Acknowledge difficult emotions, connect with your body, and engage with your surroundings to find stability.

English

The "Dropping Anchor" exercise in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a grounding technique used to help individuals manage overwhelming emotions and thoughts. It involves focusing attention on the present moment by connecting with the body and surroundings through actions like deep breathing, feeling your feet on the ground, and engaging your senses. 

This exercise helps create psychological flexibility during times of distress, allowing people to observe their inner experiences without getting swept away by them.

Dropping Anchor Exercise

Bring to mind something that is problematic, difficult or challenging in your relationship and see if you can tap into the difficult feelings that go with it. So just take a few moments to consider this. What are you finding hard or difficult or painful right now? And what does that feel like for you? Let those feelings bubble up inside you. Let yourself feel that anger or sadness or anxiety or loneliness or whatever it is. Don't push it away. Don't fight it. Let it rise up inside you. There's something painful happening in your relationship. You don't like it. You don't want it. But here it is, and it hurts. Let yourself feel what it feels like. Now take a moment to acknowledge whatever thoughts and feelings are showing up for you. Acknowledge them with curiosity, like a curious child who's observing a flower or a bird for the first time. See if you can notice what thoughts are showing up. What is your mind saying? Gently scan your body from head to toe and notice what sensations are showing up in your body. What can you notice in your head, your forehead, your jaws, your neck, your throat? What can you notice in your shoulders, in your upper back, in your chest? What can you notice in your abdomen, in your arms and your legs? Are there any particular sensations of tightness or heaviness or burning or numbness? So just kind of notice the different sensations. Notice the thoughts that are showing up right now, not obeying them, not struggling against them, just acknowledging that they are here and now in this moment, these thoughts and feelings are present. And at the same time as acknowledging those thoughts and feelings, find a way to connect with your body or with some part of your body through moving or stretching. For example, gently push your feet into the floor or ever so slowly straighten up your back and your spine. Or perhaps ever so slowly, gently stretch out your arms or stretch your neck or roll your shoulders. Just find a way of connecting with your body, perhaps taking a slow, gentle breath. So acknowledge that there are thoughts and feelings showing up in this moment and there's a body around them that you can move and around this body there is a room. So the idea is to engage in what you're doing right now. Continue to acknowledge your thoughts and feelings and connect with your body. And as you're doing so, get a sense of where you are and what's going on around you. Take a moment to notice the world around you with all your senses. Notice what you can see and hear and touch and taste and smell. Breathe in the air and notice what it's like. Then focus your attention fully on the activity that you are doing, which in this moment is participating in this exercise. So bring your full attention to what we're doing right here, right now. Notice my voice. Notice yourself responding to it. You and I doing something very important in this moment. So these are the three basic steps of the ACE formula. Acknowledge, connect, engage.