Imagine a container into which you can send, place or otherwise put all your feelings, thoughts, urges & impulses regarding any current trigger. Your container needs to be able to open, close and lock.
Once you have it, practice opening, closing, and locking it.
Now see your container; imagine opening it, sending/putting/placing any/all triggered feelings and sensations into it; confirm that most (if not all) is inside; then imagine closing and locking your container for later processing. Notice how you feel in your body after sending activation into the container, closing and locking it.
Additional ways to practice:
- Give emotions and sensations a form, then shrink them down to a very small size so that they fit in the container.
- Thoughts: Imagine writing thoughts down on paper with invisible ink, putting it in an envelope and then putting the envelope in your container.
- Pictures/Images: Imagine handling as a photo; shrink it down; let the color come out; then imagine putting a piece of blank paper in front of the picture, putting it in an envelope, and placing the envelope in your container.
- Inner movie: Handle as a DVD; imagine you have a remote control that can take away the color and sound; then turn off the TV, eject the DVD, shrink it down, and put it in your container.
- Sounds: Handle as if on a sound system/speaker; turn down the volume until it is off/mute; eject it from the player, shrink it, and put it in your container.
- Smells: Suck them into a bottle, then close it and put it in your container.
- Taste: Give it a form and a color, then shrink it and store it inside a small glass vial and put it in your container.
Suggested: 1-minute "little and often" practice
- Set an alarm to go off once a day to remind you to practice this resource. When your alarm goes off, set a timer for 1 minute to practice the resource.
- Think of something 4/10 on the Subjective Units of Disturbance (SUD) scale, something annoying or moderately triggering (not overwhelming) from recent memory.
- Note the SUD # from 0-10.
- Practice the resource.
- Afterwards, notice any shift in how you feel.
- Apply as helpful in more activating/triggering situations and notice the shift after.