Rounding is this idea that we're just coming back into our body. So often we're just in our head when we're an autopilot, we're not really in our body, but we are either lost in the past or we are thinking about the future. So grounding is any activity that brings us back into the body in this moment.

Good way to do that is to just by starting to feel your feet, so you can feel the contact that your feet are having with the floor. You can do that when you're sitting. You can do that when you're walking. Very simple. You can also look, you can just orient yourself really in the room. Instead of being lost in thought, really saying like, what am I seeing right now?

You can focus on sound, you can use all of your senses. If you wanna do a little bit more of a formal grounding practice, you would feel your feet on the floor, and then you would feel where else your body has. Contact with the chair, um, that you're sitting on. So the legs, the back, and then you can focus on some breath and maybe also what your hands are doing in that moment.

And you can do that without anybody noticing. So it's very simple, it's very effective, and you're right here.

Another tool that we can teach to veterans and we can use ourselves is. The S means stop T. Take a breath. O means observe your experience, checking in with your sensations in the body, your thoughts and your emotions, and the p proceed. Proceed in a way that feels right to you. You might use stop in a situation that it's difficult and challeng.

Or will you notice really strong thoughts or emotions coming in? And it's just a way to check in with yourself and give yourself a little bit of space to proceed in a way that feels right.

Download Transcript