How to Recognize Emotional Energy Shifts + A List of Helpful Strategies to Settle Your Nervous System
When we work with a therapist or mental health coach, we open ourselves up emotionally. Our perspectives and understanding of why we do what we do may crystallize, deepen, or change all together. Things get jumbled. Shifts occur inside us, and we begin to — psychologically and emotionally — reorganize how we see ourselves and how we make sense of our beliefs, behaviors, and place in the world.
These internal shifts carry a lot of energy that we feel and hold in our body (I say we because I experience these same feelings too). At different points in our work together, my clients notice this shift. They talk about it in terms of feeling excited and hopeful but also uncomfortable, fearful, or overwhelmed, even if they don’t know why or where this mixed bag of emotions comes from. While the therapeutic relationship creates a safe container for this process, these shifts still feel unfamiliar and unsettling — quite literally because our nervous system is reordering around a new realization about or understanding of ourselves.
The immediate reaction to feeling this excess energy is to think something is wrong and attempt to get rid of it as fast as possible. We commonly cling to or double down on practices that initially gave us relief — hoping that more is better — or revert to old familiar patterns of numbing, distracting, or comforting. But neither of these strategies help build our understanding of this energy’s path or allow us to guide it through so it has a place to go and eventually settle.
If you experience these internal shifts and the accompanying wave of intense energy (or if you have experienced both in the past and would like to understand them better), keep reading to learn what this energy feels like in the body, where it comes from, and ways to help it move through and settle.
What does excess energy feel like?
Before we get into the specifics, it’s important to understand that emotions live in our body and make themselves known through various physical sensations. The excess energy that corresponds to strong feelings is the body’s way of telling us that it’s processing emotion.
There are all sorts of sensations and qualities to this energy. It will be unique to you. For example, for me, fear or anxiety feels like an achiness that radiates along my spine between my shoulder blades. But another person might feel nausea in their stomach. Here are some additional examples that I’ve felt or my clients have reported, specifically when experiencing these big internal shifts.
A general restless, fidgety, agitated, or edgy state
A pulsing, vibrating, tingly, or radiating sensation along the spine or neck or in the hips or legs
A fluttering, throbbing, achey, hollow, or heavy feeling in the chest, stomach, or head
I encourage you to get curious about the emotional energy and sensations that show up in your own body. If you work with somebody, they’ll likely offer tools that will help you become more familiar with the unique body sensations you experience related to different emotions. And as you explore a sensation, it may move or feel stuck and stagnant. You may also visualize it taking on a particular shape or color in the body, though this isn’t always the case.
Where does excess energy come from?
Sometimes a shift in energy happens spontaneously after processing heavy material in session or finding yourself showing up differently in a situation outside of session. Other times, the energy intensifies gradually over time, and you notice it less as an acute woosh and more as if it’s a camera lens gradually coming into focus. And still other times my clients experience energetic shifts reading a book I recommend or doing mindfulness practices such as yoga, journaling, meditation, or breathwork.
What do I do about it?
First, understand that when you experience strong emotions or emotional breakthroughs, there’s a lot of energy going through you. It can be hard to sit with a surge of energy. But feeling is healing. If we don’t take time to turn toward this energy and brush it off and keep pushing forward instead, it becomes repressed energy. It will leak out sideways in all kinds of unsavory and inconvenient ways through self-dismissive or self-harming behavior and in what we project onto our relationships.
What I want to see happen for myself and my clients is a process in which we allow the energy to move in its own time, while also grounding ourselves so we don’t add fuel to the fire and overload our system.
Here are some reminders I share with my clients:
Recognize that this intense energy is the nervous system digesting new information and feeling a bit rattled, overwhelmed, and overstimulated. Also acknowledge this “digestion phase” as a season of your life. The season may last one day, one week, several months, or more. And during this season, your job is to be more thoughtful about if, when, and how often you let stimulating practices, people, or environments in. Less is more and simplifying is key.
When you feel this emotional sensitivity so acutely, doubling down on the energetic practices that brought you to a more mindful place initially (whether that’s meditation, breathwork, or consuming tons of self-help books and podcasts) will overwhelm the system.
It's counterintuitive, but pulling back on your typical “self-care” routine and simplifying will help the nervous system feel safe to come down and recalibrate. If you easily fall into all-or-nothing thinking, remember there is a middle path here! Pulling back doesn't mean you have to say no to everything or cut something “good” out of your life forever. Instead, it means being judicious and discerning about what you take in during these acutely sensitive times.
The emotions and accompanying sensations in the body are uncomfortable and unsettling, but they are not in themselves harmful. See them as information from the body that can inform the next best steps for your care. Feeling is healing. But we also don’t want to torture ourselves sitting with the feelings all day. 😉See next point.
Similar to the tool I shared for grief, practice weaving in and out of the physical sensations to regulate your nervous system:
First, notice and name the emotions and physical sensations.
Next — and this is key — gently move your body to keep the energy moving (e.g. do gentle walks, yoga, or stretching; get a gentle massage; play with a pet outside; spend time in the garden, take a shower or soak in a bath, etc.).
Then step away with mindful distraction and be a part of the world (e.g. go to work, a social activity, a coffee shop, volunteer your time, etc.).
Lastly, come back to yourself to check in again.
Repeat this process as many times a day as needed.
Observe how the energy in the body DOES change over the course of the day or throughout the week. Use the part of you that notices to observe this movement: Notice how it comes and stays, goes in time, builds or lessens in intensity, and moves from one part of the body to another as well as the type of sensations present.
We want this movement because it means the energy and emotions are being processed and metabolized (which is exactly the opposite of being repressed). Acknowledging the emotions and weaving in and out will be your landing pad to support this movement.
I know you are thinking: But what do I do once I’ve noticed? My clients ask me the same question!
Don't do anything; do less. Let this be enough. Understand your nervous system is operating as it should, working to catalog this new information. And that takes time. Just listen in an attempt to be by your own side and understand the process better.
If the energy stops moving and feels stuck, stagnant, and heavy after an unusual period of time, consider getting one-on-one support. If you’re already working with a therapist or coach, use your session time to work directly with the energy in the body — don’t just talk about it.
Steps Forward
A lot of times we get support, meditate, eat, shop, or busy ourselves with the hope of getting rid of uncomfortable energy (or emotions) in our body. But if we constantly try to evade discomfort each time it pops up, it keeps us distracted from doing what’s important to us. Plus, avoiding challenging feelings can mean giving all our attention over to a life-long game of whack-a-mole.
Instead, the aim in working with uncomfortable emotions is to learn how to be attuned to them, make space so they can move freely, get some distance so they don’t hook us and pull us under, and maintain the ability to show up for what matters. This is what the weaving practice allows us to do. A byproduct of this practice might be that discomfort disappears or lessens and a sense of clarity, lightness, or relief emerges in its place. We can certainly enjoy these moments. I sure do! But if we trust in our capacity to weave in and out of intense energy, we won’t need to hold onto those intermittent moments of bliss quite so fearfully.
If you experience difficult emotions and turn to food (or other distractions) to cope and you’d like one-on-one support to navigate this, get in touch for a free 30-minute consult.