Many people who had to grow up too fast have learnt how to over-function. Growing up, it was a survival mechanism. They either had to take care of themselves because their parents were preoccupied. Or, they had to take care of themselves and others, potentially including their parents.

As a result, they’ve grown into adults that are used to carrying a lot of weight on their shoulders. And, in fact, this is more comfortable, due to its familiarity, than the alternative: living with a sense of ease and levity.

Over the years, they’ve unconsciously trained themselves to act like they’re far more capable than they truly are. This may look like taking on plenty of tasks, or taking on plenty of emotional weight—or, both.

While all may seem well for a period of time, this isn’t sustainable. At some point, as the saying goes, there will be a straw that enters the picture that breaks the camel’s back.

If you’re going through this right now, you likely feel overwhelmed, and possibly ashamed for being in this place because, most of your life, you have been “the capable one.”

The first thing to remember is that you are human, and that you were never meant to be immune to “lows.” You have been indoctrinated with this belief, but it is not true. You, too, are allowed to be “messy,” to “take up space,” to ask for help.

This brings us to our first tool for emotional regulation.

Effective Tools for Emotional Regulation

Share Your Fears with a Trusted Other

Humans regulate each other. Our mirror neurons pick up on the feelings and behaviors of someone in close proximity to us, directly impacting how we feel and how we respond to our own emotions. So, when we’re dysregulated, it helps to share space with someone who can stay calm, as this helps us regulate and reach a state of calm as well.

This is, in part, how Reiki works, in that one’s energy is affected positively by another. Though, when it comes to the source of this healing energy, Reiki historically gives credit not to the practitioner, but to the practitioner’s connection to the Universe, even if you were an absolute atheist, it’s my experience that you will still receive benefits from energy healing, as you are sharing space with a calm, grounded practitioner—and, again, due to our mirror neurons, you will therefore take on this calm, groundedness yourself. For more info regarding Reiki, click here.

Use Your Logical Mind

Your brain’s left hemisphere, colloquially called your “thinking brain” or your “logical mind,” can be harnessed to support your right hemisphere, or your “emotional brain.”

Often, when we’re overwhelmed, we’re flooded with feelings that feel big and hazy, and only get bigger and hazier the more we try to avoid them. I always think of myself in school avoiding my homework: the anxiety would grow the longer I left that pile to sit unattended.

Whereas, when I could just say to myself, “Okay, Mackenzie, we’re just going to do one page of math homework for now, and we’ll see about the rest later”—this is when I actually began to calm down. Probably, you’ve had similar experiences.

What we’re doing here as we lean into our fears and break them down into manageable tasks is we’re moving from the right hemisphere of the brain over to the left, integrating the two parts of the brain—thereby integrating ourselves, which is calming.

Some ways to do this are to…

-Journal out your feelings, without any editing. Writing gives us an opportunity to give words to our emotions, again, bringing the two parts of the brain together, and bringing us harmony, understanding, and a sense of calm.

-Create a ‘To Do List’ for yourself, and number it by order of importance. This will give you structure, clarity, direction, and, as a result, peace.

Focus on How it Will Feel to Achieve Your Goal

This is a common manifestation technique: immersing yourself in the feeling of having already achieved what you currently desire. While there are many energetic reasons why this practice can help you reach your goals, one key benefit in terms of reducing overwhelm is the activation of the relaxation response when you visualize your success. This relaxation response can help lower cortisol levels, the hormone associated with stress and overwhelm, which can help you feel physically and mentally better.

Meta-Process With a Coach

When you open up and share with a professional, you not only get the experience of sharing your fears and co-regulating, as mentioned above. You also get the opportunity to review how it felt to share your fears, which is incredibly intimate.

This is important if you grew up feeling like you had to take on the world alone, as emotional intimacy is likely something you didn’t get much experience with—and is therefore something you are probably still learning to lean into.

By practicing talking to someone in an intimate way about your feelings, you strengthen this muscle, and allow yourself the opportunity to see that it really can be safe—and deeply fulfilling—to open up. This will help you enrich your life, and avoid getting to a state of overwhelm in the future. For more information regarding coaching, click here.

Move Your Body

Having trained in somatic healing, I couldn't leave this one out. All animals are aided incredibly by moving their body, particularly in moments of stress. If you consider a wild animal that's just avoided getting eaten by another animal—do you know what it does? It shakes its body. On a less dramatic level, consider those two dogs you've seen play-fighting before. What do they always do post-play? They shake their bodies.

We are meant to move energy through movement. When we don't, it accumulates in our body and leads to dis-ease.

The way I like to think about it is fear creates a spark of energy in our body. We could either hold onto that energy and let it take us down (i.e. by spiralling, or getting a stomach ache, or a headache, etc.), or we could transmute that energy, AKA convert it to creative energy that we may use to dance, sing, do breathwork, make love, or even make art.

I know you already know how healing it is to connect with your body. I left this for the end because it is light, accessible, and simply a kind reminder to remember what you already know:

When it comes to your healing, your growth, you are incredibly powerful.