can't you only 'practise' when it actually occurs/ the need to deal with it arises?
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Also, what other option is there than 'managing it alone'?
Sorry, I think maybe I was being vague again... it's not just emotional illiteracy I struggle with apparently!
Grounding can very much be practiced/learned/reinforced when you're not triggered or when you're in a calm, in control state. The exercises themselves, performing and focusing on simple physical activities, performing mental tasks or concentrating your focus on soothing thoughts or behaviours, can be done absolutely any time. While it seems pointless at the time to be doing such things when you don't need to (and believe me, I know that it does), it helps your mind to learn the form of focus and discipline required to focus exclusively on these activities and to tune out other distracting stimuli. I guess in that sense it'sa bit like learning to meditate, you have to literally teach your mind to exclude certain things and to centre on others, and you are best in a position to teach it when you are calm and in control of it.
By way of example, I currently find catching the train to be extremely anxiety-provoking - crushing crowds, closed-in spaces, lots of close jostling people contact, etc etc etc. Some days are worse than others, as is always the case. So from the moment I reach the train station I make a point of focusing on grounding. How many people are standing on the platform? Count them... how many are male, how many female? How many people are wearing red? List all of the objects that I can see other people carrying.
Once on the train, I continue... List all of the activities I can see others engaged in, and rank them from most to least, eg, 6 people reading the paper, 5 people talking on the phone, 4 people talking to their neighbour...
Sometimes I concentrate on mentally describing, with all of my senses, the experience of being on the train. Describe the temperature of the air conditioning, the feel of the seat, the smells I can notice from the train and/or its passengers (often unpleasant!!!).
Or perhaps a simple soothing exercise of imagining a trusted friend is sitting beside me, aware of my discomfort and desire to be anywhere other than on the train. What would this person say to me? What would I say in response?
Doing these things when I'm not distressed, or only mildly so, is actually not as easy in the beginning as it seems, chiefly because it's easy to get distracted, or to break one of the fundamental rules of grounding, which is to avoid making value judgments or subjective assessments about things. "The man sitting next to me is wearing a green shirt" can very easily become "that green shirt is ugly and it's too small for him..." if you're not careful, and somehow, again, in ways which may seem silly at first, the process becomes risky and potentially emotive once you start with even minor judgments.
Like any form of learned behaviour, grounding occurs much more easily and reliably when it has been thoroughly practiced and reinforced, and thesedays, I sometimes realise with some incredulous amazement that I've started doing it almost unconsciously as I approach a potentially stressful situation.
As to the question of how others can do this with you? It can help, particularly when you're starting out, to have someone prompt you through the process and issue a set of basic instructions to follow. T and I started out sitting in his office while he asked me to describe objects in the office to him (in neutral language), perform simple motor tasks and describe their feeling, and to perform mental activities, eg, tell me the names of all of the towns you can think of... count backwards from 100 in multiples of 4.
Obviously, at the time, it seemed silly, easy and of no potential value... and believe me, I very petulently and sulkily told him so, repeatedly!
We taped these sessions so that I could revisit them later. I swore I wouldn't... afterall, why would I need to hear him asking me to describe, in order, the steps involved in making a cup of coffee...
But I did,a couple of nights later when I found myself massively triggered and in fairly significant meltdown, so much so that I couldn't calm myself enough to recall the strategies to mind independently. Thankfully I had the pragmatism to run the tape, and there I was, listening to the instructions, following them, and describing, in order, the steps involved in baking a humble pie...
I don't use the tape as often asI used to - practice has gone some way to strengthening my resilience to calling these to mind. Yet on those times when I am too far gone, I have, on occasion, called T in a crisis. This happens rarely, but there have been several very memorable occasions. We have established that at times such as these, it is often the soothing grounding that is most fast-acting and impactful, and so at some point in these crisis negotiations I usually find myself being asked to engage in some form of soothing behaviour, eg, cuddling or grooming my dog, or to think about a safe place/context and to tell him about it, or to listen to a series of very basic, but very grounding, coping statements as he recites them to me - as simple as the old "they are only memories, they can't hurt you now" or "these feelings will pass, they always do" or "you are safe".
Wow, this has been hard... confronting... somehow very vulnerable to write. I'm not sure it' even answered the questions, but I hope so.
Maddog
