When you feel pulled into the past, use the coldness of water to return to the 'now' | Mental Health

Today, I'm in a mode of awareness and reflection regarding the mind...🫧

I have obsessive-compulsive disorder (mainly contamination OCD, specifically hand-washing), so if I felt like my hands might have gotten dirty, I would wash them immediately.
(Though it has calmed down quite a bit now.)

One very cold winter day.
When I was washing my hands with water despite the cold...

my fingertips were so cold they were tingling...
and it felt like the only place where the water was hitting me truly existed.

At that moment, I suddenly realized something.

Even though I had been feeling a bit irritated and uneasy just a moment ago...
by focusing my consciousness on my hands due to the coldness of the water,

I felt like I was able to distance myself from those negative feelings.

I have a habit of looking back on the past and ruminating on it in my head.
(I think this is also ruminative thinking caused by trauma.)
When that happens,

by intentionally running cold water over my hands,
I focus my entire attention on the sensation of 'cold' in the 'here and now'.

I learned later that this kind of sensation is close to a technique used in trauma care called 'grounding'.

As for grounding methods, for example...
focusing on the sensation of the soles of your feet in this very moment, or sensing the sounds you can hear in this very moment... you direct your consciousness to one of your five senses.
When you do that,
your mind, which was about to be pulled into the past,

returns to the 'now' just a little bit.

You can realize, 'What I was thinking about until just now is not what is happening right in front of me. It was just a memory from the past coming to mind.'

This isn't limited to trauma care...
it might also be close to mindfulness.
It can be useful when you're having a 'solo reflection session' that suddenly happens at night, where you repeatedly recall the uneasy events or worries of the day, or when your head and heart are about to be pulled into a minor negative event from the past.

How can I focus on the present without being too trapped in the past?
How can I feel the things I like and the happy feelings of this moment...

And,
by focusing on the sensations I can feel with my body, I can make my brain feel the 'now'.
Perhaps that alone is enough to make the head and heart a little quieter.

Thank you for your hard work today as well.🫧

Have a wonderful night...🌙