Hello and welcome to Speak Honest. I am your host and certified relationship coach, Jennifer Noble. It has been my passion for over a decade to help women like you heal. What's been holding you back from having the relationships you deserve? Are you struggling with a relationship where you can't seem to voice your emotions, needs, and boundaries without having it blow up in your face?

Then you have found the right podcast, my friend. Get ready for practical tips, empowering truths, and honest conversations. Now let's dive in. 

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Speak Honest. Today, I want to talk about grounding techniques. A couple weeks ago, I discussed in a podcast what we can do when we get triggered. Hopefully you get a chance to go back and listen to that one if you haven't yet, but it's a really great short podcast on what it's like to feel triggered.

What do triggers actually mean and what can we do about that? How can we utilize our triggers to basically act as a catalyst for our lives instead of something that holds us back? But in that podcast, I mentioned using a grounding technique when we get triggered in the moment. But what is a grounding technique?

I got a couple of questions asked as to what does this mean? How can I ground myself? What is this secret that you are speaking of that I don't know what it is? And this is one of those moments as a coach, when sometimes I say things that I assume everybody knows, and I quickly realized, oh, wait, let me go ahead and explain that. 

So, a grounding technique is actually a self soothing strategy that helps us stay in the present moment. It helps us to deal with stress and anxiety and those overwhelming feelings that come on super quick. You know the ones, the 0 to 60 feelings of just pure adrenaline rushing through your body, that fight or flight moment when it kicks in.

These strategies can help us and distract us from the difficulties that we're facing in that moment. They're just basically tools that we use such as visualizations or using our senses like our sight, our hearing, and our smell to distract us from the moment and pull us out of the trigger. This is one of the best ways that we have in order to kind of ground ourselves and to be mindful of what's going on.

So let's explore what this might look like. For example, let's say that you have a date with someone new, and you just met them on Bumble or Tinder or Coffee Meets Bagel or whatever it is, and you have a date coming on with them. But when you get there, they are late. Now, for you, lateness is quite a big trigger. 

So you feel that burning sensation starting to come on in your body. Do you know the one? For me, it shows up as like burning in my hands. Okay. This is a somatic feeling that we're feeling. And This feeling is getting me super triggered right now. It is, I would say, an 8 out of 10. I showed up, it is 15 minutes past the point of our date, and he's not there yet. 

Well, now what's happening is so many stories are going on in my head that I don't even know where to think. I don't know how to think straight. I don't know what's going on. I am so triggered.  Now, there's a lot of techniques we use for figuring out the stories, calming down, all these kind of things. But the very first thing that I need to be doing before I can even speak to anyone is I need to ground myself.

And my favorite way of doing this is I like to look for a color. This is just something that has always worked really well for me when I started learning grounding techniques. I pick a favorite color. It's usually something like pink or orange. But kind of depends on where I am. So let's say I'm in Starbucks.

Obviously, I'm going to choose the color green.  I start looking around. What is green?  The walls are green. That person's shirt over there is green. The coffee cup the person to my right is holding is green.  The sticker on the lady's laptop in the corner of the coffee shop, it's green.  And now I'm back in my reality.

I'm refocused  to the present moment. And my anxiety is now lessening.  Now there's still a lot of work I have to do underneath that. I need to ask myself, you know, what are the stories I'm telling myself? What are the wounds that are coming up for me when this is happening? But in that moment, I need to ground myself. 

So let's try another example. Cause that one's maybe not as bad because, you know, first date. But now let's say it's your husband. And he said he would do the dishes, and you wake up in the morning,  and you don't have a clean coffee mug to get your coffee with. Now, this one might be a little bit too close to home, so I'm gonna try not to get triggered as I'm telling the story, but oh my gosh, this is Really trigger me because in my mind, it's like, well, he could have just told me he wasn't going to do the dishes.

I would have just went and did them. Why did he say he was going to do the dishes? And now I don't have a coffee mug. Now I can't have coffee. You don't want to see me when I don't have my coffee, right? Who else out there is like that? I need, don't talk to me in the morning. Basically, I need my coffee.  So now I am Close to 10 on a 10 triggered because it's first thing in the morning.

I don't do mornings. I want my favorite coffee mug. I can't get it because the sink is filled with dishes. So I can't even clean it out. And I am losing my mind. He comes out and he says, Hey, good morning, babes. And he goes to give me a kiss on my cheek. And everything in my being wants to just take my coffee mug and just throw it at his face.

Okay. I know that's probably a lot, but that's what it's like to feel triggered.  This is what it's like when our sympathetic nervous system is activated. This is the fight or flight moment that's starting to happen. The time in which you are either about to fight for your life or you are going to flee.

