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FROM OVERWHELM TO EASE
by Judy Hirsh Sampath
If you missed the outstanding Summit held this autumn at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, here’s the handout I created to accompany the yoga session I was invited to present — a collection of practical ways to meet and move through feelings of overload.
The practice, “From Overwhelm to Ease,” offered simple, embodied practices to help you recognise the signs of overwhelm, regulate your nervous system, and return to balance with awareness and compassion.
When we feel the charge of overwhelm or overload, we can begin by tuning into the feeling tone/vagal tone – the quality of what’s moving through us. We start to notice where we are in our nervous system and why we are reacting in a certain way.
Whether we run away, stay and fight, dissociate and freeze, or find other ways to cope, these are natural and valid responses, strategies our body has learned to keep us safe. We learn to recognise the tone of our vagal state, the knee-jerk reaction, and the strategy that follows. We familiarise ourselves with responses that bring us back to balance. When these practices are repeated often, they become familiar pathways we can call upon when we find ourselves in trouble.
With awareness and practice, we become steady and ready for trouble when it arises and all we need to do is remember to use the practices we have learnt.
Reflective Enquiry – Take a moment to consider:
What kinds of words, events, or thoughts overload you the most?
When you think of them, how do your thoughts impact your body?
What is the feeling tone, pace, breath, movement that arises and describes it?
Here are some examples of how you might describe the sensations – find your own words that fit your experience. When I think about the problem, I feel…
“as if the rug has been pulled from under my feet.”
“I brace and curl up in a ball.”
“It’s like a heavy, wet blanket suffocating me.”
“My heart pounds; I can’t catch my breath, It feels like my head might explode.”
“My gut clenches; I’m jumpy; I see danger everywhere and mistake ropes for snakes.”
These body sensations reveal the visceral truth even when the threat itself may be imaginary.
Common mind/body connections
- Mental tension shows up in the body as bracing, stiffness, or strain
- Overload drains energy leaving heaviness, collapse, exhaustion
- Overwhelm scatters energy, racing thoughts, jumpy, ungrounded
- Bombardment and misinformation feel like a sensory assault, no space to breathe or think
- Distress leads to Confusion at a cellular level lead to dis-ease
Dropping Under
When everything feels “over,” practice dropping “under” – duck down under the skin, into the knowing without thinking that lives in the body – you know it in your gut, your bones, your heart…
Deep inside, there is a part of you that is untouched by outer turbulence. Like stabilisers on a bicycle or the ballast in a boat, this is your steady centre. You may experience it as – rooted and connected to the ground; below the surface turbulent currents of the ocean; within the quantum field; within the space that filters what’s fake from what’s true; within a protective and comforting cocoon.
Find your own imagery and language that feels true to your experience. When the words fit, your body and breath will naturally respond.
Action and Integration – Let’s gather a few “go-to” practices – simple practices that you can access easily when you notice yourself in a “problem state.” Practices that get you out of trouble… that Acknowledge what is happening – your knee jerk reaction to the problem as it arises. Drop into your body and note objectively where you are in your nervous system. Guide yourself toward a more desired state.
Practice 1 Movement and Breath – mobilise
Intention – to move attention from cognitive narrative (mind) to present centred awareness (body).
How – move the body, spine, limbs, joints, touch the skin, feel gravitational pull in different planes – draw attention to tracking changing physical sensation in real time. Access the inner body through coordinating movement and breath
Play with – the breath as bridge from thinking to feeling, as a stabilising force, from outer realms to inner life, directions and winds of flow, transitions and pauses… So many practices you already know eg. warm ups and asana sequences.
Notice when your mind is present and when it’s somewhere else. Let your body lead and guide you.
Practice 2 Charging and Discharging – energy
Intention – Naming the winds energy, changing direction and discharging overload/overwhelm energy back to the ground for recycling
How – notice the body’s signals of too much – temperature, vagal tone, drifting off, no longer able to engage. Find the path of least resistance, earthing – stamping, shaking, tapping,unwinding, burning off, blowing out, sounding, singing, chanting
Play with – energetic charge – recharge, generate, conserve, earth – vs – deplete, leak, exhaust, all consuming – how will that inform how you practice? Connect with power of community, in unison, connect with universal vibration, harmonising, cyclical, primordial
Practice 3 Switching off and shutting down – Immobilise & dissociate
Intention – to break off from engaging when it’s too much to take in, or too much to bear. Recognising your saturation point where you shut down/dissociate – to take a moment, a step back, a space to take stock
How – Dissociate from what’s happening in the present moment, allow the mind to wander off, create boundaries, armour, protection from too much coming in. Connect to heart, connect with oneness, the field in which everything arises
Play with – Deliberately breaking rapport/connection, dissolving into one-ness, communing with imaginary friends, imagining yourself in a happy place, stepping back to the big picture connection – from microscope to telescope.
NOTE It is important to titrate back to ventral social connection here and now, come back from the freeze state of can’t breathe, can’t make a sound, can’t move. If you find yourself there, transition through breath, speaking or sounding, moving your body, self-touching, or connect with a safe person for support.
Integration & Reflection
Having taken some time to play with the above practices, choose one or two that work the best.
Repeat the practices so you know them well and you can find them again in times of trouble.
Ask yourself how you can meet overload differently. Know it takes time to change coping strategies that you may have been using for most of your life until now. Be kind and understanding to yourself.
Through awareness, repetition, and acceptance, you can create new pathways; pause and respond from a different place; make different choices that originate from your body wisdom, interrupt unhealthy patterns and accept ones that already work.
Remember to – Recognize, remember, repeat—reinforce your inner wisdom so you can easily access it when you need it..
You do not have to do this alone. If you are looking for support, you can contact me for 1-2-1 therapy on zoom, or in person in north London and south India. [email protected]
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