A story for transforming overwhelm into animal magic.
These past two weeks, my partner and I have been preparing to move on a much faster timeline than either of us anticipated. I have moved a lot in my life, and I've found that the thought of moving is usually more daunting than the move itself. I love to find ways to bring delight into the mundane moments of moving; little things like listening to playlists I love and imagining myself as a river flowing to a new destination help soften the intensity of uprooting to re-root.
That said: a timeline I thought would be two months turned into two weeks, so these past 14 days I’ve felt the heat and pressure! These moments of overwhelm have given me opportunities to lean into my practices.
Yesterday morning, feeling frazzled, I decided to put down the packing tape and go to the sauna. The community sauna in Mt. Shasta is part of the gym – in the winter, it’s a social place. In the summer, it’s usually quiet and empty. I hoped for a gentle pause and quiet reset; sweating always helps me clear my head and tends to amplify the voice of my heart.
To my surprise, when I arrived in the sauna (which is right next to the usually quiet pool), an aerobic swim class was going on. As I sat down in the dark sauna, a high-pitched voice shouted on repeat: “READY – SET – GO! ARMS UP! HIGHER! GO! GO! GO!”
In the next moment, another person joined the sauna and began loudly sighing and clicking their tongue every couple of seconds.
I shut my eyes and placed my hands on my face – my already over-driven nervous system started spiraling towards, “I don’t know if I can do this right now.”
Just as I was preparing to flee from the sauna, a voice bubbled up from my heart and reminded me of a practice I shared with the Animal Instinct, Angel Intuition course I taught a few years ago. The practice is: in a moment of overwhelm and frustration, can you imagine that you are all animals? What kind of animals are the other humans around you? What are they embodying, doing, and being in their animal bodies? What are you doing, being, and embodying in your animal body?
My imagination immediately transformed the loud, high-pitched voice of the swim instructor into a dolphin teaching other dolphins aquatic moves.
So all of a sudden, the high-pitched and loud “READY, SET, GOs!” felt like a playful invitation instead of an annoyance. I found myself leaning into the commentary from the swim class participants who I imagined as dolphins – many of whom were elderly people. I overheard one person say to the instructor, “I’m not 22, Nancy!”
My irritation alchemized into absolute delight – I smiled and quietly laughed to myself in the sauna. Now, instead of feeling overloaded with the loud noise and heightened activity, I got to be a witness to something magical.
As the person next to me continued with their deep sighs and tongue clicking, my imagination transformed them into a hippopotamus sighing into the sanctuary of a misty bog after a long day. Every sound they made reflected a calming release of tension. The clicking and sighing sounds no longer bothered me; they felt like an invitation to release into relief.
When I tuned into myself as an animal, imagining, “What if I were an animal relating to this environment now?” I saw myself as a lioness returning to a cozy cave to rest and replenish. I saw how the pressurized daily activity of packing and keeping up with my responsibilities required returning to the cave, even for 20 minutes. How this is necessary for both body rest and spiritual replenishment. I felt the people around me as part of the ecosystem, all of us in our own little worlds yet also sharing this world, this Earth together. I felt fire’s heat and water’s blessing, weaving us together in an unseen prayer.
I completed my time at the sauna just as the swim class finished up – and the class participants and I smiled silly joyful smiles at each other. I returned home feeling fully replenished, my overwhelm alchemized into renewed energy, delight, and total wonder at getting to be a part of it all.
As a highly sensitive person, my nervous system can become more easily overloaded by the sounds, lights, and sights in the physical world. I’ve found that this animal body imagining practice can be a tremendous friend in moments of overwhelm, especially for people who prefer the company of animals and plants to people. And on a nervous system level, this practice can downshift the nervous system from a threat response (fight & flee) back into that juicy window of presence.
The next time you feel overwhelmed, irritated, or annoyed with a human environment, can you imagine the cast of characters in animal bodies? Notice what emerges for you. If you imagine yourself as an animal right here and now, where are you? What are you doing? Do you feel any impulses to go somewhere? Are there any needs to feed?
Nourishing our animal bodies is a pathway to deeper healing. As Peter Levine has written about extensively in Waking the Tiger, healing trauma happens at the level of the animal body. There is magic in your animal nature, and if you give it a little space, it can be a big support for your human experience.
Animals sleep when they’re sleepy and eat when they’re hungry. Their form of social media might be stargazing or listening to the many-layered sounds of Mother Earth’s symphony. They don’t work past the point of exhaustion or exercise past the point of exhaustion. They are primal beings and live true to their nature.
Animals are steadily tuning into their body’s needs and adjusting to the moment. They have rhythms without being regimented and move in the direction of nourishment, the way dolphins seek community, hippos seek release, and lions seek rest.
Perhaps be like the dolphin, the hippo, the lion. The next time you’re tired, cranky, hungry, or overwhelmed, rather than trying to power through it, push it down, or grind it out, take a moment to stop, breathe, and ask your body what it wants. Then give it that thing.
Or in the words of Mary Oliver, “Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
With honey,
Madeline
PS: There is a free meditation for Overwhelm in the Angelic Breath Healing library! Click here to receive.
PPS: I have an opening for Mentorship starting in mid-September. Click here to learn more and apply.