Dissociation and Grounding: Coming Back to Your Body

BY NICOLE LAU

You're in a conversation but you're not really there. You're watching yourself from outside your body. You feel numb, disconnected, like you're floating. Time feels weird—hours pass in what feels like minutes, or minutes feel like hours. You can't remember how you got somewhere.

This is dissociation—your mind's way of protecting you from overwhelming experiences by disconnecting you from your body, emotions, or reality.

Dissociation kept you safe during trauma. But now, when you're no longer in danger, it keeps you from being fully present in your life. You're here, but you're not HERE.

Grounding is the practice of coming back—back to your body, back to the present moment, back to reality. This is your complete guide to understanding dissociation and learning to ground.

Understanding Dissociation

What Is Dissociation?

Dissociation is a disconnection between your thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity.

It exists on a spectrum:

• Mild: Daydreaming, "zoning out," highway hypnosis
• Moderate: Feeling detached from yourself or surroundings, emotional numbness
• Severe: Depersonalization, derealization, dissociative identity disorder (DID)

Types of Dissociation

Depersonalization: Feeling detached from yourself, like you're watching yourself from outside your body

Derealization: Feeling like the world around you isn't real, like you're in a dream or movie

Dissociative amnesia: Can't remember important personal information or traumatic events

Identity confusion: Uncertainty about who you are

Emotional numbing: Can't feel emotions, feeling "flat" or empty

Why Dissociation Happens

Dissociation is a survival mechanism.

When trauma is too overwhelming to process, your mind protects you by:

• Disconnecting you from your body (so you don't feel the pain)
• Disconnecting you from emotions (so you're not overwhelmed)
• Disconnecting you from reality (so the trauma feels "not real")

It's adaptive during trauma. It becomes maladaptive when it continues after the trauma ends.

Signs You're Dissociating

• Feeling like you're watching yourself from outside your body
• Feeling like the world isn't real or you're in a dream
• Emotional numbness or feeling "nothing"
• Time distortion (losing track of time, time feeling weird)
• Memory gaps (can't remember how you got somewhere, what you did)
• Feeling disconnected from your body (can't feel physical sensations)
• Feeling like you're on autopilot
• Difficulty concentrating or focusing
• Feeling like you're "not really here"

Dissociation and Trauma

Dissociation During Trauma

During trauma, dissociation is protective.

Examples:

• During abuse, you "leave your body" so you don't feel the pain
• During assault, you feel like it's happening to someone else
• During a car accident, everything feels like slow motion or unreal

This is your brain protecting you. It's not weakness—it's survival.

Dissociation After Trauma

After trauma, dissociation can become chronic.

Your nervous system learned: "When things are overwhelming, disconnect." Now it disconnects even when you're safe:

• During intimacy
• During conflict
• When emotions are intense
• When triggered by trauma reminders
• Sometimes for no clear reason

The Energetic View of Dissociation

Soul Fragmentation

From a spiritual perspective, dissociation is soul fragmentation (see Article 2).

Part of your soul/essence left during trauma and hasn't fully returned. You're literally not "all here."

Disconnection from Lower Chakras

Dissociation often involves disconnection from root and sacral chakras.

• Root chakra: Connection to body, earth, physical reality
• Sacral chakra: Connection to emotions, sensations, pleasure

When these are blocked or disconnected, you feel ungrounded and dissociated.

What Is Grounding?

Grounding is the practice of reconnecting to your body, the present moment, and physical reality.

Grounding brings you:

• Back into your body (from floating outside it)
• Back to the present (from the past or dissociative state)
• Back to reality (from feeling like things aren't real)
• Back to your senses (from numbness)

Grounding Techniques for Dissociation

The 5-4-3-2-1 Technique

The most effective grounding technique for acute dissociation (5 minutes).

1. 5 things you can SEE: Look around, name them out loud
2. 4 things you can TOUCH: Touch them, notice texture, temperature
3. 3 things you can HEAR: Listen, name the sounds
4. 2 things you can SMELL: Notice smells (or imagine pleasant ones)
5. 1 thing you can TASTE: Notice taste in your mouth (or eat/drink something)

Why it works: Engages all five senses, bringing you into the present moment.

Physical Grounding

Use strong physical sensations to anchor in your body.

• Cold water: Splash on face, hold ice cubes, drink ice water
• Strong scent: Peppermint oil, coffee beans, citrus
• Physical pressure: Squeeze a stress ball, hug yourself tightly, weighted blanket
• Movement: Stomp feet, jump, shake your body
• Touch texture: Rough fabric, smooth stone, soft fur

Feet on Floor Grounding

Simple and effective (3 minutes).

