A note on this day As I write to you today, I am mindful that it is Eid al-Adha — the Festival of Sacrifice — celebrated across the world as a moment of deep devotion, community, generosity, and remembrance. Whether you are celebrating, or simply holding space for others who are, there is profound wisdom here: that meaning can be found, and even renewed, through sacrifice, through gathering, and through gratitude — perhaps especially in times of difficulty. Eid Mubarak to all who are celebrating.Finding Ground in the Ordinary
These are not ordinary times
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes not from a single crisis but from sustained uncertainty — from living in what the philosopher Zygmunt Bauman called ‘liquid modernity’: a world in which the familiar keeps shifting beneath our feet.
Many of my clients describe a background hum of anxiety that has become almost ambient — a low-level alertness that does not quite switch off. Perhaps you recognise it too. The pressures are real and varied: global instability, the rising cost of living, the aftermath of years of collective disruption, and the peculiar loneliness that can persist even when we are surrounded by people and noise. We are often managing more than we let on — to others, and sometimes to ourselves.
I want to begin by simply naming that. You are not imagining it. These times are genuinely hard. And it matters that we say so, before we talk about what might help.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” — Viktor Frankl
This is not a call to toxic positivity. It is a call to something far more nuanced — and far more human: the quiet, powerful art of anchoring.
What is anchoring, and why does it matter?
In psychological terms, an anchor is any stimulus — sensory, cognitive, or relational — that helps to regulate our nervous system and reconnect us with a felt sense of presence and safety. The concept draws on Dr Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory, attachment theory, and the body-based wisdom of trauma-informed practice.
Polyvagal theory teaches us that our nervous system is constantly scanning the environment for cues of safety or danger — a process Porges calls ‘neuroception’. When the system detects threat, even unconsciously, it mobilises us for fight, flight, or freeze. Anchoring works by offering the nervous system credible evidence that we are, right now, safe enough. It is not about pretending; it is about providing genuine, embodied reassurance.
Importantly, we can also anchor through other people. Co-regulation — the way one calm nervous system can help settle another — is one of the most ancient and powerful forms of human support. A steady presence, a warm touch, a familiar voice: these are not soft luxuries. They are biological necessities.
“Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection grows.” — Dr Dan Siegel, Mindsight Institute
What we choose to notice, we strengthen. Anchors do not eliminate suffering. They do not resolve conflict or pay the bills. But they create the neurological conditions in which we can think clearly, feel without being overwhelmed, connect with others, and endure.
And here is the beautiful irony: the most powerful anchors tend to be the most ordinary things.
The power of the ordinary
There is a reason that across cultures and centuries, the practices that sustain human beings are remarkably similar: a cup of tea held in both hands. The smell of something cooking. A few minutes of fresh air. A familiar voice on the phone. A threshold crossed with intention.
These are not small things. Neuroscience tells us they are, in fact, the architecture of resilience. Each time we return to a simple, repeated act with awareness, we are laying down neural pathways associated with regulation, safety, and continuity of self.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver
I love this question — not as a challenge, but as an invitation to remember that ordinary life, lived attentively, is itself something wild and precious. We do not need grand gestures or extraordinary circumstances to feel alive and held.
“You must speak to it, call it by name, tell it you are here.” — Naomi Shihab Nye
This is what anchoring does. It says, quietly but firmly: I am here. This is real. This moment is mine.
Three techniques to try this month
1. The Sensory Pause (5–4–3–2–1 Grounding)
When anxiety rises — or when you feel numb, dissociated, or simply scattered — try this gentle, evidence-based technique:
Look around you. Name 5 things you can see. Touch 4 things and notice their texture. Listen for 3 things you can hear. Identify 2 things you can smell. Find 1 thing you can taste.
This is not merely a distraction. It actively recruits the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for rational thought and perspective — and helps to downregulate the amygdala’s alarm response. It works because the senses are always in the present tense. They cannot catastrophise about tomorrow or ruminate on yesterday. In returning to them, we return to now.
“The present moment is the only moment available to us, and it is the door to all moments.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
2. The Micro-Ritual
Choose one small, ordinary act — making your morning tea, watering a plant, washing your hands, or simply sitting quietly with your first coffee — and perform it slowly, deliberately, and with full attention. For five minutes, let this be the only thing in the world.
Rituals create what psychologists call ‘psychological safety cues’: signals to the nervous system that we have been here before, that we know this, that we are safe enough. Repetition itself is regulating. The very ordinariness of a ritual is its medicine.
In many cultural and spiritual traditions — including the Islamic practice of beginning acts with Bismillah (‘in the name of God’), or the Japanese concept of ichigo ichie (‘one time, one meeting’) — intentional ritual marks the transition between chaos and presence. You need not share any particular faith or cultural tradition to understand the deep wisdom of the pause, the intention, and the return to what matters.
3. The Physiological Sigh
This is one of the most immediately effective tools neuroscience has given us, and it requires nothing at all except your breath. Take a double inhale through the nose — a short sniff, followed at once by a longer inhale to fully inflate the lungs — then release with a long, slow exhale through the mouth.
Just two or three repetitions can measurably reduce heart rate and activate the parasympathetic nervous system within seconds. Dr Andrew Huberman’s research at Stanford has brought this to wider attention, but the wisdom of the breath as anchor is as old as human consciousness. Every contemplative tradition on earth has known it.
“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
A word of humility
I want to say something carefully, because I think it matters. I am aware that these techniques are tools, not cures. I am aware that not all suffering is soothed by breathing exercises, and that structural injustice, grief, serious illness, and trauma require far more than a sensory pause can offer.
I am also aware — and this is something I hold with a great deal of professional and personal humility — that for some people, even turning attention inward can feel unsafe. If you have experienced significant trauma, practices like mindfulness or body-based grounding may at times feel destabilising rather than settling. Please go gently. There is no one-size-fits-all path to regulation, and your own experience is always the wisest guide.
“The body keeps the score.” — Dr Bessel van der Kolk
Our bodies hold what our minds cannot always process — and sometimes, the most responsible and courageous thing we can do is acknowledge that we need more support than self-help can offer.
If you are struggling beyond what these techniques can reach, please do reach out — to a trusted person in your life, to your GP, or to us here at London Trusted Therapy. Seeking help is not a failure of resilience. It is, in fact, its highest expression.
A closing thought
Today, on Eid al-Adha, millions of people around the world will gather — in mosques and in kitchens, in family homes and in public spaces — to share food, to give generously, and to remember that belonging is itself a form of medicine. There is something quietly radical about this: in the midst of everything, the act of coming together, of feeding one another, of choosing community over isolation.
I think of that each time a client tells me they almost did not pick up the phone. Or almost did not come. The act of reaching out — however small, however uncertain — is its own kind of anchor.
Whatever your faith, your culture, your circumstances: I hope you find this month at least one moment of genuine ordinariness that holds you. One cup of tea. One deep breath. One familiar face. One pause that says, simply: I am here, and that is enough.
“Verily, with hardship comes ease.” — The Quran, Surah 94:5
With warmth and care,
Dr Olena Edwards-Skadowska
PhD MA PGDip MBACP Accredited FMBPsS
Founder and Clinical Director, London Trusted Therapy
