Grounding in the Grass!

Forgive me for keeping this brief and a bit muddled, but my back is a wee bit sore today.

I would like to bring up soemthing that I always dismissed as 'stupid'.....until I tried it.....and it has been quietly successful the few times I've given it a go and I can only see it growing.

Grounding of course!

Something I struggle with in therapy is authority. I hate being told what to do. Even if it's a friendly suggestion, to me, I'm being told what to do and everything in me says IGNOOORRRREEEE.

So through all of my admissions I didn't take any notice of the grounding techniques.

But when it came to me when I was in a better place and from my WBB peers, it seemed like something I could use CREATIVELY, (something I'll talk about a lot, my creative recovery techniques!) I thought it could work, and when i found myself in a crisis moment disassociating in a park.

First, I took out my ipod. My ipod is my ROCK. But it was like the plugs in my ears were holding in the fog and images so  took them out so I could HEAR my surroundings, know where I am and what was happening.

The next thing I did was just grab that grass. I had heard people talking about feeling textures, and I thought if I just grabbed the grass it would LITERALLY be grounding me, hanging onto that ground, not letting myself float away again. And slowly I allowed my sight to come back into focus to see that grass.

I figured then that all my senses would be important and I love my creativity, so I rubbed my hands through that grass, imagine what it tasted like, felt like on my tongue, I picked a piece and smelt it, I dug my finger in the ground and looked at the colour of the dirt, I thought of how perfect every single piece of grass is, how amazing they are, how they get chopped down and grow right back and spread right out. I kept words out of my head and just experienced the feelings, smells, the taste in my mouth. I thought about painting the grass, I thought about painting the detail in one blade of grass I thought about looking so close I could see every vein, every fiborous hair on that blade of grass, every microbe, every particle of water, and imagined painting them, and smelling them and then brought myself back to the vein, to the blade, to the lawn.....

I brought my experience further out, feel the tree, lean on it, listen to the church bells, feel the breeze, LOOK at the people.

I find looking the hardest part to pull back from these experiences. So I take that slowly.

I spent the next 20 miniutes looking around me, discovering all of these amazing things that I walk past every day and ignore for the thoughts that cloud my mind!!! The subjective words that make it impossible for me to see anything.

I reckon it would be cool if people could try the next bit and tell me what they think, I need to use it more because it's not habit for me yet, but....

I have figured a 'technique' I suppose you could say, that could be useful to anyone who struggles in shoppping malls. I park in one for work each day, then walk through and out of it to my building. And In out in out I find myself comparing, judging me judging them feeling awful awful awful.

you guys know the drill.

So my theory was this - Describe the shopping centre's features in my head as i make the dash through it each day. Objective descriptions, as descriptive can be!!!

"That sign is square, 2m x 2m x 30cm, uneven neon lighting, red lettering, garamond font, black outline made of plastice,  etc etc..."

I find it gets me in and out, and then OH! Im in the sunlight, I didnt look at those horrid mannequins or diet ads or deconstruct every person in comparison to myself! FREEEE!

And best of all I can do this one well with my ipod in.

Have a swell week guys!