I felt something amazing- a powerful sensation and visual came through my body as I walked, and it felt like I was granted access to a whole new world.

This week, I’m sharing a potent new metaphor to support the emergence of length, space, and fluidity in your body while you walk.

In this same spirit, I’ve shared several essays exploring the midline (the central channel and reference axis of life) and more recently on how the way we walk relates to the midline and contributes to a vital body and life.

A story to illustrate.

Recently I woke up feeling a bit like a pressure cooker, like some kind of unstable weather pattern about to blow. It was really uncomfortable!

Usually I burn off excess charge with movement and sweat. A strong pull to ground came through instead. This was a high-voltage situation — time to add a third prong and plug into the Earth.

I’ve known for some time that bare contact with the Earth is a powerful way to electrically ground and stabilize our bodies. It’s colder now, less of this has been happening, and I’m feeling it.

Fortunately it was a sunny day, so I left my boots behind and embarked on a winding dirt path into open space. I savored many sensations as I connected to the ground . . . cool, soft, sharp at times, and very alive. I tuned in to the current of exchange I intellectually knew would begin to cycle between my body and the planet. At first imagined, gradually felt, and eventually prominently evidenced by length — actual height — as well as a wave-like motion emerging from within.

I felt something amazing, new and specific that I’m excited to share with you! A powerful sensation and visual came through my body as I walked that felt like I was granted access to a whole new world.

My legs began to swing like pendulums. Rather than stepping, my legs began to swing effortlessly as though they were literally suspended from my hips. I felt like I was floating and gliding instead of efforting to lift my legs and overworking the muscles that do that job as we are known to do. I’m talking about the hip flexors (the psoas muscles), which are very reliable indicators of flow / not-flow in the body.

This is big. The psoas muscles are short and tight in just about everyone. These muscles connect the legs to our spine just below the abdominal diaphragm, and when they’re tight, they restrict our breath, flow of lymph, and kidneys. They also compress our spines and activate fight or flight. A tight psoas means trouble!

What if tending these muscles, and therefore our nervous systems, circulatory systems, and life force was as easy as walking like a native person or a yogi? It’s so much easier to let the Earth do the work of walking than overwork your muscles and grip your breath, brain, and bones. Imagine a planet of free, open, and vital people — my imagination is soaring!

This week as you wander…

🌀 Imagine your pelvis suspended between your deeply rooted lower body, and a powerfully buoyant upper body lengthening toward the sky

🌀 Imagine your legs free to swing and glide, suspended from your hip joints

🌀 Buoyancy, fluidity, and even rhythm might be more forthcoming if you spend some time with bare feet (or even hands!) exchanging current with the ground.

You may even begin to pulse with the planet. Remember the theme of walking as though the Earth is your dance partner? This kind of connected intimate exchange between your body and the Earth is so potent even ten minutes causes measurable physiologic change. Dance-rhythm-pendulum-wave . . . feels like music to me.

What else happened for me after the barefoot hour last week?

I felt deeply peaceful and sane, and my sleep was the deepest in a long time. My feet, on the other hand, were a bit beat up, so I went looking for shoes that were designed for grounding. Can you believe this is a thing? The brand Harmony 783 caught my eye.

Need a bit more inspiration? The Earthing Movie: The Remarkable Science of Grounding is really good and free on YouTube!

Got questions? Want to share an insight or ah-ha moment? I’m excited to hear from you!

All of these newsletters are coalescing the Self Study Library on my website so that it will be easy to glance back for any pieces you’ve missed or want to read again. Stay tuned for that!

In Celebration of Your Emerging Flow,

Dr.Michelle Veneziano

&the Flow is Medicine community