Grounding in Story

Photo by Laura Kapfer on Unsplash

Grounding in Story

From the beginning of human history, stories have played a key role in soothing the anxiety of unknown phenomena.  Recently, the eclipse joined humanity in wonder.  Historically, it would have caused fear and panic.  Elders in family groups and tribes would create stories that made the then unknowable less frightening.  Essentially, they used stories to help those in their care ground out.

Grounding has become an essential element and is considered inherent in coping skills.  Coping skills have become, on some levels, a normative fad in external grounding -- things like sensory toys or fidget spinners.  However, stories that cost nothing but time can be just as effective.

In the final book of the Hunger the Mockingjay, the two central characters, Katniss and Peeta, are still fighting for freedom, but have the weight of complex trauma.  The District 13 counselors teach both of them to use narratives of the simplest things that they know to be true to the most difficult present things in order to ground.  For Katniss, it went like this:

“My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I escaped. The Capitol hates me.”

Katniss, in the most disorienting of times, would hang to this and this is how she fought her way to healing.  It was a shortened true story of her present, so she could get unstuck from the past, and have hope for the future.  

In life, when one gets stuck, sometimes the way out is to tell oneself a true story. Start with the simplest and easiest to accept facts and work (having a counselor to guide can help) toward the most difficult facts until one can find radical acceptance.  It’s okay that it takes time.  Eventually with diligent work, one comes to acceptance.  This is when the magic happens: A new story of the future and hope can be written because the old story no longer fits.

Written by Mea McMahon, LPC