What To Do When We Can’t Relax

Hello beautiful people,

How are you today?

When I learnt that our brain’s top priority is our physical safety and survival, and how that affects everything we do, and how we feel about ourselves in the world..

That if we sense any threat then our emergency survival responses will turn on…

But because how most of us haven’t learnt how to be with emotions in the way they need, it doesn’t have to be lions chasing us or houses burning down for our emergency responses to be turned on…

Emotional overwhelm can turn on our emergency survival responses in a nanosecond

It blew my mind.

I saw that so much of what I was feeling (and had convinced myself made me a pretty lame person) was actually normal survival reactions.

Survival reactions feel AWFUL.

And that’s why so many of us feel a punishing sense of overwhelm.

Of chronic stress. Of panic taking us over the edge. Because our emergency survival responses have been turned on. Our nervous system is screaming – threat! Threat! Unsafety! Unsafety!

Perhaps the mists of rage are descending and we are feeling an uncontrollable urge to argue, fight, punish.

Or we can’t slow down and relax because there is a punishing go go energy . I must do a millions things otherwise….doom!

Or the opposite – we can’t get anything going or started, maybe we feel stuck in a vat of glue-like energy.

And of course adding to the intense awfulness – we usually finding these reactions and behaviours so unbelievably frustrating/confusing/annoying/shameful etc.

When I learnt how to identify what was happening inside me, if my emergency survival responses had turned on and I was in fight, flight, freeze or appease – my life started to change.

But what can be tough in the beginning when we are learning about this, is at first our survival reactions, our nervous system, doesn’t want to necessarily go into deep rest and regulation – because it doesn’t feel like we are safe enough to.

If survival reactions have been dominating our life, then to just pop out of them isn’t necessarily going to feel like the safest thing to do.

If it’s been in a position of being on guard, on the lookout, survival reactions can take some gentle coaxing and reassurance to loosen their habitual grip.

When we have lived through experiences of overwhelming stress, or when our lives have just been a series of stress, anxiety or panic, our nervous system puts itself on high alert for possible danger.

And if it thinks your emotions are a threat, then it’ll see danger everywhere.

So to say it, right now we are just totally chilling out, relax now please! Often it’ll say back to us, no way! Look at what we’ve just been through, or look at all the danger in the world, or life is too stressful to relax! We can’t just relax!!! Are you crazy???

So what do we do when we feel too tightly wound to allow relaxation in?

We start with tiny sips, gentle movement, little tiny steps.

We start softly, and we move little by little.

We start to show our nervous system, through our bodies, that it’s safe for us to bring ease and calm into our life. It’s safe for us to relax.

That it’s safe to feel emotions without going into full scale rage/panic/overwhelm/stress etc.

It’s safe for us to emerge into calm.

When I did a survey of my family about their favourite nervous system regulation tools, the one I am sharing today topped their list.

And it’s one you may have heard me talk about before. It’s the regulating breath.

It’s so simple.

All you need to do is make your inhale shorter than your exhale.

And by doing that you give the ‘rest and digest’ part of your nervous system a chance to come online. It’s reassuring ourselves that relaxing is safe.

Ease is safe.

When we do this, it can be transformative to how we are feeling in our bodies. In our selves.

I am sharing this one today to remind you of how if we do these exercises on repeat we can gently start to bring a frazzled nervous system gradually back into a state of regulation.

When I learnt how to beautifully and tenderly take care of this part of me that was living in my survival reactions of perpetual overwhelm and terror – when I learnt how to consistently bring a feeling of safeness to my body, that’s when I was able to show up in my life with more courage, confidence and a feeling of freedom.

I would love to know if you try this breath and how it feels.

And as always questions are very welcome.

With much love,

Diana