I am an expert at feeling overwhelmed by emotions. At this point in my life and in the pandemic, I’m feeling waves of emotions more often.

Why? Changes will do it, especially if – like me – you are a trauma survivor. As a rule, we don’t like change and transitions are the devil.

However, there’s that whole saying about the only thing we can count on in life is everything changing, or something like that. And since the pandemic started, we have all experienced an amazing amount of change, from work to family to school to communities and more. HUGE changes.

And, if you’re like me, your personal life didn’t slow down much during the pandemic, either. I worked with a therapist to eradicate my PTSD symptoms. My partner changed jobs, while I went to school and started a new career as a Trauma Recovery Coach. One of our kids graduated high school, while our two oldest kids moved out of state and our youngest learned to drive. All of a sudden, we found ourselves in an almost empty nest. We had a destination wedding in another state during the pandemic with just family, a trip that took a year to plan. As I’m living my best menopause life, my hormones are swinging and bouncing like sugared toddlers.

Speaking of Overwhelming Emotions…

Speaking of toddlers, I have often compared my emotional and feeling journey to being a toddler. I mean, toddlers do not give a – ahem – *dollar* about communicating their feelings. They just do it! They have emotions in their bodies and they express those emotions. The emotions feel unmanageable, the feelings are difficult to express in a responsible and clear-headed way. They feel out of control! Feelings are confusing and they don’t have the words or skills that they need!

What’s a toddler to do? Throw themselves on the floor and let that energy OUT!

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve wanted to do this over the last year. Throw myself on the floor and yell and cry and beat my fists against pillows and kick my legs.

HOWEVER, I am not a toddler. And I figured that I might want to come up with some helpful strategies to deal with emotions when they feel overwhelming.

What To Do When You Feel Like a Toddler

And as a childhood trauma survivor, I didn’t have a chance to learn how to handle emotions when I was younger, so I’m learning now. I recently wrote up an article with practical self-care tips, how to step out of an emotional spiral, an easy-to-remember way to come back to the present moment, and an EMERGENCY way to self-regulate overwhelming emotions and calm that nervous system down!

Read more here for helpful practices to put in place when you feel like a toddler!

Find Out More About How I Help People

• What is a Trauma Recovery Coach?
• Why am I a Trauma Recovery Coach?
• Can you really stop PTSD symptoms? (I did it myself!)

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