Got Overwhelm?

Are you feeling like you have so many things to do that you cant get anything done?

Overwhelm can happen when you‘re hit with too much information or tasks at once and cause you to stop in your tracks.

In life, it can cause your house to become an unorganized, overflowing cluttered mess.

Do you ever open your closet and find that just looking at it creates the feeling of hopelessness?

Do thoughts like, why even start, because you’ll never get it done, come to mind?

Overwhelm is a powerful emotion all by itself.

I was trying to isolate which emotions came from it and there were many.

Feelings of hopelessness, helplessness disappointment and worthlessness take over.

Then you add the feelings of anxiety when you know you have to get stuff done and yet are paralyzed into inaction.

It’s all just too much

There are many triggers to overwhelm and the best thing you can do is step back and center yourself again. Find your balance instead of spinning your wheels.

When you find yourself getting overwhelmed it’s time to find a way back to a balanced feeling again.

Everyone’s different, but the point is to find something that will help clear your head, so you can come back and put into action the tasks you need to get done.

Here are some simple steps you might consider.

1. Take a walk or run.

This is the easiest thing to do. If you have a dog, grab her leash and hit the road. Enjoying a 10-minute walk with the fresh air helps clear your head.

2. Meditation

There are several different variations of this. You can do the timeless act of meditation by just silently sitting or lying down and focusing on breathing, relaxing and emptying your mind for several minutes. This works for many. I use a tool that has a meditative feel called The Healing Codes and it allows me to actually focus on positive things while I breathe. You can learn more about it HERE.

3. Yoga

Yoga has a way of bringing you back into a centered frame of mind easily and there are ways to do it in a short amount of time.
A friend of mine, Britt Reint have found Yoga to be very helpful and said in her article, “It occurred to me that I often get overwhelmed in other areas of my life when I am focused on more than the next small step.”

Her post on using yoga to help her regain balance is a must read. You can check it out HERE. 

4. Crossword puzzles and other brain games.

Doing crossword puzzles can be miraculous at cutting through the tension you’ve accumulated. It takes your mind away from stress and redirects it allowing you to relax.

5. knit, crochet or a craft of your choice.

Ok, I confess I knit a lot and it actually will put me into a Zen like state. Any hobby that takes your attention and you enjoy will work. It could be scrapbooking or painting, really anything in this area helps.

Getting down to business

There are so many ways to break the tension from overwhelm allowing you to take that step back and regroup.

Once you have, you can see things more clearly and focus on what needs to get done.

What’s the root cause?

It might be time to dig deeper.

1. Make a list

Make a list of the things that feel overwhelming to you.

2. How do you feel about them?

Ask yourself why you feel overwhelmed by them. Do you feel that there’s just too much to do? Maybe you feel there’s so much, that it will never be done right, so why try?

3. Prioritize

How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time!

Make a list of everything you need to get done. Prioritize them on a scale of 1 to 10.

Then start with #1 and set a timer for how long you want to work on it. I usually do 15 to 30 minutes depending on the project.

4. Ask yourself what’s stopping you.

If you’re still feeling like you can’t move forward then its time to dig deeper. This is when I work on the underlying emotions around overwhelm.

For example, if you’re feeling hopeless, I look for the earliest highest charged memory around that feeling. It may be you worked really hard at something and you failed.

I remember a time when I washed my Dad’s car and thought he’d be so pleased with me. I’d worked hard on it and was excited to hear his praise and thanks. Instead, he immediately pointed out the negative things I’d left out.

In his mind, he was showing me how to do a better job. In my mind, I felt flattened with the feeling I didn’t do good enough. After a few episodes of this and having anxiety waiting for his response, I lost the will to try… I knew it would never be good enough, so why even make the effort. A belief formed that, “It will never be good enough, so why try.”

That memory was one that contributed to my overwhelming feelings.

Tools that can help!

I use energy tools like EFT, The Healing Codes, The Emotion Code, as well as many other customized techniques to find, open and clear the subconscious beliefs around what is keeping you stuck.

Once you find the root emotional cause, it becomes so much easier to regain your balance and even prevent overwhelm to start with.

What do you do to prevent or help overwhelm in your life? I would love to know.  Please leave your comments below.