Listen to this as a podcast or read below.
I am an expert in being overwhelmed. And I’m pretty sure you are too, given the pressures of our daily lives. Not something we ever planned to be, right? Life’s just given us plenty of opportunities to fumble our way through the often too-much-ness of it.
I’ve been diving deeply into what we name as overwhelm for most of my adult life, personally, and through my years of coaching wise women like you. All part of my commitment to freedom for women from the forces of oppression – external and internalized oppression.
Hi. I’m Christine Thomas, personal life coach for women, and this is my on-going mini podcast series to support us as we live through chaotic and often overwhelming times. Getting past being overwhelmed is a rich, deep and absolutely necessary topic that most of us will have to deal with, whether we want to our not.
We all know that situations in our lives can feel chaotic and overwhelming. Humans are resilient and capable and adaptable. You are smart, resourceful, and creative. Still there are situations and experiences that impact us in such a way that we feel flattened by them. There are perfectly understandable reasons for feeling overwhelmed either occasionally or often.
Given the unimaginable political upheaval, the moral injury, the rate of change, the awareness of global and personal impact of current events, of course we are overwhelmed. And we each have situations in the seasons of our lives that profoundly impact us, overwhelm us.
In some of my past posts I’ve offered strategies to use when we’re in the immediate felt sense of being overwhelmed, as when we can’t even focus on good next steps yet. We might be brain foggy or spinning from too many thoughts and feelings, at a loss as to how to proceed.
Once you’ve gotten even a tinge more distance from the immediate flooded body/mind/emotional response and are able to focus a bit, here’s another process you may find helpful for navigating that helpless place I call “the overs” – being confused, crushed, run over, maybe over worked, over committed, over-looked, over stimulated, overcome with feelings, or just plain over it.
My starting place always, always is understanding and self-compassion – not judgement.
Of course, we judge the unjust systems of power-over and exploitation of women, of workers, of the planet, but table that for now, in this process. You’ll have plenty of opportunity and more resources to engage with those forces in the future. For now, let’s focus on you. Suspend your judgement of yourself for even being overwhelmed. You’ve got your good reasons for feeling this way.
When we start from the understanding that being overwhelmed is a natural human response while being compassionate and loving towards ourselves for having this response, we can accept where we are and get curious about how to move through this territory.
Next we can begin to untangle the jumbled mess that feels so big and amorphous. How, you ask?
Through decades of to-do list making I’ve learned a great deal – and I know you’ve got the list making thing going, too, whether your lists are in your head or on your phone or on countless pieces of stuff on your desk or in your journal.
So make the grand list of what’s crushing you, what’s feeling more than you can or want to handle, all of those relentless responsibilities, tasks, demanding projects, people and situations that contribute to you having “the overs.”
Then rough sort the list. Why sort? Because we are starting the process of understanding what’s ours to control or maybe influence and what is beyond our control or influence – what we may not be able to do a damn thing about. We need to know when, where and how to use our power effectively so we don’t keep getting crushed.
You can sort your list of what feels overwhelming to you into any categories or buckets or columns that work for you. Try this, try sorting into Demands, Desires and Demons.
In the Demands category go the nuts and bolts of tending to the needs of daily life, the responsibilities we own or others impose on us. All of the way-too-many-tasks that we must accomplish for the sake of our well-being. You know these – family care, making money, feeding ourselves, tending to the constantly changing and ever-increasing stuff that somehow is our job to do.
Demands = needs. Demands are those people, situations, and tasks we feel we need to take care of. Again, for now, suspend judgement of yourself and others. Simply notice and make the list.
In the huge category label Desires I put all of those things I want or I want to have done like a clean, beautiful and organized home; healthy well cared for plants inside and outside; creative projects that feed me; time with my beloved friends and family members; community contributions, and so much more.
Desires = thriving, not just surviving. In this category are the things I have to do because of what I want. And yes, certainly, our Desires can definitely contribute to feelings of overwhelm. “So many books, so little time,” right? Confession here: I’m more likely to feel overwhelmed by all the things in my life that I desire than from the Demands of others.
I have tons of Desires and I know you do, too. I consider myself to be desire-able. We are desire-able beings because we have much we yearn for, we desire.
Although both of these categories can be huge, I’ve figured out another one that might be the biggest one of all – the Demon one. Yes, I said Demon. This category is for the internal forces of judgement of myself. Me crushing me, me overwhelming me, me flooding me with messages of all that’s wrong with me because I have not yet taken care of all of the things in the other 2 categories.
Demons = inner messages about my capacity, or lack thereof, to handle the Demands and Desires of my full, abundant, often chaotic life.
So, consider what stirs in you as you begin this sorting process. Notice how you are with being self-compassionate. See if you get even more overwhelmed as you list all the Demands and Desires. Really, what are you noticing about yourself as you look more closely at being overwhelmed?
Even if list making and sorting doesn’t work for you, I encourage you, brave one, to look more closely at what’s prompting the feelings of overwhelm in you. Be kind, be gentle, be truthful, be compassionate with yourself! You want to get really curious as to how you react and operate in chaotic and overwhelming situations. Useful curiosity can reveal so much to you.
What if you could judge yourself less for being overwhelmed? What new stories might you want to tell yourself when you can’t do it all, when you aren’t ok, when you’ve had enough? What if you could admire yourself for having so much you Desire, even if you haven’t accomplished it yet?
I say it’s not the walking un-dead that scare me. It’s the un-done, the never-ending to-do list that haunts me.
More, more to come with strategies for dealing with overwhelming Demands, Desires, and Demons. Enough for now. Stay curious and stay tuned, desire-able ones!