No. 5 - Bringing Mindfulness into Daily Living: GROUNDING
Continuing with the topic of bringing mindfulness into daily activities, I would like to focus on a very powerful technique called grounding.
At times we may find that our feelings, thoughts, bodily sensations or memories are so strong, we feel overwhelmed and lost in the uncontrollable whirlpool they produce. When this happens we are likely to feel that our inner experiencing is controlling us, which feels very scary. Feeling scared, panicky and afraid in turn, intensifies and propels the destabilising experience. Stopping the escalating vortex is difficult. Some use fairly drastic and often, in the long term, destructive actions to stop the pain, like taking drugs, yelling, aggression or self-injurious behaviours (e.g., cutting).
At first glance, using mindfulness when feeling overwhelmed by your inner experiencing seems impossible. After all, when you feel overwhelmed, your attention is fully absorbed in the turmoil. And this only serves to intensify the problem. When your attention is immersed in your distress, it acts like a powerful battery that energises the turbulence. Because your attention is entwined with your mental and emotional anguish, you are unable to get perspective on your inner turmoil relative to the other areas of self, such as your physical functioning and external environment. You are lost in your inner turmoil. This is where the mindfulness technique of grounding is helpful.
Grounding involves directing your attention to something physical, not as a distraction but to connect with presence via physicality. Directing your attention to physical (e.g., your body) always connects you to the present. And once connected to the present, you are more likely to get perspective on your inner turmoil.
You can use your body as the grounding target for your attention and or something physical in your external environment. In my book, especially in Chapter 23, I give detailed examples of how I use grounding to manage my overwhelming intense silent trauma echoes. One example I used involves touching the chair I am sitting on. I deliberately rub my hands along the side of the chair and connect to the feel of the surface texture. Then I move my feet on the floor and feel the sensation of them touching it. I then shift my attention to my sit-bones on the chair and my back against the back of the chair. I focus my attention on the pressure points I feel on my back and buttocks. After a few minutes of grounding myself in physical reality through touch, I can notice the unfolding inner turbulence from a safe physical earthed position. In this state my attention is shared between two dimensions, my inner turmoil and the stable physical elements (body and chair); I now have perspective!
If parts of your body feel out of control (e.g., racing heart, trembling hands or rapid breathing), direct your attention to a part of your body that feels solid and stable (e.g., feet touching the floor), or to an external physical anchor (e.g., touching the chair).
You can use any of your five senses to connect to physical but I find touch most helpful. The key to grounding is using a physical target that you can connect to while you observe the magnetic pull of inner turmoil.
Grounding doesn’t stop inner turbulence, but it does provide a safe place from where you can observe it and in this position of noticing, you are not lost in it, you have perspective. The inner turmoil will pass; everything passes! Grounding enables you to ride the waves without interfering with nature; allowing a naturally arising process to ebb and flow. Is nature ever wrong? Yes, seemingly cruel at times, but wrong?
Some activities can also be helpful in grounding us when we experience intense distress. Activities that require us to direct our attention to physical actions and or our body are particularly effective, like yoga, running, house cleaning, gardening, patting your dog, dancing, singing, painting, swimming, walking, cycling…
While using grounding to help me ride the inner turmoil, I often use supportive self-talk such as “I can ride this”, “I am OK”, “Everything is as it should be”. If you use supportive self-talk to help you ride your waves of distress, make sure it genuinely reflects your choice of words and is meaningful to you.
The key to grounding is extracting attention from mental and directing it to a physical target, and in doing so, gaining perspective on mental. We are so much more than our intense distress when it arises. Grounding opens up space for all of our experiencing to unfold organically in the moment; our emotional and mental distress, our awareness of the turmoil, the stable parts of our body and the external environment, and most importantly – the place from where we notice all of this. The safe beautiful place that enables us to transcend mental and physical while our feet remain firmly earthed. I know – the last bit sounds ‘airy fairy’, but when you discover this part of you (transcendent self), you will from that point see yourself, others and the world in perspective; three dimensional seeing!
- Kenneth Pakenham PhD