Have you ever noticed how amazing it feels to walk barefoot on fresh grass, or sink your toes into sand on a beach? This isn’t just a a ‘feel good’ moment; you’re actually Earthing!

Science shows that when we ditch the shoes, it’s like plugging our body into nature’s Wifi, for better health, better sleep and a whole lot of ‘feel-good’ energy.

While it may sound too good to be true, the simple act of standing barefoot on the Earth can calm our nervous system and supercharge our health!

So if your shoes have been secretly blocking your connection to Mother Earth’s healing magic, then let today’s episode of I Love Me The Podcast, be the encouragement you need to get your feet dirty and your energy clean!

When was the last time you kicked off your shoes and actually walked barefoot on the Earth?

If it’s been a while, don’t worry – you’re not alone.

It’s really easy to get in the habit of wearing shoes all the time.

But while shoes are there to protect our feet, they also cut off our connection to the very planet we live on.

A planet that supplies us with life-affirming energy, so we can live healthier, happier lives.

We’ll go into the details of how that happens shortly, but let me begin by sharing a little about the time I started to feel ungrounded… unearthed…

When my little family decided to move from our Dandenong Ranges rainforest home in Australia, to the cute little city of Rennes in France back in 2019, we decided to try out a different way of living.

We moved into a sixth floor apartment on the doorstep of the old city, so everything was no more than a short stroll away.

We didn’t need a car.

Life was much easier.

All the outside upkeep we had, was a very small balcony where my son and I grew flowers, herbs, tomatoes and strawberries.

We even put down some fake grass, to help it feel like we had our very own nature spot, and would often sit there in the afternoon for gouter; afternoon tea.

It seemed like a nice little setup, and it certainly allowed us the cultural experience we’d hoped for.

The one problem was this subtle sense of feeling uneasy in my body.

To begin with, I just thought it was new mum tiredness.

But I noticed that when I was out at a park playing in the sandpit with my son or running barefoot on the grass, that feeling of unease was no longer there.

Within hours of returning home to our apartment, that uneasy feeling would return.

It wasn’t strong, but there was this feeling of being ungrounded.

Like my body wasn’t quite functioning optimally, but there was no signs to suggest there was anything to be majorly concerned about.

It was around this time that my mother-in-law sent me a link for a documentary called The Earthing Movie.

Within minutes of turning the movie on, I was reminded of something that had been so important to me in the past.

Something that was difficult to explore fully, while living inside a sixth floor apartment!

Earthing.

Although, I’d never really placed a name on it… until then…

I quickly realise that Earthing had been something that had been calling to me, since forever, being out in nature, feeling nature…

I remember as a child painting my body in mud…

It’s one of my favourite childhood memories.

Yet here I was, up in the sky, away from the very Earth that made me feel so at home in my body.

So what is this Earthing thing exactly?

The simple premise is this:

By planting your bare feet on the ground, your body will start to heal itself.

Now, for the conditioned, skeptical mind, this can sound way too simple.

If this is true, then why isn’t everyone doing it?

Well…

That’s because as a society we’ve been conditioned away from the most natural, and most powerful healing medicines…

Think about it…

Back before our grand-parents, people tended to have a much closer relationship to the land.

Rewind a little further, and you have tribes living off the land.

Disease and illness were not nearly as prevalent then.

There weren’t as many daily stressors, and people were able to reconnect and ground themselves, when they did experience a stressor.

These days, however, we drive in cars, we live in houses… and when we leave either of those, it’s with rubber soled shoes on our feet.

People can go for months without even touching the Earth we live upon.

We are organisms that live and grow and depend entirely on the Earth while we’re alive.

We eat food that comes from the Earth, so the Earth becomes us.

When we eat a plant, its nutrition nourishes us, its matter becomes our matter, and the wisdom of that plant grows within us.

Yet, we have completely isolated ourself from the very Earth that is us.

We’re so disconnected from it, that our bodies start to deteriorate, because one of the nutrients we need from Mother Earth, is energy.

Mother Earth is endowed with electrons.

These electrons are literally absorbed through our feet, or whichever part of the body that’s touching the earth.

Every time we touch our body to the Earth, a surge of electrons rushes up into us, quenching free radicals and stimulating mitochondrial function.

