The Power of Grounding: What Your Body Needs in Perimenopause and Menopause

What does it really mean to feel grounded?

In this week’s episode of Rooted in Presence, Carly explores the science and soul of grounding and why it matters so much in midlife.

From hormone changes in perimenopause and menopause to the emotional shifts of parenting, caregiving, and career transitions, many of us lose our sense of stability. Carly shares her own journey from feeling completely ungrounded during burnout and ADHD diagnosis, to discovering a nourishing sense of rooted presence while walking barefoot through an Ibiza villa.

Listen in to learn:
 - The difference between heaviness and groundedness
 - How grounding works scientifically—through the Earth’s natural electrical charge and the exchange of electrons that reduce inflammation and calm the nervous system
 - Simple breath and body-based grounding practices you can use anywhere
 - Why grounding becomes essential for nervous-system balance and hormone health in midlife

If you’ve been feeling scattered, overstimulated, or disconnected from your body, this episode is your invitation to come home to yourself, one breath and one barefoot step at a time.

🎧 Listen now and explore more support at carlykillen.com
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If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: carlykillenpt@gmail.com
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

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Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

Transcript

Carly: 0:46

Hello and welcome back to Rooted in Presence. I'm Carly Killen, your host, and today we are exploring something I think we all crave on some level, whether we are aware of it or not, but especially in midlife. It's something that's been asked for on a few occasions, so I really appreciate the feedback and the questions that come up. It really helps to make this podcast the useful resource that I hope it's be for you. So this week we are gonna be talking about grounding and the feeling of being grounded. It's one of those words we hear in a lot of wellbeing spaces. Stay grounded, ground yourself, but what does that really mean? How do we know when we are grounded and what can we do when we're not? For me, grounding is both literal and metaphorical. It is about that connection to the body, to the breath, to the earth itself, and it's that studying sense of being in yourself rather than hovering on the outside and outskirts of your life. So I want to take this conversation deeper today. Looking not only at the feeling of being grounded. But of course also the science and seasons of it too. How our bodies, hormones, and nervous systems can pull us off center and how we can find our way back. So let's get started. So let's start with what is grounding and how does it work? So at its simplest grounding or earthing, it's also is sometimes called means, making that direct physical contact with the surface of the earth, walking barefoot on grass or sand sitting or lying on the ground, or even using conductive ground grounding mats indoors as well. And this works not just on that physical sense, but also the energetic sense as well. And here's what's really fascinating, or it is for me anyway, the earth carries a negative electrical charge and our bodies constantly exposed to stress and our own electromagnetic fields. Things that can cause inflammation. We often carry an excess of positive charge. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just how it is. But we can build up more and more of these positive ions over time. For me, it reminds me a bit of something I used to do as a child. Did you ever used to get one of those balloons and rub it on a jumper to create lots and lots of static and then put it on your head and watch how your hair floats up to meet it? This kind of reminds me of how we go about our days, you know, breathing, living, doing our thing as we should. We have a life to live after all, but as we do this, we're constantly rubbing up against life, the atoms and the earth, other people, I guess that sense of being rubbed up the wrong way, perhaps that's where that saying comes from. I actually don't know. I'd love to hear if you do. So yeah, we build up this charge over time and this can leave us feeling off, but how wonderful. But our earth has a balancing negative electrical charge. So when we touch the earth directly, we allow this gentle exchange of electrons. These free electrons are like natural antioxidants helping neutralize the free radicals, which naturally occur as we do our life and breathing oxygen. And it also helps to calm inflammation. like the planet lend as a steady hand helping our bodies to rebalance their own electrical systems, which is super amazing. And there is even emerging research coming through now. So this in my mind was certainly one of those woo things, and I'm saying that in air quotes by the way. But we now have journals such as the Journal of Environmental and Public Health, and