What Is Centering? How To Align Your Body And Spirit (And Get What You Want)
When you know what you want you can go for it.
Dirima / Shutterstock.com If you’re a centered person, you’re probably physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually well-aligned. As a result, you have clarity, make authentic choices, and are able to get what you really want.
But maybe this doesn’t resonate with you. Instead, you make bad choices, and navigating your life is difficult.
Maybe sometimes you just don’t feel like you. You know you need something more, but you don't know what.
It might be time to get centered.
For some people, it’s interchangeable with “grounded.” Others link the two words together to suggest a kind of joint effect as in “ground and center.”
From my experience as an energy healer, I see important differences between the two terms, but there is overlap and they complement one another in many ways.
For example, centering facilitates grounding and vice-versa. Simply put, being grounded is possessing deep roots and an anchor while being centered is having (and making good use of) a great navigational system.
It doesn’t really matter which word you use. What’s more important is to understand and appreciate what each can contribute to your state of being.
What is centering?
According to Merriam-Webster, centered means to be emotionally stable and secure or to fix (as one’s attention) steadily toward a central objective. Other sources include clarity of mind.
Spiritually and energetically, it relates to alignment. Regarding the former, it’s the mind and body aligned with the spirit. For energy healers, the alignment relates to the subtle energy centers, e.g., chakras and dantians, which, of course, shape an individual’s mind, body, and spirit.
To understand in more concrete terms, consider what this means in everyday life. If you’re one of the many people who maintain a fitness program, dance, or practice yoga, liken centering to engaging your core. Maintaining this posture focuses your energy. You’re more aligned, integrated, balanced, and able to gracefully and efficiently execute a wide range of motion and change.
Alternatively, assume you’re the kind of person who knows your strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. You make choices and build your life around this knowledge. In this case, your alignment results in clear mental and emotional awareness and focus, an excellent vantage point for personal reflection and decision-making.
What are the benefits of centering?
The benefits of centering are enumerable, partly because many are difficult to directly perceive, ineffable, or unmeasurable. Nevertheless, some notable benefits include:
- Greater ability to focus and concentrate
- More clarity of thought and beliefs
- Greater emotional intelligence and awareness
- Easier access to embodied wisdom
- Greater authenticity in reflection, choices, and actions
- Greater self-confidence
- Enhanced ability to achieve and restore grounding and balance
- Enhanced capacity to cultivate presence and flow
- Improved energetic flow and spiritual connection
- More mind-body-spirit integration and wellness
- Improved posture and breath
- More flexible, graceful, and efficient movement
- Reduction of pain associated with poor posture and body mechanics
The balance and alignment challenge
Like all bodily and energetic states, balance and alignment are allusive and once attained only temporary. In actuality, the aim is to attune to this dynamic and foster resilience.
In other words, being centered is an ongoing fluid process. Having the tools to realign and balance is thus key.
How to get centered
You have many tools to help you stay aligned and centered. Most don’t cost you a cent. Consider these and explore others on your own.
- Breath work with or without accompanying guided meditation that aims to activate and clear the central light column and chakras, release energy blocks, and create flow
- Meditation
- Energy healing and attunements
- Journal writing, particularly reflective and automatic (stream of consciousness) writing
- Balancing exercises
- Yoga
- Thought work to clear limiting beliefs
- Inner work such as Focusing and Internal Family Systems
- Gratitude practices
- Listening without judgment of yourself and others
Get centered with the help of grounding and your heart center
No doubt, you recognize at least a few of the above practices. You might already happily partake in a couple. Or, maybe you experimented with and rejected a few others. Most definitely, centering takes conscious awareness and effort.
The support of grounding
This is where grounding comes in. It helps you center to get what you want. The anchor offers you a deep source of personal energy, courage, confidence, and safety to preserve through the challenges of thought work and inner work as well as the patience for meditation, and conscious non-judgmental listening, for example.
The support of your heart center
A good practice to draw upon at any time is to listen inside yourself and, in particular, listen to your heart center. This is not a cognitive or thinking process. It’s sensing: noticing and discovering the sensations within.
When you sense greater openness and ease, move into it. When you sense tightening, discomfort, or unease, move away. It may not be possible to take action immediately. However, even the act of noticing brings you closer to new opportunities and change.
Patricia Bonnard, PhD, ACC is a Master energy healer, embodied practitioner, and spiritual life coach. She blends her modalities in ways that best suit her clients' unique needs and preferences. She offers Starchaser Integrated Coaching and Energy Healing.