4 WAYS TO CENTER YOURSELF (BECAUSE WE’RE GOING TO BE HERE FOR AWHILE)
Four months into quarantine, I’ve stopped kicking and screaming.
That early pandemic energy — giant midmorning cocktails, Instagram bingo cards, back-to-back Zoom calls — has evaporated as though it were the morning after the weirdest possible sleepover. There’s a living room to clean, guests to send home, midnight divulgences to recall, a burgeoning afternoon to contend with.
And there’s you, too tired from the night before to do much of anything (let alone anything chaotic), but scattered and restless.
If you, like me, have finally fully internalized the we’re-going-to-be-here-for-a-while-ness of it all and you’re trying to figure out a longer-term coping strategy, allow me to suggest centering.
Maybe you’ve already heard of grounding, the practice of anchoring yourself within your present environment.
Centering, by comparison, is more like an Easter egg hunt where the eggs you’re gathering are your own attention, energy, and feelings. It’s a great tool to use when you’re feeling directionless or unsure of how you want to proceed in a situation.
Everybody’s brains and bodies are unique, and what ultimately works for you could be totally different, but here are some basic techniques to try.
Breathwork is by far the most popular form of centering and one of the easier methods to get the hang of. As the name would suggest, it’s a practice that involves slowing down and breathing with intention, focusing on the movement of air through the core of your body. It’s often combined with meditation, but it’s a great standalone exercise, too.
Visualization takes many forms, but when you’re trying to get centered, it’s helpful to imagine bringing energy inward. Picture your body as though it were a newly sprouted plant with a sprawling root system. Imagine pulling your energy through those roots and gathering it at the base of the plant. Once you’ve collected all of it, visualize using it to push upward and outward.
Balancing sounds simple, but it’s a great way to locate your center of gravity and find some stability in the process. On the journey to a successful tree pose, you’ll be forced to bring your awareness to your center and figure out how to support yourself.
Brain Dumping isn’t an official term, but it is my favorite technique for centering. Grab something to write on (I’m partial to a good legal pad) and something to write with (I highly recommend Sharpies!) and start writing down everything that’s swirling around in your brain. Don’t worry about structure or organization (you fix that later), just keep going until it’s all out of your head and on the page. Even then, give yourself an extra 5-10 minutes for that inevitable handful of things you almost forgot. Once the dump is complete, re-organize it in a way that makes sense to you. For me, this is the mental equivalent of tapping a stack of loose papers against a desk and watching them fall into place.