Now, some people also go into fawning, which is this thing, you know, do the whole smile and not. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Good morning to you too, babes. But inside, what's actually happening? They're seething, right? And this can come out, maybe passive aggressive. Maybe you, uh, slam his tea on the table. Maybe you don't make his breakfast.

Maybe you normally do, cause you know, you love him and you usually break breakfast for everyone in the house, but you, oops, forgot to make his oatmeal for the morning. That's passive aggressiveness, right? Right. Right. This is all coming from the sympathetic nervous system getting activated, because you're triggered.

Now we can talk about why we're triggered, and we can work on getting triggered less. That is definitely something that I work with people often on. This is our wounds that happen. But in the moment, we cannot even remotely think about the stories and the wounds that are going on in our minds. Why?

Because our brain is flooded.  Because, see, when we get triggered, our brains goes into overdrive. I mean, we have no control over this, right? Particularly the amygdala. This is our emotional processing headquarters of our brain, and we have one on each hemisphere. And this little almond shaped structure, it starts to sound the alarm, initiating a flood of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.

These hormones, they prepare our body for that fight or flight or freeze or fawn response  and survival mechanism from our caveman days. And we've talked about this before, right? If you are back in the day and you see a lion, your fight or flight is going to kick in. But we don't have lions anymore.

Instead, we have husbands not washing our damn coffee mugs. And it's frustrating as hell. But see, in this, there's Heightened state. Our prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for rational thinking and decision making and moderating our social behavior, it just shuts down. It honestly does. It takes a backseat to everything in life.

And this is what makes it hard, because it makes it challenging to respond calmly or rationally in that moment, because our brain is essentially preparing us to face a life threatening situation.  But it's not life threatening, is it? Me not having my favorite coffee mug in the morning. It's not the same as a lion about to attack me.

And yet our brains consistently still do this. And now we haven't quite figured out why we don't quite understand, you know,  why we haven't adapted to this and all this stuff, but this chemical cascade, it clouds our judgment. This leads to reactions that we might later regret. And I know I have very, very many regretful reactions to things.

But understanding this process, this is what I think is key to recognizing why we react the way that we do. And that's why I wanted to talk about grounding techniques. 

And so next I want to get into some of the types of grounding techniques that are out there.  Well, as I already mentioned, there is the color technique. And again, that's where you choose your favorite color or you choose a color in the moment and you use it to ground yourself in the present moment. So again, you see the color red and you try to find all the red things and you name them.

That is a t shirt. That is a wall. That is a picture. That is a rose. That's one of the techniques. Another one is called the 5 4 color technique. 3, 2, 1 technique. And basically, this is a technique that involves using all of your senses to list the things around you to bring your focus again back to the present moment.

So one of the things you can do is you list five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear.  Two things you can smell and one thing you can taste. Now some people think this can be quite challenging to even remember, and I understand that. And so honestly you can kind of use this technique in any way that you want.

You can just list five things that you see.  And that can help enough to ground you, or just do one of every sense. So you could be sitting in a coffee shop, and you can say, I see the barista,  I feel the warmth of the coffee in my hand, I hear the whirling of the coffee grinder. I smell the delicious smell of coffee and milk, and I can taste the coffee on my tongue. 

See how all of that puts me right back in that moment? And it's the same way, if in the morning time, I am getting really upset by my husband because he doesn't wash my coffee mug, I can use this next technique. And this is the deep breath. Breathing technique, and this is just where you take slow, deep breaths  because the deep breathing can actually help reduce your body stress response and bring your focus back to the presence. 

So, one of my favorite breathing techniques is actually box breathing. This is where you will inhale for a count of four, hold for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, and then hold for a count of four again.  So why don't we go ahead and try that together just now? Maybe you're driving in your car, listening to me, or you're falling asleep or you're going on a run or you're walking around or pushing your children out on the swings.

And you're already starting to get a little bit triggered today. So let's do it together. You ready? So we're going to inhale for four. 

Hold for four. One, two, three, four.  Exhale for four. 

And then again, hold for four. One, two, three, four.  Great.  Do you already feel a little bit calmer? Even if you weren't triggered by anything right now, it really helps, doesn't it? I think box breathing is one of the easiest ways for me to ground myself in a moment where, especially if I have to speak on something, because it kind of makes me have to be quiet for a second before I can. 

And then another way is to move your body.  Let's say again, let's say something happens at work and your boss says something to you and it really triggers you. Well, instead of sitting at your desk, something that can really, really help is physical movement. It helps release the pent up energy and stress that we have in our body.

So you can get up and you can stretch, or you can go for a walk, or you can do some simple exercises. I'm not talking like get out there and pump the irons and go sprinting until you, you know, pass out. That's actually just increasing your stress response.  Taking a walk in nature, if you can, or just even going and walking to the bathroom is an amazing tool to use if you're feeling triggered in that moment.

