The Four Elements

a practice for stabilization

This weekend I wrapped dozens of holiday gifts until my back gave out. I have clinical notes to finish (like A LOT). A lecture to prepare for EMDR Basic Training Part 2. An intricate, overly ambitious baking plan mapped out in my head: sugar cookies, molasses crackles, gingerbread truffles, and peppermint bark. All from scratch. By Sunday night, my to-do list is alive in my body, specifically my right psoas muscle. The week ahead already feels like it is scrunching down on my shoulders.

If this sounds familiar, you are not alone. We all have work overflow, to-do lists, family demands, and the ambient weight of living in the world right now.

How can we come back into our bodies without tipping into overwhelm or collapse?

That question is what makes me think of the Four Elements Exercise, an EMDR tool I use often in my clinical work and personally when the internal pressure starts stacking.

We all have work overflow, to-do lists, family demands, and the ambient weight of living in the world right now.

The Four Elements Exercise was developed by psychologist Elan Shapiro and is frequently used within EMDR and trauma oriented treatment. It draws from somatic awareness, mindfulness, and imagery to support nervous system regulation in moments of acute stress.

This is not a technique meant to make distress disappear. It is designed to do something far more realistic: bring you back into a space where you can think, feel, and respond without becoming flooded or shut down.

Many trauma therapists describe this space as the window of tolerance. When you’re within the window, emotions are present but manageable. When you’re outside of it, the nervous system tips into hyperarousal or hypoarousal. The Four Elements Exercise is one way of gently nudging the system back toward the middle. What makes this exercise effective is that each element engages a different regulatory pathway. Together, they interrupt the stress cycle rather than forcing you to muscle through it.

Earth brings attention to physical support and contact. The sensation of feet on the floor, weight in the chair, gravity doing its job. Grounding through proprioception helps orient the brain to the present moment rather than the imagined future or remembered past.

Air works through breath. Slow, diaphragmatic breathing has a direct effect on heart rate variability and vagal tone, signaling safety to the nervous system. When anxiety tightens the chest and shortens the breath, intentional breathing restores a sense of internal space.

Water engages an often overlooked signal of safety. Under stress, digestion shuts down and the mouth becomes dry. Encouraging saliva production sends a bottom up message that the threat has passed and the body can return to rest and digest.

Fire, sometimes described as light or imagination, uses imagery to activate neural pathways associated with safety and connection. The brain responds to imagined experience in many of the same ways it responds to real ones. Visualization is physiological.

Practiced together, these elements help prevent stress from accumulating beyond what you can tolerate. As Shapiro notes, when stress responses are interrupted early, the system can return to baseline more easily.

What makes this exercise effective is that each element engages a different regulatory pathway.

I often tell clients that this exercise works best when practiced before you desperately need it. When your stress level is already at a nine, the goal becomes containment rather than calm. But remember, reducing intensity by one or two points is still a meaningful shift.

This is also a practice that translates well beyond the therapy room. I use it between meetings. Before difficult conversations. On Sunday nights when my system feels keyed up for reasons that are personal and collective.

The Four Elements Exercise

Save this and return to it. Feel free to adapt it in ways that fit your body.

Earth (Grounding)
Sit with your feet flat on the floor. Notice the weight of your body being held by the chair. Feel the contact points between you and the ground. Slowly name three things you can see or hear right now.

Air (Breathing)
Take three slow breaths into your belly. Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. Let each exhale be slightly longer than the inhale.

Water (Saliva)
Notice your mouth. Is there saliva present. If not, imagine biting into a lemon or taking a sip of cool water. Allow saliva to form. Observe the subtle shift in your body.

Fire (Imagination)
Bring to mind a place, image, or memory that feels steady or safe. Notice the details. The colors, the temperature, the sensations in your body. Stay with this image for a few moments before opening your eyes.

Remember that stability is is something you practice returning to, again and again. If tomorrow feels heavy, let this be one small way of returning to inner stability.

Reference

Shapiro, E. (2007). The Four Elements Exercise: A self soothing method for stress management. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research, 1(2), 122–124. https://doi.org/10.1891/1933-3196.1.2.122

This practice is educational and supportive in nature. It is not a substitute for psychotherapy or individualized clinical care.