Help for the Cycle of Overwhelm and Withdrawal
If you often feel overwhelmed and have a tendency to withdraw when stressed, you will likely recognize a constellation of concurrent experiences. These usually include insecurity around a sense of safety and belonging, overall body tension that pulls into your core, feeling sensitive to stimuli in your environment, feeling shy, often remaining quiet, and valuing privacy and time alone. Even while you might feel the impulse to withdraw, you long for and appreciate a gentle, engaging, and welcoming response from others. You soak up explicit reassurance that you are safe and belong. Unfortunately, when you are caught in the reactive pattern of overwhelm and withdrawal, what you habitually present to others engenders the very opposite of what you long for.
If a sense of overwhelm and withdrawal has been a lifelong pattern for you, then you likely have habits of expression that others find uninviting. For example, overwhelm and withdrawal typically express externally like this: blank and frozen eyes, a mouth that makes a straight tight line, a face that is still and lacking expression or animation, and body posture that is stiff and pulled in often with arms and legs crossed or hands in pockets.
This kind of facial and body expression is often interpreted by others in the following ways; they imagine that:
You don't want connection and would rather be left alone
It will be a lot of work to connect with you
You will be boring
You think you are better than everyone else
You don’t want to join the group
You would rather be somewhere else
Acting on these interpretations, others are more likely to forget you, ignore you, or avoid you. When this happens, you believe and confirm the idea that you don't belong in the world, the world isn't a safe place to be you, and it is better to withdraw.
Like any chronic reactive pattern, transformation is found through many avenues of healing and support. We dive more deeply into this in our course on chronic reactivity. For our purposes here, let’s look at three simple interventions you can experiment with.
First, practice noticing your facial expression and body posture. Invite yourself to soften, relax, and open your posture and energy. Look for something that will help you find a smile; perhaps a happy memory or a friendly person.
Second, anticipate situations which are most likely to trigger the overwhelm/withdrawal reaction. As you enter such situations, set your intention to engage with others despite the impulse to withdraw. Engagement can be as simple as making eye contact, smiling, walking towards others, saying hello, and sitting in an open posture without legs or arms crossed.
Third, communicate about your experience as often as you can. Let others know that you feel a bit overwhelmed, but want to connect and are glad to be there. Just expressing a little of what’s true for you and what you want or enjoy, is the fastest way to create a bridge between you and those around you.
Practice
If overwhelm and withdrawal is a common reactive pattern for you, choose one of the three interventions listed above to practice with this week. If this pattern describes someone you know, find one time this week to offer a gentle, engaging, and welcoming phrase or gesture to that person.
