Reclaiming Emotions: Feeling Deeply and Living Fully

When Emotions Feel Overwhelming

If you grew up with childhood trauma, emotions may not just feel strong—they can feel all-consuming.

A feeling can rise so quickly and intensely that it hijacks your thoughts, your body, and your ability to stay present.

In those moments, it’s hard to think clearly, finish what you were doing, or respond the way you wish you could.

And yet, you might understand your reactions.

You know what triggered you today.

You can trace it back to earlier experiences.

The trigger makes sense—and still, when the wave hits, it can overwhelm you.

Healing Is About Feeling, Not Control

Healing isn’t about eliminating emotions or forcing yourself to “stay calm.”

It’s not about becoming less sensitive.

Healing is about changing your relationship with what happens inside you.

Real healing begins when your nervous system learns:“I can feel this—and I am still safe.”

You can feel deeply while still living fully.

You don’t have to choose between your inner experience and staying present in the world. You can notice your emotions while still thinking clearly, speaking your truth, making decisions, and connecting with others.

AEDP therapist Diana Fosha calls this “feel and deal”—the ability to fully experience emotion and respond to life with clarity and presence.

Trauma interrupts this natural balance.

It can make you feel like you must either shut down your emotions just to get through the day or be swept away by them entirely.

Healing restores a sense of safety while feeling your emotions—letting you feel fully without losing your footing in the world.

Emotional Regulation Is Not About Control

A common misunderstanding about emotional healing is that regulation means staying calm, never getting triggered, or not feeling strong emotions.

For many trauma survivors, this belief quietly turns into self-criticism:

• “Why am I still reacting?”

• “I should be better at this by now.”

• “Other people don’t fall apart like this.”

But in trauma recovery, regulation does not mean never being activated.

It means building your capacity to stay with yourself.

What Regulation Looks Like

1. Expanding your window of tolerance

Your window of tolerance is the range where you can feel emotion without shutting down (freeze) or going into fight/flight.

Expanding it increases your capacity to handle stress, conflict, or strong emotions while still thinking clearly and staying connected.

Over time, situations that once felt intolerable become manageable.

2. Staying present when triggered

When trauma activates your nervous system, staying present means noticing the activation without automatically reacting.

Instead of lashing out, withdrawing, or dissociating, you can choose how to respond.

3. Returning to baseline more easily

Baseline is your nervous system’s regulated state.

Healing doesn’t mean never getting activated—it means recovering faster.

You may still get triggered, but you don’t stay stuck there for hours or days.

4. Reducing shame

Many survivors feel intense shame after emotional reactions.

Regulation involves developing self-understanding and compassion: recognizing that your reactions have roots in survival, not weakness.

Less shame makes recovery faster and emotional responses less destabilizing.

Why Willpower Alone Doesn’t Work

Survivors often try to manage emotions with thoughts like:

• “I shouldn’t feel this way.”

• “This reaction is irrational.”

• “I need to calm down.”

But trauma lives in the body.

When emotions activate trauma memory, the prefrontal cortex goes offline—meaning insight alone isn’t enough.

Emotional regulation must include experiential and body-based approaches, not just cognitive ones.

Steps to Reclaim Your Emotions

Step 1: Awareness Without Judgment

Notice your emotions without trying to fix them.

Instead of asking, “How do I stop this?” try, “What is happening in my body right now?”

Example:

Your heart races during a disagreement.

Instead of pushing it away, you silently name it:“My chest is tight.

My breath is shallow. I feel fear.”

This doesn’t change the feeling immediately—but your nervous system registers attention instead of danger.

Step 2: Naming Emotions Builds Regulation

Naming emotions reduces limbic activation (Lieberman).

For many trauma survivors, emotions were never labeled, so they feel chaotic or confusing. Naming feelings creates a pause between feeling and reacting—giving you choice.

Step 3: Regulate Through the Body

Trauma responses are physiological.

Somatic and experiential therapies—like Sensorimotor Psychotherapy or Somatic Experiencing—help regulate the nervous system by tracking body sensations, posture, breath, and movement.

Polyvagal Theory highlights ways to feel safe through:

• Breath

• Rhythm

• Touch

• Movement

• Voice

• Orientation to the present

Some practical tools include:

• Exhale-focused breathing (longer exhales signal safety)

• Grounding (pressing feet into the floor, naming five things you see)

• Temperature (warm drinks, cool water on the face)

• Gentle movement (stretching, walking, rocking)

• Self-contact (hand on chest, wrapped in a blanket)

These aren’t “tricks”—they’re neurobiological interventions.

Step 4: Safe Emotional Expression

Many who grew up with trauma learned emotions weren’t safe to express.

Early suppression leads to emotions stored in the body and implicit memory.

Inner child work—through dialoguing, guided imagery, and somatic tracking—helps you access and express these feelings safely.

Some practical approaches include:

• Inner child dialoguing: Write or speak from your younger self’s perspective.

• Parts-based exploration: Gently uncover vulnerable emotions protected by defensive strategies.

• Somatic awareness: Notice bodily sensations that signal activation before words emerge.

• Reparenting: Offer the safety, containment, or validation you didn’t receive as a child.

RRP Therapy, developed by Amanda Curtin, highlights the central role of inner child work and reparenting in trauma recovery.

This approach helps survivors access the deeply wounded emotional core formed in childhood and begin healing those early injuries.

Through guided connection to painful experiences—this time alongside a grounded, compassionate adult self—clients are no longer alone with what once overwhelmed them. The presence of internal support replaces the isolation, fear, and helplessness they originally endured, allowing those wounds to be processed within a new experience of safety and care.

Over time, emotions that once felt dangerous can be experienced, named, and expressed safely—supporting self-compassion and internal safety.

Step 5: Replace Shame with Compassion

Self-judgment dysregulates the nervous system:

• “What’s wrong with me?”

• “I ruined everything.”

• “I’m too much.”

Self-compassion restores safety and resilience (Neff).

A compassionate reframe:“This reaction makes sense given what I lived through.”

Journal Prompts

1. How do I usually respond internally when emotions arise?

2. What sensations signal that I’m becoming dysregulated?

3. Which regulation tools feel most accessible to me?

4. What emotions feel safest to express? Which feel most forbidden?

5. How can I practice responding to myself with compassion during emotional moments?

In our next post we will explore the 7 Core Emotional Systems and why certain emotions feel accessible while others feel forbidden.