What to do When Everything Feels Broken - Ancient Processing Advice from Under the Sea

Sometimes, things go a little awry. Sometimes they go frustratingly, heartbreakingly not the way we had planned. In our world, in our projects, in our bodies, in our personal lives…  

So what can we do then, when our bodies are crying out, or “shutting down” or feeling some unbearable physical or emotional pain? When paying attention to the body feels terrible, because, well, things feel terrible.

There are a lot of distractions available to draw us away from ourselves when we feel bad - scrolling, watching, buying… And, a day of Netflix or whatever is not wrong – may be just the thing sometimes.

But, and, our modern culture is often missing wisdom on how we can stay with ourselves and actually metabolize what’s going on, instead of only consuming more.

Before you assume I’m going to make you feel an awful, endless pit of feelings that you may not feel equipped to or interested in feeling… imagine for a moment a sea cucumber. A what?!!! A squishy, tubular creature that lives in the ocean and is mostly a digestive tract with skin, and some feet.

Why, you may ask?  A sea cucumber is a modern day surviving relative of one of the more ancient “gut bodies,” or digestive systems on earth. It has an opening/mouth with some tentacles, a gut tube with some coiling action, and an anus.  It’s primary biological functions are In, Digest, and Out.  When we’re trying to cope, process and “digest” challenging things, sometimes it helps to refer back and get a little inspiration from simpler biological forms.

A little visit to Grandma Sea Cucumber can’t hurt.

Most of the time, Grandma Cuke and her family are floating and inching along in the ocean, sensing and responding to the movements around them, and collecting, digesting, and excreting nutritious morsels of biological matter. Their simple nervous systems keep them in harmonious balance by “paying attention” to what’s inside and what’s outside in more or less equal measure.

Lesson 1

If things are going basically well, sensing both what’s inside and what’s outside of our bodies can keep us feeling pretty good.

However, when the Sea Cucumbers feel threatened, or god forbid get poisoned, they behave quite differently. Get this:  If there’s a bit of a threat but no major damage, they may release a toxin for protection. But if they are highly threatened or have ingested something very poisonous, some cukes will actually expel their internal organs to distract or harm a predator. As you may imagine, it takes a while to grow back their insides, if they even can.

Lesson 2

It’s an ancient natural impulse to spew something icky if you feel overloaded, or even to want to “puke your guts out” because something bothers you so much.  However, actually doing so may harm others or ourselves. (Maybe this is starting to feel like a case for screen binging instead?)

Here’s where we can get creative as humans…

When things get super awful feeling, physically or emotionally, what can we do so that we are safe, don’t actually expel our internal organs or lash out at ourselves or others, and can continue processing and swimming along in this vast and wild sea of existence?

Often when working with clients, when we get to these kinds of places - when someone is so angry, overwhelmed, triggered by what’s going on in their lives that they don’t know what to do, I invite them to actually allow themselves to do a smaller, perhaps gentler (depending on the situation), version of the impulse they feel. If the impulse is to thrash around and punch things, but doing so would actually hurt, they might move their arms, push a pillow or a wall, etc. and see if their inner state doesn’t feel some relief. If they want to curl up in a ball, but feel it’s not productive, why not go ahead and do that for just a little while (this response also has ancient evolutionary roots, though not so much in the sea cuke), and see what curling up gives them? If the impulse is to expel something, there may be a way to do so through subtle sensing, visualisation, or gesture that actually satisfies a need. We’re talking about biological and nervous system care – and the body usually knows what it needs, even if we need to do some translating to find what’s available and supportive in the present moment.

Other times, paying attention to the awful feelings and are responses to them is exactly the opposite of what we need. That impulse to reach for your phone?  Actually, honestly, has traces of Grandma Sea Cuke’s wisdom. Remember how she swims around peacefully while sensing what’s inside and outside? We need to do that too, even, and sometimes especially, when things get distressing. So, you don’t necessarily have to go into that deep pit of pain or challenging feelings to get through it. Sometimes, it’s more a matter of balancing your awareness of the distressing experience with sensing what is neutral and pleasant – feeling the floor beneath you, the air on your skin, hearing a bird outside, doing something easy or enjoyable, or sensing somewhere in your body that is just fine for now. Doing this keeps us in balance, and gives our nervous systems the ground and space they need to be able to turn back, in digestible doses, to the hard parts.

And… when things are perhaps a little less heightened and we have a little space to explore more deeply, there are ways to actually tune in to our own gut bodies to support them to ease into their vegetative wisdom and “rest and digest” on a physiological level that supports our physical and emotional wellbeing even more.

It’s all a dance, and there are options. And what works is unique to each person and each moment. Sorry, no step-by-step playbook here… But I hope this can inspire you to respect your body’s impulses (and their prehistoric foundations) more.

If you’d like more guidance for how to move through the muck and not lose yourself in it, we’ve got a whole community of embodied learners exploring and developing these practices together. Come, check us out :)