Author: sarahjjennings@hotmail.com

When we are struggling to regulate our emotions, if we have been triggered by a flashback or we are feeling overwhelmed grounding can help us re-regulate.

Some grounding techniques that can be useful is to focus on our breathing. To breath in through our nose, taking a deep breath for 4 and then hold for at least 5 and then exhale through our mouth for at least 6.

The next time we breath in visualising our calm space can be useful. When you visualise this calm space focus on your senses, Think about what you can see in your place, what you can smell, what you can hear and what you can touch. Focus on the colours and imagine being washed over by one of the dominant colours. Breathing the colour in and then exhaling the colour out.

Another good grounding technique is the 5,4,3,2,1 exercise. Notice 5 things that you can see, focus on the colours and what they look like, 4 things that you can touch, really hold them and feel them, stroke them focus on the textures, then 3 things you can hear, maybe one of them can even be the silence, 2 things you can smell, as you do this focus again on your breathing noticing if what you can smell changes, and finally take a deep breath and notice what you can taste in your mouth. Being truly present and noticing what is around you, including the ground that you are standing or sitting on at the end, to finally ground yourself.

I thought I would write something as it’s grief awareness week, although grief is not just with us for this week. Grief does not have a time limit, if we loved the person or pet and they were important in our loves, like our love does not go nor does the grief.

Grief is unique to all of us, there is no “normal way” to grieve and although there are stages of grief, these are not linear and we may experience these all at times or jump between them. We feel many different emotions and it is okay. We may feel anger, guilt, as well as sadness. There may be some days we do not think of our loss and the pain is not so intense and other days that the pain is intense.

As Christmas is approaching, the media full of images of happy families. The grief of the person you have lost may be triggered. The memories of spending this time with them and also the sadness of having to spend this time without them this year. You may feel that other people are expecting you to have “moved on” and do not even speak of that person. It is okay to want to talk about them, to talk about them to others, to share memories and also your sadness. To share the love you had for them. It is okay to say no to festivities that you do not want to go to. You may want to write a card for the person and write in it how you are feeling, how you feel about them. You may want to put a special decoration up in their memory. You can set a place for them at the table, or light a candle in their memory. It is your grief and you can do what feels right for you.

If you are struggling try to be kind to yourself. Tonkins model of grief helps with some understanding of grief. The grief does not go away, we just learn to build our life around the grief. At first grief is all consuming but over time we learn to live with and accept our grief.

My love and support goes out to all of those that have been bereaved. Take care.