Why Grounding through the Senses and Journaling Works...
...and how you can do it yourself
I realized today that I am that person who is always trying to get the people around me to do something related to my work. I am that friend/family member who will ask you, “Did you journal that?” when you have a problem. I know it’s annoying, but I promise it works.
I get in touch with ME through my journal
Getting in touch with oneself through writing, specifically journaling, is something I have researched, with anecdotal evidence to prove it. I am, however, my biggest journaling success story.
I turn to my journal every day, in good moods and in bad. I use journaling to get a handle on my thoughts when they are running around like baby ducks trying to cross a road. Journaling helps relieve my writer’s block and serves as a release when I am fighting back against a panic attack. It is also like pulling the brakes on an overthinking spiral, and it makes the excruciating wait time for anything more bearable.
One of the most effective and frequent journaling exercises for me is one that I call “Grounding through the Senses.”
This exercise is also popular in workshops and corporate wellness sessions (which I now offer—message me for details). Leading these sessions has become the work that I never expected to do. It has been rewarding.
“Grounding through the senses”
This journaling “prompt” involves breathing and recording the information from your senses. Grounding alone forces the body and the brain to relax and concentrate on the present. It has helped me in those moments when I was overrun with anxiety or in the throes of a panic attack.
My Panic Pages Coloring Books and Journals also work for this, too.
Grounding through the senses works for everyday journaling, too. It adds some variety to your daily writing routine.
Here’s how it works:
1. Find a nice, comfy spot outside. Indoors, next to an open window, also works.
[Insert pic posted today, labeled “my spot”.]
2. Take three (3) slow, deep breaths.
3. Get comfy and open your ears. Close your eyes. Take a few minutes to listen to your surroundings. Then, record what you hear.
4. Close your eyes again and check in with your skin. What do you feel? Record the information gathered.
5. Stick out your tongue or take a sip of a nearby beverage. What do you taste? Write it down.
6. Close your eyes, get comfy again, and take a few deep breaths. Take in the scents around you. Record what you smell.
7. Now, look at the information you recorded. Write your thoughts or just record how you feel after the exercise.
My results for this exercise today
I hear traffic on the freeway not too far away. It sounds like ocean waves from afar. I hear lyric tweets from a bird close to me. He must be in the bushes just outside my window. HE was answered by another bird from a bit further away. There was another conversation in a different dialect of tweets. Bird neighbors are going about their daily business.
There are rapid scratches that seem to be moving away, which are a squirrel scampering across the back fence. Then, natural sounds stopped as a car with a loud engine and bass loud enough to hear over said engine raced down the street.
I feel a cool breeze coming from the open window behind my head. I tilt my head up to meet the shy breeze. It reached through the screen to lightly touch my cheek, and then a BOOP on the nose before retreating. It came back minutes later with a stronger, broader “hello,” like a chilly hand cradling my face.
I take a sip of tea. There’s the slightly tart, flowery hibiscus with a mildly sweet bite of the homemade pineapple syrup I used as a sweetener. The earthy undertones must have been the green tea I added for a caffeinated kick.
I smell more of the earth coming through the open, screened window. It was the freshness that only came from outdoors. There are notes of hibiscus from my tea in one sniff. In the next was the detergent from the freshly washed blanket across my legs. It was still warm. That’s not a smell, but still an important note all the same.
I opened my eyes to see the squirrel that I heard scurrying up the tree in my backyard. Black and white magpies were one set of birds that were calling to one another across the yard, having a whole conversation in tweets. They were calling to one another from the ground and the branches of the big tree. A grey, fuzzy-tailed rabbit hesitantly hopped between the bushes.
That was my journal entry for today. What was yours like?
Let me know in the comments how you felt after completing this exercise.
Until next time, keep it classy.
Jo