Focusing when there’s a thousand things on my plate: kicking overwhelm in the butt

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At the beginning of this year, I should have been suffering massive overwhelm. I had been in the middle of a huge business mindset class, beginning to re-brand Super Secret Powers, keeping up with all the daily stuff, and traveling to an hour  (both ways) 3-4 days out of the week to visit a loved one in the hospital. My relationship to overwhelm before that time had been one of sulking resignation. Being sensitive, I took on my own overwhelm and the overwhelm and frustration around, making any period of overwhelm absolutely miserable for me and everyone around me. I always seemed to hit a chunk of overwhelm and slowly grind to halt and hating on the fact that, yet more thing, didn’t work out. It didn’t matter how excited I had been about doing something, the moment I hit a bit of friction in the journey to get something done I took it as a signal that it was’t going to work out. After years of stress and worry and craziness, I think I have finally nipped overwhelm in the butt!!!

Now overwhelm can be overwhelming and there are a few different ways one can feel overwhelm, so for this post let’s just talk about the ack of too many things and not enough time. You might hate me for this post, rail against me saying “that coach doesn’t understand my life, it’s complicated!” But bear with me, I didn’t think this mindset would work when I first heard it either. So let’s do this quick, like pulling a band aid off!

Overwhelm is a total and utter lie we tell ourselves when we are experiencing self doubt. Click To Tweet

It’s when we are saying:

  • I don’t think I can do this
  • I don’t know if I can handle this
  • How I am supposed to do all this

The thing all these statements have in common is that they are focused on some aspect of not knowing and doubt about enoughness. We experience these doubts when we aren’t sure we have enough, are enough, or can be enough do deal with life according to our expectations. It’s a clarity problem and it’s an expectations problem, and rarely doesn’t it say or mean anything about our intrinsic value (not matter what our wounded egos are freaking out about). Our intrinsic value has nothing to do with the things we are unclear about. We are not unlimited beings, we’re mortal after all, but we are Souls connected to Divine Source. For me this came to a huge realization that when it came to mindset and HOW I was capable of being, that I was only as limited as my mind (wounded ego or 8 yr old inner me) told me I was. I still had the same 24 hours, after all. Nothing about time had changed from one day to the next. Only my thinking had changed.

I believe that emotions are signals our soul uses to tell when we’re in center and of center, in sync with the world or out of sync. Overwhelm is certainly a signal of being out of center and out of sync. But I don’t think I was interpreting it the right way before, I think I was taking it way too personally (which is a hallmark trait of a sensitive person, btw). Overwhelm wasn’t/isn’t telling me or you that we need to stop what we’re doing, it’s asking to get more clear on the “why” of it all. I was committed to seeing these things through. In my case, I didn’t have the option of not doing these things. I spent the money for the class. I chose to make my loved one a big priority. I knew needed to make some changes to how I was going about business building. I was committed. If you’re not committed, then it’s to figure out what it is you CAN commit to and believe we can find a way through. If you are not committed to one end point or another, then no amount of good why’s is going to get you much further. Overwhelm asks to dig deeper, to go into some uncharted or maybe a little scary emotional waters. It asks us to explore our actual capabilities, not just what we think we are capable of. That takes a sense of committed to the adventure of the journey before us to navigate in a emotionally healthy way. One can play commitment leap frog to begin making progress, giving a little faith, a little attention to one small commitment, to see where it goes. But in order to overcome more weighty obstacles, one needs to build up the commitment steam and momentum before they give the big hill a go.

And it helped to get really really specific about what it is that we’re feeling lacking over. Is it really time? Or is it space to breathe and think? Is it about actually doing something, or is it a fear of getting frustrated and further into overwhelm? When we are in overwhelm we are not getting or giving ourselves the time and support we need in order to be in a good place to deal with the tasks ahead. The whole cycle of overwhelm is based on doubt, but then as we decline in feeling well, because we’re so stressed out, we take that some sort of sign.

Overwhelm was never meant to be a stop or slow sign. We don’t necessarily need to “do less” or even “simply”.

Overwhelm means we need to get clear on what actually matters. Click To Tweet

For me, during that really intense period back in January, I doubted that I pull it all off without getting sick, without stressing out, and without freaking out. I took the time to figure out what needed to improve to make my fears and doubt a non-issue. I was afraid of getting sick (and therefore being miserable) so I got more serious about my supplements and wellness routines (couldn’t have done any of it without my essential oils). So now I had the energy to tackle what I needed to tackle, but there were lingering doubts of how I wouldn’t let irritability or fear insert it’s control. I had to really sit back and set some large core desired feeling state goals for this time period. In all the traveling and reinvention of my business, I wanted it feel joyful and loving. I needed to be on the ball for the visits, for the class, for the homework, and for the dreaming into what my new messaging could be. I knew those were my focal points, but I knew I didn’t want to push way through them either. Sure some stuff got put on back burners and I was tired after long and full days, but with my wellness and feelings of security and joy in the forefront, that whole crazy period felt magickal. And it wasn’t the arrangement of appointments, the weather, the little actions that happened that made that time “good” or “bad”. What made the difference was that I recognized what I felt was missing, the things in me that doubt was speaking to, and built a better self care routine, to that I had the energy, emotional space, and clarity in order to keep moving forward.

There is also a lot to be said about acceptance in this. When I knew how I wanted to feel during this, I was able to drop the pity me kind of stories that might have put up resistance to being open and flexible. Staying in joy, also meant that I needed to untroubled, in a state of receptivity to the what the moment brings. And in that I also saw how each and every moment, the only place we actually LIVE from, is the perfect place to be, to begin from, to say YES to. It would only be my fears and self doubt that made me think that each moment is not part of the flow of all that is around me, that I was somehow out of sync. And that is the lie we all believe from time to time, that we are not part of the whole. When really all we need is to believe we are and find a way to support our direct knowing and experience of this infinite potential.