What do you do when your life starts to feel chaotic? stressful? frustrating?
Do you freak out? Hide away?
Or are you at the point to where you feel like you’re done because you’re just numb to it all?
Well what if there was a way to overcome or deal with chaos, stress, frustration in a way that’s healthy & empowering?
Because there is a way!
Pause & Ground
A more productive, self serving way to handling the shittty shituations that come up in our lives would be to pause and ground.
Taking a moment to pause & ground is an effective and super powerful coping strategy that can help to bring us into a state of feeling more calm, relaxed, grounded, & stable in our mind/body again.
What does it mean to ground?
Now when you think of “grounding…” what comes to mind?
Do you know what it means to ground yourself? Do you have an idea what grounding may be or look like?
Grounding is a technique we can use to reconnect ourselves in the present moment. Grounding techniques are tools used to help us self-regulate in those moments of stress and anxiety. They serve as gentle reminders to stay focused and anchored in the present moment, which is what helps reduce the feelings of anxiety and overwhelm.
And when it comes to grounding, there are many different ways we can practice. For one, we can do a simple breathing technique of breathing deep and slow into our bellies. And then just repeating that process for a few minutes.
Or we can practice relaxing with whatever is present in the moment. So for example, if you’re in a room with the ac on, you can simply just relax in the room tuning into the sound of the ac.
Or we can go for a walk and find something to be grateful for even through the chaos.
Or we can…you guessed it….meditate!
There are a number of great grounding techniques/practices we can take on. But no matter what technique we use, there is ONE IMPORTANT first step to grounding ourselves:
How to get grounded
The first step in being able to get ourselves to become more grounded is to FIRST recognize that we have a need.
…And so that involves self awareness.
Having self awareness enables us to identify our own needs by alerting us, to let us know when to drop into our bodies to check in.
Checking in with ourselves is so important. And it’s the first step that will bring us to learn how to readily pause & ground when necessary.
When checking in, what you’re doing is taking inventory of how you’re feeling & what you’re thinking. And it’s a moment to ask yourself questions, such as–How do I feel? What’s coming up for me? What am I experiencing? What emotions are moving through me right now? What’s happening in my mind? Body? Spirit? What is it that I NEED? And then really, just being super intentional in this moment to really take notice of what you discover.
If we don’t recognize this need, we won’t ever practice.
Just checking in
So a good starting point to get this grounding practice to become a habit is just to check in with yourself at different points in the day … again taking note— are you feeling stressed? Turbulent? Frustrated? Anxious?
Can you take a few deep breaths and relax your body a bit? Or can you find something to love in the moment you’re in?
What if you were to post reminders on your phone or throughout your house to help you remember to practice checking in with yourself…
You can even try it right now…
Check in, and notice….what is it that you need right now?
