Grounding and centering is the absolutely essential first step for any
energy working. It's the thing that makes
sure you are pulling the energy from the Earth, instead of depleting
your own resources.

Without it, you will find yourself exhausted (or highly exhilarated)
immediately after doing work, and then
sick, headachy, dizzy, or faint afterwards. Sometimes the headache can
persist for days afterwards.

All of these are signs that something is wrong.

Fortunately, it's easy to fix! Grounding and centering is a simple thing
that is a natural ability in all of us. For
some reason (probably that it smacks of the occult) it's rarely taught
in the schools now, though. So this is your
chance to learn it here.

Sit comfortably, without any part of your body resting on any other part
(no crossed legs, etc.) and smile. (It
relaxes you wonderfully to smile.)

When you are ready, the following exercise can help you ground.

Find a picture of the Chakra system on the internet. Notice that they go up in spectral order, starting from red and going through orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo (actually a lovely, bright blue-violet, but it's called indigo anyway) and violet. The first one is red and is at the base of your torso, near your anus. The second,orange one is about the width of both hands (with fingers held together, and including your thumbs) above that. In fact, in my experience, they tend to be pretty evenly spaced, and all about two hand-spans apart. The third is at the Solar Plexus (yellow), the fourth at your heart (green), the fifth at your throat (blue), the sixth at your "third eye" (indigo) and the seventh at the crown of your head (violet.)

The point of the first part of the exercise, centering, is to line the your astral self up with your physical body so that the energy can flow freely. You do this sort of like zipping a zipper. Hold the picture firmly in your mind, and line up the two red dots, physical and etheric, front to back and side to side. As you visualize them coming together, hear the note C in your head. The first note of the scale.

Then carefully visualize all the others coming together as well, one by
one, front to back and side to side until
there is only one colored light. As you do, go on up the scale; doe,
ray, me, fa, so, la, tea, doe.

(Yes, I know I'm spelling them wrong; but many people are used to
hearing them, not seeing them written out,
and this way they will sound like they should.)

When you get to the final doe, visualize your whole body wrapped in
white light.