Why Slowing Down Helps When Emotions Feel Too Big
- 13 hours ago
- 8 min read
Written by Johnna Key, Spiritual Guide & Teacher
Johnna Key is known for her calming and serene voice when guiding meditations. She is the author of the newly published book, Making Space to Breathe, and YouTube channel, Journeys with Johnna.
In my first year abroad, in 2019, I started on a solo trip to Bali, where I got my yoga teaching certificate. Almost two months later, I joined a travel group for a four-month consierge trip through East Asia. Newly divorced and single from the relationship that I jumped into after my divorce, I needed freedom and self-discovery. I wanted to see the world, somewhat alone but not completely alone. So I signed up for a travel concierge service that organized the group I’d be traveling with, the countries we'd be traveling to together, and arranged all the details in between.
It was the ideal experience for a woman like me who, at the time, had a very dysregulated nervous system, a mild drinking problem, and a propensity to wander off to be alone with my bubbling-up emotions. I knew spiritually that I needed the solo trip through Asia, yet I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to manage it all on my own.
As soon as I landed in Bali solo, all my worst fears were confirmed, a conglomerate of small events clustered together that made me lose my shit. Upon arrival, my phone was dead, I had mispacked my adapter, and was SOL for the moment. I had to find someone to help me charge my phone. No one was interested until a girl let me use her charger while she waited in the toilet line.
Phone charged, I called my ride to find out why they weren’t there. “Oh no, Miss!” he exclaimed on the other end of the line. “You come tomorrow.” “No,” I replied. “I’m here today, per my email I sent when I left Texas two days ago.”
Right out of the gate, I embarked on this journey with an already dysregulated nervous system, and my emotional bandwidth was low. I burst into tears in the corner of the airport, regretting all my recent decisions. As a highly sensitive, neurodivergent type, where every sound, smell, and sudden movement could, at that time, cause me to jump, I was chastising myself for getting so damn far out of my comfort zone. “What were you thinking?”
This initial month away from the States was the hardest. Lessons of growth were presented to me by the hour. Mama Bali works overtime with those who are willing, the charger was just her first move.
Throughout that first month, it taught me to take deeper breaths, slow down before I speak, ask for help, and the greatest one was giving myself permission to receive the support and love that others wanted to give.
It is so, so, so painfully, emphasis on PAIN, easy to push those who care about you away during waves of grief. But if you can zoom out to see those around you who WANT TO care, you’d be surprised. It may not always be who you expect or want, but allowing others to support you during a low phase in life helps all involved.
Once I picked up with my travel group in Hanoi, Vietnam, my third month out of the States had barely begun before tragedy struck. A young member of my travel group suddenly and heartbreakingly left this earth. The group was all new to getting to know one another, so it was a shock to experience such a wave of grief with total strangers who rapidly became a family.
Through the waves of grief in this experience, coupled with the grief from my divorce, I learned to cherish the present moment and those who are in it. I began to have an even deeper value for the life that we each hold and the experiences within those lives that are lived.
We so often don’t value the moment. We’re rushing through it or thinking about the next thing, and valuing the moment feels like something you did while getting ready for said “moment” hours ago.
On the other side of grief, we have options. We can choose to remain stuck in the stages of grief, ruminating and not letting go, over time becoming a toxic and unhealthy version of ourselves. I say this is a choice because grief causes us to respond in ways we otherwise wouldn’t, it’s a choice to stay in one’s response, whether it’s healthy or not.
Another option is to choose to move through the stages of grief. Choosing to process the emotions, the energy, the stages as they flow, and letting each one go when it’s time to let go. This option is the hardest one, though it’s the most time-consuming and the least comforting, until the other side.
As my travel group and I wove our way through Asia, the common and recurring themes that could easily compare to Western countries were consistently coming up, distractions and lack of proper rest. The vast majority of us are doing anything we can to distract ourselves from our emotions and the energy flowing in the body, leaving each of us in a more dysregulated state instead of a calm and peaceful state of mind and body.
The modern world has us all moving at an unnatural and unsustainable pace. Because our human bodies are trying to keep up with the “NOW” demands of this technological age, we lack proper rest and sleep to help us regulate, and are constantly battling distractions.
Quick question to ponder, what happens to a toddler when they don’t go down for the afternoon “reset” nap? Have you seen the monster that arises from that tiny body? All because the body didn’t get the rest and reset that it needed to keep going!
Humans in the modern world are under the illusion that they can keep going, and it’s all going to be okay. We think we can stay in the comfort zone and, with time, everything will get better.
Technology is keeping us moving, losing those times of rest that our bodies desperately need in order to regulate emotions. What happens to the toddler also happens to the adults.
