Why Feeling Your Emotions Can Be So Terrifying and What to Do About It
Have you ever felt like the tiniest thing , an unexpected email, a message left on read, a look, a tone, a bill, sends your whole system into overdrive?
In this week’s podcast episode, I spoke to massage therapist and bodyworker Carrie Ekins about emotional overwhelm, emotional exhaustion, and how to begin feeling safe enough to feel our feelings, even when it feels absolutely terrifying.
Carrie shared a thought that changed everything for her:
“Everything is a saber-toothed tiger.”
It sounds playful, but it's a serious insight. Because for many of us, our nervous systems are constantly interpreting life’s daily stresses as if our actual survival is under threat. The primitive parts of our brain haven’t evolved fast enough to know the difference between a demanding boss and a predator in the wild.
So instead of processing an email or a conversation, our bodies kick into survival mode — fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Over and over. Day after day.
And what gets missed? The essential third part of the stress cycle: processing.
The Truth About Emotional Overwhelm
So many of us are living in a constant state of emotional hyper-vigilance. And the more we try to push through, the more disconnected we become, from our bodies, from our feelings, from ourselves.
As Carrie so beautifully put it:
“… I have to learn how to feel my emotions, even though that is absolutely terrifying because nobody's given me the tools, no one has shown me how to walk this path, nobody has shown me how this feels. Why would you want to do that? That all just sounds like mortifyingly awful…”
And so, when emotions do start to rise, they feel unbearable. Too big. Too much. Too dangerous. Like saber-toothed tigers of the soul.
But the truth is, your feelings aren’t trying to hurt you. They’re trying to help you find your way, back into your body, back into your breath, back into your life.
What If You Didn’t Have to Be Afraid of Your Emotions?
Carrie talks about the power of simple practices that help us shift from stress and shutdown into softening and why softening is not weakness, but wisdom.
It’s not about going on a 10-day silent retreat or becoming someone you’re not. It’s about finding small, meaningful ways to reconnect with your body:
Placing a hand on your chest and simply breathing
Listening to the birdsong out an open window
Dancing in your kitchen or humming your favourite tune
Noticing the texture of the ground beneath your feet
These are what Carrie calls wellbeing anchors: tools that remind your body it’s safe to soften, to feel, to rest.
And from that place of safety, emotional overwhelm starts to ease. Emotional exhaustion starts to heal. The stories your body has been holding start to shift.
Softening Isn’t a Flaw — It’s a Superpower
There’s a story many of us carry that if we let go, if we soften, we’ll lose control. We won’t be prepared. We’ll get eaten alive by the saber-toothed tigers of our inbox, our timelines, our expectations.
But what if softness is what helps us survive?
What if being more in our bodies — in our breath, our senses, our full emotional range — is the very thing that keeps us rooted, resourceful, and resilient?
As Carrie said,
And when you have that moment, when you come back into your body and you can feel your feet on the ground and you can feel your hand on your chest, it's really magical because literally it's like everything opens up. Like your hearing becomes more accessible and your vision is clearer and brighter. And these are physiological changes because your stress has dropped, your cortisol has dropped and your body has instantly responded with allowing yourself to be more present and more there. And that's the beauty of just softening.
We’re All a Little Overwhelmed Right Now
If you’ve been feeling emotionally exhausted, like your nervous system is fried and you can’t stop bracing for the next disaster — you’re not “weird” and you’re certainly not failing. You’re responding the way any human would in a world that has asked far too much for far too long.
But there’s another way. One where you can start to feel your feelings without drowning in them. One where you don’t have to do it alone.
Listen to the full conversation with Carrie Ekins on Substack here, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You’ll find that it’s a gentle, playful, radically human exploration of what it means to come back to yourself, one breath at a time.
And if you’re curious about exploring your own emotional life in a deeper, supported way, enquire about our 1:1 emotions coaching. It’s a safe, compassionate space to learn how to feel your feelings — and feel safe doing so.
Because your emotions aren’t saber-toothed tigers. They’re just messengers. And they might be waiting for you to listen to them.
