Areas › Your body › Grounding and settling
Picture something that could hold what you cannot deal with today. A box, a safe, a chest with a lid. You choose the size, what it is made of and where it is kept.
The details matter more than they sound: deciding what holds it, and knowing you can open it again, is what makes this different from pushing something down. You are putting it somewhere on purpose, for now, so you can get through the afternoon. Say when you will come back to it, even loosely, so the container does not quietly become the whole plan.
Qur’an and Sunnah
God does not burden any soul with more than He has given it (Quran 65:7). Setting something down until you have more to meet it with sits comfortably inside that.
لِيُنفِقۡ ذُو سَعَةࣲ مِّن سَعَتِهِۦۖ وَمَن قُدِرَ عَلَيۡهِ رِزۡقُهُۥ فَلۡيُنفِقۡ مِمَّآ ءَاتَىٰهُ ٱللَّهُۚ لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا مَآ ءَاتَىٰهَاۚ سَيَجۡعَلُ ٱللَّهُ بَعۡدَ عُسۡرࣲ يُسۡرࣰ ا
and let the wealthy man spend according to his wealth. But let him whose provision is restricted spend according to what God has given him: God does not burden any soul with more than He has given it- after hardship, God will bring ease
Qur’an 65:7read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
An influential account of how facing what frightens you works argues that the gains come from new learning rather than from fear wearing itself out, and that the small manoeuvres people use to feel safe can quietly undercut that learning. This is a theoretical review rather than a test of imagery. Applied here, it suggests containment is fine as a way to get through a day, and less fine as a permanent arrangement.
Craske MG, Treanor M, Conway CC, Zbozinek T, Vervliet B. (2014). Maximizing exposure therapy: an inhibitory learning approach.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Choosing to set something aside for a while keeps you in charge of it, which is not the same as pretending it is not there.
When not to
This is a holding measure, not a treatment: what goes in the container still needs working through with help at some point.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
For coming down, something sweet taken slowly tends to help more than anything you chew: sipped through a straw, or let dissolve on the tongue. Nobody around you can tell you are doing it.
Before you try anything, give your distress a number out of ten. Do the thing. Then give it a number again.
End a check-in with a question rather than a summary: what do I need in order to be properly here today?