You are not overreacting. Your body might just be trying to help

There are moments in life when we look at ourselves and think:"Why am I making such a big deal out of this?"

Maybe it is the email that sits unanswered for three days even though it would take five minutes to reply or the conversation you rehearse over and over in your head before finally having it. Or maybe it is the tears that arrive out of nowhere over something that "shouldn't" upset you this much or the snapping at someone you love when really you were exhausted long before that moment arrived.

A lot of us quickly move to judgement.

I'm too sensitive.

I'm overreacting.

I need to get a grip.

But what if something else is happening? What if your body is not getting it wrong at all?

One of the things we understand much better now through neuroscience and nervous system research is that our responses are rarely random.

Our nervous system is constantly taking in information from the world around us and asking one question:

"Am I safe enough right now?"

Not safe in the dramatic sense. Not life or death. But...

• Safe enough to speak up

• Safe enough to disappoint someone

• Safe enough to make a mistake

• Safe enough to rest

• Safe enough to say no

• Safe enough to be seen

  
  

And the answers to those questions are shaped not just by this moment but by thousands of moments that came before it.

Our experiences teach our nervous system what to expect from the world and what it needs to do to protect us.

• Sometimes that protection looks like anxiety

• Sometimes it looks like overthinking

• Sometimes it looks like people pleasing

• Sometimes it looks like staying busy all the time

• Sometimes it looks like shutting down completely

  
  

The problem is that we often mistake these responses for personality traits or character flaws.

"I'm just an anxious person." "I've always been bad with conflict." "That's just who I am."

But very often these are not fixed parts of who we are but intelligent adaptations.

Ways our system learned to keep us safe, connected or accepted.

And if they were learned, they can also soften and change.

This is one of the reasons I find embodied and nervous system informed approaches so powerful.

Because the goal isn't to get rid of these responses or fight against them. It is to become curious about them and to understand what they are trying to do for us.

To create enough steadiness and safety that our system no longer has to work quite so hard. And when that happens, something shifts.

Not overnight and not because we have forced it.

But because we gradually become more available to other possibilities, more available to choice, more available to ourselves.

So the next time you notice yourself judging a reaction or a pattern, perhaps try replacing:

"What's wrong with me?"

with

"What might my system be trying to do for me right now?"

You may not get an answer immediately, but it is a very different conversation to have with yourself and often, it is a much kinder place to begin.

Go gently. Derval