Latest / Celeste The Therapist / EP 516 Practical Grounding Methods to Combat Anxiety

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EP 516 Practical Grounding Methods to Combat Anxiety · Celeste The Therapist

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Hey, thank you all so much for joining another episode of Celeste the
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therapist podcast. My name is Celeste. I'm a therapist from Boston. If
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you've never tried out any of my episodes, what
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I do on this podcast is I talk about things that we go through. And
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I kind of walk you in ways that you can deal with it. Originally,
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I started in 2018, where I was talking to people that
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were doing things to empower the lives of others and
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over the years, the last couple years I've changed
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it because I opened a wellness center in Stoughton, Massachusetts
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and I didn't have the capacity to interview people but eventually
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I want to get back to there. So right now you get these nice short
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episodes today. We're talking about grounding techniques
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So I've been away for a few weeks. I took some time off
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and I went to the country of Ghana and
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I had such an amazing time being around people
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learning the history of Ghana and
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the liberation just all the ways that
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I think that trip came at a really great time due
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to the nature of the work that I'm doing. It
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just helped me feel more motivated just thinking about all
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the leaders before me that has
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done so much work to try to educate and liberate people
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from the shackles of like white supremacy and
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all of the things that are happening in this country, in America.
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I've struggled with a lot and, you
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know, it doesn't deter me from what I'm doing. It actually motivates
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me to do more, but also just thinking about all the
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people that have come before me and
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have done amazing work. It just really was very inspiring. and
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encouraging. So at the
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Wellness Center, we have classes that take place every
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month. We've just added sound healing as a regular rotation.
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So if that's something that you're interested in, if you go to stwyt.com,
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you could find the links for the classes that are coming
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up and future classes, and you can sign up. So
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grounding techniques, what I decided to talk
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about this, During the trip, my
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children were going on
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a separate vacation and there were some logistical things
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that needed to take place and I wasn't even in
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the country. And the way my mind started
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spiraling about worst case scenarios really
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had my stomach tight And one night
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I couldn't sleep. It was when I first got there. I couldn't
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sleep and I was able to recognize what was going on.
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My mind was creating scenarios. The thing with humans is
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that we're the only species that can activate our amygdala
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with the way that we think about things. So
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for instance, animals, the prey comes and then they can go back to
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baseline and they don't create scenarios in
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their head about what could happen. Their system is at
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rest, right? For me, for us, our
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mind has access to the experiences that's been in the past. Um,
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it can create crazy scenarios the same way it
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created like crazy scenarios that caused me to be feel so
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anxious. Our mind can also create amazing scenarios that can
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show us like our goals and how like, and that's literally, I've
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talked about this before, but when it comes to the trajectory and
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the way that I operate is because I continue to visualize myself
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in a different space, right? I continue the goals that I have.
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I continue to picture it in my head. And so my
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mind is always able to look for the opportunities for
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me to get to that place. Um, so, you know,
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I had this like, kind of like struggle, my stomach was
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turning, I was anxious, I couldn't sleep. And I woke up early
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and I tried to do a body scan meditation.
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Um, and, um, that didn't work. Right. And
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so I, um, found it, uh, meditation.
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I typed it on YouTube, uh, meditation for anxiety and
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this nice five minute anxiety meditation came up. And
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part of it, we was affirming, I'm here, I'm okay, right? Like,
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I know logically I'm okay, but emotionally, my mind
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thinking about all these crazy scenarios, I'm across the world and
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unable to get to them. That's one of the areas that with my,
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the way I struggle with anxiety, when it comes to my children, where they're not in
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my presence, my mind can literally go into like all of these
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crazy scenarios. And so I was thinking like, I
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have all of these tools that I use that
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helps me when I find myself struggling. And
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the effects that it has on me is rather quickly because
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in general, I am not operating from
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an anxious standpoint. So it's easier for me to
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gravitate towards some of these practices and find
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immediate relief. I do, I'm gonna share these practices,
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but I also want you to know that sometimes when
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you've been in this like space for a long time struggling that
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you may not be able to get that immediate relief. So
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I do as I'm talking about these things I want you to think about like
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how can I add these as a regular practice into my
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life kind of like medicine thinking about it like that because the
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things that I do when I find myself struggling are
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things that I already do on a regular basis. So it's
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easier for my system to acclimate to what I'm
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trying to show it. So one of
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the things I'm thinking about is 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And
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these are really good too if you find yourself struggling
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in the moment and you need something really quick. So this
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5, 4, 3, 2, 1 method is five things you can see. So you literally, let's say you're
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finding yourself struggling and you're not able to ground. You
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look for five things you can see. Four things
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that you can touch, right? So you literally will go and, you
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know, here's my water bottle, here's my table, here's my computer, right?
