How to live in this world as someone who feels things deeply….
I’m just back from teaching on a retreat, and am with a question that a participant shared with me around embodiment.
The nature of what I was teaching was in becoming more connected to your own inherent embodied knowing. To feel yourself more and act from that place.
Her question was along the lines of
“ It’s great to be more embodied in these spaces, one’s where we are in a group field of care, support and we are all together working on the same goal of becoming more embodied. But what about when we are out in the world? When we are faced with people, situations, the world’s problems, the business of the world? Then what? Is it so good to be this sensitive?”
I sat with the question, unfortunately we were on the end of our session and time did not allow a deeper process that would really honour that question in that moment. So I said this is an important question and a deeper conversation is needed.
Before I had experienced somatic trauma resolution I would have said yes, it is too much to feel it all. The world is pretty crazy out there, of course we are going to feel overwhelmed by its intensity at times.
But the truth is the more we are able to access our embodied knowing the better the world will become. And there may be times when we need to find stability by distracting ourselves, by finding someone to co-regulate with, by choosing to go for a walk in the woods instead of getting on with our to do list, or by having a day when we prioritise just feeling and being with what is, turning off our phones and allowing ourselves to digest.
In somatic trauma resolution we begin to grow our capacity to feel more, but it’s a mistake to think that we then have to feel it all, in fact feeling it all can sometimes land us back into a trauma response, where we are either fighting things or running away from them or frozen and incapacitated or just numb, all perfectly normal responses I might add.
However, none of us want to live in a trauma response unless our immediate well-being depends on those vital life saving responses of course.
So if we find ourselves overwhelmed by feeling it all instead of being consumed by it,
Instead we want to prioritise:
Processing feelings when we feel resourced enough, if not resourced enough distract and soothe instead.
Allowing the bodies intelligence to guide us, if something feels too much finding a somatic sense of safety by resourcing. (See below for resourcing tips.
Rather than flooding the system with feeling, instead feeling it in small doable pieces (this is what increases our capacity, Not feeling it all and overwhelming the system.)
Finding right distance from what feels troubling or dysregulating. And choosing the right time to come back to it when you are feeling more resourced and stable again.
Creating the right conditions in our lives where we feel supported and nourished.
Allowing ourselves to go slow when needed
Moving away from pushing and forcing in our healing journey and instead turn our attention to amplifying the field of support (within ourselves and also in our external lives) White knuckling it through may create a feeling of release initially but lasting change happens in doing it a smallest doable piece at a time.
There are many ways we can feel more resourced:
Listening to the bodies cues and acting accordingly - simple stuff like - enough rest and sleep, eating well, staying hydrated.
Creating relationships that are win-win ie where there is reciprocity.
Asking for support
Embodied meditation practices where you connect to internal or external support these can be tangible like the feeling of the ground beneath your feet or a part of your body that feels stable. Or intangible support like meditating with the celestial, archetypal, mystical realms support.
We can access vast reservoirs of support from nature, the earth, the elements - either through our imagination (because to the body it has the same effect whether it is real or imagined.)
So the long answer is yes it sometimes IS a lot to feel ourselves here at this time on earth and to navigate that as a sensitive alive organism. AND the question becomes how can I continue to do that and stay resourced?
When I am resourced I can feel and it feels ok even if its uncomfortable or difficult, my system can handle it without going into overwhelm.
Resource resource resource, prioritise self care, listen to the body’s cues for to care for this earth and all who dwell on her we must first tend to ourselves, this is the process of regeneration, for with our care and our ability to feel we change the world around us, and that ripples out as a counter a;ance to all that is inherently wrong and anti-life in this world.
If we want to be agents of change and impact this world we must tend to the delicate and sensitive organism that is our heart and nervous system. We must prioritise care, care of self and then care for others
