Therapy in Space: Calming Overwhelm
And your very own satellite
I’m Kate, a psychotherapist writing about healing and growth, for you to flourish in a life you love! Upgrade here for the Bloom Sessions and to support my work! 🤍
Hi friends,
Excitement plays in my heart with all the possibilities that lie ahead. I met my commitment to write weekly for a year here, though real life demands so much of me. My joy is eclipsed by the weight of everything I must do every day. One of my parents has been very unwell, so I have naturally been helping, travelling 2 hours each way every weekend and more, taking time away from my work, and therefore, eroding my income and future. I wouldn’t have it any other way right now.
Conflicting thoughts fight in my brain though, jostling for attention and action. What to prioritise, who, and how. Do you ever feel this too?
My chest tightens, my breath quickens, leading to overwhelm - if I let it. For some, this experience is unbearably intense, causing dis-regulation of their nervous system, anxiety, and a total, distressing meltdown.
The pale blue dot is a photograph taken from the Voyager mission to space on 14 February 1991. Carl Sagan, an author and astronomer, requested the astronauts took the photo before Voyager descended. The astronauts turned around and took a photo. Amid the vastness of space, you can see the pale blue dot that is our planet Earth, nestled among millions of stars. All of us who were alive then are there!
Emotional Regulation
We can experience overwhelm more frequently if emotional regulation was not well modelled and supported in infancy by our caregivers. If, for whatever reason, our parents/carers could not hold and soothe us enough when we were distressed, we won’t have internalised this ability leading to easy overwhelm in later life.well, which we c. This causes problems like anxiety and low mood, even addiction, or self harm, both ultimately attempts to self-regulate.
Even if we are able to self-regulate well, the pressures of modern, global life, which our brains are not well designed for, can still overwhelm us. Sound familiar?
Getting Perspective - The Pale Blue Dot
On that photo of the dot live 8 billion of us, and among them, you and I. I feel humbled and liberated when I reflect on the tininess of the earth in the universe, and our tininess within it. It reminds me that forgetting to put the bins out, missing the post or a deadline, or cancelling something because of ill-health isn’t so bad. Maybe I will survive being dumped, failing an exam, or an awful period of unemployment. My to do list can wait until next week, when I’ll feel stronger.
When I imagine I am up there looking back from outer space, I see myself from another perspective. It opens a gap for something new. It will pass.
I don’t mean to reduce the scale of any personal tragedy, or difficulty, big and small, though a wider perspective gives space around the overwhelm. Some room to breathe. It allows us to see that our circumstances, even our existence, are fleeting.
This is what Sagan wrote about the pale blue dot.
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
A Trip Into Space
When I am overwhelmed, I pan out into space and look down at myself. I see myself and billions of other tiny humans going about their days. As I sit with that, it dilutes the scale of my concerns. As I become regulated again, my breathing slows and my heart settles.
The space brings clarity to my jumbled thoughts, and one priority rises to the top. If I’m perfectly honest, doing this fills me with love. I get clear about what matters most to me in that moment. I can pick one thing to do, and do that. It’s usually rather basic: send that email, eat, sleep, cook, accept, hug, cancel something, say sorry, go home. Help my parents at this important time.
We can shift out of overwhelm by stepping out of ourselves and into the vast universe. And back again, with a sprinkle of stardust.
To be aware of our general insignificance makes what is significant for us in that moment come sharply into focus. We can ditch the rest. What matters most emerges from the swirl of challenging thoughts and feelings. I am alive. I am well. I won’t die from this difficulty. It is a moment in time. It will pass. I can then move on and out of my fog - and focus on one important thing and do that.
Take a moment now to pan out all the way up into space. Imagine you’re sitting on your own own personal satellite looking down at yourself and your life. From here it can’t be easier to decide what matters most in this moment what action to take next before you come back down, enjoy the view and remember to visit your little satellite any time you need to recover from overwhelm.
So, how was your satellite? What did you see? Do you have other ways you cut through moments of overwhelm? Do share your thoughts about this or the pale blue dot in the comments below!
With love and gratitude,
Kate
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So, how was your satellite? What did you see? Do you have any other ways you cut through overwhelm?
An incredibly moving and helpful essay. Thank you!