Great News If You Feel Overwhelmed

Feeling overwhelmed?

I’ve made numerous changes this year including pausing each morning during my time alone with God to check in with myself and connect to how I’m feeling. I’ve noticed that feeling overwhelmed has popped up fairly frequently.

I hear that same sentiment echoed in my conversations with others and certainly not in the context of wanting more of that feeling!

OVERWHELM, what is it?

Brené Brown defines overwhelm this way in her book Atlas of The Heart:

“An extreme level of stress, an emotional and/or cognitive intensity to the point of feeling unable to function.”

How I define overwhelm:

“Too much, too fast with no room to breathe!”

That includes too much work, too much fun, too much emotion, – too much anything you are drowning in while simultaneously lacking space to process, regroup, reconnect with yourself and just be.

When what you are facing looms larger than your capacity to deal successfully with it, you feel overwhelmed.

Similar Feelings

Feelings of overwhelm are close cousins to feelings like…

STRESS

A little stress is good for you! It’s like happy pressure or motivation to accomplish something significant. Some stress urges you to take action.

Unfortunately, you may not notice how all the demands, tasks, and emotions are stacking up.

If you’ve been under stress for a prolonged period of time, your senses become dull and less tuned into the stress you are feeling. That primes you for feeling overwhelmed. When feeling overwhelmed, you feel stuck, paralyzed, and unable to take action.

BURN OUT

Like feeling overwhelmed, burnout is a function of unhealthy levels of stress. Burn out leaves you feeling exhausted both mentally and emotionally, disengaged, emotionally numb, not caring about what once was important to you, hopeless, and wanting to give up.

Think of being burned out as being overwhelmed on steroids.

ANGER

When feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or burned out, your response might be to get angry.

When something prevents you from getting the outcome you desire or when you believe that something is not as it should be or is unfair, you feel angry.

Anger is a secondary emotion that often surfaces in place of deeper feelings or less palatable feelings like hurt, disappointment, frustration, confusion, sadness, shame, fear, etc.

In today’s society, showing up angry seems more socially acceptable than the more vulnerable emotions I shared previously.

It’s worth getting to the bottom of your anger and using it to spur you on to making positive changes.

ANXIETY

When you are locked in on feeling helpless it causes you to feel anxious. Maybe your focus is on…

• The uncertainties of life
• Feeling like you don’t have any control
• The catastrophic possible outcomes

Anxiety shows up as physical manifestations such as…

• An increased heart rate
• Shortness of breath
• Nausea
• Muscle tension
• Headaches
• Sweating

Your mind is also impacted by your feelings of anxiety. Worrying, overthinking, ruminating, and meditating on the negative possible outcomes – those are signs that you might be anxious.

Feeling overwhelmed may cause you to feel anxious.

FEAR

When you are afraid, you make choices that have a way of adding up to more and more which then leads to feeling overwhelmed. Your Fear Monster is happy dancing when that happens!

Now For the Good News!

While many circumstances are outside of your control, there are also many aspects of your life that you do get to be in charge of! You get to choose how you will safeguard yourself from overwhelm! Isn’t that good news?

Here are some practical suggestions to help you keep overwhelm at bay. Remember, overwhelm didn’t set in overnight. It was a process. Making positive life changes is also a process, so, take it slow and tackle these suggestions one by one. It’s perfectly okay to begin with one that feels easiest!

1. Practice Mindfulness

When you are operating in a mindless way, you miss the subtle warnings that you are heading towards feeling overwhelmed. You might do a little check-in each morning like I described above or set a reminder to check-in with yourself throughout the day to tune into how you are feeling and what you need. Make an effort to label the emotions you are feeling.

If you enjoy journaling, that’s also great way to reflect and tap into how you are thinking and feeling. It helps you pinpoint patterns too.

Pay attention to the language you are using – it reveals more than you think.

Be present. Whatever you are doing, but 100% there. When you are with people, make them your focus. Relax. Breathe

Being more mindful takes practice! In some cases, a lot of practice – just be sure that what you are practicing is serving you well. It does you no favors to reinforce the wrong habits.

2. Perception Corrections

Feeling overwhelmed arises out of your perceptions around your situation, not necessarily reality. That’s good news because you get to choose how you perceive your situation and the meaning that you make around it.

I confess the last couple of months have been unusually full for me. While tuning into how I was feeling, I realized that I was beginning to resent all the activity despite the fact that it was all really good stuff I was doing. My perspective was contributing to my feelings of overwhelm!

I needed a perspective shift! That’s when I chose to make a conscious choice to focus on who God created me to be, which is Loving. I was determined to trust that God would work out the details. , I also celebrated the many opportunities and blessings in my life. That’s when my feelings of overwhelm began to fade away.

Your funky perceptions will take you down all sorts of less than helpful roads including overwhelm. God doesn’t want that for you! It really is in your best interest to take your thoughts captive…all of them!

…we take every thought captive and make it obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5b (GNT)

How will you manage your thinking? Re-frame the story you are telling yourself? How will you let the small, perhaps even tiny wins count?

3. Practice Gratitude

What’s interesting about overwhelm is that it highlights your lack. The beauty of regularly practicing gratitude is that it sheds light on all the many ways you are blessed in a way that naturally corrects your perceptions! Plus, there are some other pretty sweet bonuses to making gratitude a habit that I’ve shared here.

4. Permission To…

Sadly, all the many “have to do’s” all add up to serious overwhelm. That’s why it’s important to give yourself permission to handle what’s on your plate in ways that maybe you’ve felt you couldn’t or ways you’ve resisted in the past. It might be time to give yourself permission to…

• • • Quit doing something.
    • Let go of the outcome of something you’ve been hanging onto.
    • Course correct and/or simplify.
    • Prioritize and reprioritize again on the fly.
    • Do an activity that you love, something that brings you JOY and refuels you every day.
    • Get help or support from a friend, mentor, or coach.
    • Delegate.
    • Set boundaries.
    • Be more realistic about your capacity and limits.
    • Slow down. Remember, not everything is urgent. It’s OK to let someone know you will get back to them.
    • Say “no.”
    • Or ____________________.

When everything in your life adds up to being too much you feel overwhelmed. The challenge is that you may feel good about the work box, the people box, the task box, the personal box, etc. but when you add them all up together it’s overwhelming! They all require energy from the same you!

What have you been itching to give yourself permission to do?

5. Prioritize Healthy Habits

When life feels crushing, what gets eliminated first are the very habits that would support you best in those hectic seasons. Instead, I urge you to double down on the very activities that you feel you don’t have time for. Prioritizing healthy habits is a lifesaver in those moments you feel like you are drowning.

Here are just a few of the many possibilities when it comes to healthy habits:

• • • Spending time with God daily – laying what burdens you at His feet and remembering who God is and how He loves you!
    • Connecting with treasured people.
    • Exercising – even a quick walk around the block or ten minutes of happy dancing!
    • Getting enough sleep.
    • Eating healthy foods.
    • Regularly practicing self-care.

The best time to prepare for overwhelm is before it sets in!

In the midst of overwhelm right now? There’s no time like the present to start being more preventative.

Overwhelm doesn’t suddenly kick in! No, is the accumulation of the tasks and feelings over time. The good news is that the suggestions I’ve shared also add up in a very good way!

How will you proactively prevent overwhelm from setting in?