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SPIRIT
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LIBRARY
Spiritual
Development
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31
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GROUNDING AND CENTERING
WITH A TODDLER AGE 0 - 1
© Mouse, 2004
When a baby appears to be ungrounded
(out of balance, off-center, "fussy", clingy, demanding),
there are several ways to help the baby ground. Often, when
a child is ungrounded, the parent is
too, so doing this together is a great way of restoring the
family balance and harmony, and the
general well-being of the entire family unit. The starting point
of this article is that the baby still
is very connected to the parents' energies (and particularly
the mother), and that that parent
grounds and neutralizes the aura or energies of the baby. This
is a list of possible ways, you can
choose one or two, depending on the mood, energy levels and
available options. I often refer to
the baby as "baby", since it eliminates the him/her,
he/she wording.
1) When out with baby, use body contact as much as possible.
A sling or baby carrier is a good
option if you are required to hold the baby for longer periods
of time while walking. There are
many kinds of carriers and slings, there will be one that suits
you. This is a link to a page with a
wide variety of options: www.beginnings.org Your body movement,
the sound of your heartbeat
and breathing close by, the proximity to your voice… all
help baby trust that it's okay, that
there's no need to be afraid, the child will feel safe, protected,
and you are in direct contact with
baby too. You will be physically alerted to your child's movements,
discomforts and needs…
If a sling is not an option for you, and you have a stroller,
try to have a stroller that allows baby
and you to be in visual range. This will help you notice baby's
communications sooner, and it
will help baby see you, your body language and facial expressions,
and amidst a noisy
environment, enable baby to hear your voice better than if facing
away from you. If baby is
facing away from you, and barely able to hear your voice, for
all the baby knows, you are not
there, and baby is all alone, and in danger since it is not
able yet to fend for itself.
Sometimes the stroller that enables baby to face you is not
possible either… then take regular
breaks from the walk to look at baby's face, interact with him/her,
check the temperature of the
baby (cold/hot), and speak with the baby. If possible, alternate
holding baby with walking with
baby in the stroller… that way your physical movement will
help baby release tension that was
accumulated while not with you physically. Do this especially
for about 5 minutes before putting
the baby into the car seat, so that excess stimulation energy
is removed, and baby's body contact
needs are at least stilled.
2) Upon arriving home, take *time* to nurse or offer a bottle
in a quiet room, dimmed light, and
as little external stimulation as possible. This is to restore
the togetherness feelings of mother and
child, time to *stop* and "regroup", and re-center.
It is not just to fill the sucking need of a child,
or to still its physical hunger… it is literally re-bonding
time. Mama's heartbeat slows, baby's
heartbeat slows. Mama's breathing slows, baby's breathing slows.
Mama relaxes, baby relaxes. If
this is rushed, then there is a good chance that baby will nap,
but fitfully so, or just briefly… and
mama will not be able to unwind while baby is sleeping: her
ears will be "on guard", her nerves
will be frayed, for she will not rest until she knows her baby
is feeling entirely at peace again. So
allow yourself this time together.
Energetically, something else happens too: the excess energy
from external overstimulation can
move from baby to mama, through diffusion. Baby grounds energies
by passing them on to
mom's energy field… it is due to the symbiosis between
mother and child. Negative energies are
passed on to mom, who is much more able to deal with them…
her physical and energetic
nervous system is much more developed and able to cope. The
child's energy is cleansed and
restored through this 1-1 time in peace and quiet. You can enforce
that by visualizing your own
grounding, and feeling your own accumulated energies going into
the grounding and being
neutralized by the Earth. Visualizing yourself and the child
in a white light helps too, since it will
guard the space you are in together… helping block out
more external stimulation and energies.
3) Cuddle. Quietly, gently, reassuringly, in a comfortable,
cozy and familiar spot that the child
associates with safety. Dim the lights, sing softly. Returning
to the basics of the relationship:
nurturance and protection. The child can then surrender its
restlessness and possibly fear to the
strong and gentle arms of the parent. The parent can relax and
let go since the child is now safely
removed from external stressors, and with the parental relaxation,
grounding becomes so much
more easy. Contact like this also restores the energy balance
that is so unique to the mother/child
relationship in its early years… the child is still hugely
dependent on the maternal connection for
its sense of well-being. Mother relaxing will allow baby to
relax, baby relaxing will allow
mother to relax. The energy between the two starts to flow more
freely again, mother and child
tune into each other again, signals and signs are more easily
read again both ways, and exhale…
don't be surprised if you both fall asleep for a bit. Even if
your child falls asleep, and you don't
want to, either take time to meditate while lying down, or read
a book… something that will
allow the pressure to be off your spine, and will allow your
nervous system to relax and release.
The relaxed muscles will also allow for quicker tension removal
than "on the go" muscles.
4) Dance softly. Take the child in your arms. Sway those hips,
move your legs consciously, and
stimulate left/right movements to balance the brain hemispheres.
Take music with which the
child is comfortable and familiar, not too loud, songs to which
you can sing along soothingly.
Grounding and centering after a busy outing would be better
served with lullaby type music and
gentle dance. Not only does this connected movement help balance
and ground, it also helps
return to the home atmosphere and energy, to reconnect with
the safety and sanctuary of home. If
both parents are available, make it a group dance.
5) Get into the tub together. Let the child melt back into mommy
or daddy while releasing
accumulated energies into the water. Water doesn't only cleanse
physically or emotionally and
relax… it also ionizes the body. Yours and your baby's.