This helps our body regenerate itself so we feel enlivened.

Yes, our body becomes saturated with these electrons, so fast, that it’s hard to measure.

And these electrons support the organs down to the tissues and the cellular function of the entire body.

All of the systems in the body go to balance, when you’re grounded.

Grounding pioneer, Clint Ober, and author of the book Earthing, was in the cable industry and learnt that just as cables need to be grounded before you run them into a house – to avoid electrical disasters – so too do people need to be grounded.

In fact, he claims we need to be grounded as much as we need air and sunshine!

For without it, we start to get sick.

We humans absorb a tremendous amount of electric charge through all of the electromagnetic devices we use; phones, computers, wifi, wiring in our homes, and on it goes.

If we’re not earthing ourself on a regular basis, those charges are not being neutralised.

Some people have as much as 20 volts in their bodies, which is not good for a person.

We need to have negative charge.

Lucky for us, the Earth has a built in system to ground our bodies.

The surface of the Earth is electrically conductive, so wherever you are, you’re collecting electrons that came from the Earth.

And the really cool thing is, that all we need to do is plant our bare feet on the ground, to tap into the negative ion reservoir of the planet we live upon.

Now this isn’t just some woo woo idea!

We can actually use reading metres to see that when a person stands on Earth barefoot, they become a conductor for the Earth’s energetic frequencies.

There are actually 21 studies – peer reviewed – that have shown the effectiveness of Earthing.

Unfortunately, as a society we accidentally disconnected from the Earth.

We started spending more time inside.

We started wearing shoes to protect our feet, not realising that we were disconnecting ourself from the Earth’s charge.

A charge that’s necessary for the optimal functioning of our body.

Many people have become so fearful of stepping on sharp glass or a bee, that they don’t dare leave their house without shoes on.

Safety aside, shoes have become a fashion statement!

Yet, shoes haven’t always been such a big part of our culture…

In 1960 synthetic materials were invented, and the first thing that happened with this, was putting synthetic rubber on the soles of shoes.

People started wearing sneakers.

Just look around…

95% of people now walk on the Earth, insulated.

Cut off from the magnetic field of the Earth.

Clint Ober believes that, ‘This is the single thing that happened that probably caused the proliferation of inflammation related health disorders, far and above anything else.’

He says ’The most destructive invention that man ever made was the synthetic sole shoe’.

Think about it…

We wake up in an ungrounded bed, we walk around in an ungrounded house, we put on our shoes which disconnect us from the Earth, we drive to work or school in an ungrounded car, and then we stay inside all day, and we do all this, without any grounding.

The best thing you can do as soon as you wake up, is get outside and stand on the Earth barefoot for 15-minutes.

Earthing yourself.

You might like to consider it as your daily pill for health and longevity.

What do you do, if you live in a really cold environment where it’s impossible to spend large amounts of time barefoot, or you live a busy office-desk lifestyle that makes if tricky to get outside?

You can buy Earthing pads and bed sheets, so you can be Earthing while inside.

Personally, I prefer to feel the grass between my toes, it’s free and readily available…

… but we all need to work with where we’re at.

Ok… now you know what’s going on when you stand on the ground bare foot…

Let’s look at the benefits of Earthing?

Apart from generally just feeling better – both emotionally and physically – and feeling more connected….

Your nervous system starts to regulate, your brain waves slow down, bringing you out of trauma loops, so that addictive impulses and worry patterns start to dissolve.

After being grounded, people sleep better…

There are many many reports of seemingly incurable diseases starting to heal…

Pain and swelling reduce…

How is this even possible?

It’s because chronic inflammation is behind so many illnesses and diseases.

So when a person experiences a complaint in the body, often there is chronic inflammation in the body.

Yet here’s the thing…

If the body is grounded you can’t have inflammation.

Clint Ober goes more into the science behind this in the movie, if you want a more in depth understanding of it.

But in a nutshell…

When people are sick, Earthing reduces inflammation, so the person can work with a significantly increased immune system.

As soon as you get grounded the first thing that happens is that you quiet the sympathetic nervous system so the adrenals can recover.

Adrenal fatigue is the precursor to many issues including weight gain.

