Not Ready to Ground or Live in the Now

by Bigs and Teens

We're having difficulty finding any other material on this, either here on the forum[s] or on the Web in general.

It's commonly agreed that grounding is an essential tool for well-being for people who are stuck in a traumatic memory or feeling. But what if the person is multiple, and some individuals in the system are not ready to live in the now, because they feel safest in their internal world and and aren't ready to let go of that world? How do we balance the need to maintain stability with the need for to have control over the pace of our journey?

For the purposes of context, we don't like visualization exercises or guided imagery, because it feels too much like someone else is trying to control or brainwash us. We're also not good at containment techniques that involve visualization.

We also have system members who, in attempt to protect themselves and/or the system as a whole, are highly disapproving of anything that involves not living in the here-and-now, or at least not focusing on anything that seems positive or safe (whether in the now or not, whether in the outerworld or the innerworld).

These system members have a mindset that the safest way to exist is to focus constantly on the negative and on all possibilities of danger. They perpetuate the non-grounded mindset because they believe that we place ourselves in greater danger when we are grounded. They believe that grounding equals complacency equals danger. They berate the rest of us and make every effort to thwart normal stabilization techniques and a stabilization mindset.