Breath & Energy · “Breath Is the Bridge”
Grounding & Running Energy
To feel grounded, centered, and present by ‘connecting to the earth’ and ‘running energy’ up through the body before any inner work.
Grounding & running energy in 5 lines: Stand with knees soft and breathe slowly down into the belly. Feel your feet and let a felt connection run down into the earth. Bounce gently through the bent legs to shake loose and root. Then let warmth/aliveness “run” up through legs, torso, arms and head, charging each centre. Rest standing — grounded below, open above, steady and present. The steadiness is real (posture, breath, movement, attention); the “energy current” is a felt metaphor, not measured.
What it is
Before reading or working on anyone’s “energy field,” Barbara Brennan taught the practitioner to first ground themselves and “run energy” — a foundational self-practice of getting steady, centered, and present in one’s own body.
In her model, “grounding” means feeling energetically connected down through the legs into the earth, and “running energy” means letting a felt current flow up through the body and limbs so the person feels charged, alert, and present rather than scattered.
In Hands of Light (1987) this appears as “physical exercises to open and charge chakras,” “breathing and posture exercises to charge and open chakras,” and a “vibrating exercise for grounding.” It is the everyday self-care step Brennan insists comes first — distinct from the healer-on-client scanning-and-charging session.
It operationalises focused attention (The Inner Creates the Outer) and the felt-sense as the working medium (The Inner Creates the Outer).
The Method
A faithful outline of Brennan’s grounding-and-running self-practice:
- Stand and soften. Stand with feet roughly hip-width, knees slightly bent and unlocked, weight even. Let the spine lengthen and the shoulders drop.
- Breathe down into the belly. Take slow, full breaths into the lower abdomen, letting the exhale settle you downward into your feet.
- Feel the feet and “send energy down.” Bring attention to the soles; imagine/feel a connection running from your feet down into the earth — Brennan’s “grounding,” giving a felt anchor.
- The vibrating / grounding exercise. With knees soft, let a gentle bounce or tremor move through the bent legs (Brennan’s “vibrating exercise for grounding”), shaking off tension and intensifying the felt sense of the legs and feet.
- Run energy upward. Once grounded, let attention and breath carry a felt “charge” up from the feet through the legs, torso, arms and head — Brennan’s “running energy,” felt as warmth, tingling, or aliveness moving up.
- Charge and open the centres. With breath and posture, attend up the midline of the body, “charging and opening” each centre in turn, pausing to feel each one fill.
- Rest centered. Stand still and feel the whole body lit, grounded below and open above — steady, present, and calm. Brennan urged giving yourself “regular private time” to inhabit this state. (This is a faithful description of Brennan’s taught sequence — ground, vibrate, run energy, charge the centres — not a reproduction of her copyrighted instructions or figures.)
Source & Lineage
Barbara Brennan (1939–2022) trained as a physicist and worked at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center before turning to healing; she drew her grounding-and-charging exercises from bioenergetics (Lowen, Pierrakos) — where bent-knee standing and “vibrating”/bouncing to discharge tension and feel “grounded” are core — woven together with Theosophical/yogic chakra anatomy.
She set these self-practices out in Hands of Light (1987) and taught them at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing.
The Traditions' versions
Bioenergetics (Lowen/Pierrakos) — bent-knee “grounding” and vibrating to feel rooted and charged (Brennan’s direct source).
- Qigong / “rooting” — sinking into bent knees, sensing qi to the feet and earth.
- Quantum-Touch energy running — breath-driven “running energy” through the body.
- Therapeutic Touch centering — settling and centering before hands-on work.
- Reiki self-treatment / gassho — self-grounding before treating others.
Common refinements
Locking the knees. Stiff legs kill the grounded feel; keep knees soft and springy throughout.
- Forcing the breath. Strained breathing raises arousal; keep it slow, full and easy.
- Chasing tingles. Striving to “feel energy” creates tension; let sensation arise on its own as the body relaxes.
- Skipping grounding and going straight to “running energy.” Brennan grounds first; without it the practice feels floaty and ungathered.
- Treating it as the goal rather than the prep. This is the centering step before inner or hands-on work, not a cure in itself.