What to Do When Tuning Into Your Body Makes You Feel Worse
You try a body scan, or you sit down to breathe, or you finally set aside ten minutes to check in with yourself, and it backfires. Instead of calm and grounded, you feel more anxious or overwhelmed.
This doesn't mean regulating your nervous system doesn’t work for you, you may just be trying to regulate from a place of danger instead of safety.
Sitting with difficult emotions can feel like going headfirst into a vortex, and the sensations that come with them can feel dangerous and uncomfortable. When you tune in too fast, or without any safety first, that attention can further activate your nervous system instead of calming it, which often leads to flooding, numbness, or shutdown.
Why Fighting Your Feelings Backfires
Your nervous system pays attention to how you respond to what you feel. When an emotion is met with urgency, resistance, or criticism, even the well-meaning kind that shows up as "I need to fix this feeling right now," that can reinforce the message that the experience isn't safe to have.
In practice, this can look like:
Trying to urgently stop anxiety communicates danger.
Judging sadness adds another layer of shame.
Fighting anger can invalidate your feelings and needs.
A somatic practice done with that same urgency, tuning in like it's a task to complete or a feeling to force away, doesn't build capacity. Instead, it teaches your system that tuning in itself is unsafe.
Why You Can Do Everything “Right” and Still Feel Stuck In Your Pain
If you've ever noticed you're still tense after a body scan, or more anxious when you try to meditate, or resistant to the very tools that are supposed to help you, your activated energy is needing to be expressed, not to immediately feel calm.
Meditation or body scans aren’t for every type of dysregulation. If you’re feeling more tense after trying to calm down, try expressing that energy with running, walking, shaking, any kind of movement, and see if that activation feels more calm. THEN try your body scan or breathwork again.
How to Build the Skill of Feeling Safe
🌿 Tune in with slowness. Your body learns from repetition, not intensity. A few minutes of safety practiced consistently creates more change than one intense session.
🌿 Look at sensations from a distance. This is sometimes called witnessing. Instead of becoming consumed by an emotion, observe it as a sensation: "I notice tightness in my chest" rather than "I am anxious."
🌿 Find safety first. Connect to something steady, your breath, the chair beneath you, before engaging with anything difficult. This signals to your nervous system that it's okay to explore the sensation without being consumed by it.
🌿 Start with 10 seconds. Micro-regulate throughout your day instead of waiting for a dedicated practice. A few breaths, feeling your feet on the ground, looking around at your environment.
🌿 Drop the all-or-nothing thinking. A practice doesn't have to leave you 100% calm to be working. Can you feel 1% more regulated? 5%? That's a real shift for your nervous system to notice.
Regulation Isn't the Absence of Hard Feelings
A regulated body can still feel anxious, sad, angry, or overwhelmed.
Regulation isn't the absence of hard emotions, it's the ability to stay connected to yourself while they move through.
If tuning into your body has been making things worse, that's not a sign somatic work isn't for you. But it could be a sign that your system needs more safety and support before going further, at a pace and with guidance that a practice on your own can't always provide.
About the Author
Shai Maxine is a trained somatic practitioner specializing in helping people navigate stress patterns like perfectionism, burnout and people pleasing, chronic pain, and emotional overwhelm. With over 5 years of experience guiding clients toward greater ease and connection, Shai offers practical tools rooted in somatic awareness and mindfulness. When not working, Shai enjoys hiking, cooking, creating art, and petting as many dogs as she can. Follow along on instagram @shai.maxine
