Anchor Yourself with the Five Senses: A Quick Grounding Guide for Overwhelmed Moms
Simple sensory steps to calm your mind, regulate your nervous system, and stay present, anytime, anywhere.
Anchors, Waves, and Staying Afloat
So let’s talk about anchors. They hold a ship where you want it, so it doesn’t drift into unwanted waters. But they can also leave you stuck, unable to move. I’m thinking about them more as a way to ground yourself when you’re feeling unmoored.
A friend sent me a video about a culture where, when a mom has a baby, they take the first drop of birth blood on a cloth and bury it. They hold a kind of funeral for the woman who has given birth, because she’s no longer the same person. Then they formally introduce themselves to the new woman.
Talk about unmooring. No one warns you that after nine months of building a baby, you’re also birthing a whole new self. It’s indescribable. And if you’ve been career-driven, suddenly your “business” is everything happening inside the house. Overwhelming and tumultuous barely cover it.
The Pressure to Tread Water
On the surface, you know the drill: feed, burp, change, rock the baby. But our culture fails mothers so completely. We’re expected to return to work fast, so the pressure mounts: get the baby sleeping, get on a schedule. Because if we don’t sleep, we can’t work, and we have to work to feed our babies. At 2 a.m. with a baby who refuses sleep, it can feel like drowning.
And it doesn’t stop. Each new developmental phase can crash over you like another rogue wave. I imagine adding more children is just that: relearning how to swim so you don’t float away or sink.
Deadlines of a Different Kind
Last week, I turned 38 and suddenly remembered sitting at our dining table when my dad turned 40. Back then, “over the hill” parties were a thing. I feel 40 creeping up. I’m excited to learn the art of not giving a damn, but each decade still feels like a deadline, a grade on how well your life is going.
My 30s have been jam-packed: PhD, marriage, pandemic survival, house, child, dog, business. Yet I can’t shake the sense I’m late for something I can’t name. Gratitude helps, but it doesn’t quite anchor me in the present.
The Anchor Method
This is partly why I’m building a parenting resource I call the Anchor Method: a framework for preventing tough times, handling them in the moment, and repairing afterward. Step two: anchoring is the heart of it. You anticipate what could go wrong and prepare. When chaos hits, you stay anchored. Afterward, you adapt. Steps one and three depend on that inner steadiness.
Grounding is really about nervous-system regulation. We’re only starting to understand somatic release and how to teach our kids to avoid storing anxiety in their bodies.
Lessons from the Sea
Last week, feeling crummy and juggling minor health issues, I read a Substack friend’s post about selling everything to sail the East Coast (check out their adventures —> oh hey
). I remembered sailing with my dad. Sailing lights up all five senses: watching the sun rise, hearing waves slap the hull, smelling salt air, feeling wind on your face and the tiller in your hand, even tasting the sea spray. It’s life in pure form. My dad always said,You can’t change the wind, but you can adjust your sails.
That’s the Anchor Method in a nutshell.
I haven’t sailed in decades, and I live in inland New Jersey, so I recreate that alive feeling however I can.
Anchoring in Daily Life
When I feel unsteady, I try to engage my senses: look at trees or stars, listen to ocean sounds or a favorite song, wear soft clothes, or pet the dog, savor a salty snack, or a hot cup of tea. Scent is underrated: rubbing on my favorite lotion or lighting a candle can bring me out of my head and back into my body. Only then can I be present: the mom I want to be, the wife I want to be, the Caroline I want to be.
The Anchor Method works for kids, too. There’s that “four things you see, three things you hear…” grounding exercise, but honestly, it overwhelms a child mid-meltdown. I’d rather hand my son something concrete, a favorite lotion to smell, a soft stuffed animal to hug, a simple tune to hum (even if it’s Blippi’s excavator song). Practiced in calm moments, these little rituals become natural lifelines.
For those of us re-parenting ourselves while parenting our kids, there’s a hidden gift: we get to parent our children the way we once wished for, and in doing so, parent our own inner child.
Build Your Own Anchor Kit
I invite you to create your own family anchor kit. It doesn’t need to be a fancy bag; it's a set of reliable touchpoints you practice daily so they’re second nature when storms hit. Maybe, over time, those hard moments grow shorter, fewer, and farther between.
Anchor early. Adjust your sails. Keep coming back to your senses. That’s where real presence and real calm live.
🌊 Free Download: Anchor Yourself with the Five Senses, a one-page guide to bring yourself back to center.
