Working Somatically With Overwhelm - Live Session Recording

In this Live session from September 14, 2024, we explore how to work with overwhelm using our nervous system experience and body sensations to guide us. I talk about the various polyvagal states that occur with overwhelm and then guide a meditation using somatic awareness, inquiry and compassion.

Transcript

Welcome to this Insight Timer live session on working somatically with overwhelm.

This is a live recording from September 14th,

2024.

Yes,

So we're going to learn about overwhelm in our nervous system today.

Take a moment to settle in.

See if you can land in your body.

And you may be outdoors with the sound of waves,

Listening to this.

You may be indoors.

And let the busyness of your day kind of move more away from you.

When we have experiences that overwhelm us,

And that can be anything.

It can be something really big.

It can be some wonderful things,

Perhaps a new job or,

You know,

A new move or gathering that you're excited about but can be overwhelming.

Or it could be something really difficult,

Some health issues or some losses or just a huge to-do list.

When we experience what we perceive of as overwhelm,

Our physiology tends to move into states of protection and defense,

Right?

Because it's seen as too much,

Too fast,

Too long that we question our capacity to work with it.

And those protective states that we go into can be our sympathetic nervous system's fight-flight response or our dorsal-vagal freeze-collapse response.

And these are normal responses for difficult things,

Right?

This is how we're wired.

We tend to have kind of a habitual pattern of where we tend to go in our nervous system when we experience overwhelm.

So we may be habitually going into sympathetic,

Which might manifest as worry,

Anxiety,

Irritability,

Anger,

Restlessness,

Agitation,

Upset,

Not being able to settle or sleep.

Or conversely,

We may find our default goes into our dorsal freeze-collapse state,

Which is where we kind of turn inwards,

We protect by going in.

We may feel sleepy,

We may be isolated,

We may feel sad,

Depressed,

Hopeless,

Or helpless,

And have an inability to mobilize.

So sometimes when there's so much happening,

We shut down and we can't do anything,

Right?

We can barely get out of bed and make our own food.

And so we each tend to have our default,

Right?

Our body goes into what has worked in the past.

And I'll add that for some of you,

You may bounce between that.

You might be in your sympathetic,

Agitation,

Worry for a bit,

And then you get exhausted from that,

And then you collapse,

Maybe down there for a few days,

And then bounce back up into sympathetic.

That shift between these defensive and protective states are very common.

The challenge is that we're not designed to be in these states for a long period of time.

It's very,

Very energy-intensive on our body,

And it's exhausting.

And so part of working somatically with overwhelm is moving out of the storyline.

I mean,

The story,

The details of what's going on are important,

But when we want to work with our capacity for life,

If we can turn towards our bodies,

It can be really helpful.

And in particular,

Turn towards our nervous system,

And get very curious about what is going on,

What is my response to what's happening around me.

For some of you,

Overwhelm can feel like a loss of safety,

That you don't have the capacity to do what needs to be done.

And some of you will remember this from previous presentations,

That all of our nervous systems need three things to feel safe.

We need context,

We need choice,

And then we need connection.

And so sometimes the overwhelm that we're experiencing arises because we don't have enough context.

I think a lot about medical issues.

Maybe you go and have some tests done,

And maybe some results,

But you don't understand,

Or you can't frame it somewhere,

And so it adds on a layer of stress,

Because there's not enough context to give the scaffolding for our nervous system to understand what's happening.

And oftentimes,

We feel like we don't have choice.

And when we don't have choice,

Our nervous systems can feel a little trapped.

And so choice is so important,

And often in overwhelm,

We may perceive that we don't have any choice about what's happening,

And even with good things.

So if you're having a big social gathering,

Check in with your nervous system.

You may need a little break.

You may need to step outside or in a quieter place so that your system doesn't get too overwhelmed.

And then we need connection.

Our nervous system is built around safety with others,

This hard-wired drive to have safe connection.

And so sometimes,

Overwhelm comes when our connections with others don't feel very safe,

Or we don't have that one person or that one animal where we can feel a connection with.

And so keeping that in mind,

That can be another way to do some inquiry around your overwhelm,

Is do I have enough context for this situation?

Or are there some choices that I can create for myself?

And is there a good connection?

Is there someone that I can talk to?

Is there someone that I can share what's happening with me?

A friend,

Partner,

Therapist?

Because that makes all the difference,

Right?

And when we have context,

Choice,

And connection,

Our resilience increases.

And I learned an interesting thing.

I don't know if I shared this last week or not.

I was listening to a TED Talk by Callie McGonigal on making stress your friend.

And she highlighted that the hormone oxytocin,

Which is the bonding love hormone when we feel connected and in our ventral vagal interactive part of our nervous system,

That oxytocin is protective for stress.

We have all these receptor sites for oxytocin on our heart.

And so when we are under stress,

And if we can either give or receive support,

We get oxytocin,

Which actually can mitigate any damage to our body from stress.

So this deep importance of safe connection.

