The Coping Club: Grounding
Topic: Grounding
The Stress Bucket - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KYC5SsJjx8
What is Grounding?
Grounding is a set of simple strategies to manage strong emotions such as anger, sadness, self-harm impulses. You can also think of it as “distraction”, centring,” “a safe place,” looking “outward,” or “healthy detachment.”
Why do Grounding?
- When you are overwhelmed with emotions you need a way to detach so that you can gain control over your feelings and stay safe.
- Grounding ‘anchors’ you to the present and to reality
- Many of us struggle with either feeling too much (overwhelming emotions and memories) or too little (numbing and dissociation)
- In grounding, you attain balance between the two—conscious of reality and able to tolerate it
Tips to Grounding
- Keep your eyes open, scan the room, and turn the light on to stay in touch with the present
- Stay neutral—no judgments of “good” and “bad’. For example, “The walls are blue"
- Focus on the present, not the past or future
- No talking about negative feelings or journal writing. You want to distract away from negative feelings, not get in touch with them
- Start grounding early in a negative mood cycle
Types of Grounding
- Mental
- Physical
- Soothing
Mental Grounding
- Describe your environment in detail using all your senses.
- Categories game
- Say a safety statement.
- Repeat a favorite saying to yourself over and over (e.g., the Serenity Prayer)
- 54321 Grounding Exercise - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30VMIEmA114
Physical Grounding
- Run cool or warm water over your hands.
- Grab tightly onto your chair as hard as you can.
- Touch various objects around you: a pen. keys, your clothing, the table, the walls
- Dig your heels into the floor— literally “grounding” them
- Dropping Anchor exercise - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDm2c5FDLNI
Soothing Grounding
- Say kind statements. Eg. "You are a good person going through a hard time. You’ll get through this"
- Say a coping statement. “I can handle this”, “This feeling will pass.”
- Remember the words to an inspiring song, quotation or poem
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