How to Ground Yourself When Everything Feels Uncertain

Life can feel like a whirlwind during big transitions—new jobs, moves, breakups, or even personal awakenings.When everything feels shaky, grounding yourself is the first step toward clarity.

Steps to Ground Yourself:

• Do a sensory check-in: Focus on what you can see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. This brings you back to the present moment.

  • Questions you can ask yourself in this moment:

    • What do you feel in the moment?

    • Does any particular sense give you more joy than others?

    • Can you see yourself leveraging one or more senses as your norm for coming back to a foundational setting?

• Try grounding techniques: Walk barefoot on grass, hold a grounding stone like hematite, or press your feet into the floor and take deep breaths. One of my favorite ways to reset is to be in or near water. Listening to the waves at a beach. Feeling the coolness of the water against my skin. Sometimes it feels as though the water is washing away the negative and allowing positivity to flow through me.

• Limit digital overwhelm: Log off for a few hours and sit with your thoughts. Whether it's work or personal, being on laptops, cellphones, or even reading tablets can create anxiety and trigger stress hormones in our bodies. They don't allow us to turn off the brain. The blue light coming from the screen can interfere with our sleep. Also, with so much content these days being drama-filled for trauma responses, it makes the social experience far less enjoyable.

• Use affirmations: Say something like, “I am safe. I am here. I am capable.” What affirmations can you use to combat the negative self-talk? How can you challenge the doubt, fear, or anxiety you're feeling because of the impending change?

  
  

Takeaway: You don’t have to have it all figured out today. Grounding gives you a calm place to begin again.