When the Mind takes over
For years when something emotional or somatic was activated in or around my body, my mind would rush in immediately.
What is wrong? What is this? Is this allowed?
My mind found a reason to analyze, distance, overexplain, intellectualize—until there was no energy left to actually feel what was happening in body.
I never developed the conscious capacity to simply feel in and around my body. So mind took over, mostly in judgment and control.
Body was looking for someone, something that said: Yes, I feel this too. I am with you. But it never came.
At times the thoughts would get so LOUD. I could see the thoughts didn't match the situation, but it felt completely real to parts of me. There were situations where my survival response would flip on and say "danger" when there was no actual danger. No life-threatening danger. The more intense or triggered I got, the more the obsessive thinking mind would take over—overthinking, spiraling, catastrophizing. Creating a whole weather system.
Mind took over the role of processing energy. Not so great at it. It just can't do it on its own. And it was exhausting.
Staying present in my body while triggered felt dangerous to parts of me. Unbearable at times. And my system found a way to keep me functioning. Sometimes it created distance. A merciful dissociation that let me survive what my system didn't know how to process.
Sometimes I could feel my body (racing heart, tense shoulders, always bracing) AND I was actively shutting it down (deflecting, stopping it cold). Like a car idling in the driveway—one foot on the gas and one foot on the brakes. Energy trapped. Revved up and not moving.
Eventually I realized: something from our painful past creates what my teacher calls a trauma echo—a samskara, kind of like a groove or skip in the record. And then current situations—sometimes seemingly small ones, sometimes real challenges—summon that old response. And the record skips in the same spot. So I'm reactive because I didn’t know how to companion the original wounding. It clouds my perception. I can't see clearly what's actually happening now because the past is overlaying it.
THE WAY BACK
So it took baby steps. For years, self-criticism kept me from being able to actually work with what was happening. When I finally got that these automatic reflexes weren't bad—that they were protective—something shifted.
The self judgment still shows up but now I can catch it, thank it, say "I'm here now." I've learned how to be with it, even when it gets loud.
I experimented with little things at first. Could I stay with a small discomfort without running? Sometimes it shifted. Sometimes it got more intense. But I was learning I could be with it.
Simple practices like noticing when over-analyzing would rear up, and then dropping the story—even for just a few seconds—and asking: Where am I feeling this?
There was so much urgency to fix things NOW. So I practiced when I wasn't feeling urgent. Textures on my skin. The way my hands felt in my lap.
Less meaning-making about sensations. Learning sensation words like tight, tingly, warm, fluttery—words that didn't have an emotional label attached.
Learning through small explorations: What feels good in my body? What is a resource? How do I know this feeling of ease?
When a feeling or discomfort arises, I practice saying: You can be here with me.
Little sips. Small moments of recognition. Of reframing. Of building new pathways.
Does this pattern feel familiar to you? What would it mean to learn to be with what arises, rather than rushing to fix it?
If this resonates with your experience, I'd love to connect. This work—learning to be with what arises, building new pathways—is at the heart of what I offer in my Archetypal Somatics™ practice.