that suggests that regular grounding can reduce pain and inflammation, it can support better sleep and support your circadian rhythm. It can improve your blood viscosity. Heart rate variability can even lower cortisol, that stress hormone that so many of us carry plenty of. And while the science is still developing or perhaps catching up, what's clear is that our bodies know the earth. I'm pretty sure as humans, we're one of the last to catch onto this. The birds know it. I'm pretty sure all the animals know it. The trees know it, but perhaps we're catching up to, and we involved to be in constant connection with the earth. We used to walk barefoot. We had so much more touching within our lives and our daily activities. We were more sensing beings. Perhaps something that's easy to lose contact now with all of the technology you have. As much as I love it, I mean, I am recording a podcast after all. But when we restore that contact, our systems often respond with that deep relief. Perhaps you can imagine it as plugging yourself back into a natural power source. And when we pair that with breath and body awareness, grounding becomes a full body act of regulation, a way of reminding our system, you're safe, you belong, you are home. So let me tell you about my first true experience of grounding that I'm aware of. And I can remember that first time when I really, truly felt grounded in my body. Initially all of this talk of grounding, it felt a bit theoretical to me. I read the science parts and cognitively I knew that being in concept with nature, the earth was all a good thing, but it felt more like one of those shoulds. Another thing to add to my never ending to-do list. So if and when I did engage with this, I was kind of keeping my eye on the clock for when I thought I'd done enough to tick the box. In my experience, knowing in the mind and feeling in the body, they're very different things. The whole deeper layer. I'm curious about those of you who have thoughts on this. Please do let me know your experiences and how you sense the difference between knowing and feeling, and perhaps they're very much interchangeable to you. I would love to hear from you if you have thoughts. So let's get back to my first felt experience of grounding. I was in Ibiza walking through the villa on the business retreat. It was quiet. Had the warm sun on my skin and walking through that villa barefoot, I really noticed it. I felt a deep heaviness in my body, but not the kind I used to feel when I was exhausted and on the edge of burnout, not that walking through treacle feeling I'd lived with her so long. This heaviness felt good. It felt nourishing, anchoring like my body had finally dropped the constant tension and just landed. It was as though for the first time I wasn't floating around outside my life trying to manage it all. I was actually in my life. I was part of the earth. I realized later that feeling that pleasant heaviness was in fact presence, but that was me feeling grounded and for so much of my life, I struggled to feel that growing up. I often felt like I didn't quite fit, like I was kind of hovering above the world trying to find where I belonged. So that moment of connection felt truly sacred and it reminded me what it means to truly be here. And there are times, perhaps in all of our lives when we really do feel very much ungrounded that true sense of feeling unearthed, so to speak. So later on that year, I found myself at the very opposites of that spectrum during a season when the edges of perimenopause were really beginning to show up for me, all paired with a recent diagnosis of A-D-H-D-I was navigating and processing. The whole idea of that and also the medication changes running a business and still trying to be everything to everyone. And despite all of the self-care tools I had, I felt like I was really unraveling. There were days where I felt like I was floating away from the earth, actually found myself holding onto tables. It felt that strong. My body buzzing and floating my feet feeling like, yes, they're on the ground, but I'm not sure of how much longer even walking was disjointed. I could liken this very much to a newborn baby deer. I think I was calling them bumby legs at the time, and I could barely put one foot in front of the other. This was the impact of chronic stress and nervous system overwhelm. This can happen to all of us. This can leave us feeling ungrounded, unmoored, totally untethered. For many women in midlife, this is a familiar story, and I hear this from my clients so often when we first start to work together. So let's talk about that midlife connection. Now as we enter perimenopause and menopause, our hormones, especially estrogen, they begin to decline. And estrogen isn't just there to support our reproductive system. It has a strong influence on our brain chemistry, on neurotransmitters, and even how our nervous system regulates. So it's no wonder we feel wobbly and scattered, emotional or completely unsteady. And to add to that. The realities of midlife, those