Coming to Our Senses
A few weeks ago, I started my day with a morning walk through the neighbourhoods where I live. As I kept walking, I became lost in my thoughts. What did my work schedule look like? What were my family needs? What hadn’t I accomplished yesterday that I needed to finish before the day’s appointments began? As I considered these questions, even more questions began entering my mind. I noticed that I was breathing quite heavily, sweating in the sticky, humid air, and feeling quite moody, even agitated.
When I turned the corner toward home, something caught my attention. I noticed a green tree, with bright yellow blossoms, a native frangipani, right there, on the side of the road. Even though this path was one that I traverse regularly, I had never paused to take note of this tree.
I found myself fascinated by those small, yellow blossoms, almost like sunbursts amid the green. I stopped walking and I took a deep breath. I smiled. I relaxed my shoulders. And I stood there, like a patron in a museum examining a piece of art.
“When we become aware that our thoughts are racing, we can invite ourselves to pause, slow ourselves down, be compassionate with ourselves, and gently try to draw our mind back, to the present moment.”
As my eyes fixated on the yellow blossoms, I became more aware of my environment. I could hear the birdsong of the cockatoos and kookaburras. I noticed the whirring sound of traffic on the nearby highway. I could feel my feet in my sneakers, my legs supported by the ground beneath me. A warm breeze passed across my face.
Maybe ten seconds passed. Maybe less. Maybe more. Yet all the thoughts that were passing through my mind grew quieter. When I focused on the yellow frangipani blossoms with my sight, I grounded myself in the present moment, and I became open to the reality that I was experiencing, right now. Instead of continuing to wrestle with different thoughts and imagine possibilities and outcomes in my head, instead of worrying about what happened there-and-then, seeing the yellow blossoms of the frangipani tree, hearing the animals and the traffic, and feeling the warm breeze brought me into the here-and-now. Having paused to reconnect with my senses, I resumed my morning walk, refreshed and refocused.
Grounding ourselves in the present moment is a key strategy in therapy which can help us find healing, discover resilience, and become more empowered. When we have experienced grief or trauma, our mind can sometimes run rampant, intrusive thoughts can plague us, and it can feel difficult to focus. When we become aware that our thoughts are racing, we can invite ourselves to pause, slow ourselves down, be compassionate with ourselves, and gently try to draw our mind back, to the present moment. In that moment of coming back to our senses, we might see beautiful colours, we might hear some unique sounds, or we might feel other pleasurable sensations.
Our mind may invite us to replay a particular moment in our lives, time and time again. But our bodies always exist in the here-and-now. Our senses can be invaluable resources in helping us to ground ourselves in the present moment, assisting us to re-discover our strength and courage. If we pay attention, our senses may even guide us toward something as beautiful as yellow frangipani blossoms.