You need to get the pain, anxiety, irritability and overwhelm out of the body, and then the body can do what it does best, self-heal.

What I really want to highlight here, is that:

Good health is not something we need to make happen.

When we plug back into our source, into Mother Earth, then we sync up with our natural rhythms and flow.

We receive healing medicine into the core of our very being, so that all systems can function well.

Now, just in case you’re wondering…

This whole ‘Earthing’ idea isn’t new.

There are athletes around the world that use Earthing to increase performance and decrease recovery time.

Before an event, they’ll stand 15 minutes barefoot on the grass to charge themselves up.

We need electrons for energy, right?

Not only does Earthing give them better energy and endurance so they perform better…

If they fall or hurt themselves, they don’t experience inflammation.

See, much lower recovery time!

Now let’s look at a study done on 26 premature babies in intensive care units…

Scientists found the heart rates of the babies who were connected up to grounding wires, stabilised, and their vagal tone – a critical measure of infant health – it increased by 67% with Earthing.

Earthing was also tried on children with autism.

They found these children had less meltdowns and they learned more than they did without the grounding.

It was also found that there was half the level of need for discipline, in schools that have grounded rooms.

Pretty awesome, hey?

There is also science showing Earthing as a cure for depression.

No doubt, this is why in my 20s – when I was suffering from severe clinical depression – I would regularly escape from my busy Melbourne home to the Dandenong Ranges.

Just being in the rainforests up there, walking among the trees; it grounded me.

It helped me come back to centre.

I came from a home where there was a lot of emotional abuse.

That time that I painted myself with mud…

Upon reflection, instinctually, what I was doing was helping to bring my emotions back into balance.

To help me reconnect with that pure part of myself, that was untouchable from the mis-treatment of others.

If you’re wanting to overcome depression, have a listen to Episode 32: Bye Bye Blues where I share my journey out of depression, and the key things you need to know and do to be depression-free.

Even with my clients now, when they’re learning to tune into their inner voice, it can be hard with all the frantic energy flying about.

There’s so much disconnection going on, they can’t seem to ground into themselves.

But when people go out in nature, and plant their bare-feet on the Earth, it’s much easier to listen to that inner voice.

I talk more about that inner voice – which I call our True Self – in Episode 4.

Earthing really does help pull you back into yourself, so you can connect with yourself.

Your whole self.

So you’re not dizzy with the negative energy that life can throw at you.

We all get pulled into this disconnected way of living, and one of the easiest ways of helping us come back into ourself, is to go and connect with the Earth.

Put your bare-feet on Mother Earth so she can fill you with healing energy.

So you can come back into harmony.

When we moved from France to the UK and were looking for a pre-school for our son, it was so interesting seeing how chilled the kids were at the Forest School we enrolled him at, compared to the pre-schools where they spent most of the time inside.

All science aside…

We know we feel better, when we touch the Earth.

When we spend time in nature.

We are electrical beings, who need to be Earthed, daily.

It helps us cope inside a world that is full of stimulation that pulls our bodies out of balance.

So my invitation to you this week, is to:

Let your bare feet kiss the Earth.

If only for a minute or two, start there.

And work up to longer times.

Allow yourself to take in the electrons your body needs to come back into balance.

For the simple act of putting your feet on the Earth can give you so much emotional and physical healing.

You’re literally sucking the life energy up through your feet into your body, from your mother.

Mother Earth.

So let her nourish you.

Let her support you.

Earthing is always available to you.

It costs nothing.

So get your feet on the ground.

Just give it a go, and then do it some more.

And see what happens!

The 22nd of April is Earth Day!

If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s a global celebration dedicated to environmental awareness, sustainability, and taking action to protect our planet.

And that’s why in next week’s episode I’ll be doing something a little different.

I’ll be talking to the founder of Just One Tree, the organisation I donate a percentage of profits to, to plant trees on my and my students behalf.

If you’ve ever wondered what you can do, to help support our Earth, or how planting trees can make such a huge difference to our future and the future of our children, then I recommend listening in.

Until then, spend some time bare foot in nature, and if you’re looking for more resources to help you develop a healthy relationship with YOU, take a peak at my online school gettingnaked.com.au