Guided Exercise: Sensory Grounding

In this episode, Dr. Ruvvy leads you on a sensory exploration to bring you to the moment through exploring what you see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. Listen any time you need to overcome overwhelm and anchor yourself to the "Now."

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Hi, I'm Dr. Lana Ruvolo Grasser, aka Dr. Ruvvy, and I'm going to teach you a sensory grounding 📍 exercise.

So this is a really great skill if you're feeling really overwhelmed Maybe you're overthinking about something that happened in the past or is going to happen in the future. Maybe you're panicking and you're feeling unstable in your environment.

Whatever it might be, this is going to help you focus your attention on the present moment and center your mind on the here and now.

The first thing we're going to do is identify five things in our environment that we can see.

So look around you. What do you see in your environment?

I see a whiteboard. I see a computer. I see a box of tissues.

I see my glasses.

Think about the color, the texture, the shape of these things that you can see.

Now, think about four things that you can hear.

What can you hear?

Are the sounds loud or soft?

Are they natural sounds or manufactured sounds?

Are they familiar sounds or unfamiliar?

Just listen.

I can hear cars passing by.
I can hear the wind outside of the building.
I can hear my voice as I chat with you.

Next, we're going to identify three things that we can feel.

What's the texture?

Is it hard or soft?

Dense and heavy or light and airy?

What do you feel?

I can feel the sensation of my clothes on my body. I can feel my feet rooted into the floor as I sit in my chair. And I can feel my spine supporting me, straight and tall. What do you feel? Can you feel the temperature of whatever sensation you might be perceiving?

Next, we're going to identify two things that we can smell.

What can you smell? Is it pleasant or unpleasant? Is it familiar or unfamiliar? Is it sweet or savory maybe? Fresh or citrusy?

Take a whiff.

I can smell the detergent that was used to wash my clothes. I can smell the static air inside of this room.

Finally, we're going to identify one thing that we can taste. I can taste the breath mint I enjoyed before talking to you just now. What can you taste? Is it spicy? Clean? Sweet, salty, maybe minty, like me.

Take a swish.

Hopefully now you're thinking about the present.

What you can see, hear, feel, smell, and taste.

Let's stay here together in the present moment. Thanks for anchoring with me.