Honestly, it also helps to just walk away in those moments sometimes. So we don't say something we will regret later, but that isn't always an option walking away. And so that's why I think it's important that we have other techniques to use.  One more technique that I have used, but I sometimes consider it slightly more extreme.

It's really not that extreme, but it's physical grounding. And the best way that I can explain this is basically holding a piece of ice in your hand  or even splashing cold water on your face can sometimes really help. And this physical grounding basically gets you to have a intense sensation on your skin to get you to remember where you are, right?

So you actually probably have seen this a lot in movies or TVs or you've done it yourself where you're really stressed out and you go to the bathroom and you just splash some water on your face. Well, that cold water is basically  jiggling your system, your, your nerves, and telling it to get out of what's happening.

And that's why that can really help. But, again, I wear makeup a lot of times. If I'm at work or if I'm out somewhere and I'm not about to go and splash water on my face and get my mascara running. So I have been known, in these moments, To grab a piece of ice and hold on to it. I've actually done this at a table at a restaurant.

I was out with my family and, you know, if your family doesn't trigger you, then what will? And the best thing that I could do was I basically picked up a piece of ice from my cup and I just held it underneath my hand. I held this piece of ice while looking at colors. And that's the other thing I wanted to bring up is that we can yeah.

Put a bunch of these different techniques together if you need to this just depends on how triggered you are in that moment at the restaurant with my family, oh boy, I, I'm surprised I genuinely did not get up and walk away, right? It was just getting to be that triggering and that frustrating, but I held the ice. 

I looked for all the colors red. I tend to look for red when I'm angry. It's a very interesting thing. And I look for blue when I'm sad. Isn't that interesting? That's a side tangent. But, so I'm holding the ice, and I'm looking for the colors red, and I start breathing. Do you hear how I'm using three separate techniques in one go?

Because I was probably at that point like a 15 out of 10 triggered. Honestly, if I wanted to, I could have even brought in my sensations and said, I can see something red. I can hold something clear, right? We're we're using everything we can in our toolbox right now to get us back in the present moment, because when we're triggered, it's not about the present moment.

It's not about the date who is late or the husband who forgets to wash your coffee bug. Or the family who's picking on you, picking on you at the dinner table.  It's about all of the past times something like that has happened to you.  And that's why it's important in these moments  to ground yourself.

Because grounding helps reduce stress and anxiety. Focusing on the present breaks the cycle of ruminating on those past events. It also helps you to not worry about the future, which are common sources of stress and anxiety. It also improves your emotional regulation by being present as allows you to observe your emotions without judgment. 

This mindfulness, it creates a space between your feelings and your reactions, giving you the chance to choose how you respond rather than impulsively being driven by your emotions.  There's a quote that I love, and I can't remember who it's by right now, but it basically says the power comes between the awareness  and the action.

So that moment where we get to stop and think before we have a reaction. That's huge. And that's where our power lies.  Grounding also helps us boost our cognitive function. When we focus on the present, we can improve concentration, memory, and decision making skills. When you're not distracted by all of the feelings and the thoughts coming up about your past or your future, you can actually process the information more effectively and you can make clearer decisions. 

So that way you're not triggered by someone showing up late. You can actually make that decision whether or not you want to date them again, coming from a place of truth and not a place of fear.  But also all of this, it actually really helps your physical health as well. Mindfulness and present moment awareness have been linked to numerous physical health benefits, including lower blood pressure.

Reduced chronic pain and improved sleep.  These benefits are partly due to the reduction of stress and its physical effects on the body. Because you don't realize how much stress we are putting on the body when we are in those simple fight or flight or freeze or fawn moments.  And most of us live in that consistently.

We are constantly having our  Sympathetic nervous system being activated and that level of stress, it just causes a heap of problems. So that's why I wanted to talk to you today about all the different types of grounding techniques that we can practice while we are still working through our triggers. 

And remember we still have other tools that we can use in order to not even get triggered such as reprogramming and emotional processing and all of these things, but I'll get into them later and hopefully they will be in my courses coming up soon. But until then, if you have any questions about these grounding exercises, or if you would like to come on the podcast and chat with me about them and maybe work through a situation that's been triggering you, I would love to have you on just reach out to me.

You can slide into my DMs on Instagram. I'm speak underscore honest on there, or just get all of my information from the show notes and you can reach out to me there until next time. Take care. 

As we wrap up today's conversation. Always remember that healing is a journey, not a destination. And it is an honor to be a part of your healing journey. If you want to dig deeper into the topics we covered today, be sure to head over to our show notes where you can find all of the valuable information mentioned in today's episode right there.

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