Through primary and secondary schools, they cut the nap portions of the day, telling us that “adults don’t need naps,” perhaps not for many adults.
However, all bodies, adult or child, need rest to regulate. When I lived in countries that make rest a part of the daily routine, Spain, parts of Indonesia, and Thailand, those people, by and large, are a happier and more regulated group of people.
Rarely did I see public outbursts of emotional dysregulation. It happens, just not as commonly as reported in the West.
In Japan, I learned to slow down, to be okay in the stillness and silence, and allow myself to naturally regulate. Japanese culture has millions working long, long hours, much like North Americans. Their railways, streets, and shops are all designed to be regulating and recharging spaces for those transitioning between jobs or from job to home. There are many Zen parks, quiet streets despite the foot traffic, and peaceful subways to help the body regulate itself.
A tourist can either find this threatening to their dysregulated system or a welcome mat to set their shoes on. I was the latter. Japan calmed my nervous system and set in motion a seeking for that inner peace.
Emotional regulation can be a long journey that I feel our society is far overdue for. As technology continues to rapidly advance and with few boundaries in place, our systems are overloaded. If we care for this society and planet as a whole, learning to regulate emotions is imperative to our future health.
When I first began my healing journey, I was unaware of just how impactful my emotions were on my psychology and health. I wasn’t aware of how the energy of anger, when stored or not processed effectively, damages the liver, perceptions of life and others, and mostly my reaction to life around me. I was unaware of how energy flowed through the body to affect the body, mind, and spirit.
After years of focus on the liver and anger management, I can say now that it feels like true freedom to have something that could set me off, and simply not do so anymore. Like that inevitable belt loop to the door handle, the last time that happened, physically and metaphorically, I was able to identify the emotion, why it was there, and how to process it in the moment. Within seconds, the anger that flooded me left as soon as it arose, all through the acceptance of the present moment
Looking at grief, it can come in stages and most certainly comes in waves. Grief is not a timeline. It is not linear. It is waves of emotions and stories that can roll over you at any given moment.
Grief emotions can be fear, anger, denial, fantasy, guilt, shame, apathy, and sadness. These can surface in the same hour or just one per day. There is no rhyme or rhythm to the flow of grief.
Emotions that can be missing from grief include acceptance, joy, humility, honesty, optimism, and forgiveness. If or when these do arise in blips, it can feel too vulnerable, sending us right back into the above emotions of grief, and the painful cycle continues.
Choosing to step out of the cycle of grief can only take one initial step, willingness. Having the willingness to go there, wherever there may be for you. Sometimes there is a really dark and scary place that you will need to walk through, while other times there can be as small as a fart in a whirlwind. Something might be off for a minute, then you are instantly feeling better than you were five seconds ago.
When you are working on healing your nervous system, regulating the emotional body goes in tandem with this work. Society has limited grief to when someone passes, but it is not always just when we lose a loved one. It is also when a relationship ends or changes, you switch jobs, move to where your heart is calling you, or even when you put your energy into a project, and it does not work the way you wish it did. All these bring up cycles of grief.
Two ways to assist yourself daily to regulate heavy emotions:
Slow down: In everything you are doing. When you rush, all you are doing is rushing to your death, whenever that may be. Slow down, be present through the journey. Slowing down causes one to repeat less toxic patterns, choose the optimal option, and hear one’s intuition.
Yoga Nidra: This practice is designed to ground the practitioner, slow down the mind and body, and regain focus and nervous system regulation within an hour. The practice utilizes a present-tense statement called Sankalpa that, over time, can rewire the nervous system's response to life.
On my YouTube channel, Journeys with Johnna, I offer a Yoga Nidra series on regulating emotions and finding balance in the nervous system. The series moves the practitioner through some of the grief emotions, letting go of fear, moving toward acceptance, forgiveness, and creating joy. It is advisable to listen to the practice daily for each week, noting how you feel from the beginning of the month to the end of 30 days of Yoga Nidra Emotional Regulation.
Read more from Johnna Key
Johnna Key, Spiritual Guide & Teacher
Johnna Key is a certified Yoga, Meditation guide, & Spiritual Teacher, leading others to calibrate their nervous system and ease overwhelm within the mind. Derived from her experience in the Western medicine system as a child and divorce from a narcissistic relationship as an adult, Johnna has learned and implemented tools to heal the mind, body, & spirit from traumatic experiences to exit karmic loops and generational patterns. Her passion is teaching others to find self-acceptance for their experiences and the emotions or perspectives that can surface. It's her passion to help others calm a busy mind, ease the tension in the body, and learn to meditate to find joy and self-worth in the journey we call life.
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