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Because what's happening is doing that is allowing your system to ground. Two
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things that you can smell, right? I have some lotion on, I have this
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hand sanitizer here. If I squirt it, I'll smell that, right? It's bringing
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me into the present. And then one thing that you can taste, right?
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If you have a peppermint, those are great. Gum, even
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if it's water or a drink, like, Those 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you're
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using your senses to bring you back into the present. And
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you may say, but what do you mean back into the present? I am in the present. Yeah,
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like you're physically here, but consciously we don't be
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here sometimes. And those are things that you
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can do to help you kind of get back
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into the moment, especially if you're finding yourself ungrounded, right?
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If you find yourself like, for instance, if you're driving somewhere on
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the bus system or train system and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm
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already there. That's your mind kind of like, going
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into another space. And I do want to preface it,
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like some people, a lot of people have had to
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survive by escaping mentally, right? As a
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child. And so even as an adult, you can find yourself
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doing that, finding yourself escaping. Sometimes that's
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the only thing you've had access to. And as an
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adult, when you have a lot of responsibilities and things, it just doesn't work,
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right? Escaping may have been a norm. You may not even realize
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that you've been doing it because it's what you do, but just be
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mindful of that. So that's one of the ways. Another way that
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you can access like getting grounded really quickly is
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literally by deep breathing. If
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you go on youtube.com, you can type in like
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breathing circle. There's a circle where it will go in and
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out like that, right? I say breathe in, breathe
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out. Breathe in,
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breathe out. Like something
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as simple as creating this
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intentional time to breathe deeply, right? Because you
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may say, Celeste, I'm already breathing. But are you intentionally breathing?
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A lot of times when we're struggling, our breathing is really
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labored. And again,
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like your system is not designed to work on overtime. A
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lot of times our system is in overtime and we find ourselves
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struggling to breathe. You may not realize it, but
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like just how I did like that, like I can tell in
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those moments, it doesn't have to be about me being anxious. It could be me
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rushing or feeling overwhelmed. And then I'll realize it
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and I'll be like, all right. take a deep breath, right? Sometimes
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when people come on the screen with me when I'm working with people, because most of my sessions are
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virtual, and they'll come on and be like, yeah, I got all this going on.
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I was like, all right, hold on. Let's just take a breath, right? And it's
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so amazing, because it's like, wow, I really needed that breath, right? I
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really needed that pause. So many times we're just in the
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hustle and bustle, and we're not creating moments to
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pause. And it's not healthy for our
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system. We need to pause. If a car just
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ran all the time, eventually it shuts down. Your computer
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system, my computer system, if it's on too much,
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it gets too hot and it closes off, right? So
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really being mindful of like taking moments to breathe
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deeply. Another practice is like a body scan.
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And as I told you, when I was super overwhelmed and anxious, I
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did a body scan meditation where it kind of
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took me from the top of my head to the bottom of my
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feet. And, um, that didn't help. I needed more
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words, you know? Um, and so with the
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body scan, it's kind of like, pay attention to your
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mouth. Are you clenching your teeth? Right. Um, relax your
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fingers. Like a lot of times you don't realize like your wound up type.
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Some of us, like if you're watching me on YouTube, like, your
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shoulders are high and you're like, you're like
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this, right? Tensed up. And you don't even realize you're
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tensed up because you're always tensed up. And that being tensed
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up, guess what? It not just affects you physically, internally, it
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affects the way you're projecting on things and people and
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the way you're looking at life. If you're always bound up, how do
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you, Find any like freedom or peace in life
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if your whole physical symptom is system is
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wound up So that's number three. Another great
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activity is mindfully walking. So literally Going
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outside letting the Sun hit your face even
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it like taking your shoes off and letting your feet hit the
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ground and right? Like literally like looking at
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what, where you're walking, you may have noticed, like, look at the
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flowers there, right? Paying attention and mindfully walking.
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So that means don't get on your phone. Like don't talk to
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anybody, right? Just be alone with you and
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your own space. You
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know, the phones and the social media piece can
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be helpful with distracting. But we can't
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allow ourselves to be distracted all the time. Right. We
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have to like society is not going to remind us like, hey, did
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you do that grounding thing? Did you do X, Y, Z? Society
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will not remind us of this is something that you really have to
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be intentional about. And the things that I talk about
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are free, like it's intentional for me. This is an
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intentional thing that I do when I talk about ways to work through things.
