Our senses are not just about what we like to eat, fragrances we like or don’t there is far more at play than this. Most of us can name the five senses. But hang on what if I told you there were not five senses but more than five. I’d like to introduce or remind you to the vestibular and the proprioception senses.

Our vestibular is about how we experience balance in our world and the proprioception is about the place of our body in the world. Obviously this is a very simplified explanation but it suffices for this particular post. In order to be really grounded we need all of these senses to be considered. If not we will experience sensory issues and this is particularly an issue for autistic people.

This post is more about a different kind of grounding, an emotional and peaceful connection with the world we inhabit. Just as one needs the physical senses to be in play in order to be grounded and able to be at their best so they need to have internal and intangible grounding in order.

The last week has been a somewhat ungrounding experience. I discovered that my dearly loved grandmother is dying. As she is in another state I felt it pretty darn important to get in the car and see her.1916992_96821001461_4509724_n

I was majorly ungrounded when I saw her. A shock to my system of experiencing the strong formidable and wonderful grandma who was my safe and loving and caring woman lying in a bed awaiting the shrugging off of her mortal coil was a shocking and destabilising experience.

I was in need of connecting emotionally with some special places. I chose to travel today to the first childhood home I really remember. It has been 40 years since setting foot on this property. It was nothing less than an amazing experience. 40 or so years ago I sat and played on this dirt patch with my bruncle. There I am on the right. You can see joy on my face. My bruncle would soon be lost to me after this moment and traumatic times would ensue.

Closure around this place and what happened there has never been able to occur. Today I visited this place again, I walked this earth. I wandered this property. I looked at these walls, I looked at this exact place. It was a highly charged moment. Tears welled and thoughts roved around my head.

20150916_0519Forty years seem a long time to leave something hanging. I guess in a sense it is. There have been many, many things over the course of living that I have reflected upon and worked through. Yet the loss that occurred at this place was not one of them.

The loss of my bruncle was something I was deeply traumatized by as a child, and something that I had inadvertently taken on some level of responsibility for and certainly was something that supplied a massive level of fear of the same occurring to me as a child.

Something happened in my heart and soul and spirit today as I walked these places. Something changed that realigned, reground my emotional systems. Enabled me to take ownership of some things without them taking ownerships of me.

I was able to take ownership of the truth that yes I am indeed my father’s son. And that means just that, and only that. It does not believe as I have allowed myself to feel that I am the embodiment and repeat of my father. No that is just ludicrous rubbish.

I have in fact received genetic material, mitochondria and chromosomes and other chemicals and genetic material. This has an impact on who I am, obviously from both my mother and my father. An example of this is being autistic. I see this played out in my offspring also.

The point is though it does not mean I will become who he is. It does not mean I must fear that in myself or in my parenting of my children. I have inherited genetic stuff, I have not inherited his choices. I have not inherited his experiences, I have not inherited his consequences.

Yes I am my father’s son. Yes I will make my life and walk onward as his son making his very own way in this big wide world in which I walk.