Moving Through Emotions: Grounding - Pt. 1

Emotions affect our nervous system. They cause our bodies to come online and typically activate our survival mode.

Our emotions don't just affect our thoughts - they activate our biology as well. They speak through the nervous system, signaling whether we are safe or under threat. Even subtle emotional shifts can trigger a physiological response. Much of it isn't actually life-threatening.

It could be anticipated suffering or an old trigger or simply a tough moment

Fight-or-Flight Looks Different Today

Fight-or-flight in a modern human isn't as obvious as we'd think. Most people don't realize they are in that mode - especially flight. The fight response is more visible with anger, short tempers, or lashing out at others. But the flight is often disguised as normal, even praised.

Flight can look like constant busyness, perfectionism, needing to be distracted (scrolling, multitasking, overbooking). It can be moving from one task to another, or from one person to another. It's feeling anxious but not knowing why. Flight looks like anything that is avoiding stillness or silence.

In a frequent state of fight-or-flight, it quickly becomes a perpetual state. Some of us might even mistake this for our personality and preferences. Because if we do not tend to our emotions, it means we are operating from them.

The Cost of Ungrounded Emotions

Over time, this leads to disconnection from ourselves, burnout, or worse, chronic stress and physical issues. It is hard to even notice it within ourselves if we never experience relief. That becomes our baseline.

If this is our baseline, all hope is not lost. We just have to start slow. All of us should start slow regardless of how often we find our nervous systems activated. When emotions go untended, they stack. Like layers of an onion, each unresolved feeling builds on the last one - changing our future experience and ultimately clouding our judgement. The longer this continues, the harder it becomes to access what's underneath, especially without intention.

“Leaking” emotions means acting from an emotion that we haven’t processed. Sometimes we're aware of it - like when we say we're just having a bad day. Other times, it shows up subconsciously and affects how we treat others or make decisions without us even realizing.

We can experience emotions without leaking emotions.

Ultimately, we want to first ground in our emotions, and then we can release them.

Grounding in our emotions interrupts the process and overrides the activation state. To ground emotions means to come back to your body and out of the activation. It tells the nervous system: We are safe. We can be with this and not run.

Given that emotions activate our nervous system, grounding emotions resets our nervous system and draws in regulation.

Practices like deep breathing or body awareness can bring the body out of the fight-or-flight mode. It's how your biology finds safety again.

Studies have shown that grounding through physical contact with the earth (like walking barefoot on grass or sand) can actually reduce inflammation in the body from lowering cortisol.

Signs You Need To Ground

If we are not grounding our emotions, we may feel:

• Numb or out of it

• Looping thoughts - replaying what has happened or could happen

• Trying to fix emotions, avoid them or shift into logic and positivity

• Acting out of impulse like snapping at someone, doom-scrolling, or fleeing a situation

• Out of control - emotions or situations are controlling us and not the other way around

• Trying to distract ourselves with food, screens, talking to others

A lack of grounding means we haven't yet created enough safety in our bodies to actually feel the emotion.

How To Ground An Emotion

Sometimes, especially at the beginning, it can be very challenging to ground an emotion in the moment. Whether it's after the fact or during, you:

• Notice and name it - "What am I actually feeling?" A list of possible emotions

• Become present - name 5 things around you. Press your feet firmly on the ground or place one hand on your chest.

• Breathe deeper and slower - notice your breath and slow it down.

• Move to safety - "I am here and I am safe to feel."

• Let the emotion be there - "It's okay to feel this."

• Locate the emotion - "Where do I feel this in my body?"

• Stay with it gently - "Can I be with this with no need to change it?"

• Anchor in the breath - Take three slow, intentional breaths to help your body.

Grounding doesn't require perfection. It requires only intention. The intention to feel your emotions within your body, in the current moment. The more you do it, the easier it becomes and the safer you feel.

Once grounded, we are no longer swept up by our emotional state without awareness. We are in a conscious relationship with it - responding instead of reacting. From that place of awareness, we can move into the next step: releasing what no longer needs to stay. That's where we go next.