Somatic Approaches for Overthinking:
How to Reconnect with Your Body and Take Back Agency From a Nagging Mind
It is easy to lose touch with yourself and end up in a seemingly endless spiral of thoughts. It may be difficult to distinguish between helpful and unhelpful thoughts when there are so many - each demanding its fair share of attention from you, perhaps disorienting you in the process. If you suffer from overthinking - the tendency to become so bombarded with circular, ruminative thoughts that you feel a bit stuck and lost in your cycle of thinking - it may be your body and not your head which holds the key to freedom from this pattern.
While our minds may know no bounds in living in the past or the future - in all of the endless regrets and fears they may nag us with - our bodies can generally only exist in the present moment. It is through embodiment in the present moment that we may demystify what really matters to us. We may access a clearer awareness and spaciousness of our feelings and our needs, perhaps leading to a greater sense of wholeness, engagement, connection and relief.
The body holds wisdom that we often neglect to tap into. The following techniques aim to gently guide you in the direction of that personal wisdom. As you read them, take note of which seem inviting to you and allow yourself the opportunity to try these techniques at your own pace.
A note on approaching fear in being present with your body:
For many people, the body has not always been a safe place to inhabit. Experiences of mistreatment may have conditioned you to ignore your bodily sensations to cope and survive difficulties. The idea of building body awareness may bring up feelings of mild to intense fear. If this is something you experience, it is helpful to interpret this as a message from your body to proceed slowly and mindfully. You may benefit extraordinarily from building body awareness if you have been cut off from your embodiment for a very long time, but slower is faster in this development. Allow yourself the grace to move into these techniques gently and as you feel welcomed to. It is important that you navigate building bodily awareness at your own pace with the genuine freedom to pause at any moment. Over time, you can rebuild a sense of trust with your own body, and this will be all the more possible to the extent that you can pace yourself and be honest with yourself about what techniques don’t feel welcome presently.
It may be the case that techniques or approaches that feel overwhelming and not a good fit now eventually feel more welcome in the future, as you develop more safety and awareness within your body. For people who have experienced trauma, focus on the breath or body scans may be distressing rather than calming while in a highly activated state, in which unpleasant sensations, such as tightness, despair or panic overwhelm the body. If you find yourself experiencing this kind of distress while practicing any of these approaches, it is helpful to give yourself permission to disengage from the practice, find compassion for your unpleasant experience, and perhaps move on to another practice which provides more relief, connection or calming to you. With these approaches, slowing down to a pace and approach that you can actually access and tolerate now will actually be faster and more effective in the long run in providing you healing and greater self-connection than speeding through or overriding your sensations to stay with something too challenging and overwhelming.
With these techniques, search for your golden zone- that puts you slightly beyond what you are used to, opening you to a new experience, but feels stable and safe enough that you feel comfortable staying with it.
RAIN Meditation
The RAIN technique is a meditation for accessing greater self-compassion and embodied emotional awareness in times of overwhelming negativity and emotional confusion. It was developed by mindfulness meditation teacher, Michele McDonald and has been used and further developed by many mindfulness practitioners and somatic psychotherapists.
It is a powerful and accessible tool that anyone can practice to begin orienting towards greater body awareness and emotional receptiveness. Many helpful recordings and videos exist online to guide you in this form of meditation and acclimate you to the pacing and gifts of it.
R- Recognize: The first aspect of the RAIN meditation is simply to recognize the unpleasantness that is here. You may scan your life as you’ve experienced it recently, and notice what painful or uncomfortable experience has been surfacing that causes you to want to turn away from yourself or feel shame. It can be helpful to concretely imagine what people or situations were involved when this feeling came up. What did their faces look like? Where were you?
It is important not to pick an experience that was traumatizing, as this introductory practice will have limited capacity to serve you in processing all of the content that may come up from such an experience.
A- Allow: The second aspect of this meditation is to simply allow whatever thoughts, feelings or sensations that come up from imagining this experience to be here with you. This may be very challenging if the experience involves thoughts or actions that you regret and don’t want to associate yourself with or feel should not have happened, but it is important that we allow all that is coming up to be as it is. This acceptance is both difficult and radical.
It may be helpful to repeat mantras to yourself such as:
This belongs. All of this belongs here now, even the parts I do not like.
The best way for me to heal from this experience is to first accept it as it is. I cannot change something until I accept it.
It’s okay to have difficult feelings about this. I accept and allow these too.
I - Investigate: The next step in this meditation is to begin a somatic, emotional investigation of this experience. As you allow whatever thoughts, sensations or emotions of the experience to come up, where do you feel them taking up space in your body?
Another way to find access to bodily sensations if you are having some trouble feeling them clearly is to ask yourself what am I believing about myself now? If you are carrying a painful belief that is coming up through this experience, like ‘I am a failure’ or ‘I am unlovable,’ what do you feel in your body in response to this belief? Perhaps you feel a hollowness or sunken feeling in your chest. Perhaps you feel a tightness in your throat.
