My Practice
What I've learned from 6 months of meditation and therapy—practices that actually help when you're anxious, dissociating, or stuck in your head.
I started meditating about six months ago. At first, it was just breath focus—ten minutes a day, trying to follow the instructions on this site. It helped. But when anxiety showed up, or my mind fogged over, or I felt disconnected from my body, I didn't have tools for that.
That's where therapy came in. Working with a somatic therapist, I learned exercises that bridge the gap between "mindfulness meditation" and "what do I actually do when I'm dysregulated?" These aren't replacements for meditation—they're companions to it.
I'm sharing them here because they've been genuinely useful, and because the line between "meditation technique" and "therapeutic grounding tool" is blurrier than most apps suggest.
Body Scan as Felt-Sense Training
Not relaxation—awareness
The body scan on this site is framed as "releasing tension." That's one use. But my therapist taught it differently: as training to notice where anxiety lives in your body—so you can catch it before it hijacks your behavior.
The goal isn't to feel good. It's to build the skill of contact: knowing what's actually happening in your body right now, without arguing with it or trying to fix it.
Felt-Sense Body Scan
10-20 minutes • sitting or lying down
1. Arrive
- Let your body be supported (chair, couch, floor).
- Take 2-3 slow breaths.
- Don't try to "clear your mind." Just show up.
2. Scan for "what's here"
- Bring attention to your feet: pressure, temperature, tingling, numbness—anything.
- If it's blank, that's still information. Don't force sensation.
3. Move upward, one region at a time
Feet → calves → knees → thighs → hips → lower belly → chest → upper back → shoulders → arms → hands → neck → jaw/face → forehead/top of head
4. Name it lightly (optional)
"Tight." "Warm." "Buzzing." "Blank." "Heavy."
The goal is not analysis. It's contact.
Key instruction
- Don't argue with the sensation.
- Don't fix it.
- Don't narrate a story about it.
- Just notice: "This is where it lives right now."
Bilateral Grounding
Simple left-right input for reset
This one sounds "woo" until you try it. Bilateral stimulation—alternating left-right input—is used in EMDR therapy, but you don't need a therapist to use a simplified version as a grounding tool.
My therapist emphasized there's no "perfect" response. Sometimes you notice nothing. Sometimes you notice body sensations or memories surface. The point is the reset, not the revelation.
Bilateral Grounding
60-120 seconds • use as a reset
1. Choose your method
- Thigh taps: Tap left thigh → right thigh → left → right
- Foot taps: Alternate tapping feet on floor
- Butterfly: Cross arms and tap shoulders alternating (left-right)
2. Do 20-40 taps
Keep it steady, not intense.
3. Pause and breathe
One slow inhale, longer exhale.
4. Ask one question
"What do I notice in my body right now?"
5. Repeat 1-3 rounds
If you start spacing out: tap your feet to come back.
Parts Check-In
When the mind fogs or overthinks
Here's something that changed how I relate to mental fog: when I couldn't "get a hold" of a sensation during therapy, my therapist didn't treat it as failure. She treated it as a protector.
The "thinking part" that was analyzing everything? It had a job: distract from painful feelings. The fog wasn't a bug—it was a feature, doing exactly what it was designed to do.
This check-in is especially useful for "high-cognition brains"—people who default to thinking their way through everything (that's me).
Parts Check-In
90 seconds • for mental fog or analysis paralysis
"I notice I'm thinking / analyzing / fogging."
"Is this part trying to protect me from feeling something?"
"If yes—what is it protecting me from?"
"Could it step aside 10%… just for one breath?"
The point is not to kill the thinking—just to reduce it enough to re-enter the body.
Safe Place + Warm Light
Closing practice for regulation
My therapist closed almost every session this way: guide me into a safe place (real or imagined), then run a "warm light" scan from head to feet. It sounds simple—it is—but it works.
The important part: when you hit a "blocked" zone (mine was always the chest), you don't fight it. You just notice it and let the light pause or flow around it. The block is another protector doing its job.
Safe Place + Warm Light
2-3 minutes • end of practice
1. Pick a safe place
Real or imaginary. Nature, a room, your studio—anywhere you feel grounded.
2. Place yourself there
Sitting or lying down. Breathing normally. Take a moment to arrive.
3. Warm light
Imagine a warm, sunlike light above you. Let it move slowly:
Top of head → face → throat → chest → belly → legs → feet
4. If you hit a blocked zone
- Don't fight it.
- Just notice: "Something tight is here."
- Let the light pause or flow around it—no forcing.
Portable Grounding Tools
For dissociation and spacing out
When I would dissociate or space out during sessions, my therapist recommended sensory anchors—physical objects that bring you back into the present through immediate body contact.
These are embarrassingly simple. They also work. Low drama, high utility.
Essential oils
Smell = immediate body contact. Keep a small bottle in your pocket or bag.
Stone or rock
Something smooth to rub in your pocket. The texture grounds you.
Small object
Trinket, squishy ball, anything you can touch and feel with intention.
Foot tapping
No objects needed. Tap your feet on the floor to come back from spacing out.
A note on all this
These practices came from therapy, not from a meditation tradition. I'm sharing them because the boundary between "meditation" and "somatic therapy" is fuzzier than it seems—and because they've helped me when pure mindfulness wasn't enough.
If you're dealing with anxiety, dissociation, trauma, or dysregulation that feels bigger than what a meditation app can handle: please work with a therapist. These exercises are supplements, not substitutes.
The real lesson from six months of practice: showing up matters more than doing it perfectly.