Tuning in to Gravity
Gravity matters. Not simply to keep us physically grounded here on Earth, but, at a fundamental level, our relationship with gravity affects our lives from start to finish. We start life floating in amniotic fluids. It’s easy to assume a sense of buoyancy, free from gravity’s impact. Yet, gravity is necessary for our physiological development during the second half of our lives in the womb (Sekulic’, Lukac, and Naumovic, 2005). We sense gravity’s force from birth forward as we experience our verticality. Standing upright, we learn to manage the polarity of motion and stability. As primary resources develop, such as grounding, balancing, orienting, centering, and more, we build the capacity to orient to the space around us.
According to Darrell Sanchez, Ph.D., “Our verticality relates to our sense of security. The ability to orient vertically to our environment enables us to see the full 360 degrees of our surroundings to identify and distinguish between threat and safety to determine if we should approach or avoid a situation. Successful orienting from functional verticality combines our internal proprioception system with the perception of information from the environment. Well-being and confidence follow from this success as we connect to a more profound, fuller sense of ourselves” (Sanchez & Gettliffe, 2016).