Hello there! *tap* *tap* Is this thing on? Whew time sure does just go sometimes. It’s been over 2 months since my last share about MFT grad school at CSU East Bay, and a lot has happened. In fact thanksgiving break just happened, which is what has finally given me enough space to write (or so I tell myself), right before final exams and so many papers are due! This writing feels so much easier, so I’ll start here.
One of the interesting things about the learning process is the period of sitting with new information and feelings. I’m kind of a quiet, introspective person by default unless social circumstances call for something more. And grad school is lots of group projects, so I’m definitely practicing speaking up. But at this point in being who I am, I like to sit and chew on new ideas before deciding what to do with them, if anything.
One of the things I have chewed on a lot is the value of insight. It seems obvious and common: knowing is at least half the battle, knowledge is power and all of that. Insight in therapy refers to the process of gaining a deeper self-understanding by recognizing how past experiences, unresolved conflicts, and unconscious beliefs influence current thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. It seems like insight would be the key to overcoming whatever obstacles are happening for a person. But it isn’t so. What?! A new insight.
Supposing that this was true, what then? Well, I’m somewhat limited at this moment by the written form versus being live in person, but without further explanation what I will invite you to do is ground through your breathing with me. If you’re familiar with this practice, feel free to do it your own way. If you’re not familiar, follow along and modify however you like. Some people close their eyes, others just lower their gaze. There is no right way.
Ok, deep breath in and about 5-7 seconds to breath out. Next, take a couple of normal breaths. Then, deep breath in again and 5-7 seconds to breath out. Next, take a couple of normal breaths. Ok, one more deep breath in, then 5-7 seconds to breath out. Resume normal breathing, and take a few moments to notice how you feel.
The importance of grounding is that it creates a felt sense of safety through integration. It is part of the practice of emotional regulation. We do it at the beginning of a lot of our classes in school, especially when we are about to cover some tough subjects. It allows humans to access parts of themselves that are sometimes closed off due to stress and feeling overwhelmed. In Dan Siegel’s The Whole Brain Child, he describes a hand model of the brain where the “upstairs” thinking brain (logic, planning, problem-solving, etc.) is represented by your 4 fingers, the “downstairs” feelings parts of your brain by your thumb and brain stem by the palm. Basically, when you’re feeling calm, your hand is closed with the thumb tucked inside. All the parts are closely connected and talking to each other. This is integration, a desirable state.
When you’re feeling big emotions for any reason, or are surprised by a scary thing happening, the hand essentially “flips open,” meaning that the upstairs and downstairs parts of the brain become disconnected. When you feel very angry, sad, or afraid, logic and thinking are not possible for a time. This is unfortunately where a lot of people struggle because society does not teach us how to care for one another as fellow humans with big feelings. But oh do we practice in school.
So, coming back to the grounding exercise you perhaps just did, this was done for two reasons. First, because the idea I introduced (that insight isn’t the key) may have brought up some feelings for you, and we would not be able to go further until we practiced emotional regulation. Second, the insight I was hoping to introduce was that emotional regulation itself is a key piece of being able to stay with the things you may know to be true but have difficulty acting upon.
For a more hopefully relatable example, you might remember or imagine a time when you were planning on doing a workout. You organized your whole day or week around it, and with the many tasks and events that preceded it, some of them even quite stressful, it was finally time, and you could do it now. And yet, you did not want to. In fact, you kind of just felt like sitting there. And then what did you do? Well, I don’t know, only you do. But I will say you did the right thing for you in that moment, truly. And then, what I will suggest is that with a practice of emotional regulation, you may be able to more often do things that represent what you might call the best parts of yourself, or your authentic, integrated self.
This may not make much sense at first, and that’s normal. That’s another thing we practice in school: normalizing the experience. But I’ll save that and other nuggets for another time. For now, I hope you found this little share of some interest or use, and happy holidays 🍂☃️🎄!
Mauricio