WEEK 22: You Were Never Too Much - You Were Just Too Tamed

What You’ve Been Calling Overreaction Is Actually Loyalty

Trust Your Animal Side.

You’ve been taught to equate emotional restraint with strength.

To filter your reactions through logic.

To measure your worth by how well you behave under pressure.

But that calm you’re praised for?

It often isn’t peace. It’s compression.

You might call it overreacting.

But your body might call it under-processing — a last-ditch attempt to complete something that’s been paused for years.

You don’t need another strategy to calm yourself down.

You need a moment of trust that says, “You’re not a problem to solve.”

And the truth is:You’ve never been “too much.”

You’ve just been too tightly leashed.

You Don’t Need to Fix It. You Need to Translate It.

What Animal Are You Reflecting Right Now?

What we label as “bad behavior” in ourselves — snapping, withdrawing, fawning — is often the body’s final, loyal attempt to protect us.

These aren’t regressions. They’re adaptive reflexes.

And they arise not because we’re broken —but because earlier, subtler signals were ignored.

The goal this week isn’t to glorify instinct.

It’s to reintroduce yourself to it.

To meet the pattern not with analysis, but attention.

Healing doesn’t mean erasing the wild.

It means learning how to listen to it without fear.

Because when you know which pattern is speaking, you can guide it.

When you don’t — it guides you.

TL;DR, Rewilded

This week, I’m trying something new.

Instead of an AI-generated summary, I recorded a short, unscripted reflection — one take, no polish.

It’s not a recap.

It’s a voice.

From my nervous system to yours.

A Roll Call for the Creatures Within

Sometimes it's Appropriate to Unleash The Bear!

This is not metaphor for metaphor’s sake.

It’s a system. A field guide.

Every nervous system state has a rhythm, a posture, a voice.

If you can name it, you can move with it.

When a big emotion rises:

1. Pause. Ask: “Who’s here right now?”

   
   

2. Identify the pattern:

   
   

   • Grizzly – boundary crossed, fight energy surging

   • Turtle – sensory overload, collapse, disappearance

   • Monkey – vigilance, future-panic, scattered scanning

   • Retriever – fawning, approval-seeking, emotional exhaustion

     
     

3. Let it move: Stomp. Curl. Stretch. Hide. Shake.

   
   

4. Whisper: “You’re safe. You don’t have to perform anymore.”

   
   

Optional: Let the animal write. One paragraph. No edits.

This is not indulgence.

This is completion.

A few years ago, I joined a pickleball league.

I was doing okay, but nowhere near how I played in casual rec games.

Doug — a big, likable guy and former Cal rugby player — pulled me aside and asked,

“What if you went Beast Mode? Just for league?”

He saw what I couldn’t: I was holding back. Not just a little — a lot.

So I tried it.

And when I let the Bear out, everything sharpened.

It wasn’t about anger. It was about permission.

I stopped leaking power through self-restraint.

And then there’s the Retriever in me — the youngest sibling who learned to survive through likability.

Too helpful. Too available.

Sometimes poking my nose where it doesn’t belong, hoping for a nod or a thank you.

These aren’t personality quirks.

They’re nervous system strategies.

And they’re trying to bring you home.

Your Body Is Not a Machine. It’s a Biome.

You are a Collection of Different Attributes, A Biome.

Most people treat the body like a malfunctioning machine.

Something to debug. Optimize. Quiet down.

But it's more accurate — and more merciful —to treat it like a long-interrupted conversation.

Your nervous system isn’t betraying you.

It’s trying to finish the sentence you keep cutting off.

Each time you listen fully — without correcting, censoring, or judging —the signal eases.

Not because you overpowered it.

But because it was heard.

Name the animal. Free the pattern.

Trust the animal. Break the loop.

A Field Kit for the Wild Within

Sometimes a Good Metaphor Is What We Need

• How to Be Animal — Melanie Challenger

• Burnout — Emily & Amelia Nagoski

• The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse — Charlie Mackesy

  
  

What Seemed Foolish Was Just Undeniable Truth

If You Look Carefully You Might See The Tracks.

“The things I said were foolish

were things I truly wanted to try.”

And:

“Instinct is intelligence in its native form.

Suppressed long enough, it becomes symptom.

Welcomed back, it becomes rhythm.”

— Real Wild Ginseng

This Isn’t About Calm. It’s About Clarity.

Sometime Too Helpful, Isn't Helpful!

Emotional regulation isn’t the absence of reaction.

It’s the presence of discernment —the ability to recognize what’s real, name what’s needed, and respond with truth.

You’ve been taught to chase calm.

But what if clarity is more honest?

And what if clarity comes not from overriding, but from welcoming?

This week isn’t about becoming better.

It’s about becoming real.

Because the wild within you doesn’t want to be managed.

It wants to be heard.

Challenge:

Each day, name the animal inside you.

Let it move. Let it speak.

Not to indulge it — but to understand it.

That’s how self-trust is built. One named instinct at a time.

Integration Is Still Growth

They Are Always There, Always Loyal

We are still deep in Growth Season —but the work here is no longer about output.

It’s about orientation.

Learning to live from the inside out.

You’re not here to perfect your nervous system.

You’re here to befriend it.

And just as your body speaks through pattern,

so do your emotions — through the parts of you that never got to finish their sentences either.

Next week, we go there.

To the inner exiles.

The forgotten selves who’ve been waiting not to be fixed…

but finally remembered.