, our ability to achieve greatness depends on our ability to concentrate on one target at a time. Each thought you have is a distraction from the mission and your path.
You should be of no mind at all times.
The term “grounded” has now become a buzzword for spiritually-minded people that when used, often means nothing. The nothing-version of the word is a signal to reveal thoughts, personality traits, and outlooks on life without having to reveal them; a way to categorize yourself for others to attract like-minds or repel unlike-minds
The authentic meaning of “grounded” can be defined. Grounded is a position of total control over your thoughts which correlates with medium to deep breaths and breath control. There are responses in the body that help determine if you are in this state. Being grounded means automatic functions become manual; the body switches to manual control as opposed to being automatically controlled by an emotional, survival-biased brain that evolved for conditions that don’t apply anymore, and has not evolved for modern times.
An ungrounded person is fidgety, cannot keep still, takes shallow breaths, touches their face, verbally overshares, and other unique expressions. On the inside, thoughts pelt their minds like hailstorms. We should never be attacked by thoughts we do not manually conjure to help us on our paths.
Being ungrounded is being out of control.
A good rule is to ground yourself whenever you are not, because there are no downsides to being grounded and the practice is free, for life, forever.
The potential for progress, greatness, and good things happening in general is exponentially higher when you are grounded. Because you are here. If you are over there you cannot take advantage of what is happening here. We need our minds to be under our control as opposed to being controlled by our emotion-charged default-state mind.
Life is a series of moments. We want to be here for all of them.
Consider grounding yourself in the morning before you leave your bed. You can accomplish this without moving using breathwork and meditation. We have a section on breathwork below that will show you the way.
Below are four ways to quiet the thoughts in your mind.
Physical Training
Lifting, cardio, jujitsu, swimming, running, biking, etc. A physical release will clear your mind, letting the thoughts that rattle in your head exit your consciousness with dignity.
You can choose whatever physical training you want to help ground. Ideally whatever you choose is your body mastery, or at least reinforces it.
The training must be vigorous.
A five-minute walk may not reduce your uncontrolled thoughts because it isn’t training: it’s locomotion. Sprints will clear your mind. A 30-minute walk could work, but an hour would be more beneficial.
You need to be training for progress so your mind cannot wander–we are forcing a focus state with our training. This is one reason that lifting weights, or general exercise isn’t just for your body.
You can easily make a home gym at any income level. Keep your scheduled workouts and training sessions, but consider having exercise equipment around the home, with a focus on sedentary places.
If you work from home, consider putting Bowflex Adjustable Dumbbells near your desk. If you cannot focus, push out a few reps for five minutes. Kettlebells make a great addition to any living room. Kettlebells are cheap and almost impossible to break. An adjustable kettlebell replaces six kettlebells.
Collect fitness items you like. A boxing reflex ball is a fun method of training. If you care about tracking how many steps you take per day, the boxing reflex ball can add that up.
TRX bands are also an excellent choice because you can do a high number of reps before fatiguing. The fatigue from a Suspension Trainer is more like a bodyweight-training sore than a weightlifting sore.
The benefits of looking good from training are a welcomed side-effect. We should pursue something greater than looking good for someone else with our body masteries. However, aesthetics and beauty are inspirational. By inspiring for aesthetics you are adding more beauty to the world which makes the world a better place.
The point of training is first-most path progression, and gaining mastery over your mind.
Think of your mind and your uncontrolled thoughts as a child. Raise that child in accordance with your views of the world and your ideal greatest version of yourself. Understand that your mind is emotional and needs management. If you are having a mental tantrum or barrier, try to absolve it by exercising.
Meditation
Meditation is free and can be done anywhere. No one can take it away from you.
You can do focused meditation, but also active meditation throughout the day by being aware of the sensations and thoughts that occur within you. Manage your thoughts in a way that benefits you. Write down your insights and purposefully dispose of unwanted thoughts.
Think of times when you could meditate instead of letting your mind run or playing on your phone. Before bed is a good example because you should not be doing anything but closing your eyes and trying to be calm.
