Sometimes I am so ungrounded that I feel like I am going to float away. I am a very idealistic person with 1000 different ideas flying through my brain a minute for ways that the world could or should work better, big idea things that I should do, different things that could be designed better, projects I have been meaning to get to, places I want to go. This is great, I love the way my brain works, but sometimes I have to remind myself to come back down to earth. Being unsettled is..unsettling.

There are a lot of lifestyle choices I have made that have made it so that my life is particularly ungrounded right now. I live in England, and while it feels like home my accent is always there to remind me that I am far away from my real “home”. It seems like every other weekend I fly to someplace different for work or for fun. Travel is my life, but the combination of not having a strong home base and traveling means that I need to pay extra attention to finding a strong center and roots.

A lot of Millennials would share this sort of feeling of ungroundedness, particularly in my group of travel-hungry/company-starting/big ideas friends. We have created lives for ourselves that fundamentally don’t have strings - purposeful, generational or by accident many of us are lone-rangers in an exciting but unbounded life. I don’t have a family of my own. I don’t own a house. I don’t even own a car. I do have some houseplants that I routinely kill by overwatering or underwatering. I probably shouldn’t get a dog.

With such a flighty lifestyle, how can one find some roots? In the next week on Instagram I will be posting about how I am working on this, feel free to follow me @tegan.bukowski. Here are some tips that I will be trying to follow.

1. Create a Schedule and Stick to It!
I have a hard time sticking to a schedule because if I am not working late in the architecture studio, I am out at a party or an event. But I also love to wake up early. So I end up having an odd sleeping schedule throughout the week. This is highly ungrounding. Try to sleep at least 7 hours a night, and find a schedule that works best for you. I have decided that I am going to try to go to sleep before midnight and wake before 7.

2. Meditate
Try a standing (or seated on a chair with your feet flat on the ground) meditation where you can begin to imagine roots growing from your feet. Start by calming your breath and relaxing your body starting from your head and moving down, ending with your feet. Feel the energy from your body, from each breath moving down through your entire body and moving out of your feet, creating the roots that reach down into the earth.

3. Drink lots of water, less caffeine
Caffeine is basically like cocaine but more legal with less cartels. Yeah I am completely addicted to coffee and have recently become equally addicted to tea (which means that now caffeine flows into my body all day long like I am on a drip which is great except my left eye has been twitching for 8 weeks.) Water is the element from the earth that we are composed of..your body deserves a proper replenishment anyway. So replace your morning coffee with hot water and lemon juice and try to replace an afternoon tea with a big glass of water.

4. Wear or Place Red on Root Chakra
This one comes from Millana. Red is a grounding color, by placing it near your root Chakra or even on your feet can be helpful. Break out those red undies and socks!

5. Eat Grounding Foods
Eating can be very grounding. Try to eat at similar times every day and don’t ever skip meals! Fasting and dieting can feel ungrounding. This doesn’t mean you should be unhealthy! Ayurvedic practitioners often cite root veggies as a grounding foods…which makes sense I guess. Try to eat some roasted root vegetables or make a squash soup. I made a squash, pumpkin, carrot, fennel and sweet potato soup last night that I will be having over the next week.

6. Get in touch with your family - they are your roots!
Give ’em a call! That simple. They miss you. You miss them. They are your people-roots!

7. Write in a journal, reflect
In addition to a daily gratitude practice, it is great to write a one or two page free flowing thought journal. Just write whatever comes to mind filling two pages (or one page) of your journal either first thing in the morning or right before you go to bed.

8. Salt bath
Salt of the earth! Take a relaxing bath with bath salts and let yourself melt back to earth. Taking a bath can be like returning to the womb for a few minutes..what could be more grounding than that? Swap your quick shower for a bath with candles.

9. Work Out
Get in touch with your body to release your mind! Even if you cant find time to get to the gym, go for a walk for five minutes and think about every part of your foot touching the ground. Or if you can’t walk for any reason, find some activity where you can move with deliberation.

About Tegan

Tegan is a vinyasa yoga teacher, architect and product designer, insatiable traveler, and co-founder of SERENE.