demanding careers. Perhaps were peaking at this point, caring for children and also aging parents, and that physical and emotional fatigue of being the strong one. It's easy to see why grounding isn't just a nice idea. It becomes a necessity. This is a time when our bodies are asking for recalibration, the slowing down, coming back to the earth. Because grounding is how we build resilience. It's how we give our nervous system a safe space to return to so we can keep meeting life as it changes. So when I finally recognized how ungrounded I'd become, I knew I needed to return to some basics. And through the help of some mentors, some kind words, and a lot of self-compassion, I put some steps into place. I started small. I was able to get my bare feet onto some grass, and at first I felt completely ridiculous, self-conscious, awkward. But after a few minutes, something really did shift that I felt the coolness of the ground, and sometimes it felt warm. Even in the winter, the texture of the grass, that quiet hum of the earth. It really did something. And I could feel myself coming back into my body. And then I engage more with nature. Spending time in woodlands among the trees, and really feeling the stillness and that rooted strength. I started adding simple breath work my hand on my heart, slow inhale, long exhale, quietly, saying to myself, I am safe. And yes, I rolled my eyes at first, but it worked. It really did work. So the combination. Connections to the earth, connections to breath, connection to body. It really brought me home. And no, it didn't fix everything overnight. He just gave me a place to stand to literally get my feet back on the ground again. And that's what I believe. Grounding is really not control, not perfection. Just a little bit of a solid place to stand regardless of what we've got going on. So if you're listening in and wondering, Carly, how do I begin with this? Where do we even start? I don't have any grass outside my house. Well, let me share with you a few things we might want to engage with. You can do all of them, none of them. Some of them. There's so many ways we can go about this. Let's start with body connection. Just noticing your feet on the ground, even if you have your shoes on, even if you are in the middle of the office, perhaps just press your feet into the ground just a little bit, feeling that weight and see if you can send your breath downwards. Follow a downward movement. See if you can spread it through your body. Just bringing everything back into awareness. Then we have the earth connection and if it's possible and accessible to you, walking barefoot on the grass, soil, sand, and yeah, if it's safe as well. Not all grassy areas are places I'd want to put my bare feet on,, and I definitely wouldn't advise it in certain parks as well, for many reasons. But if you can, even just a few minutes helps. And if it's not possible or advisable even sitting outside and rest your hands on your legs, imagining those roots growing down through the chair into the ground beneath you, this really does work as well. And then we have our breath connection. A little bit like what I did, a hand on hearts, perhaps a hand on your belly too. That slow inhale in through the nose, maybe for a count of four or maybe just until you feel full, and then that long extended exhale. You can count to a long count, maybe six, or you can just exhale till you feel like your lungs are empty, and perhaps you have words for yourself like, I am here. I am safe. But just make sure the words that do resonate with you, that feel good to you. We're not trying to convince ourselves we're okay when we're not, but just trying to find that place of inner stillness that helps us feel ourselves again. And last one I want to share with you is that rhythmic presence. We can find grounding in our daily rituals, how we stir our tea, consciously folding laundry, cooking dinner. For me it's, it's pairing socks. It's that job I don't want to do, but when I get going, I feel. Then doing it. But these can become small acts of embodiment if you bring your awareness to them. And each moment of presence is like throwing down a little root, allowing it to grow deeper. So, perhaps grounding isn't just about touching the earth, getting your feet on the grass. It's also about remembering that you belong to it. It's the art of coming back again and again to your body, to the breath, to the now, especially when life feels unpredictable, when we have shifts in hormones and life circumstances, and when our identity is in transition. So you don't have to have it all figured out just keep returning to yourself again and again. And if today's conversation resonated with you, I would love to hear from you. You can reach out to me@carlykillen.com and if you'd like to explore gentle ways to support your body and nervous system in midlife, you can book a free clarity call there too. So until next time, may you meet yourself with Compassion, walk with Presence, and remember, you already carry everything you need.