There are many different meditation methods and the best one is the one you will do consistently. Try them all, and stick with the ones that are sticking to you. That means continue to use the meditation methods that are most-effective at grounding you.
Meditation is not always sitting cross-legged and chanting, although chanting is effective. Breathing methods are a form of meditation that can ground some faster than sitting and chanting. Focus on what is effective–what works for you.
Be cautious of fraudsters and worthless businesses that try to sell you products or services you don’t need. You don’t need ANYTHING to meditate. However, you can improve your practice by learning from masters and journeyman practitioners. Wim Hoff is a master.
People who use the term “grounded” may mean nothing and have no skills or abilities that you desire in the slightest. “grounded” is a buzzword.
Be cautious of social media accounts that call themselves experts in meditation or being grounded. Many of them want to make a profit without adding any true value to their students. If Wim Hoff teaches his breathing method for free…it’s valuable to be skeptical of others who want money for their methods.
You don’t need an app to meditate. But if it helps consistency and development, it could be worth it.
You should be cautious of developing relationships with tools that override the skill you are trying to train; this applies to all things. If you use a meditation tool, be sure to meditate without it too. We do not want to develop a reliance on crutches that remove our ability to walk.
Breathing Methods
Breathing methods can replace uncontrolled thought and promote internal neutrality (zen/nirvana/grounded/etc.). Modern Fighters have used breathing techniques for decades, and hundreds, if not thousands of years into the past.
Rickson Gracie, red belt in Brazilian Jujitsu, uses breathing exercises to control his mind. Watch the video below to learn a little about diaphragmatic breathing and Rickson’s philosophy of breathing.
Notice how he says it takes just 3 MINUTES to erase the stress from his mind. Imagine what breathing can do for you, if it works for a jujitsu King.
Rickson Gracie was a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience, JRE MMA Show #114 on August 10th, 2021. The clip below has Gracie going into detail about how breathing correctly changed his life.
“The big change in my life was when I learned how to breathe.”
If you aren’t sure where to start with breathing methods, start below. The video below is from Wim Hoff, creator of the Wim Hoff breathing method. This video is a guided Wim-Hoff session from Hoff himself. Notice it has over 50M views. And it is free.
You know Wim Hoff is not a fraud or a cult-leader because he gives the method away FOR FREE.
Hoff sells courses, retreats, and other products. He sells extra value and encourages mastery over his breathing method. He is entitled to capturing revenue because the services he offer are valuable. You know he is altruistic because he puts out his methods for free, with the option to buy more.
Meditation service providers who demand payment upfront may be pretending to be altruistic. They may not even meditate, but chase trends to be part of a group or get some other perceived or real gain. They may not have value to give. Trading money for value is fair. Do your due-diligence to make sure value is the counterparty to your investments.
Path Focus
Deep focus on one of your paths can help quiet the racing thoughts in your mind. It must be something that gets you into the flow state. If you’re blocked on one path, do not expect a flailing struggle to quiet your mind. Flailing will likely have the opposite effect. However, also realize that grit can move mountains.
The Andreia Philosophy requires selecting a path in each pillar of body, mind, and spirit. (about Andreia)
Without a self-realized path, you will still have a path. Someone, or fate, will create a path for you and it may not be what you want. We are too easily pulled into shadow paths like entertainment addiction, drinking, adult content, or having children with the wrong person or at the wrong time when we do not self-select a path.
When you find something that matters to you, the more you do it the more you are rewarded. This is the way. This is how Musashi lived. It could be starting a business, a hobby, an idea for a book you want to write, pursuing mastery in a skill it could be anything.
Masteries & projects for life.
You need to have a reason for your labors even if that reason is as simple as, “I enjoy it.”
Avoid doing a job for just the money where possible. This is a luxury not afforded to all. If you have to take a non-path job to survive, try and learn something from it, or from what you do while you are there.
Sometimes a non-path job is a requirement to fund the path.
Your paths will change, too.
You will follow different paths along the different stages of your life, which is no different than Musashi and his many stages in life.
Having a clean mind with controlled thoughts will help you understand which actions to take so you will make fewer mistakes and have more fulfillment in general.