Sitting With What’s Scary: A Grounded Approach to Difficult Emotions
Understanding the Pattern
When difficult emotions or thoughts arise, our protective parts often react quickly in an attempt to solve or escape the feeling. This is completely normal and has likely served an important protective function. However, this reactive pattern can actually reinforce to our nervous system that we ARE in danger, creating a self-fulfilling cycle of overwhelm.
The more we try to solve or react when feeling activated, the more it signals to our nervous system and parts that they're actually in danger and there's something we need to run from. This becomes a snowball effect.
Why This Matters in Your Healing Journey
As you progress in healing, you may notice something paradoxical: in many ways things are much better, yet when something goes wrong it can feel catastrophic. This happens because as we heal, we're peeling back layers of the onion - getting to deeper, more core material that may have been under the surface for a long time.
These deeper feelings haven't been fully felt until now because you didn't have the space or safety to experience them. When they surface, they can carry an urgency and intensity that feels different than earlier challenges. This is actually a sign of progress, though it doesn't always feel that way in the moment.
The Core Principle: Can I Be Scared AND Be Safe?
What we're working to rewire is the brain's equation that safety = never feeling scared.
Instead, we're teaching our nervous system: I can feel this thing and survive. I can be scared and still be safe.
When our nervous system interprets something as a threat (even an existential or emotional one), it responds as if there's a saber-toothed tiger behind a boulder. Our brain then tries to give us control in situations where we may not have it - through planning about the future, beating ourselves up ("if I'm just cruel enough to myself, I can fix this"), or making urgent escape plans.
All of these patterns kick in while our nervous system is screaming "This is a threat - get away from it NOW."
The problem is that reacting from this activated state leads us to try to manage symptoms rather than address the foundation. We end up making decisions from panic rather than groundedness - and these create almost completely different realities in terms of quality, energy, and outcomes.
The Approach: Finding the Edge
Think about how you might approach a nervous animal or scared child. You can sense before you get close that they're watching, wary, assessing: "What's about to happen?" There's almost a force field where you can feel - "I can get to this point and they'll stay, but if I come closer, they're going to bolt or things will escalate."
You find the edge of where you can be present without threatening them by coming too close too fast.
This is exactly how we want to approach the parts of us that get activated and are panicking. That panicking part is scared of something, worried in a fundamental way. And if we push too close too fast, our protective parts will jump in to get us out of there.
The Process: Pendulation Between Emotion and Safety
What You'll Need
The Steps
1. Identify and Name When you notice activation, name what's happening:
What emotion am I feeling? (Use the emotion wheel if helpful)
What's the core belief or fear attached to this? (Examples: "I should have known better," "I'm not safe," "I can't trust myself," "I'm going to be abandoned")
2. Find the Edge Imagine or sense the emotion as it's coming up. This might be:
An energetic presence in your body
A visualization (a younger version of you, an animal, an image)
A sensation or feeling
Find where you can witness this without getting so close that your protective parts show up and start pulling you into problem-solving, planning, or self-criticism.
3. Breathe and Witness Stay at that edge. Just notice what you're feeling or seeing. Breathe there.
4. Catch the Reactive Pathways Notice when your mind starts going: "This is why I need to get a new job," "I should move to an island," "I'm such a failure," "I need to fix this right now," "Here's my 10-step plan..."
5. Name It to Tame It Use a phrase that helps you recognize the pattern: "I recognize this pathway is happening because I'm overwhelmed and feel like [insert your core belief]."
Then pull your attention back to the emotion itself.
6. Sit Until It Softens Stay with the emotion - just witnessing it at your edge - until you feel something shift. This might be:
A slight softening
An ability to take a breath
A subtle change in intensity or quality
The emotion taking its own breath
7. Pendulate to Grounding Once you feel that shift, draw your attention to present-moment safety:
Feel the weight of your body in the chair
Feel your feet on the ground
Look around and notice what's in your space
Take some grounding breaths
This tells your nervous system: "We're here. We're safe right now."
8. Return to the Emotion Go back and draw your attention to the fear or emotion again. Sit with it at your edge until you feel another softening.
9. Repeat the Cycle Continue pendulating - emotion until softening, then grounding, then back to emotion - as many times as needed.
10. The Full Breath Continue until you feel like you can fully take a breath and know "I'm okay right now in this moment."
Important note: This can take a long time. That's part of the healing. You're showing your nervous system and body that you can sit with this and be okay.
11. Then Decide Now - and only now - from this grounded state, ask yourself: "What's the next best thing for me to do right now?"
This might be:
Something about the situation that triggered the emotion
Sleeping on it and thinking about it tomorrow
Just getting your tasks done for the day
Nothing related to the original fear at all
The key is that you're making this decision from a grounded, safe state rather than from panic. This is choice, not reaction.
Why This Works
Every time you complete this cycle, you're showing your nervous system that:
We can feel this thing and survive
We're not about to get murdered
We can hold the emotion and stay present
We don't need the automatic escape pathways
This creates the capacity to think openly, with curiosity, empathy, and creativity about what might actually make a difference.
Sometimes what we need IS to do something about a situation. But the energy and quality of decisions we make from a grounded place versus a panicked place are profoundly different.
Important Reminders
This is real data: The concern coming up IS important information. We're not dismissing it or saying it doesn't matter. We're creating the space to respond to it wisely rather than reactively.
Sitting with it isn't the end: This practice isn't about giving up or accepting defeat. It's about creating the foundation FROM WHICH you can then use your motivated, growth-oriented energy in service of your values - moving toward what you want rather than running away from fear.
The protective parts make sense: Your nervous system has been brilliant at keeping you safe. These patterns exist for good reasons. We're not getting rid of them - we're adding another tool so you have options.
It takes practice: Like approaching that nervous animal, you'll get better at sensing the edge, catching the pathways earlier, and trusting the process. Be patient with yourself as you learn.
Remember: The goal isn't to never feel scared. It's to know you can be scared and safe at the same time, and to have the tools to work with what arises rather than being swept away by it.
References for key sources within this approach:
Pendulation (Somatic Experiencing)
Creator: Peter Levine, PhD
Official site: https://www.somaticexperiencing.com
Key resources:
Somatic Experiencing International website
Peter Levine's books: Waking the Tiger, In an Unspoken Voice, Healing Trauma
Academic article: “Somatic experiencing: using interoception and proprioception as core elements of trauma therapy" (PMC/NCBI)
"Name It to Tame It"
Creator: Dan Siegel, MD
Official site: https://drdansiegel.com
Key resources:
Book: The Whole-Brain Child (with Tina Payne Bryson)
Book: Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation
The Mindsight Institute website
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Creator: Richard Schwartz, PhD
Official site: https://ifs-institute.com
Key resources:
IFS Institute (training and certification)
Books: No Bad Parts, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Introduction to the Internal Family Systems Model
Listed on NREPP (National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices) as evidence-based since 2015
Window of Tolerance
Creator: Dan Siegel, MD
Original source: The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience (1999)
Key resources:
Psychology Tools (psychologytools.com) - has clinical worksheets
NICABM (National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine) - has infographics and resources
Polyvagal Theory
Creator: Stephen Porges, PhD
Official site: https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org
Key resources:
Polyvagal Institute
Books: The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Polyvagal Safety, Our Polyvagal World
Integration of These Approaches
Many trauma therapists combine these modalities, in sources like:
