80 Creating a safe place
TO THE TRAINER
PART II: THE TRAINING
GROUNDING EXERCISE
Creating a safe place
Aim. To create a feeling of safety when thinking about the past.
Grounding Exercise 4. Creating a safe place.
This exercise enables a survivor to connect with her past, and restore contact with the good places in her past. It also helps her to stay in her body. Survivors can use it to stay calm and present in the moment. In areas of war and conflict it may be difficult to imagine a‘ safe place’. If this is so, you can suggest that the participants think of a‘ comfortable’ or‘ quiet’ place instead, or let them choose the term. The objective is to enable them to feel they have a safe place within themselves.