When Emotions Run Deep — Learning to Listen to What Lies Beneath

Even in a field of sameness, something deeper is always waiting to be seen.

Some mornings look perfect on paper. Birds are singing, tea is steaming, and the fountain tinkles outside the kitchen window. You’ve hiked the hill, journaled, done all the “right” nervous system things.

And still, the black blanket slides over your shoulders.

On other days, it isn’t a blanket so much as a spark: one sharp comment, one dropped mug, one small thing out of place… and suddenly you’re slamming a pot a little too hard or having a quiet foot-stomping tantrum in the kitchen.

If you’re both highly sensitive and high sensation seeking, you probably know this terrain well.

The depth.

The intensity.

The “why am I like this?” spiral that follows.

For years, I thought these swings meant I was broken. Too emotional. Too fragile. Too much. Now I know they’re something else entirely.

They’re messages.

Why your emotions feel like “too much”

If you live with sensory depth and an appetite for intensity, your nervous system runs like a high-powered antenna. It picks up everything.

The mood in the room at a garden club meeting.
The grief under someone’s throwaway joke.
The strain in your own shoulders when you walk into a place that once felt unsafe.

You don’t just notice these things. You feel them.

Layer on a lifetime of chronic stress, old trauma, and the “keep pushing” messaging most of us grew up with, and it’s no wonder your system taps out.

For me, that’s looked like:

- The black blanket of depression settling in even on bright, shiny days.
- Full-body exhaustion after seemingly simple meetings where “nothing much happened.”
- A temper tantrum at the kitchen bench because I banged my head… when really I was overwhelmed, lonely, and carrying too much.

For a long time, I treated all of this as proof that I wasn’t coping. Now I see it differently:

My emotions were never the problem. The problem was that I’d been taught to ignore what they were trying to tell me.

Sadness, anger, resentment, grief, even numbness — they’re not character flaws. They’re nervous-system flares saying, “Something here needs attention.”

Emotions are information, not instructions

When we’re wired deeply, it’s easy to swing between two extremes:

- Over-identifying with emotions (“I am too much. I am a failure.”)
- Or shutting them down (“Get over it. Be grateful. Other people have it worse.”)

Neither helps.

What’s shifted things for me is treating emotions as information instead of instructions.

• The black blanket that shows up even on good days?

A signal that my system is saturated and I need more rest, fewer inputs, and gentle support – not a verdict on my worth.

• The tantrum in the kitchen?

A backlog of unspoken frustration asking for movement, breath, and honest journalling… not evidence that I’m “immature.”

• The looming dread before certain gatherings?

My body remembering old trauma and whispering, “Hey, this kind of room has hurt us before. Can we be more careful this time?”

Even joy carries messages.

The small lift in my chest when the cat flops beside me on the couch, or when I see lichen hanging like winter blossoms from the trees outside the window, is information too. It says, “More of this, please. This nourishes us.”

When you start to treat emotions as data rather than directives, everything softens because you don’t have to obey every fear or story, or crush them down and pretend you’re fine.

You get to listen, decode, and choose your next step.

How emotional memories get tangled with the past

Some of our strongest emotional reactions make perfect sense once you trace them back.

For me, weight training is a good example. On paper, strength training is great for midlife women. In reality, the idea of a gym session can still make my stomach knot. Why?

Because for years, the barbell was tied to one of the most painful chapters of my life: pushing my body to its limits in a desperate attempt to be “skinny enough” to get onto an IVF waiting list.

Exercise became fused with fear, grief, and not-enoughness, a form of punishment and deep-seated pain.

So when someone casually suggests “just add some weights,” my nervous system doesn’t just hear health advice. It hears, “We’re going back there.” No wonder it protests.

This is what psychologists call emotional memory – when past experiences and the feelings they carried are stored together. Your body isn’t being dramatic. It’s being loyal.

