Dropping Anchor

We visited some friends in Florida recently, and they took us out on their boat on the St. Lucie River.

It was a Saturday—the Stuart sandbar was full of sunshine and clusters of people chilling in hip-waist water under beach umbrellas, laughing, and chatting. A marine unit was patrolling nearby, making sure everyone was okay. But there were no troubles on this clear day—everyone was simply hanging out in the water, enjoying the late fall.

They had collectively dropped anchor.

Settled into a pause.

Do you ever wish you could drop anchor? Hit the pause button in your own life? Flip a circuit breaker in your brain to find some stillness for a bit?

Touch nothingness—no worries, anxieties, or fears—for a moment?

This is a useful thing to be able to do, especially in this crazy world spinning around us.

When a storm comes to the surface of our lives, and we become flooded by deep emotions, feelings, situations, or memories, dropping anchor is a great skill to have. 

When we get triggered, it can be more productive than flight, flight, or freeze.

Author Dr. Russ Harris suggests dropping anchor can be a useful way to interrupt worrying or anxiety and refocus your brain.

He recommends three steps, which we can remember with the acronym ACE:

Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings

Come back into your body

Engage in what you’re doing

The first step is to notice and name what you are feeling and thinking. Ahh, I am feeling sad. This is anxiety. This is what worrying feels like. Or I am feeling very angry right now.

Then, step into your body. Feel your feet firmly pressing on the floor. Or feel yourself sitting in the chair you are on. Clasp your hands together. Or do some deep breathing. Put your hand on your heart and feel it beating. Do whatever it takes to come back into your body.

Once you are regrounded, engage in the NOW. 

How do you do that? 

Look around where you are and engage your senses. What are five things you can see? What can you hear? What can you smell or taste? What are you doing right now?

You may need more than one round of this to bring you back into the present and into your body. 

But this is how we drop anchor. 

This is how we can find ourselves in the middle of a challenging moment. We can remind ourselves that we are in a body that is safe, in the here and now. We can find some grounding until the storm passes.

I had to do this the other day. I was packing to go on a trip and feeling some intense agitation. I wasn’t sure why I felt like I was going to cry. But instead of buffering against it by turning on the TV or having a late-night glass of wine (or downing sea salt caramels), I asked the universe, “What do I need right now?” 

I held my hand to my heart. My heart beat against my palm.

“What do I need right now?” I repeated.

And my body had an answer. 

My heart whispered, “Go write. You need to go journal.”

So, I did! I got out my laptop, sat in bed, and free wrote for several pages. I recorded a bunch of thoughts that had been circling in my brain for a few days. I gave thoughts space and oxygen.

In that way, I created space between me and my sadness. Created a sweet corral for my worries to land in. As they became tethered to the earth, they now had an anchor that could ground them. 

I could then let go.

I felt freer.

This practice can be a gift—a gift to help you find yourself again. To get you closer to who you are.

At what moments might you need to drop anchor? 

What new energy and possibility might be freed up when you find your anchor?

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