Reduce Anxiety & Come Back Into Your Body With This Easy Practice

Anxiety can generate feelings of disassociation and disconnection, making it difficut to focus. This easy practice brings you fully back into your body, allowing you to sense yourself in relation to your environment. When your body is able to sense it’s specific location, you can “click in” to yourself and feel grounded and centered. The practice is called spatial referencing. Here’s how to do it:

SPATIAL REFERENCING

Time: 3-8 minutes

This practice can be done anytime throughout your day, anywhere. Sitting, standing, or lying down. It brings you into the present moment and grounds you. For those who feel untethered, it guides you back into your body. If you feel unsafe or in fight or flight mode, it helps you get in touch with your surroundings so that your nervous system can calm down. 

Begin by lengthening your spine. If you are seated or standing, lift your chest and grow a bit taller through the crown of your head. Look down and to the right. See what you notice there. What objects, colors, textures. Now look to the lower left side. What do you see? Scan the space in between. In front of you. Shift your gaze higher now, right up the center. Notice what you see there. 

Now look up and to the right. See what stands out. What smaller details can you notice? Look up and to the left and do the same. Any different shapes or colors? Now to the center, but go higher with your eyes. Scan the area directly above you, and then the whole field up above you, everything that you can take in. 

Slowly turn your head to your right and look behind you. Start at the ground level, then let your eyes travel higher, noticing what there is to notice on the way up. Look all the way up. Gently bring your head back to neutral, then turn your head to the left. Starting at the ground see what you can see. Allow your eyes to travel slowly upwards, taking in what is behind you. Let your eyes once again travel all the way up. Notice what is there. Gently bring your head to face forward again. 

Keeping your head facing forward, use a broad perspective and your peripheral vision to take in the whole picture now, the entirety. Feel yourself where you are, in this time and place. Notice where you are in relation to the other things around you. Feel the earth beneath you. Grounded and centered in your own body. Check-in with yourself: How do you feel in this moment now?

Now that you know how to do this easy practice, you can utilize it at any time throughout the day to ground yourself and reconnect to the present moment, fully embodied.