Due to the devastation of the Eaton Fire, our Altadena, Pasadena and adjacent communities have experienced untold losses, both personal and professional, with understandable traumatic consequences.
Whenever there is a stressful situation, it is good to notice how stress manifests in the body. Is the heart beating fast and the breath get shorter or faster? Is there confusion, anxiety, disorientation, panic or helplessness? Is there dread and hopelessness or explosive anger? These are natural reactions in times of stress, trauma, or emergencies that can be changed.
When we experience trauma, feelings of despair, hopelessness, or anger replace our once open-mindedness, compassion, capacity to listen, understand and communicate.
If we are emotionally centered, we can heal and become united. We recognize the need for safety and healing. We look for the fundamental bonds of religion, culture, and history, music and literature, before we attend to the practical issues.
Many psychotherapeutic techniques help people navigate situations, lower stress, traumatic activation and verbal aggressiveness and empower effective and positive actions. Here are some “grounding” exercises to help you regain your center and heal.
How to quickly release stress during times of trauma, as in this crisis. Video: Gina Ross
Step 1: In a safe place or wherever you are, cross your arms and tap them alternately with open palms 25 times; then take a deep breath. Keep doing it until you feel calmer.
Step 2: Press your feet hard on the ground and feel the support of the ground. Look around you and count ten different textures, such as wood, glass, plastic, etc.; or count ten different shapes, or ten objects of any one color. Now notice how you feel less agitated.
Step 3: Put one hand on your chest and one on your stomach and track your breath.
Step 4: With the tips of your fingers slightly together, make the shape of a heart. Touch the tip of your tongue to the top of your palate. Close your eyes and track your breath; focus on the top of your head. To center yourself, focus on a word, phrase or image which is a resource for you. This exercise can calm you but also take you into a spiritual space.
Step 5: Just pay attention to your inner sensations- fast heartbeat or pulse, short breath, pain, heat or tightness in chest, arms, neck, etc. Choose one sensation. Focus your attention on that sensation and see what happens next. Just be curious, with no judgment or analysis, and the release will happen automatically. Some signs of release include deep spontaneous breaths, shaking and trembling, yawning, heat wave, warm sweat, goose bumps, gurgling of the stomach.
Step 6: Keep focusing on the constricted sensations that come up and release them one at a time, by paying attention and giving them time to release, until you have recovered your calm.
Step 7: To strengthen the sense of calm you have achieved, think of a resource – something that makes you feel stronger or calmer. Pay attention to the soothing effect the resource has on you. Resources can be internal (faith, inner strength, resilience) and external (friends, family, activities).
Remember, stress is contagious. Stress affects us and all those around us and creates a chain-reaction that amplifies reactivity and fear. To prevent this, use these tools to calm yourself first, and then give support to others. The calm we gain with this process allows us to impact others and empower resilience and balance all around us.
