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Areas › Your body › Grounding and settling
When someone feels unreal, or far away from their own body, these are the channels that have gone quiet. They carry plain information with no feeling attached, which makes them much easier to take in than a question like how are you feeling. Push your palms together. Stand and let your weight drop through your heels. Tip your head gently from side to side. Small and undramatic is the point.
It was He who spread out the earth for you and traced routes in it (Quran 20:53). Ground underneath and a route through it is the same pair these two senses supply.
طه
ٱلَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلۡأَرۡضَ مَهۡدࣰ ا وَسَلَكَ لَكُمۡ فِيهَا سُبُلࣰ ا وَأَنزَلَ مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءࣰ فَأَخۡرَجۡنَا بِهِۦٓ أَزۡوَٰجࣰ ا مِّن نَّبَاتࣲ شَتَّىٰ
It was He who spread out the earth for you and traced routes in it. He sent down water from the sky. With that water We bring forth every kind of plant
Qur’an 20:53read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A systematic review of interoception and vagal tone found that how well people sense their own internal signals is associated with how well they regulate emotion. That review is about the sense of the body's internal state, a near neighbour of these two rather than the same thing. Most of the studies were cross-sectional, so it is an association rather than evidence that training body awareness improves regulation.
Pinna T, Edwards DJ. (2020). A Systematic Review of Associations Between Interoception, Vagal Tone, and Emotional Regulation: Potential Applications for Mental Health, Wellbeing, Psychological Flexibility, and Chronic Conditions.. Frontiers in psychology doi
Strength of evidence: long taught, never tested. Widely used and long taught. No trial has established that it works.
Information about where your body is in space is hard to argue with, so it gives a foggy mind something solid to hold.
Instead of breathing deeply in general, pick the place that feels tight, the front of the ribs, the chest, one shoulder, and send the breath there.
Keep a short list of things that settle you, and choose from it by how you actually are, not by which one you like best. Wound up and racing needs something different from flat and switched off.
Offer any movement in three sizes: small, medium and full. Let people take the one that fits today, and let them change their mind halfway through.