My grounding laboratory
Generic advice is a starting point, not an answer. This is where you find out what works for you specifically — including the things that don't.
Nothing in the laboratory yet.
Every time you rate an exercise — helped a lot, helped a little, no difference, made things harder, or skipped — it lands here. After a handful of ratings, patterns start to show up. Not clinical conclusions. Just your own record of what you found useful.
Why grounding sometimes backfires
How Foglight tries to phrase things
Not this
“Take a deep breath.”
“Close your eyes and scan your body.”
“Just relax.”
This
“Would focusing on your breathing feel comfortable right now?”
“If attention on your body is unwelcome, use the room instead.”
“You can stop this at any point.”
It's a small difference in wording. It's a large difference in whether someone keeps their sense of choice.
Closing your eyes
Removes visual information about the present room, which can increase dissociation or fear rather than reduce it.
Instead: Keep your eyes open with a soft, unfocused gaze at one ordinary object.
Body scans and body awareness
Attention on the body is unpleasant or unsafe-feeling for some people, especially at first.
Instead: Ground through the outside world instead — objects, sounds, temperature, the room.
Slow or deep breathing
Controlled breathing raises panic for some people and can feel like being watched or controlled.
Instead: Notice that breathing is happening without changing it — or skip breath entirely.
Long silent meditation
Quiet, still, inward attention can invite intrusive material rather than calm.
Instead: Choose something active and external: counting objects, walking, cold water.
Certain textures, smells or sounds
A sensory cue can be linked to something distressing for reasons that may never be clear.
Instead: Swap the sense. There are eight categories here; you only need one that works.
Functioning check
Sleep
Work or school
Relationships
Memory in daily life
Personal care
Appointments
Safety
Finances
Driving or travel
Eating
No streaks, ever
Welcome back.
That's the whole greeting, whether you were gone ten minutes or ten months.
Things Foglight will never do
- “You lost your 12-day streak.”
- “You haven't checked in for a while.”
- Recovery scores or progress percentages.
- Guilt-shaped reminders of any kind.
Instead
- A record of tools you've tried, if you want one.
- A garden that only ever grows, never wilts.
- Reminders you set yourself, at your own frequency.
- No opinion whatsoever about the gaps.
Dissociation already interrupts things. A website punishing you for interruptions would be a strange thing to add.