Ungrounded despite grounding – is this a mismatch?

[kakapo]

3 hours ago, Cobie said:

 

What does that mean “sung”?

 

 

 

I think he is referring to mental massage, letting the tension from every muscle and joint go, and completely relaxing the mind and body. 

[kakapo]

3 hours ago, Cobie said:

 

Why?  Why make yourselves unbalanced? 

 

 

Let's think about what it actually means to be in perfect balance with your environment.

 

Picture a rock floating through deep space. Eventually, that rock will cool down until its temperature is close to absolute zero. At that point, the rock is perfectly balanced with its freezing surroundings, but it certainly is not alive.

 

To be alive is to constantly fight against being in balance with your environment.

 

Think about how energy flows to make this happen. Plants harvest sunlight and store it as chemical energy. Then, we eat those plants to borrow that stored energy for ourselves.

 

We put that energy to work in all sorts of active ways:

 

To repair old cells and build new ones.

 

To keep our bodies warm.

 

To fuel our brains and muscles so we can think and move.

 

If we ever reached perfect balance with our environment, all of that active work would stop. Just like the rock in space, we would have no energy left to keep going.

 

Imagine pushing this idea even further and pulling in vastly more energy than a normal organism ever could.

[Apech]

3 hours ago, Cobie said:

 

What does that mean “sung”?

 

 

 

**"Sung the body"** (often just "sung") refers to a core principle in Tai Chi and Qigong, where "sung" (鬆, sōng) means a deep, controlled release of tension throughout the body.[1][3]

## Core Meaning
Sung goes beyond surface-level relaxation; it's about loosening joints from within, stretching tissues like rubber for elasticity without limpness or stiffness. This creates space for qi (energy) to flow freely, maintaining upright posture while feeling energized and alert.[2][5][1]

## In Practice
Visualize elongating your spine, opening elbows, wrists, hips, and knees outward to release bound tension down to the bones. Practitioners describe it as yielding to gravity and heaven, mentally and physically, like a baby's natural softness.[3][1][2]

## Benefits
Achieving sung improves flexibility, balance, and internal power (like "peng jing"), while reducing stress that blocks qi. It's foundational, practiced in stages from limbs to full-body-and-mind integration.

[justjoseph]

7 hours ago, Apech said:

 

**"Sung the body"** (often just "sung") refers to a core principle in Tai Chi and Qigong, where "sung" (鬆, sōng) means a deep, controlled release of tension throughout the body.[1][3]

## Core Meaning
Sung goes beyond surface-level relaxation; it's about loosening joints from within, stretching tissues like rubber for elasticity without limpness or stiffness. This creates space for qi (energy) to flow freely, maintaining upright posture while feeling energized and alert.[2][5][1]

## In Practice
Visualize elongating your spine, opening elbows, wrists, hips, and knees outward to release bound tension down to the bones. Practitioners describe it as yielding to gravity and heaven, mentally and physically, like a baby's natural softness.[3][1][2]

## Benefits
Achieving sung improves flexibility, balance, and internal power (like "peng jing"), while reducing stress that blocks qi. It's foundational, practiced in stages from limbs to full-body-and-mind integration.

You don't visualise anything, it is physical, if you visualise then you use the mind and you don't achieve song. The body should be put in the correct position then constantly released within that position. That is what song is. 

[Apech]

50 minutes ago, justjoseph said:

You don't visualise anything, it is physical, if you visualise then you use the mind and you don't achieve song. The body should be put in the correct position then constantly released within that position. That is what song is. 

That was from AI I confess.  Yes I agree no visualization.

[justjoseph]

14 hours ago, Apech said:

That was from AI I confess.  Yes I agree no visualization.

Good man for being honest. Rely your brain Apech lest you lose it.

Edited 21 hours ago by justjoseph

[Apech]

10 minutes ago, justjoseph said:

Good man for being honest. Use your brain Apech lest you lose it.

You haven’t seen the state of my brain.

[justjoseph]

58 minutes ago, Apech said:

You haven’t seen the state of my brain.

I haven't seen the state of my own.

[ChiDragon]

23 hours ago, Cobie said:

What does that mean “sung”?

 

It means try to relax with no tension on the muscles.

[Apech]

22 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

 

It means try to relax with no tension on the muscles.

With no tension you would collapse onto the floor.

[Taomeow]

 

 

Edited 21 hours ago by Taomeow

[ChiDragon]

14 hours ago, Apech said:

With no tension you would collapse onto the floor.

 

Yes, you would be a genius, that was why I said try.

 

Edited 10 hours ago by ChiDragon

[kakapo]

6 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

 

Yes, you would be a genius, that was why I said try.

 

 

 

 

Edited 8 hours ago by kakapo

[Kati]

On 17.2.2026 at 7:28 AM, Gerard said:

Grounding as in keeping the Qi down and making sure Earth Qi is rising (digestive processes and to counter act Wood controlling the Earth ---> Wu Xing theory) and to prevent Liver Yang Rising.

 

My previous post is to illustrate Kati what grounding really means. 

guess what i made some progress with grounding. my feet and legs feel like three trunks- when i do qigong and in general. of course some days it is a bit stronger or weaker.
but now i wonder, what can i do to feel the grounding also hip upwards? you guys seem to know a lot about this, do you have any ideas?

 

[Kati]

On 21.2.2026 at 10:26 PM, markern said:

Springforest includes visualization does it not? That in itself can be somewhat ungrounding. 

I would just drop the spring forest practices until this issue is resolved and temporarily focus on getting the grounding sorted first.

Consider if maybe you need some psychological work/therapy to help with this issue. My observation has been that for some people energetic solutions aren't always sufficient if the imbalances are caused by strong underlying psychological issues. Then it is often necessary to always work in a more psychological way. Talk therapy, bodywork or more self enquiry types of practices or nervous system regulation practices. Human connection is often needed to make things move.

Say for example that the reason you got ungrounded initially was because childhood trauma made you dissociate from the body or have a fight response in your nervous system (which is also ungrounding). If you then start doing grounding techniques that may sometimes be sufficient and can even help resolve the trauma but it may also be insufficient because the wounded parts of you simply refuses to let go of its protective strategies just because you do exercises that bring energy down. Those parts of you may not feel safe enough to allow you to get back into the body unless they feel more safe. And that feeling of safety may require talking to another person. Or at least looking directly at the psychological knot causing the ungroundedness.

Not saying this is the case but I think it is worth checking in with yourself about. 

If you want to get the grounding sorted you could do something like this:

Do an internal martial art like Tai Chi. It is very grounding. It both gets you deeply in contact with your feet and your stability on the ground and with your dan tien.

Do standing meditation. I find it to be supremely grounding.

Do deep earth pulsing. A very simple and gentle grounding qigong you can find instructions for on YouTube.

Do Damo Mitchells anchoring the breath practice. It is meant to really anchor your awareness and energy and breath in the dan tien. Which grounds you. He has two videos on YouTube with instructions.

Maybe add some squats and walks in the forrest.

Maybe do walking meditation.

You could also maybe add some more general practices like the eight brocades and five animals. They are not especially grounding but more overall balancing (which also means somewhat grounding). Just so not everything you do is super earth focused but a bit more "even".

You could also consider trying Primordial Qigong/Wuji Gong/Tai Chi for Enlightenment (different teachers have different names for it). I find Primordial to be both extremely grounding while also gradually awakening higher energy centers. It kinda awakens one to deep witnessing states and more "heavenly" aspects of practice while integrating that into the body and into life instantly. 

wow amazing thank you  for taking time to share all this helpful ideas