If we were meeting in person right now, I’d ask you to close your eyes, but you can’t read if your eyes are closed. However, this will give you an idea of a somatic exercise I use with clients in session to help with grounding, anger, anxiety, or any other disturbing emotion.
I’m going to do this from my own perspective to show you how it’s done. In the session, I would give my example as well, and then we would transition to you doing yours. I’d ask you to think of a place. Insert your own word: “happy place,” “healing place,” “calm place,” “safe place.” It can be a real place, or imaginary. I’ve had clients choose a mountain top, a lake house, or even a painting they could go into. It can even be a cloud. Whatever that “place” is for you.
Mine is a “healing place.” For me, it’s always the beach. This is when I would ask you to close your eyes and picture the beach. In my mind, I am standing facing the ocean. It’s a nice day, not too warm, with a slight breeze. It’s a cloudy sky, but the clouds are minimal and fluffy white. I can smell the salt and hear the waves and the seagulls and the wind through the beach grass.
I look out at the ocean. It’s a beautiful bluish-green. The waves come in towards me, and then flow out away from me. I breathe with it. In with the waves, out with the waves. The color is all around, that blue and green of the ocean. It’s a calming color. A peaceful color. A healing color. As the waves come in, I inhale the blue color. It flows into me, filling me up from my toes and gently upwards in my ankles and calves. It feels warm, gentle, and soft.
Then as the waves go back out, I exhale. This exhale is a different color. It’s the color of my distress. It’s anxiety, anger, sadness, depression. For me, it’s black. (Have you ever seen the movie The Green Mile? The black insect-like exhale of the supernatural prisoner? That’s what I picture.) I exhale out the black, and the ocean takes it away.
In with the blue, out with the black… until I feel completely calm and relaxed and soft.
What is your place? What colors do you choose? Restore yourself.