Navigating Overwhelm: Why Listening to Our Body Is More Powerful Than Forcing Calm

A parent I’ve been working with recently shared a story during one of our therapy sessions that really highlights something so fundamental about how we experience stress and overwhelm—not by forcing calm but by learning to listen to the nervous system and what it’s asking for.

She found herself in the thick of it, as so many parents do, with demands stacking up, kids needing attention, the usual chaos of life pulling her in all directions. In the past, her default would have been to either snap or completely shut down—her fight-or-flight response taking the reins, pushing her to react or retreat. But this time, something different happened. Instead of pushing herself to stay calm, she listened to the energy building in her body, knowing that it wasn’t about remaining composed, but about finding a way to honour the stress she was feeling.

Here’s the thing about the fight-or-flight state—it’s not just about reacting emotionally. It’s a mobilizing state. When we’re in fight or flight, our body is filled with mobilizing energy. It's like our system gets pumped full of fuel, ready to move, ready to act. Our heart rate increases, our muscles tense, everything gets geared toward doing something—whether that’s running away from a perceived threat (flight) or standing our ground and confronting it head-on (fight). This is why it’s so important to understand that when you’re in that state, it’s not helpful to try and force calm or stillness. The energy has to go somewhere. It’s not about calming down in that moment; it’s about finding ways to release that energy. Breathwork, movement, grounding—these are all ways we can help the nervous system discharge that pent-up energy in a healthy, supportive way.

But what really complicates things is when we find ourselves in a blended state—like the freeze state. Freeze is such a tricky one because it’s this paradoxical mix of two self-protection responses that leaves us feeling completely stuck. It’s part of the shutdown response, where the body feels immobilized, almost like it’s shutting down to protect itself. But at the same time, there’s a part of us that’s still mobilized—a part of us that has that fight-or-flight energy, but it’s trapped. It’s like having the engine revving, but the brakes slammed on at the same time. You’re flooded with all this energy, but you can’t move it. So, you’re stuck, both mobilized and immobilized, all at once.

And that stuckness can be maddening. You’re feeling all the tension and urgency of fight or flight, but your body is also holding you back, almost like it’s frozen in place. In this blended state, the challenge isn’t just about getting out of overwhelm—it’s about learning how to move through both parts of the experience. It’s why someone in a freeze state might feel so agitated yet paralyzed, stuck in the discomfort of wanting to act but unable to. And it’s why the tools that help us move through freeze look different than what we might use for other states. We need to both acknowledge the stuckness and find gentle ways to mobilize ourselves again, without adding more pressure or judgment.

What I loved about this client’s story is how she allowed herself to recognize which state she was in without trying to immediately fix or control it. She felt the mobilizing energy in her body—the rush of stress—and knew that her nervous system was calling for movement, for release. She didn’t tell herself to calm down or suppress the experience. Instead, she used her breath to anchor herself just enough to connect with her partner and co-regulate. This wasn’t about erasing the stress or forcing herself to be calm. It was about letting that mobilizing energy move through her in a way that felt manageable, giving herself the space to come back to a place of connection and safety.

This is where the real work lies—not in striving to avoid these states or stay perfectly regulated all the time, but in learning to respond to our nervous system with compassion and awareness. We aren’t meant to always be calm. Stress is inevitable, and our nervous system is built to handle it. What matters is how we move through it—how we allow that mobilizing energy to be released in a way that feels safe, and how we respect the times when we’re stuck in that blended state, finding gentle ways to coax ourselves out of that stuckness.

It’s about learning to be with ourselves in those moments of overwhelm, not by pushing through or shutting down, but by recognizing the body’s signals, honouring the state we’re in, and offering ourselves the right tools to metabolize that stress energy. And when we do this—when we really listen to what our body is telling us—we give ourselves the opportunity to find our way back to balance, not by forcing it, but by allowing it to happen naturally.