Why you’re overwhelmed and what to do about it
I’ve been in a little puddle of overwhelm this week.
Everything has just been too much, I’ve felt like I’m running out of time to get everything done, making me feel frazzled, exhausted and depleted.
Welcome to overwhelm 101, a course in how to recover from overwhelm from the master herself. Well, actually, I’m a master in progress, we all are, as I’m still navigating how to pull myself out of this state and back into a place of harmony, balance and peace.
After all, earth is one big high school and we’re the lucky students.
I find it helpful, when I’m on my own battling my way out of this place, to realise that I’m not alone, none of us are. There’s many of us out there, stuck in some sort of survival mode, desperately trying to do everything just so we can feel safe.
We’re all trying to put down the plates we’ve been so busy spinning, calm our mind that has been chattering in overdrive, and let our bodies rest so they can stop stretching us into a million and one different directions.
It’s not a fun way to live, it’s exhausting, and like most people who feel overwhelmed, it’s like a roller coaster. One week we’re fine, we’re superwoman, managing everything perfectly, feeling like we’re checking off to-do lists left right and center, kapow.
Then the next week we’re in that exhausted little puddle on the floor.
Why some of us so prone to feeling overwhelmed
Overwhelm isn’t obvious, it hangs about in the background waiting for the perfect opportunity to creep up on us and give us a scare. One minute we think we’re fine, and the next we’re feeling burnt out, tearful and so far off our center we’ve lost all perspective.
The funny thing is, overwhelm isn’t a condition to treat. It’s merely a programme running from the deep subconscious mind within us, and all of the outward effects of overwhelm; the panic, stress, tears, scatteredness and fear are all just the symptoms of the programming.
I wish I was someone who could just float through life without feeling overwhelmed and frazzled but right now that’s just not the case, and that’s ok. Some of us are just more susceptible to overwhelm than others. Just like some people are more prone to feeling depressed or anxious (both of which are also running from deep subconscious programming).
All of us are battling through this life with our own personal karma, no one is immune, and I mean absolutely no one.
All of us carry karma in this lifetime and until we work through it, consciously with compassion, patience and love, it tends to rule our lives. When I learnt the karma in my Soul Contract a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. It was like I finally knew why I was the way I was, and how to love those parts of myself that I had always struggled with.
The core programming of overwhelm was nestled deep in my chart and until I recognised it, I was running in circles chasing my tail. When we have clarity about who we are and why we are the way we are we are free to change, but we need to see and understand it first, otherwise we’re just fighting ourselves in the dark, which gets messy and exhausting.
How to find balance when in a state of stress and overwhelm
If you’re like me and you go into a rollercoaster ride of hyperactive highs and overwhelming lows, then there’s a few key things that we need to do (and this is a nice post that sums it all up). The main thing we need to find in our lives is balance.
I’m perpetually out of balance so I’m learning to lean into that so that I can continually bring myself back into my center gently and lovingly, and there’s a few things that I know always help.
The first is the most powerful but the simplest, and involves grounding through hydrating my body, getting out in nature, eating warm, nourishing food, hot baths and very early nights with lots of sleep. This is medicine for my soul on the most basic level.
The next thing I tend to do is to make sure I’m moving my body, it’s normally just a 30 minute yoga session in the morning but an evening walk also does wonders for me. We never feel like we have the time to do this when in a state of overwhelm but I’ve found that it’s absolutely vital for me and gives me the space to breathe.
My atmosphere and environment also has a huge effect on my nervous system, which is why it can sometimes take only a few simple things to bring me back into balance.
I use smells such as incense and essential oils to calm me down. I light candles and have soft lighting whenever I can. I tidy, declutter and refresh my space so that it looks as calm as I want to feel.
Learning how to feel safe, loved and heard
If you can, spend time with animals and children as this can be incredibly calming for us. They are so innocent and loving that our nervous system automatically regulates in their presence and our energy field recalibrates to one of lightheartedness and spaciousness.
In fact, spending any time with people that we feel safe and loved by is the most powerful tool for overwhelm.
As someone who lives on her own, I also forget the power of human contact to lift my spirits and help bring me back into the present. A hug can do wonders for us, just make it for as long as the other person lets you cling onto them for, as this is very nourishing for us and releases lots of feel-good hormones into our energy bodies.
If you can’t get to someone for a hug then just talking to a friend and sharing your worries can be wonderfully healing, helping you to feel safe, heard and validated, all of which are core needs for our emotional wellbeing.
Lastly, and perhaps more importantly than reaching out to others when in a state of stress and overwhelm, we need to listen to ourselves. What are the core needs that we’re neglecting within ourselves? Why are we pushing ourselves so hard?
It’s when we take the time to ask ourselves these questions that we can begin to understand ourselves in a deeper level and begin listening and validating our own core needs and desires.
Working through the overwhelm programming
A big part of the overwhelm programming is this internal drive we have within us that we need to get everything done, perfect, finished and completed.
Often, we think it’s something external, like a parent or a boss, who is putting the pressure and expectations on our shoulders, but it’s actually our own drivers which are pushing on the overwhelm button.
It could be a self-esteem issue of not feeling good enough so continually working harder and harder to prove ourselves. It could be a fear of getting it wrong and not being good enough in the eyes of others. It could be a lack of safety and fear for our wellbeing making us push ourselves harder to escape the situation.
When we tune into the core of why we’re in a state of overwhelm it becomes much easier to know how to handle it, and ourselves.
The most important thing, especially for all of us who try and do it all, is to know that it’s safe to let go of the reins of control every once in a while. Not only that, but that it’s also safe to lean back and trust that we’ll be caught.
We don’t need to be perfect, we don’t need to prove anything to anyone, we don’t need to be in a perpetual state of stress in order to succeed. We can relax, we can be grounded and we can simplify our to-do lists and take time out of our day to breathe.
When we start to do this, it will feel scary, in fact I’m doing it now and it’s terrifying, but it’s in these quieter moments when we feel balanced, grounded and calm, that all the answers come through to help and support us.
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