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I talk about ways where it doesn't cost money, because I
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really want people to feel empowered after they listen to these episodes, so
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that they can feel like, you know what, I can start the process today. It
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doesn't have to be about next Monday or next year or the top
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of the month. It can literally be like,
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I can start this process today. So mindfully walking
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is another great way to ground. And again, as I'm talking about these
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things, look at it as medicine. How can I incorporate this
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into my life on a regular basis? Grounding objects,
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right? Sometimes people, I'm just looking at my desk to see what I have. People
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may have something that they can use to help them stay grounded.
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Um, so it could be textured right? This is I don't even know what
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this is. I think this is a capture my ink Um,
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it could be something that's textured where you can hold it.
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Um, Sometimes people may have like a bracelet or something on
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them that has like different kind of grooves and nooks to them Um,
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and they touch it like if you're feeling nervous, you'll just kind of touch it.
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Um people that I that I work with that like will pick their
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skin or their hair, pull their hair. I'll talk about
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these mechanisms that they can use a rubber band to grab
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and just like touch and pop
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to help you get back into the moment, right? The stress
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that we feel for so many different reasons will cause us
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to, we'll find ourselves escaping in
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different ways. And sometimes it looks like pulling your
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hair or picking your skin or
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your fingers, right? Like there's so many things that you're doing
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that you don't realize you're doing when you're doing it. And
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you're like, oh my gosh, how did this bald spot get here? Or how did
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my fingers started bleeding, right? So my
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goal in you listening to this is to help you see like, okay,
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yeah, maybe I'm not as grounded as I could be, but these are
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some things that I can do to work on starting the process, right?
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Because when we talk about this stuff to our
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PCPs Doctors, a lot of times, the
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first course of action is medicine, and medicine's great.
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It has its power, and it's definitely a
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great tool, but it shouldn't be
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the first tool of action. I want people to try the
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things that they can do, and if those aren't working, all right, let's talk about medicine. The
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next thing is journaling. Great
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tool, right? You see that 365, I have
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a journal that I created, a really cool journal. Let
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me just grab it really quick. So this journal is,
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I created it back in 2018, well,
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before the podcast, so I think 2017. And I basically
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am asking you different questions and asking you how
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you're feeling. So do you find yourself stressing over, yo,
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what are the odds of this? Y'all see me just open this book up.
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If you're watching me on YouTube, I just grabbed it. This is
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crazy, because this is what we're talking about.
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This is so crazy that I just opened it up to this. But anyways, do
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you find yourself stressing over things that are not in your control? If
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you do not have control over it, learn how to let it go. And then
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day 130 says, imagine how intentional your life
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can be if you start thinking, before you act.
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And so some of these are questions and some of them are statements. Like
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these two were statements and day 143 is
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a question. Because we can pride ourselves on being strong, we fail
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to realize how our broken pieces in life have hindered us.
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We continue to grow physically, but mentally we are stuck. Do you find
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yourself being stuck? So like these statements every
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day are designed to help you really think about
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some areas of your life that you may not have thought about. And
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so the halfway, so it's 365 days,
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right? Halfway through the year or halfway through this
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book, it resets the question. And so
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the question you get on day one, you'll get on like day
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160 something, and it'd be that same question, but then you can
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see how you've grown over the last six months, right? So
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that was the design of it. I always think about people that can't afford
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therapy, and even if you can't afford therapy, can't find a good therapist, and
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find yourself feeling stuck. I think about these things as I do
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this podcast and the things that I've created. So that's
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an example of a journal. There are many journals out
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there. Again, there's also a notebook and a
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pen, just grabbing that and checking in
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with yourself about how you're feeling, what went
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well today, what do I need to do to prepare for tomorrow, and
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what am I grateful for? Those four questions, if you
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listened to this podcast before, those are questions that I ask my
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kids every night because I want to help them get more into
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the moment. Thinking about gratitude is really hard. to find
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yourself in a dark place constantly when you are bringing gratitude into
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your life. Having a nature connection
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is really helpful for grounding, trying to get
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into nature. I have
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a hiking trail not far from my house that I can go to. Even
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if you don't have a hiking trail, if there's a garden, right? If
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you have plants in your house, outside, touching
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a tree, um water if you if you're near
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any water right i have a little like pond that's
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not far from my house that even just driving by it's just
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like i breathe different it's crazy the energy that
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nature holds um affirmations is another grounding
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technique um i told you at the top of the podcast how
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i was struggling and thinking worst case scenarios the
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body scan wasn't helpful but then The
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next thing I listened to around anxiety was more affirming that
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I was okay. And I love sharing the
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ways that I struggle because I talk a lot about the
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way we can work through things. and how
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to make things work and what I do in life to work on myself. But
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I also want you to know, regardless of how much work you do, life
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is going to life at times, and you're going to have these experiences. And
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these are things you can do to help work through those experiences.