1. Sit with feet flat on floor (or stand)
2. Press feet down firmly
3. Notice the sensation of floor beneath your feet
4. Say out loud: "My feet are on the floor. I am here. I am in [location]. It is [date/time]. I am safe."

The Orientation Exercise

Orient to your environment to confirm you're in the present (5 minutes).

1. Look around the room slowly
2. Name where you are: "I am in my bedroom"
3. Name the date and time: "It is Friday, January 16, 2026, 10:08 PM"
4. Name your age: "I am [age] years old"
5. Notice differences from the past: "This is not [where trauma happened]. I am safe here."

Body Scan for Grounding

Reconnect with body sensations (10 minutes).

1. Lie down or sit comfortably
2. Start with feet: "I notice my feet. I feel tingling/warmth/pressure."
3. Move up slowly: legs, hips, stomach, chest, arms, hands, neck, head
4. Just notice sensations, don't judge
5. If an area feels numb, that's okay—just notice that

Important: If this triggers you, stop. Try a different technique.

Grounding Through Movement

Movement brings you into your body.

• Walk slowly, feeling each step
• Stretch gently
• Dance or sway
• Yoga (trauma-informed)
• Shake your body

Energetic Grounding Practices

Root Chakra Activation

Activate your root chakra to ground (10 minutes).

1. Sit cross-legged on floor (or chair with feet flat)
2. Place hands on root chakra (base of spine/pelvic floor)
3. Visualize red light at the base of your spine
4. See roots growing from your root chakra down into the earth
5. Feel the earth's energy rising up through the roots, grounding you
6. Affirm: "I am grounded. I am here. I am safe in my body."

Earthing/Grounding

Direct contact with earth (15-30 minutes).

• Walk barefoot on grass, soil, or sand
• Sit or lie on the ground
• Touch a tree, lean against it
• Garden (hands in soil)

Why it works: Literal grounding—earth's electrons balance your body's electrical charge.

Grounding Crystals

Carry or hold grounding stones.

• Black tourmaline: Protection, grounding, energetic boundaries
• Hematite: Strong grounding, brings you into body
• Smoky quartz: Grounding, clearing, transmuting
• Red jasper: Root chakra, stability, physical grounding

Creating a Grounding Toolkit

Keep these items accessible for when you dissociate:

• Ice pack or ice cubes
• Strong-smelling essential oil (peppermint, eucalyptus)
• Textured object (stress ball, rough stone, soft fabric)
• Sour candy or strong mint
• Grounding crystals
• List of grounding techniques (written down for when you can't think clearly)
• Photos of safe people or places

When Grounding Is Difficult

Why You Might Resist Grounding

• Being in your body feels unsafe: Your body holds trauma
• The present is painful: Dissociation protects you from current pain
• You're used to dissociation: It's your normal state
• Grounding brings up emotions: You've been avoiding them

What to Do

• Go slower—don't force yourself fully into your body
• Work with a trauma therapist
• Create more safety in your life before demanding full presence
• Be patient—grounding is a skill that takes practice

Grounding vs. Dissociation: Finding Balance

The goal isn't to never dissociate. It's to have choice.

• Sometimes mild dissociation is helpful (watching a movie, creative flow)
• The problem is when dissociation is automatic and you can't control it
• Healing means: being able to ground when you want to, and being able to dissociate when it serves you

Working with a Therapist

Chronic dissociation often requires professional help.

Effective therapies:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
• Somatic Experiencing
• Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
• Internal Family Systems (IFS)

A good therapist will:

• Help you understand your dissociation
• Teach you grounding techniques
• Work with the trauma causing dissociation
• Help you build tolerance for being present

Affirmations for Grounding

• "I am safe in my body."
• "I am here, in this moment."
• "It is safe to be present."
• "I am grounded. I am connected. I am here."
• "My body is my home. I can return to it."

The Deeper Truth

Dissociation protected you when you needed protection. It kept you safe when being present was too dangerous or painful.

But now, you're safe enough to come back. Not all at once. Not perfectly. But gradually, gently, you can return to your body, to the present, to being fully here.

Grounding is the practice of coming home—to yourself, to your body, to this moment.

You don't have to float anymore. You can land.

Next: The Hanged Man and Freeze Response—trauma paralysis.