Why emotions feel so overwhelming
Hello lovely people,
What I hear all the time when I first talk to people in my coaching is –
I’m just an angry person
Or
I’m just a really fearful person
Or
I just can’t cope, I am super overwhelmed with anxiety
The idea of a dominating emotion has become wedded to their identity and it feels like there is no way out.
I can’t control my anger.
I can’t control my fear.
I can’t control my anxiety.
But this isn’t accurate. We think we are dominated by our emotions, but most of the time the state we are in is not anger or fear. Nor despair or loneliness.
We are in our survival brain.
If there is any sensation of it being uncontrollable….
If there is any sensation that there is no hope, limited or no solutions…
If there is any sensation that you are doomed, your life is doomed, the world is just totally messed up…
If what is occupying you is dominating your thoughts most of the time and you can’t see beyond it….
Then you are in a part of your brain that feels pretty wickedly awful to inhabit.
Your survival brain.
What has happened is that some emotions have arisen, you struggle to really be with those emotions and your brain decides that these emotions are a threat – so boom! Your survival system is activated.
Your survival brain is brilliant at getting you out of life-threatening situations.
If you were in a burning building or being chased by a lion – survival brain would switch on and, hey presto, give you a ton of useful chemicals to help your body energise and get out of the situation.
It pumps cortisol, adrenaline and glucose into your body. It stops the daily repair and focuses 100% of your energy on survival.
Absolutely brilliant when you’re in a life threatening situation, right?
But absolutely NOT brilliant when you are just trying to deal with some emotion.
The reason this happens is that many of us learnt to deal with emotions as children by not dealing with them. By attempting to suppress, distract ourselves or run away from them.
If our parents didn’t accept our normal healthy emotions – like anger and fear – we learn to see them as a problem, a threat to our connection with them.
Like – how dare you be angry! Go to your room!
Or – there is nothing to be scared about, silly!
Or – stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.
These are all signals to the brain that emotions aren’t normal or healthy. That emotions are a problem, a threat.
(In a few days I’ll share what emotions actually need. But just to know they’re definitely not to be denied, shamed, intellectualized, or suppressed.)
If our parents didn’t know how to deal with their emotions – we also learnt that emotions were a problem, a threat.
Many of us have emotions that feel really problematic for us – that historically we didn’t get support and space to just be allowed to feel. Fear, anger, shame, despair, loneliness – are some of the top contenders for ones we struggle to feel.
And if we struggle with them our brain – which is a very logical mechanism – learns that they are a problem and so does what it thinks is the best thing: it pushes us into survival in order to discharge the intensity of that emotion.
Which then puts us in a brain state we are NOT supposed to live in, or be in for long periods of time.
In a brain state that feels like we are doomed. Situations that aren’t urgent and life-threatening FEEL urgent and life-threatening.
Like – if I don’t get this email written before midday, I think I might get overwhelmed with panic!
If my son keeps on talking sassy like that I might lose my mind and scream the house down!
I saw my bank statement this morning and I spent more than I thought – my heart is racing and I feel like I could die!
The political situation in my country is so desperate I feel a constant boiling rage and hatred for people who voted for that person.
Etc.
These are all survival brain responses.
These are not emotional brain responses.
And that’s why when we think – oh, I am just an angry person! Oh, I am just a fearful person!
It’s not true.
What is true is that we are in our survival brains.
And when we are in our survival brains we need something very specific in order to come out of it.
We need physical safety.
Tomorrow I’ll share with you some really simple, but incredibly powerful, exercises that you can use if you find yourself in survival brain.
Exercises you can use when you notice these survival reactions:
Uncontrollable rage, mists of anger, shouting, ranting or blaming (FIGHT)
Or
The intense need to get away, ignoring, physically leaving or immersing yourself in TV/work/alcohol, rushing etc. (FLIGHT)
Or
The sensation of shutting down, fatigue, unable to take action, aggravated by sensations outside of you, oversleeping, overeating, can’t make a decision (FREEZE)
Or
The urgent need to help, fix, sort out, be of use to people or a group, find solutions for other people (APPEASE).
In the meantime I would love to know if this resonates with you and if you feel your survival brain activation?
Does this shed some light on what might be happening in your life?
Let me know by emailing me on dianaepes@gmail.com. And if you have any questions. I’ll be sure to answer them in the emails I’m sending out over the next few days,
With love,
Diana