Many defended individuals exist in a state of being chronically "ungrounded." The person is living in their head, disconnected from their body, lacking a felt sense of physical support or stability. The ungrounded person often reports feeling floaty, disconnected from reality, unable to feel their feet or legs. The ungrounded person's attention is focused upward — in thought, in analysis, in cognitive activity — rather than downward into the body and into connection with the earth.
This ungroundedness is often a defense. The person whose body is unsafe or unreliable has learned to escape the body by focusing attention elsewhere. The person whose lower body is particularly defended (pelvic armor, tension in the legs, restriction in the feet) often does this by shifting attention entirely to the head.
The consequences are significant: the person who is ungrounded is more vulnerable to anxiety, panic, and dissociation. The person is more vulnerable to injury because the person does not have full awareness of their body in space. The person is more vulnerable to manipulation and violation because the person is not fully present in their body and therefore cannot feel warning signals that would trigger self-protection. The person is more vulnerable to poor health decisions because the person is not in close communication with the body's needs and signals.
The grounding exercise in bioenergetic therapy is a simple but powerful practice. The person stands with feet slightly apart, knees slightly bent, feet parallel and pointing forward. The person consciously feels the weight of the body shifting into the feet and into the earth. The person visualizes roots growing from the feet into the earth. The person breathes into the lower body, allowing sensation and aliveness to move down into the pelvis, legs, and feet.
As the person practices grounding, several things typically happen: the person becomes more aware of sensation in the lower body; the person becomes more aware of blockages or areas of numbness; the person may experience emotion emerging as the lower body becomes alive again. As grounding deepens, the person's sense of stability increases, the person's presence in the room changes, the person's voice becomes more grounded (less higher-pitched, more resonant).
The practice is deceptively simple. But the effects can be profound. As the person becomes more grounded, the person's capacity to set boundaries increases, the person's ability to feel and express anger increases, the person's sexual aliveness often increases. The lower body is the foundation of autonomy and power. When the person is grounded, these capacities become accessible.
From a nervous system perspective, grounding work activates and strengthens the dorsal vagal complex and the pelvic parasympathetic system. The lower body is the seat of the parasympathetic outflow from the sacral spine (the sacral parasympathetic outflow). When the person is truly grounded, the parasympathetic system is activated in the lower body, creating a sense of safety and support.
The defended person often has disrupted parasympathetic outflow in the lower body. The pelvis is armored, the connection between the head and the body is interrupted. Grounding work restores this connection. The person's nervous system learns that the lower body is safe, that sensation in the lower body is tolerable, that the person can trust the support of the earth and the foundation of their own legs.
Somatic medicine recognizes that the body has proprioceptive awareness — the capacity to sense position, movement, and location in space. Proprioceptive awareness is centered in the lower body and develops through feeling the ground beneath the feet, through movement, through the vestibular system's awareness of balance and gravity.
Neurology reveals that proprioceptive awareness is connected to vagal tone and parasympathetic function. The vagus nerve carries proprioceptive information from the body back to the brain. The person with poor proprioceptive awareness (who is ungrounded, who does not have a felt sense of their body in space) also has lower vagal tone and less parasympathetic capacity. The person is more vulnerable to sympathetic dominance and all its consequences.
The handshake reveals that grounding is not just a psychological or somatic practice; it is a neurological intervention that upgrades proprioceptive awareness and vagal tone. Each time the person stands grounded and feels their feet on the earth, the person is activating the proprioceptive system and strengthening vagal function. Over time, this creates a baseline shift toward more parasympathetic tone and greater capacity for both calm and appropriate activation.
Developmental psychology recognizes that the capacity for autonomy develops when the child has a secure physical and emotional foundation. The child who is grounded physically (who can count on the ground beneath them) and emotionally (who can count on the parent's presence and reliability) develops a sense of agency and power.
Biomechanics reveals that power and stability are generated from the lower body. The person who stands on weak or ungrounded legs cannot generate power. The person must feel the support of the earth through the feet and legs in order to generate the force for pushing off, for standing firm against opposition, for asserting boundaries.
The handshake reveals that the defended person's ungroundedness is not accidental. The person who has experienced violation of boundaries, who has not been able to assert their needs, who is afraid of their own power and anger, often disconnects from the lower body to avoid activating that power and anger. By grounding themselves, the person is literally reconnecting to the source of their power, their capacity to say no, their capacity to stand firm.
Trauma-informed practice recognizes that trauma dysregulates the nervous system, pushing it into either hyperarousal (sympathetic dominance, panic, rage) or hypoarousal (parasympathetic collapse, dissociation, numbness). The person's window of tolerance — the range of arousal in which they can function optimally — becomes very narrow.
Polyvagal theory (Porges) describes the vagal system as having multiple layers of control. The ventral vagal system (the newer, socially engaged branch) is responsible for calm, connected states. The dorsal vagal system (the older, more primitive branch) is responsible for shutdown and dissociation. When someone is grounded and present in their lower body, they are typically in ventral vagal activation — calm but engaged, socially available but self-contained.
The handshake reveals that grounding work restores the window of tolerance by helping the person maintain ventral vagal tone even when challenged. The grounded person can feel fear or anger without being overwhelmed by it. The grounded person can assert boundaries without losing connection to the body or to their sense of self.
Lowen's development of the grounding exercise as a foundational bioenergetic practice converges with contemporary understanding of proprioceptive awareness, vagal tone, and the nervous system's need for a sense of physical support and safety. Both frameworks recognize that the lower body is not just a physical foundation but a nervous system foundation for parasympathetic activation and felt safety.
Where Lowen diverges from much contemporary psychology is in his specific recognition of the connection between being grounded physically and being grounded psychologically. Modern psychology often addresses psychological grounding (being present, being connected to the here-and-now) without recognizing the somatic dimension. Lowen's observation is that the psychological grounding emerges from and is dependent on physical grounding. You cannot be fully present psychologically if your nervous system is not grounded in the lower body.
Contemporary somatic and trauma-informed approaches increasingly validate this insight. Grounding practices have become central to trauma treatment precisely because they address both the nervous system and the sense of safety simultaneously. The person who can feel their feet on the ground, who can feel the support of the earth, who can sense the lower body's aliveness, has an embodied sense of safety that no amount of cognitive reassurance can provide.
You may be living in your head, disconnected from your body, unaware of the ground beneath your feet. This disconnection feels safe — it is a way of escaping the unsafe body. But the disconnection has a cost. You are vulnerable, unaware, unable to fully access your own power and presence. You are also unable to fully access your joy, your sexuality, your aliveness.
Grounding yourself means reconnecting to the body you have avoided. It means feeling sensation and emotion in the lower body that may have been numb or defended for years. It means accessing the power and presence that comes from feeling truly supported by the earth and by yourself.
Right now, as you sit or stand, can you feel your feet on the ground? Can you sense the support beneath you?
What happens in your body and your sense of self when you consciously shift your attention from your head down into your feet and legs?
If you felt fully grounded and supported by the earth, what becomes possible for you?