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The last grounding technique I want you to think about is just physical movement.
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If you follow me on Instagram or my stories, You
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know, I walk, I'll talk about like, I don't feel like walking, but
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I'm walking. And a lot of the things
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that I do are so part of my routine that
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regardless of how I feel, I do it anyway. Payroll has
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to be made every other week. I'm making sure
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I'm doing that, right? As a business owner
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now, there are just a lot of logistical things that are on my plate
19:16
that I don't necessarily always feel like doing, but I do it because I
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know I need to get paid. So financially and
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literally, I think we tend to do that. But when
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it comes to our individual selves and our individual growth, I don't think
19:29
we do that enough. I don't think we actually work on
19:33
doing things based off of what we need. We end up doing
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it how we feel. We know that we should
19:41
be getting up early for work so we're not
19:44
rushing in traffic. But what do we do? We snooze because it
19:48
feels good to stay in bed. And then now we're rushing into
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work. And so we're literally starting our day on the wrong foot because
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now our system is in this anxious state. If
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I sacrifice the extra sleep, and
20:02
got up early, even though it didn't feel good, then I'll find myself slowly
20:07
rolling into work and not feeling the pressure of the anxiety
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from the morning, right? So a lot of times we will sacrifice and
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get that little bit of extra sleep or get that little bit of extra something,
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but then it doesn't really help us throughout the day. not
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taking that extra sleep doesn't feel good because I enjoy my
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bed and I enjoy sleeping in, but also what doesn't feel
20:29
good is not getting the things that I need to get done done. So
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I just want you to take away from today some
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things that you can think about implementing into your life, some
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practices that you can think about trying that
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can help you get more aligned with where you say you want
20:47
to be, When people tell me like, oh, I'm trying to change
20:51
that or I'm trying to do this. I said, what does that realistically look like?
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Saying you're trying and actually putting something
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in place are two different things. I think mentally we want
21:02
it to be different, so we're trying, right? But literally,
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are we doing anything different? So really
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be mindful of the choices that you're choosing to make,
21:12
really being mindful of the medicine that you're taking. Even if
21:16
you're taking literal pills, that's totally fine. I still
21:19
want you to think about adding these other medicines to your
21:24
routine. And so you can see the power that
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you have, right? A lot of times we can't see the power that
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we have, but we haven't been taught how to access it.
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and being in Ghana and just learning about the ways that
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a lot of the practices were stripped from black people. They had
21:42
the things that they were doing and they
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introduced church, right? And it was
21:48
so crazy how the female slave dungeon
21:52
was downstairs and there was a church upstairs and the horrible things
21:56
that they were doing to these people while they said, hey, you
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can't do none of your practices. Here's our church practice. and
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we're beating you as well, and we're doing all these horrible things to you. It
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really made me think about things and take a pause. There's
22:11
a lot of ways that even if you're in therapy, that
22:16
pain is stuck in your body. I created this wellness center
22:20
and these somatic classes because I recognize there's such
22:23
a disconnect with the way that our society talks
22:27
about wellness with psychiatry and therapy only, but not
22:30
bringing the physical part. There's something powerful about coupling
22:34
up this process of healing with some somatic work
22:39
and really like Getting into some kind of system
22:42
and routine. So I gave you a lot to think about Um,
22:46
and so what I want you to take away from this is like, okay What can I
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start implementing today? Right? Can I get up and go if you
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have time now? Can I just go for a walk today? Not getting on
22:56
my phone just walking mindfully if you haven't been walking i'm asking you
22:59
for five minutes. Just give yourself five minutes Um, can I
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do the five four three two one method right pay attention get
23:06
myself grounded? Can I do the two minute? Breathing meditation,
23:10
right? These little things that you may think
23:13
is not a big deal. They are huge They add up you're making deposits
23:17
into your life that starts to add up those little deposits
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start to feel differently So I just want to
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challenge you to do that So if anything I say resonates understand
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you have the power to create change But first you got
23:31
to have faith to believe in yourself and when you have faith and when you start believing in
23:35
yourself I promise you no one could ever take that away
23:38
from you you so don't forget follow me everywhere on social media as
23:41
Celeste the therapist or you can follow my wellness page
23:45
at STWYT and that stands for shifting the
23:48
way you think you can visit our website at STWYT.com to
23:53
learn more about the Wellness Center and to sign up for a class
23:57
until next time beautiful people I will talk to you