When we feel more compressed,

When we have too much getting stacked on top,

Our window of tolerance is shortened.

It's narrowed,

Right?

We don't feel like we have as much capacity.

And so we have less resilience and we feel the effects of more stress.

And when we go into our protective defensive states of our sympathetic nervous system or our dorsal system,

Then we can't think as clearly,

Right?

So we feel less organized or more chaotic or,

You know,

Exhausted or dysregulated or discombobulated.

How can we come back into balance?

So we're going to do a number of somatic practices today to help us pay attention to how overwhelm affects our body.

And then,

You know,

Work with that so that we can come back at least into a little bit of regulation.

So we're going to be doing a number of skills.

I'll just give you some context now so you know what's coming in the meditation.

We're going to practice orienting,

Which many of you are familiar with.

We're going to spend some time with noticing and naming what's happening in our bodies with overwhelm,

Including identifying our polyvagal state.

And then we're going to do some inquiry with what do we need and then offering some spaciousness.

And you can do this in any position.

There's a little bit of a movement thing,

But if you can't move,

You can imagine moving if your body needs rest right now.

So we're going to begin with orienting because this is a very,

Very powerful somatic practice of coming into the present moment.

When we're overwhelmed,

We're often worrying about the future of what's going to happen,

How am I going to get this done,

And we are not in the present moment.

And so orienting helps us land back in our body,

Back in the present moment,

And we can have an assessment of,

Okay,

In this moment,

Am I safe enough right now?

I invite you to look around your space that you're in,

And in particular,

Move your eyes and your head and neck if you can,

Looking down and under and above.

When we can even do this gentle mobilization of our neck and our eyes,

We stimulate the vagus nerve,

Which is our parasympathetic nervous system,

And it helps us downregulate and come back into more balance in our ventral system.

Adding in some sound awareness also affects the vagus nerve with listening through our inner and middle ear.

And then feeling touch where your body is making contact with the surface beneath you.

Maybe your back is being supported.

So feel the visceral sensation of touch,

Of how your body is interacting with the support around it.

And then sensing if you can notice or bring in some sensory cues of safety.

So by this,

I mean,

Is there something interesting or beautiful in your environment that you can look at and go,

Oh,

I love looking at those flowers,

Or I see the hummingbird outside the window,

Or see or hear my animal sleeping near me.

Consciously looking for cues of safety through our five senses helps our body recognize that we can be safe enough in any moment.

So see if you can find one or two cues.

And really take it in and feel the goodness of this experience of finding a cue of safety.

And next,

Taking in the goodness of what we just did and adding a dose of curiosity,

Because curiosity is a trait of our ventral vagal state,

Our more regulated state.

How do you identify your cues of overwhelm?

How do you know when you're overwhelmed?

What begins to happen inside of you?

Maybe there's muscle tension in your forehead or jaw.

Maybe your breath gets shallower.

Maybe you start bumping into things.

Your spatial organization in your body is off.

There may be nausea.

Maybe all of a sudden your mental thought process gets very fast,

Clenched jaw.

So noticing what are your cues,

Because this is important to be self-aware.

When we can be aware of what's happening inside of us,

That's an entry point for some intervention.

So notice those sensations.

And just be curious.

You're not going to take a deep dive right now into your overwhelm.

But you're noticing that even thinking about a recent challenge,

Tight throat,

Chest congestion,

Spatial disorientation pressure in the temples,

Clenched jaw,

Toes curling.

Yes,

And conditions that you may be experiencing can get exacerbated like asthma or bronchitis.

Losing focus,

Beautiful.

Dropping things,

Forgetting deadlines,

Overall bracing.

So great noticing.

The next step with this is take a wild guess at which polyvagal state you go into when you feel these sensations of overwhelm.

That bracing can be sympathetic nervous system.

The restricted breathing could be dorsal,

Where we shut down a little bit.

Yeah,

So many of you actually are experiencing some dual states where you move back and forth between some sympathetic charge and then dropping into dorsal.

And these protective states can affect any kind of health condition,

Whether it's chronic fatigue or any immune disorder,

Autoimmunity,

Chronic pain,

Immune functioning.

Yes,

Wishing for isolation,

That's more of a dorsal.

Going into hypervigilance is more sympathetic.

And it feels like you feel younger,

So there's more emotion,

Beautiful.

If there's an emotion that's connected with these sensations of overwhelm,

See if you can notice and name an emotion that is connected.

Maybe sadness.

So anxiety,

Someone wrote,

So that's more of an emotion of your sympathetic nervous system.

Fear can be both part of sympathetic and dorsal,

Depending on the manifestation.

Right,

If fear comes through with irritability or agitation,

That's more sympathetic.

If it results in immobility and shutdown,

That's more dorsal.

Beautiful noticing.

Feeling out of control,

Yes,

That doesn't feel good,

Right?

That puts us in definitely a protective state.

So let's all take a deep breath right now.