A body loses its electrical charge in
closed buildings (malls, office buildings, etc.), spaces with
electronics (such as computers,
studios, etc) in cars, ferries, airplanes (Faraday cages), concrete
structures and spaces with Air
Conditioning or climate control. Sitting still for too long,
not having fresh air move past or not
moving in fresh air, will deplete the negative ions (electric
charge) in the body. A bath (the
water) will help restore the electrical charge of the body.
It is a natural process that diffusion
takes place between bodies, and a mother could inadvertently
deplete a child's electrical charge, a
child could deplete the mother's charge (the word that is used
for that in physics is "ionization").
So enjoy the bath because it will help you both come back to
a recharged place (physically,
emotionally, spiritually). (for more information about ionization:
http://www.portalmarket.com/negion.html).
Children generally like to be in water, and I believe
that the recharging element of it plays a large role. It is
also my personal experience (my own
children, and while I was working with children professionally)
that children will be aided in
their grounding and centering through contact with water. Another
added bonus of having a bath,
is that any scent picked up from the previous environment will
be washed off, and the baby will
be much better able to recognize mother's scent and relax, knowing
that mama is there, and the
world is once again complete.
After the bath, a gentle baby body massage. That physical skin-to-skin
contact is so important for
grounding and the general sense of well-being for a child. If
your child doesn't enjoy body
massages or is too restless for it, see if the child will play
with a toy or a necklace or other item
while you massage his/her feet. Of course gentle *low* humming
helps too… it helps center the
mother physically and energetically by realigning the chakras
and relaxing the chest and throat,
and by connecting her with her lower chakras, and it helps the
child relax into the sweet and
familiar voice of his/her most important and favorite person.
6) Sometimes there is so much emotional tension and energy built
up, that just crying together
will help. If the child is inconsolable after coming home, try
to understand that crying is also a
release of frustration and perhaps even aggressive energy that
was accumulated throughout the
day. The baby is mostly immobile still, and doesn't have the
availability of movement to burn
that pent-up energy off. I've had days where my own feelings
of helplessness and inability to
soothe would surface, and we sat and cried together. This was
not an angry crying though, just
tears of surrender. Oddly enough, me letting go of my need to
"fix the problem", would help the
child too. They feel it when we are tensed up, and they can't
let their anxiety go; apparently
mama is tense, there must be something going on, so baby stays
tense and alert too. When we are
relaxed, they are, when we are tense, they are too. By letting
go of my tension through crying,
the child would invariably release tension too. My heartbeat
changes, my breathing changes, the
tension in my vocal cords and thus my voice changes, I believe
even my scent changes. The
child is so alert to these factors… So let it go once in
a while. Once the intensity of crying has
gone down, you might want to try a gentle sound or peek-a-boo
game. The release of the crying
spell combined with some laughter together will literally "lighten"
things up. Laughter releases
endorphins, the "happy-hormone", which increases the
general feeling of well-being.
7) A more technical way of rebalancing can be done with a "lazy
eight" or infinity symbol" lying
on its side: (for an image, see Lazy Eight)
With your hips, follow that lazy eight shape. Bring your pelvis
forward as far as you can, moving
to the left, and around to the back as far as you can, back
to the center (hips above feet again),
forward as far as you can, and this time to the right, around
the back, back to the center, etc. Do
this slowly, and between five and ten times until you feel a
center of gravity and balance within
yourself. You will literally regain your physical balance and
center point, and because you've
worked on maintaining your balance, you're also more grounded
than you were. You can
enhance this by first visualizing a big tree root coming from
your feet and anchoring you to the
center of the Earth. Baby will be comforted by the movement.
8) After a long time of inaction (car rides for instance), you
can cross-walk. Cross walking is
moving your left arm with your right leg, and your right arm
with your left leg. It will stimulate
the balance between the brain hemispheres, thus creating more
space for emotional, physical and
spiritual balance. It's a great way to coordinate the body balance
again and to restore circulation
and metabolism after sitting still. Specially car rides tend
to upset the electrical charge of the
people in the car, both mother and baby will benefit from this
kind of movement in several ways.
With "turning inward", "grounding" and "centering",
it is the act of being in your body that
stimulates the body to develop itself. The nerves are strengthened
because they are allowed a
break from their neuron-duties, so they can recuperate. Babies
are new to everything, at least,
their physical bodies are, and their nervous system can't handle
very much yet. When their
nerves get this quiet time, they are better able to deal with
the external sensory stimulation, and it
doesn't tax the body's nervous system as quickly. It's like
the knee-jerk reactions after a long day
with a crying infant… our muscles are tense, we are on
edge, and we barely are able to tolerate
any other sounds. We fly off the handle at the first adult available,
since we know we can't do
that to a child. But we need to unwind. Daddy comes home, and
as soon as he walks through the
door, we thrust the baby at him and just leave baby's proximity
for a bit. After that quiet time, to
sip a hot drink, and the ability to have a pee *alone*, to be
able to finish a train of thought that
doesn't involve the child… we are much better equipped
to face the next day. Same goes for the
child's nervous system, and his/her ability to balance the stimulation
from outside. The build-up
is prevented, released, removed… and the child's physical,
emotional and spiritual nerves get a
chance to unwind after their exertion.
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Libraries
are on this row
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INDEX
Page 3
(Main Section, Medicine Wheel, Native Languages &
Nations, Symbology)
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INDEX
Page 5
(Sacred Feminine & Masculine, Stones & Minerals)
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Text:
© Copyright: Cinnamon Moon & River WildFire Moon
(Founders.) 2000-date
All rights reserved.
Site
constructed by Dragonfly
Dezignz 1998-date
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