Counting Colors

Not just for toddlers. (Works for them too though.)

Another of my favorite grounding exercises is all about color. Grounding exercises are tools we can use in a disregulated state to "come back to earth." When we're disregulated, our higher level thinking functions are basically gone. Our brain is shunting all our blood flow to base survival. Rational thought is a waste of time.

We need to slow down. We need to make ourselves focus. We need to engage new senses to reconnect our thinking brains.

Option 1: Pick a color and count how many objects you can spot around you in that color. You can pick a new color if you run out of objects.

Option 2: The rainbow - find something red, then orange, then yellow… all through the rainbow. Repeat as necessary.

Option 3: Neither of these work for you! That's okay. There are lots of grounding skills and only a couple work for me. I think there's not enough acknowledgement out there that most of these skills only work for some people and most people only like some skills.