Living by Instinct

simple guidance for times of overwhelm

My life over the past few months has been centered around moving house. For a variety of reasons, the whole process—from looking for a place to live to settling into a new environment—was difficult and overwhelming, much more so than I thought it would be. And as tends to happen in times of stress, my focus (and nervous system) contracted to just managing the bare necessities of life. Now that I’m slowly coming out of that mode, I’m beginning to sense enough space in myself that writing feels possible again.

When we are overwhelmed by the demands of life, or by a sudden catastrophe, our bodies will usually respond by bracing and tightening against the influx of new (unpleasant) information. That pattern of tightness is systemic: from the tension in our muscles to the ceaseless rhythm of our thoughts, everything feeds into it, until we are living inside of a brittle, wound-too-tight shell. After enough time in this state, our life force gets depleted, and the whole system starts to collapse and wilt. The shell has become a prison, and we cannot muster the energy to escape it.¹

Paul Meadows (AI Artist?), Unknown Title, from the ‘Fractured Light, Embers of Life’ collection.

We might carry on living this way for weeks, months, years… either unaware and unwilling to face what’s happening; or, aware but unable to find a way out. Such states, being driven by our nervous system, are all-encompassing. They impact every layer of our body, mind and life. This total quality often drives us to (mistakenly) look for similarly big, bold ways to snap out of them: like going on a holiday, entering some life-changing program, or starting on a deep detox. Unfortunately, by this point the capacity of our nervous system to handle such changes is already so limited that they are unlikely to create true, sustainable transformation.

It’s paradoxical, but in such scenarios, we are called to reaffirm the power of small things to create microscopic change (the kind of change that our bodies can still tolerate when capacity has shrunk). Small, simple changes take trust, and patience, and a mindful, tracking awareness—but they add up. And anyway, simplicity is often the most soothing thing, to an overwhelmed system. In this spirit, here I am outlining my main practice from the past few months, which is slowly but surely getting me out of that funk, and back to a wobbly but encouraging sense of self.

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🐾 · living by instinct

I learned most of this from watching my cats during the initial days of our relocation. Principally, this is a practice of trusting your body’s urges and impulses towards whatever it needs in the moment. For example:

• When my cats got stressed by loud noises, they would seek out quiet, dark places like the inside of a wardrobe to hunker down in.

• When the space became quieter and the workmen left, the cats would then slowly and gradually begin to explore everything around. They ventured out in small doses: first out of the wardrobe, then out of the room, then out of the house. All this was done in increasing time-increments of a few minutes, half an hour, an hour, a couple of hours…

  • If something outside got too much, they would retreat back into the established safety of the previous area (house, room, wardrobe or human).

• When they weren’t sure what was going on, they would seek out a human or each other to co-regulate with.

• When they got overwhelmed, they’d run towards a window, out of the house, or into the open space of the garden.

the cats in question, who were inspiration for this post

Because we humans are a bit more complex than felines, sometimes our urges need translation or contextualisation—but at their core, they are the body’s life-affirming, wise and instinctive movements towards the nourishment it needs. In the cases above, we could describe them as:

• the urge for quiet, rest, downtime, recovery

• the impulse to explore, discover new things, seek out adventure, mark territory, claim space, and feel at home

  • the urge to retreat towards safety and the familiar

• the need for bonding, connection, communication and self-expression

• the instinct to flee, or the desire for openness, space, freedom and expansion

Because our instincts are so primal, their power remains alive in us even when every other part of us stops functioning. The will towards life—as manifested in our appetite, curiosity, movement, breath, and the seeking of stimulation—remains with us until our last days. And even in times when we are disturbed and dysregulated, our body will usually still find ways to signal to us that it needs rest, healing, recovery, de-stimulation, or sleep.

When we are recovering from experiences of chronic stress, trauma, burnout and other kinds of depletion, discovering and honouring our instincts is the best and safest way to approach ourselves. Living instinctively reconnects us to our vitality, and reignites trust in the body’s experience (which has usually been suppressed or denied for months and years, if not a lifetime). Over time, as we listen in more, the kinds of choices we make and what we prioritise shifts to be more in alignment with what we really need. And once we recover, we remain forever connected to our own instinctive intelligence as a deep, inner lifeline.

the instincts and expansion

Beyond our most basic instinctive needs, we can also begin to cultivate and sense our other desires and urges as bodily drives towards what nourishes us on other levels. The desire for space, freedom, care, connection, novelty, adventure… all of these are felt in and through the body. Any and all urges we have are, at their core, bodily experiences and therefore can be worked with somatically.

Many times we believe (or are conditioned to think) that maturity, evolution or even spiritual advancement come from transcending our instincts. But the instincts are our direct line to vitality and life energy—the more we suppress them, the less healthy and alive we become. Evolution is about much more than overcoming our instincts. It is about how we channel their energy towards greater, more life-affirming ends. This is a beautiful way to craft a life that is embodied and guided by our unique, felt wisdom.

The body is ultimately simpler and more direct in its expressions than the mind. Honouring our instincts is therefore one way to peel back the layers of overthinking, spiralling, and confusion that are fed by mental analysis, and get to the core of what we really want and need. Rather than judging ourselves, forcing conformity, resisting or overriding our impulses, we have the choice to turn towards whatever we are desiring or feeling and follow that impulse to its source. Then, we can use our creativity to act on whatever we discover within.

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1. Here I am using lay language to describe two of our nervous system’s primary stress responses. The technical terms for these are: (1) mobilisation, hyperarousal, fight-flight, or sympathetic activation; and (2) immobilisation, hypoarousal, dorsal vagal activation, collapse, flop, faint or dissociate.