I had a meltdown last week.

Healing September 3 2025, Galina Singer

I haven’t had a powerful overwhelm like that for quite some time. I’d forgotten how destabilizing it can be.

In fact, although I know that growth is never over, I believed I’d graduated to a life of more calm and control over my system.

Usually I am able to witness my inner antics with curiosity and compassion. This observer mode keeps me from drowning in scary thoughts and helps me redirect my attention to where it is more constructive.

But on Wednesday, I woke up with a sense of dread.

The tension in my body fed the gloomy hopeless thoughts in my mind.

The fear of uncertain future, the worry about the worst case scenario that my thoughts were churning out, coupled with the unbearable squeezing of my heart were so powerful that I’d forgotten to question them.

I was knee-deep in the stressful experience – my body mind was now flooded with the cascade of biochemical responses.

When we are in the thick of it, drowning in the emotion, we forget that we have a choice of how to respond.

My inner overwhelm started spilling as anger onto my husband.

It felt so compelling to identify him as the reason for my upsetness, for my helplessness.

Discharging my anger onto him was automatic and felt like the only option.

It did not ease my charge, however, but only intensified it. Suddenly I was remembering all the things that I’ve ever thought about what is wrong with him. It inflamed my anger and contributed to my sense of rightness.

Luckily, I’ve trained myself to know that whenever I start projecting on or blaming my husband, I’m siphoning the energy of my attention away from my own experience.

I knew I was in self-abandonment. That was the pivotal moment that reminded me to bring my attention back to myself.

The stress in my body made it hard to sit still, so I went for a walk hoping to move some of the energy.

I left the house under a big black cloud of intensity. While my observer mode was returning, my body was still reeling from stress.

Since I no longer allowed my thoughts to go toward blaming my husband, I was left alone with my fears. I felt that familiar exhaustion of confronting the unknown all by myself.

“Poor me” is familiar. And very old.

As a child I was often left alone with big, confusing and overwhelming feelings. No one modeled to me how to be with big feelings in a healthy way. More often than not my feelings were invalidated, leaving me in a reality that was often gaslit by others.

To have your reality, your inner knowing constantly invalidated in childhood makes adults living in self-doubt, ungrounded, adrift.

Walking, I shed some tears for that little girl who often felt alone to confront the scary and uncontrollable world, who often believed that something was wrong with her.

My path brought me to Iglesia de San Cristobal and I decided to climb the 260 steps to reach it.

By the time I made it to the top, my heart was beating fast and I was panting. I walked in to the shaded coolness of the structure and sat down. I instinctively closed my eyes, focusing on the tingling inside my body.

As I sat there attuning to my body, I noticed that my dark and helpless thoughts – interrupted by physical exertion – had lost their power.

The difficult climb forced my system to focus on the task at hand: moving my body. The fear and doubt that have been oppressing me since the early morning seemed to have lost their grip over me.

As my body was recovering from the exertion, I was able to remain in the present moment.

Suddenly among the thoughts that previously were focused on doom and gloom, there appeared some rays of hope.

I was able to remember that the future is unknown. Anything can happen at any moment that can change the direction of my tomorrow – for better or for worse.

Future could be anything. So what would I rather focus on now?

I used to find safety in hyper-vigilance, trying to foresee any potential outcome and attempt to prevent it or to control it.

Now I know that the only thing in my power is to actually inhabit the present moment to the best of my abilities.

Connecting to now – I was able to see the many blessings of the previous few days that I haven’t been able to properly receive.

As I was acknowledging and becoming aware of all that is good in the now – my inner tension transformed into softness and I was reminded of my mantra:

I am safe and I am loved.

How could I forget?! My body literally leaned back.

The more I was relaxing and surrendering the futile fear of the uncontrollable future, I got access to more possibilities of how things could actually work out for me, and how they have always managed to work out before.

It is as if I finally put down the unbearably heavy backpack I’ve carried on my shoulders.

In that moment, nothing changed in the circumstances of my life. But something switched in my relationship to them.

When our system relaxes we get access to hope and creative solutions. We have the capacity to lean out and let life unfold as it may.

When we are in the throes of a stress cycle we do not have access to higher-order thinking because the blood rushes to our amygdala, responsible for survival only. The resulting tension in the body feeds our frantic thoughts, while the mental doom and gloom further fuels the biochemistry in the body.

Learning to recognize when you are in a stress cycle, how to not drown in the biochemistry of overwhelm, building the skills for how to be with my own processes, in self-attunement and self-compassion is part of what you’ll learn in Safe to Be Me .

I am no longer afraid of being alone with my body.

My inner adult is safe and capable of taking care of my inner child.

My relating partners no longer have to bear the intensity of my emotional cycles.

Taking time for Self, time for reflection, time for relaxation, time for softness and inner peace is crucial in a world filled with pressure, blame, and violence.

Come and learn these essential skills my in person retreat in Playa del Carmen, Mexico on October 21-26.

Join the beautiful group of people t small group with lots of individual attention, so places are limited.

For more information on the retreat please go here.

Schedule your FREE 30-minute zoom call with me where you can ask any questions and we can see if this retreat is a good fit for you.