The same thing can happen around:

- Christmas and family gatherings
- Certain workplaces or roles
- Friendships that once felt safe but slowly eroded your energy

When you’re highly sensitive, your system remembers the full texture of those experiences — the sounds, smells, tightness in your chest — and responds accordingly.

You can’t bully that out of yourself, you can only meet it with understanding.

From black blanket to small glimmers of joy

Here’s the part that surprised me: working with heavy emotions didn’t start with “fixing” sadness. It started with making room for joy and gratitude in microscopic ways, even when I didn’t feel like it.

- Whispering a tiny list of gratitudes before I opened my eyes: pillow, sheets, cat, hot shower, breath.
- Catching a small, ordinary moment — the rasp of my cat’s tongue as he grooms my hand, the way rain beads on the deck — and letting myself actually feel it.
- Looking in the mirror and, instead of cataloguing every perceived flaw, trying a simple, awkward “I love you” into my own eyes.

None of this erased depression or anxiety. But over time it shifted my chemistry and my story.

Gratitude and joy aren’t about pretending everything is fine. They’re about building tiny pockets of safety inside a nervous system that has learned to expect threat.

They remind your body:

“There is something good here. You’re allowed to feel it.”

Five gentle ways to work with big feelings (especially if you’re dual-wired)

If your emotions feel like a lot right now, here are some starting points that don’t require overhauling your life overnight:

1. Name what’s here

When a feeling surges, pause long enough to name it as simply as you can.

“Sadness is here.”
“Rage is here.”
“Numbness is here.”

You’re not the emotion. You’re the one noticing it.

2. Ask what it’s trying to tell you

A couple of questions I find helpful:

- What is this feeling protecting?
- What might it be asking me to change, even by one degree?

Sometimes the answer is as simple as “You’re exhausted. Please lie down,” or “This group is too much for now. It’s okay to leave early.”

3. Tend to your nervous system first

Before you analyse anything, give your body a small kindness:

- A few slow, deliberate breaths.
- A hot shower to rinse off the day’s residue.
- Bare feet on grass or on the floor, feeling the ground.
- Hands wrapped around a warm mug, noticing the weight and heat.

Your mind will make better sense of things when your body feels even slightly safer.

4. Let some feelings move through your body

Not every emotion needs a tidy journal entry. Some need movement.

- Stomp around the kitchen to loud music.
- Have a good cry in the car.
- Hack at blackberry canes or pull weeds until your shoulders loosen.

Think of it as giving your body a safe outlet, not punishing it.

5. Make one small adjustment in the real world

Emotional work isn’t just internal. It’s also practical.

- Saying “no” to the volunteer role that sends you home flattened every time.
- Scaling back Christmas to something simpler and kinder.
- Choosing a walk in nature over yet another scroll through bad news.

Tiny course corrections add up. A one-degree shift now can put you on a completely different hillside later.

A gentle practice for this week

If you’d like something simple to try, here’s a practice I come back to often.

The Emotion Check-In

1. Take a quiet moment. Place a hand on your heart or your belly.

2. Ask, “What am I feeling right now?” Let the first honest word arrive.

3. Ask, “What might this feeling be trying to tell me?”

4. Ask, “What is one kind thing I can do for myself in response?”

5. Do that thing, as best you can, even if it’s tiny.

You don’t have to solve your whole life in one sitting. You just have to listen a little more closely and act on that listening in small, doable ways.

Because here’s the truth I wish someone had told my younger self:

You’re not broken because you feel deeply. You’re wired for depth in a world that prefers shallow.

Your emotions are not your enemies; they’re part of your internal guidance system, especially in midlife, when the old ways of coping no longer fit.

When you learn to listen — really listen — to sadness, stress, anger and joy, you’re not becoming more “emotional.”

You’re becoming more whole.

Want More Support?

In the Grounded branch of A Balanced Life, we’ll keep exploring how to create everyday safety for your nervous system, so that when big feelings arrive, they have somewhere gentler to land.