This is a lot of noticing.

And we can give some beautiful acknowledgement to ourselves for all this wonderful noticing and naming.

This is how it is right now.

The sense of abandonment in my dorsal or frustration in my sympathetic.

Grief in my dorsal combined with anger in my sympathetic,

Right?

This is how it is right now.

Of course I feel this way.

Of course.

So our responses to overwhelm is our body's attempt to keep us safe.

And sometimes they're not as effective.

Sometimes they need some updating.

And so here is an inquiry question for you that is really helpful.

So what does my nervous system need right now?

And again,

This is where being fluent in polyvagal theory can be really helpful.

Because we can understand how to move out of sympathetic or dorsal.

There's certain strategies for moving out of those stuck places.

A nap can be really helpful for both dorsal and sympathetic.

A hug,

A vacation.

And you know,

If you can't go there physically,

Go there in your mind.

To be seen.

Yeah,

So that is asking for connection,

Right?

To be witnessed in what you're going through.

Beautiful,

A nature walk.

Being outside.

Touching the earth or a tree.

Music.

Yes.

And music can be very powerful.

If you're kind of stuck in your collapsed dorsal,

You can start with some slower music and then gradually have music that picks up the tempo to energize your system.

Or if you're high and you're sympathetic and you just need to move and dance it out,

Start with something very energizing and then slowly let the music come slower so you can come back into your ventral.

Yoga Nidra is very powerful.

Coming into a deep relaxation.

Doing a little shaking.

I love how so many of you are clear about what your body might need right now.

What your nervous system may need.

Yeah,

Self-massage.

If you can,

Do what you're needing right now,

Like a self-massage.

Give yourself a hug.

Or imagine dancing right now.

Imagine being seen by another.

Imagine being out in nature or hearing the music that will be so,

Such a balm to your nervous system.

Notice what's happening in your nervous system and your body.

And then give your nervous system some mindful medicine through awareness,

Through movement,

Through music,

Through connecting.

And it doesn't need to be for very long.

Petting your animal.

It doesn't need to cost a penny.

It is giving your nervous system even for a few minutes like you're doing right now.

And noticing what begins to happen in your body when you offer a self-hug,

Self-touch,

Imaginal nature walk.

Petting your animal.

Notice what begins to happen in your breath,

In your musculature,

In your tension patterns.

Yeah,

You can stroke down your face.

A very beautiful way to boost your vagus nerve.

So if you're having a response right now of getting super anxious or fidgety,

That's also normal.

Your nervous system is saying,

What are you doing?

We have to pay attention.

We can't get this relaxed.

So if that's happening,

Come back to orienting.

Like I take a break from paying all this deep attention.

Whew,

This can be a lot.

We have to pace ourselves with our nervous system interventions.

We'll do one last practice together,

Which is giving our body some space and our mind and emotions.

There's a movement piece to this which you can do or imagine doing.

And so when we're overwhelmed,

Often things feel way too close,

Way too pressured.

And so the movement is just imagine pushing all the stuff away off to the sides.

Push it in all the dimensions behind you.

Push it down deep into the floor.

Push it up and away so that you have space around you.

And do this for as much as you feel is helpful.

And again,

Noticing how that feels in your body.

And then lastly,

Let's turn within and see if you can create some inner space.

Create the sense of wide spaciousness in our chest cavity,

That we have this cavern within our ribcage of space.

We have so much space between each cell.

And so savor even just a little bit of this spaciousness within you while we stay connected to each other.

Most of us have practiced our defensive and protective states a lot through our life events.

Tending to our nervous system in a different way does take time.

And it becomes more available.

And so deep patience,

Offering support,

Receiving support,

Acknowledging each other,

Being seen.

Feel that right now in your body.

This is some anti-stress medicine of connection.

And if you wish,

You can acknowledge and send forth this safety in our group.

There's so many people that are overwhelmed right now.

We have a lot of commonality with so many on the planet.

So send forth some beautiful kindness to others.

And then take that in for yourself as well.

I will close with a poem.

Patience of Ordinary Things by Pat Schneider.

It is a kind of love,

Is it not,

How the cup holds the tea,

How the chair stands sturdy and four square,

How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes or toes.

How the soles of feet know where they're supposed to be.

I've been thinking about the patience of ordinary things,

How clothes wait respectfully in closets and the soap dries quietly in the dish.

And towels drink the wet from the skin of the back.

And the lovely repetition of stairs.

And what is more generous than a window?

That was The Patience of Ordinary Things by Pat Schneider.

Thank you all for listening to this Insight Timer Live on working somatically with overwhelm.

Thanks for your presence,

And be well.

Reviews

This a recording of a previously live session, was so timely and reassuring to this present day given the tenor of current US presidential policies. I have saved it in my Favorites and will replay/review the salient messages over the coming days. Centering and reassuring.

So glad you recorded this Bhanu Joy, as I can't make your live sessions due to time zone differences.
Helpful as always 🙏