In a previous post, I shared a technique called Top 2/Bottom 2 to help you manage your own stress using the five senses. In this post, I share an easy step-by-step tip on how to help someone else ground when they’re feeling overwhelmed with strong emotions using sensory recall.
Sensory Recall: Using the 5 Senses
When your loved one is experiencing high stress, it can be easy for them to get lost in their emotions, lose connection with what’s happening in the here-and-now, and become increasingly reactive. The exercise described below can help someone reconnect with what’s happening in the present, away from what their emotions are often mistakenly interpreting them to be.
NOTE: This exercise is NOT meant to imply that what a person is feeling is bad and that the emotion must therefore be pushed away. Our emotions are really important in revealing what legitimate needs we have, but when they’re so loud that our ability to sort through them is overloaded, it’s sometimes better to decrease the volume first. Exercises like the one below can help turn back on the part of the other person’s brain that helps with their processing.
Note the 5 senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste.
Ask your loved one: “What is…”
After sensory recall, say:
Close your eyes.
Take a deep breath, notice where you are physically in this moment.
Place your hand over your heart.
Repeat after me: “Right now, in this moment, I am okay.”
This is one of many ways to help our loved ones ground their bodies from a state of panic to one of calmness. It is not a cure-all approach, since it does require for there to already have been enough rapport and connection between you two. If the other person doesn’t seem to respond well to this (for example, because they feel you’re trying to dismiss their emotions), here is another approach: How to Be a Rabbit.
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© Copyright 2021 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.
JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT
Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Therapist in San Jose, CA, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.
Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:
“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”
“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”
Does this resonate?
Proudly helping women, healers, pastors, caregivers, and Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs) who are EXHAUSTED by anxiety, guilt, shame, and an allergic reaction with anger create VIBRANT relationships where THEY MATTER, TOO!
Enneagram, EMDR, and Brainspotting Therapy in the Silicon Valley (Santa Clara County - San Jose, Los Gatos, Campbell, Cupertino, Saratoga, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Milpitas) and the San Francisco Bay Area. Offering telehealth video sessions in California.
I was a panelist at the EnneaSummit 2024 for the Enneagram Practitioner Panel.
In this panel, we share our experiences and observations about what different Enneagram types think they need in therapy, what they actually need, and some important growth steps so they can grow beyond their type.