This happens quite often for me in session. I’ll recognize that my hands don’t look like they are mine or they will tingle or some other body reaction and let my counselor know what’s going on.

He talks me through the breathing, naming objects in the room and feeling things with my hands and describing the feeling. That will “settle” it to a degree, but I can’t say that it really brings me back.

Something that I have noticed that seems to work in grounding me there, is doing something constructive or physical with my hands.

Last week I was triggered when I got to my session. We talked about something that fueled it and I was feeling really out there. He brought out a Jenga game (the game where there’s a tower of long blocks and you take turns pulling out the blocks without knocking down the tower) and we sat on the floor and played Jenga. He had written an emotion on each of the blocks and we shared the last time we felt that emotion. It really helped me anchor myself back to me.

We’ve done a sand tray a few times and I retain the memory of that session, as apposed to some sessions when we just sit in the chairs and talk.

There’s something about doing something physical with my hands that helps to anchor/ground me and help me retain the memory of that session. Most of my memories of sessions are pretty fragmented.

Maybe something physical you could do with your hands with required thought. ?