Emotional Overwhelm: Notice and Work With It Somatically

With practice, you can notice earlier signs that emotional overwhelm is building in your body, giving you time to prepare for whatever arrives.

If you’ve spent enough time in nature, you learn to notice the signs that the weather is about to shift, especially when a storm is approaching. A light smell of rain or snow in the air. An increase in the wind. A drop in air pressure, which for me, often triggers sinus pain or sometimes a migraine.

When I spend time in the mountains, especially at higher elevations, this skill is especially important, because being caught off guard by a storm can be dangerous, even deadly. I honed my weather detection skills while growing up in New Hampshire, where I spent a lot of time hiking in the White Mountains, known for having the “world’s worst weather.”

While I often know when a storm is about to hit, I am still learning to see the signs that emotional overwhelm is building in my body, or that I am about to be swept away by a sudden rush of grief, sadness, anxiety, or fear. In the past, by the time I realized something had shifted in my body, I was often already trapped in the middle of a somatic storm, which could linger for days or weeks.

For me, the arrival of these intense feelings and emotions feel very much like a storm approaching—the world goes a little dark, my vision becomes fuzzy, pressure builds in my head, and sometimes my whole body is wracked by sensations much like waves crashing inside me or wind shaking apart my soul.

Noticing emotional overwhelm

With practice, though, I have been able to develop greater somatic awareness, sensing shifts in my body when they first start to build, rather than noticing them only after I am swept away by overwhelm. This allows me to take steps to head off this storm, lessen its impact, or hunker down in a safe place until the worst has passed.

Some of the most common signs that there’s emotional overwhelm building that needs my attention are:

• An inability to focus on my work;
• Scrolling for too long on social media;
• Restlessness;
• A heaviness in my chest or gut;
• A loss of confidence in my abilities;
• Lethargy or sudden tiredness;
• My mind drifting to, or spinning about, past relationships;
• Flushing of my face, with no obvious cause;
• Body aches, headache, or migraine.

You may experience these, or completely different signs. However, they all share one thing in common: you will feel a bit off. Part of somatic work is learning to know which signs your nervous system sends when it needs attention, and developing enough awareness that you are able to notice them when they occur.

Welcoming emotional balance

This feeling of being off suggests that sometimes you may feel on. We probably all have days where everything feels good, where we feel good. But what exactly does that look like?

For this, I’ll borrow the eight C’s from Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, also known as parts work. These characteristics show up when you are fully in your adult self … aka on.

• Curiosity: Being open-minded and wanting to understand things.
• Compassion: Showing kindness and understanding toward others and ourselves.
• Calm: Feeling centered and peaceful inside, even when things are difficult.
• Clarity: Having a clear picture of what we want and who we are.
• Courage: Being brave enough to face our fears, and also to explore our feelings.
• Confidence: Believing in ourselves and knowing that we are capable, even when we feel unsure.
• Creativity: Being able to access new ideas and ways of expressing ourselves.
• Connectedness: Feeling connected to ourselves, others, and the world around us.

In addition, IFS lists five P’s, which are also good indicators that you are feeling balanced:

• Presence: Being aware of what’s happening inside and around us without getting overwhelmed.
• Perspective: Seeing things from a bigger view, beyond just our current experience.
• Patience: Taking things slowly and not rushing.
• Persistence: Keeping going, even when things are difficult, because we know it’s worth it.
• Playfulness: Approaching life with a light-hearted attitude, and finding joy in both the world and our inner self.

Listening to your body

It’s taken a lot of practice—with help from my therapists and teachers—for me to notice the signs of emotional overwhelm building when they first appear. I still have moments where I ignore them, especially when I am busy or around other people. I find it challenging to stop what I’m doing or to walk away from a group in order to tend to my own feelings and emotions. However, if I ignore these sensations, they often turn into full-body overwhelm. Maybe not right away, but eventually.

If instead, I take a few minutes to listen to what my body is trying to tell me, and hold space for my feelings and emotions, they pass through and leave me more balanced and at ease. One of my somatic teachers often said, “It’s amazing how quickly your parts respond when you give them what they need.” Sometimes all that your feelings and emotions need is to be heard.

This morning, as I was trying to work, I started to feel emotional overwhelm building in my body. There was a heaviness in my chest and stomach, and the same flush in my cheeks that frequently shows up. I also started to doubt whether I could succeed at the new life and business I have been building this year. Underneath all of this were thoughts of wanting to give up, crawl into bed, and binge watch movies all day.

Even after noticing these sensations, I continued to push through for at least half an hour—drinking another green tea to give me a burst of energy and scrolling mindlessly on social media in between trying to work—before finally deciding to get up and go for a walk.

Pausing for emotional overwhelm

Right now I’m renting a room on a farm, so when I need a break, I often take a stroll through a little wooded area, past the corn field, and to the pastures and pens where the horses, sheep, goats, chickens, and other animals live.

Today, I paused by the corn field, standing with my back to the corn plants, looking at an apple tree planted decades ago that has been left to grow tall and wild. I placed a hand on my chest, feeling the heaviness there, noticing the edges of that sensation, watching as it shifted. It felt like grief, heavy and dark, a cloud hovering in and around me.

I was pretty sure where it was coming from, a recent loss in my life. So after a few minutes of noticing the sensations in my body, when they seemed to be shifting, I pulled out my phone and played a voice message from one of my friends. When I told her earlier about my loss, she offered comforting words and shared a story of someone who had gone through something similar.

I had already listened to the voice message the day before. This time, though, when I played it out loud—while standing beside the corn plants that were waving in the wind—my tears started flowing immediately. So many tears. And then, after a few moments, they subsided. So did the heaviness in my chest and stomach.

The grief was still there, but different. Quieter. Gentler. 

Which makes sense. Signs don’t just indicate when a storm is approaching, they also signal when it is about to pass. The space increases between a flash of lightning and the thunder that follows. The wind starts to soften. Even the falling rain or snow feels different, lighter, more spacious.

Practicing somatic work

It is the same with the body. As my tears flowed, I felt my body opening, not just inside, but also expanding to encompass the world around me. The apple tree in front of me seemed taller, more vibrant. And as I stood there with the last of my tears, I noticed a bird flitting about in the bushes at the base of the apple tree, a blur of motion behind a wall of green. I called out to the bird, letting him know that I was here with him.

I felt connected to the world in a way I hadn’t before.

After visiting the animals and bringing the rabbit a few wild carrots, I went back inside. By the time I got back to my desk, the feeling I had earlier of not being able to make my new life work had faded. I felt more confident, with enough creativity flowing that I sat down right away to write this. Overall, I felt more calm, the same kind of stillness I often feel after taking a restorative yoga class or hiking alone in the mountains.

The entire walk took fifteen or twenty minutes, less time than I had wasted trying to push through. The results, though, were remarkable. I felt like a different person.

This is the type of somatic work that is a regular part of my own practice, alongside my yoga and meditation practices. It is also the same type of work that I teach others, helping them to notice the feelings and emotions present in their own body, and building enough capacity to hold these sensations gently and with compassion.

At times, somatic work feels like magic. Especially if, like me, you have struggled with emotional overwhelm for much of your life. While the transformation that can happen from this work feels magical, the process is actually very down-to-earth. Our bodies already hold the wisdom needed to heal emotional wounds and overwhelm. It’s just a matter of creating the right environment for that to happen.