Sometimes Everything Is Simply Too Much
by Birgit Huvendieck · Sound Massage & Relaxation Braunschweig
You may know this feeling.
Not the dramatic breakdown. Not the big crisis. But that quiet, creeping too-much – when everyday life simply won't stop, when the to-do list grows longer instead of shorter, when you go to bed in the evening already tired at the thought of the next day.
Sometimes it is stress at work. Sometimes exhaustion in a relationship. Sometimes the dull weight of everything happening in the world right now – war, the climate crisis, news you would rather not read, and yet you read it anyway.
And sometimes you don't even know exactly why. You function. You keep going. But somewhere inside, it has become very, very quiet.
I know this feeling. Not only from my practice – but from my own experience. There were phases in my life when I myself no longer knew where the exhaustion ended and I began. When functioning had become so automatic that I hadn't even noticed how far I had drifted from myself. This experience is one of the reasons this work means so much to me – and why I know that there is a way back.
When the body presents the bill
What I see again and again in my practice: the body waits patiently. It carries on. It holds out. Until it no longer can.
Chronic tension, sleep difficulties, the feeling of never truly arriving – these are not signs of weakness. They are signs that the nervous system has been running at full capacity for a long time and urgently needs a pause. A real pause. Not just a free weekend after which you start again just as tired.
The body remembers everything – including what we have long since forgotten. Old patterns, old burdens, old exhaustions that have layered up over years. This is what body-oriented work with SEI describes so aptly: sometimes the too-much sits deeper than the current stress. It has a history.
What really helps – and what doesn't
More discipline doesn't help. More pushing through doesn't either. What helps is arriving.
Arriving in your own body. Arriving in the stillness. Arriving in what is actually true right now – without having to solve or remove it immediately.
For this, there are different paths in my practice – depending on what is needed:
Sound massage speaks directly to the body. Vibrations that transfer deep into the tissue, calm the nervous system and create a state of stillness that cannot be reached through words alone. Many people describe it this way: as though the head finally stops talking.
Rest therapy goes one step further into the depths. It creates a space in which physical and emotional tensions can dissolve in a natural way – without effort, without having to achieve anything. Particularly when the too-much has been present for a while, it is often exactly the right thing.
When the too-much is also connected to relationships – to the feeling of always having to function, never truly being seen, or to patterns that keep repeating in a partnership – RLT coaching may be the right path. Not because the relationship is the problem. But because relationships are often the mirror in which we see most clearly what is out of balance within ourselves.
And sometimes help begins very small: one conscious breath. Closing your eyes and orienting yourself in the room until the nervous system settles. A walk in which you truly notice what you see. These small anchor points in everyday life – I write about them in my article on stress and how we can help ourselves.
An invitation
If you are going through a phase where everything feels like too much – that is not a cause for worry, but a signal. A signal that it is time to take care of yourself. Not tomorrow. Now.
My practice is at An der Paulikirche 7 in Braunschweig. I accompany you in person or via Zoom – in German and English.
A first conversation is without obligation. No programme, no pressure. Simply seeing what feels right.
Birgit Huvendieck is a certified RLT coach after Terry Real, SEI practitioner after Dami Charf, sound massage practitioner and rest therapist in Braunschweig. Since 2013 she has accompanied people and couples on the path toward more calm, vitality and fulfilling relationships – in person and online, in German and English.