How to: Make 'Grounding' Bags

Grounding is a therapeutic technique that involves doing activities that “ground” or reconnect you to the present moment. Grounding is about coming out of your thinking brain and connecting with sensations in your body that feel safe. Since we're using the word sensations it makes sense that one way to ground is to engage your senses.

As a quick reminder, we've got five of those (or six depending on who you're talking to).

• Sight
• Sound
• Touch
• Smell
• Taste
• Propreoception (includes the sense of movement and position of our limbs and muscles)

So what's a grounding bag?

A grounding bag (or box) is a place where you have a number of things ready to go to engage each one of your senses. Anything (or everything) can then be pulled from the bag at a difficult moment to try and help bring you back into the present moment and connect you with your body again. This can be particularly useful if you are struggling with dissociation.

I first made grounding bags when working with young women who were being sexually exploited and so were often missing from home. For that reason we made the grounding bags super tiny, but your bag can be as big or small as you like. Have a think about when you are going to want to have it with you (will it be in your bag, at home, in your pocket?) and design accordingly. Remember that it doesn't need to be a bag either, it could be a box or something else altogher. Depending on your needs, useful types of containers might be

• wedding favour bags
• old jars
• travel soap boxes

How to make it

Here are some ideas for each of your senses, feel free to give anything else a go depending on the size of your bag and the resources you have to hand.

Sight

• A swatch of your favourite colour
• Mindful colouring sheet
• Optical illusion

Sound

• A mini bell
• Crinkly paper
• A clicky pen
• A lipstick that 'pops' as you open it
• Bubblewrap

Touch

• Feather
• Stress ball
• Soft fabric
• Slime
• Blu Tack

Smell

• Small bunch of dried herbs or flowers
• Favourite perfume sample
• Scented teabag

Taste

• Mini chocolate (like a Celebration or a Quality Street)
• Mint
• Chewing gum

Get as creative as you like, you could even try the 2 minute grouding bag challenge - try making your grounding bag in 2 minutes just using objects that you can find around you. It might be helpful to practice using your grounding bag in quite moments so that it becomes natural and an easier resource to call on in a more stressful moment. Feel free to sit somewhere quitely and pick an item from your bag or box. Take a moment to look at it and really notice what it feels like, what is its shape and its texture? Then you could try to focus hard on the sense that the item is intended to engage i.e. if you are looking at your bubblewrap, you could try focussing on the sound it makes as you pop the bubbles, how long does the sound last, can you recreate it? Take as long as you need with your item, or you could try a few. You might want to notice how you feel after you have completed the exercise.

Remember to refresh your grounding bag or box as often as you like, adding new items and replacing items as you find new things to engage your senses.