Drift
Am I drifting? Is my attention wandering? Bring attention back to my chosen focus.
The goal of the grounding technique is to help you get in the here and now. When you are overwhelmed with emotions you often stopping being present in the moment, and drift off into an inner world of thoughts, or you start re-visiting past or thinking about the future. One way to deal with those emotions, is to ground yourself back in the present moment. If you did the mindfulness exercises from the first module, you’ll notice that this technique has some similarities.
Before we start with the instructions, we must mention that the key to using the grounding technique is identifying that we drifted off and that we are not present. When we have noticed that we are trying to avoid the reality, because it is perhaps too painful, we can choose to do the grounding technique.
Step One: Describe What You See
First, we will focus on what we can see in the visual field around us. Look around you and start observing the objects that you see. What is their color? What is their shape? Star describing the things quietly. Observe whether the room is light or dark, whether it is spacious or small. Stay with each object long enough to observe how it looks like, and then move to the other. Spend about 10 minutes on this step.
Example: “I can see my white wallet lying on the desk. It has a rectangular shape and there is a sunray touching it. I can see my black notebook, smooth on the covers, also a little lit from the sunrays. On my right I have a glass of water, translucent, with a form of a cylinder. The water moves a little inside the glass because of my movements…”
Step Two: Breathing
Spend about five minutes focusing on your breath. Become mindful of how your body feels with air as you breathe in and how it relaxes as you breathe out. Start counting your breaths from one to five on the exhale. First breathe deeply and slowly, and then settle into your normal rhythm of breathing.
Step Three: Mindfulness of the Body
Next, start observing how your body makes contact with the chair that you’re sitting on. Feel the weight of your legs pressing on the chair, your back touching the back of the chair. Observe whether you feel tension in certain parts of the body. Do you feel pain in any part of the body or are you comfortable? Notice how your feet touch the floor. Feel the contact of your soles on the floor beneath you. Observe how your arms rest in your lap or on the chair. Feel their weight. Spend about 5 minutes on this step.
Step Four: Observing With the Other Senses
Last but not least, engage your other senses. Can you notice a certain smell in the room or not? Try to be observant. Then, become mindful of the sounds around you. What sounds can you hear? Try to notice the distant sounds from the street. Maybe there are more immediate sounds around you that you can easily hear. Be open to whatever you might hear. Spend about five minutes on this step.
Here are some worksheets and activities:
