Why I have a lemon in my freezer

Why I have a lemon in my freezer: coping/regulation strategies during the pursuit of healing

I chose this weight loss program because it addresses more than just weight loss. Each week I attend a group. This group is fantastic. I leave feeling heard, supportive, and with a feeling of community. The leader, Heather, is organized, but also fantastic at giving each member invested attention each week.

Our first group topic was Coping Strategies. I have degrees in Psychology and Sociology and a Master’s in OT, work experience with children specifically targeting emotional regulation strategies, and years of therapy. Even with all that experience, education, and mental health work, coping strategies/regulation strategies never seemed to be truly something I could integrate into my life. I do a great job helping Katya in this area and she now automatically put in a lot of her strategies to regulate herself, but I struggle to incorporate them in my life- perhaps because many of my maladaptive coping/regulation strategies have been in place for decades.

Coping strategies we came up with in class

Our leader, Heather, explained that if, on a scale of 1-10, your stress level is a 7-10, in order to cope with the situation you need distraction to help you manage and to regulate yourself. When your stress is between a 3 and 6.9, you need self-soothing strategies. Once you are between 1-2.9, you are able to implement strategies to improve the moment. I love this, because it has shown me a lot. she had us come up with examples of strategies for each category- non-eating ones of course!

One of the strategies she mentioned in using a frozen whole orange as a grounding technique. A grounding technique is a technique that immediately connects you with the present moment. I have tried some with mixed results. Heather said to freeze an orange and then when you are at a 7-10, get the orange out of the freezer and hold it. The cold will get your attention (distraction) and help you get to a place where you can use your other senses to connect with the present (e.g. scratch the peel and smell it, look at the color, etc). I decided to try it out. We had a plethora of lemons at the time, so I froze a lemon instead.

I am undergoing EMDR therapy targeting trauma. In correlation with this, I’ve had some difficult days. I find that once every couple of weeks, I end up being having an immediate trauma response to a trigger. The other day it happened when I was dealing with the toddler the other day. I was really struggling. I decided to get the lemon out of the freezer and try it. You know what? It worked! It brought me back to reality, helped me calm down, and helped me feel in charge of my body. It was wonderful. 

I’m not proud of how my morning went, but I can look back and see the good things that happened. While I was sitting there on the floor of my kitchen with the frozen lemon in my hand, Katya was sitting in her rocking chair— one of her favorite calming strategies. I did lots of story-telling (where you talk about what happened as a story to help process an event that was upsetting or traumatic) with her the rest of the day and eventually she drew a picture of what happened and then changed it to show we were happy now. My play-therapist mom, said that this demonstrated that Katya had processed the events healthily. So, there you go- I used a new strategy to help me and was able to help her process as well. While not my best day, I think I could have done a lot worse.

I think the lemon will stay in the freezer for now. At least until I am done with EMDR and don’t have any more trauma responses.