N- Nurture- After you have investigated the way this experience is showing up for you in your body and feelings, you can now offer some nurturance to yourself, particularly the vulnerable part of yourself and your emotions that may have arisen. It can be helpful to place a hand on the part of your body where you feel a difficult sensation or emotion come up. It may also be helpful to ask this part of yourself what it most needs that you may be able to provide. Perhaps you could use a hug from yourself, or some words of encouragement or affirmation.
Body Scan:
Body scans are a useful tool for reconnecting with the body and building awareness of how emotions or showing up and taking space within it. To begin to acclimate to this tool, many recordings exist online which offer a gentle, soothing pace to explore this practice.
Gentle Yoga:
Yoga is an amazing tool for releasing tension and centering oneself into one’s body and emotions. When we are caught in the whirlwind of anxious overthinking, gentle yoga or restorative, trauma-informed yoga is an effective entry-point for re-entering the body in an accessible and non-overwhelming way. These practices tend to emphasize learning to rest and nurture the body through movement and releasing poses, rather than pushing the body beyond its limits in complex or rigorous poses. Similar to the other practices mentioned above, many resources exist online in the form of free videos and recordings which can guide beginners in acclimating to gentle, restorative yoga in the safety of their own space.
The use of supports, such as blocks, bolsters and blankets is especially helpful when practicing gentle, restorative yoga. Gradually allowing yourself to lean on a support and trust that you will be (literally) supported is helpful in releasing tension and the overwhelming anxiety that you must always carry yourself and your worries on your own. Blankets can be used to both soften your mat or the ground you lean on to provide added comfort in releasing into these poses, and to drape over your body for an added sense of protection and safety.
Breathing:
Breath work is a very effective tool for calming the body and mind in times of heightened stress and distressing thinking. By connecting to the breath in a simple and calming way, we can regain a sense of control when our nervous system becomes overactivated by anxious thoughts, gently guiding it back to homeostasis.
Box breathing is a simple tool for reconnecting to the breath in a calming way in times of heightened stress and anxiety from racing thoughts. In the shape of a square (or box), one simply follows along in breathing in for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds, breathing out for 4 seconds and holding again for 4 seconds. Many videos, recordings and even mobile apps exist to facilitate this process and support you in not needing to even think about counting when you decide to access this tool.
Another helpful approach to breathing to release tension, stress and overwhelming feelings is to simply take a large inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth with a long, audible sigh. This approach may be helpful in letting in difficult emotions and allowing them to be released through an expressive, calming sigh.
Dancing and Expressive Movement:
It may feel silly if it isn’t something you are used to, but dancing and moving freely to express what you are feeling can be an effective way to reconnect with your emotions and struggles in an embodied way.
Feeling and sitting with negative feelings:
Lastly, one of the most simple yet daunting techniques for somatically connecting with yourself during times of overthinking is to merely sit with your negative feelings and allow them to be felt.
Rather than analyzing or ‘trying to figure out’ your feelings or change them into something ‘better,’ sitting with your feelings means radically allowing the emotions that are coming up for you to come through you, be acknowledged and felt.
One way to approach sitting with your feelings, if it is something you struggle with, is to prepare your space with gentle, sensory comforts in order to associate the experience with kindness towards yourself, rather than a punishing and uncomfortable ordeal to force yourself through. This could look like getting into a comfortable position, such as a favorite chair with a warm blanket. It could involve lighting a candle with a favorite scent or making a pot of soothing tea that you like. It could involve taking a nice shower or bath, if these are places that comfort you and give you greater access to your feelings.
Helpful entry points for reconnecting with your feelings may involve the following questions or mantras:
What is there here that I don’t want to feel? What’s the worst part of this?
What part of me feels vulnerable right now? What does this part of me want? What does this part of me feel?
Do these feelings feel familiar to me? Do they remind me of another difficult time in my life?
I cannot control my feelings. I cannot make my feelings go away. But I can allow myself to feel my feelings. I can let my feelings come through me with less judgment and control.
I can ride the wave of this feeling and allow it to wash through me.
Sometimes, somatic work is intense and difficult to navigate alone. If you would like professional support in processing your emotions and reconnecting with your body, feel free to schedule a counseling session with one of our therapists at The Center For Growth.
You can self schedule an in-person or virtual therapy session at the Center for Growth by calling (215) 922- LOVE (5683) x 100. Our Guarantee: If after your first session you are not sold that you are working with the right therapist, do not hesitate to call our intake line at 215 922 5683 x 100 or Alex at (267) 324-9564 and ask to be rescheduled with another therapist. The choice of how you want to proceed is yours. Our only goal is to support you in becoming the best you possible.
