Grounding: What Is It? Can It Help?
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Have you ever reacted to something someone said or did and after it was all over thought to yourself — “Why did I…” or “I should have…”? Our emotional responses have helped us survive since the caveman days however, since that is no longer the era we live in — we may need to upgrade some of our emotional software, especially in recovery! The purpose of grounding is to support the act of reducing overwhelming feelings, the recognition of the ability to manage those feelings, and help create time to cope with the event or feeling.
Grounding is a term that is often used when people talk about coping skills or ways to deal with overwhelming emotions. By using grounding techniques we can move our attention from internal overwhelming emotions to our outside world. Many folks have labeled this activity almost like changing the ‘tv channel’. This allows people in early recovery and anyone dealing with strong emotions in general to give themselves some space. Creating space between whatever triggered those feelings and coming up with a solution to cope with our emotional responses can make all the difference in living a healthy and balanced life.
Types of Grounding
Grounding can be split into multiple categories: soothing, physical, or mental grounding. These techniques focus on specific formats and support the creation of ‘space’ to think prior to responding. A great way to check if grounding can work for you is to rate your feelings on a scale of 1–10 prior to trying some of these techniques and then checking what that number is after trying a few of them out. Remember that we are keeping our eyes open while we practice these techniques as this allows us to focus on the outside world.
Some mental grounding techniques are:
Naming as many cities as you can…Naming as many countries as you can…Naming as many colors as you can see…Naming as many objects as you can see around you…
Some physical grounding techniques are:
Place your feet on the ground, focus on them being physically grounded to the floor…Place palms together, elbows out to the side, squeeze hands together focusing on your palms for a few seconds…Hold an ice cube in your hand…Hand squeeze an orange (with the peel on)…
Some soothing grounding techniques are:
Think of your favorite person, this can be someone you know or even a celebrity, visualize their smile or their face…Think of your favorite place, think of the colors, the textures, the smells and what makes it your favorite place…
I hope some of these exercises are helpful to you as they have become paramount to my recovery. Remember, grounding is not a relaxation technique, rather, it is a highly engaging skill which can be strengthened the more you practice. It works by staying distracted from those powerful internal feelings while connecting to the outside world. With practice comes progress and with progress there’s always hope and opportunity.
