Is overwhelm causing you to be underwhelmed with Life?

Ever got to the point where everything is just too much, that you don’t know if you are coming or going? You don’t know if you are on the right path or lost somewhere in Narnia?  If your decisions are yours or someone else’s?

This feeling is the worst, why because you can’t pinpoint the position it is in in your body, it’s in your head, your heart, your fingertips, your toes – literally take over your whole body….

This my friends is the feeling of overwhelm

For me overwhelm does feel like the above but it has an edgy, agitated twist which literally consumes the full length of my 5ft 3 body and sits somewhere uncomfortably between my chest and tummy and allows what I can only describe as the same feeling of early morning sickness to linger and fester for many many hours….

What I am going on to say here may not make sense but bare with, Overwhelm is not a THING, caveating this, this is me not being dismissive of overwhelm, it is me simply pointing out that it is not tangible, YOU CANNOT pick it up and put it in a shopping trolley in the Asda (or just Asda if you’re not from Liverpool)

Overwhelm is a collection of feelings that are attached to us from many many situations and when situations are left incomplete, they have the tendency to become dormant until triggered, very much like a volcano, small ripples, BIG EXPLOSIONS!

As an aside here have you ever noticed that these feeling of overwhelm offer a similar physiological energy as a thrill of excitement, that is because of the adrenalin that’s released in our body in relation to our natural flight or fight response, the most amazing thing here is that you have the control over which you choose. Our internal makeup is much like the hard drive of a computer it is interlinked, so therefore it is absolutely no coincidence that when overwhelm strikes each element of our body is affected, think about your nervous systems reaction, guts reaction and how your brains ability to process is affected when your struggling, is it any wonder then life becomes difficult.

Now this blog could be some arsey piece that quite simply ends here with the top tip being, deal with your situations as they arise – great job Jade, fabulous advice (insert my much-used eye roll) because if only it was that easy aye, well if it was, I wouldn’t be writing this at 3am, having gone to bed at 8pm and managed zero hours sleep (GRIM) … I mean I fed my body veg today and I switched my phone off early and I took Fitbit off to limit blue light exposure, come on brain what more do you want (queue eye roll).

Oops I digress, back to Overwhelm and how this piece is intended to help.

Society today calls for us to give so much of our precious time on this earth to ‘stuff’ , we are living in an age of the consumer, the dream chaser, the living on the edge of your pants, is it any wonder mental health issues are on the rise, more sick days are being used by employees and just a general feeling of the weight of the world on individual shoulders.

For me we are now a society so overwhelmed by the act of life, we have become so underwhelmed with the joy of living. The harsh reality appears to be our lives are a real juxtaposition of overwhelm and underwhelm.

I wrote the above paragraph and had a real moment of well isn’t that a fascinating revelation, I have been guilty for so so so many years of ‘chasing’ life – always striving for the next goal, always working harder to be the best I can be, NONE of which are bad things but for me all of this seen me living in a constant state of overwhelm, cue my inner ostrich making an appearance – but that’s another blog.

I know the title of this blog suggest I will look more detailed at the juxtaposition of overwhelm and underwhelm but I am not because actually underwhelm in my opinion occurs because we definitely can’t see the wood for the trees because we are so overwhelmed and as we can only handle so many things we tend to stop looking for the good ‘stuff’, we can’t see the smiles, we can’t feel the feelings of happiness, so we stop just stop and become so embedded with the overwhelm, so it’s only right you get some help with cutting down the trees and undoing the overwhelm.

The best way to clear overwhelm is to close down some of your internal tabs, this is not to say delete them it is to understand your priorities, your needs and wants… I have to be honest here guys, not everything in your mind is a PRIORITY, everything may need doing but not everything needs doing right now, does it?

Ask yourself this:-

• What will help you feel better?
• How can you manage your hard drive?
• Is there a system you can develop?

I think you will find once you are in a clearer head space then you can make sense of all the tasks at hand and even see the joy in your life more.

A final parting thought, you have heard time and time again in relation to self-care, you can’t pour from an empty cup, so when overwhelm strikes remember this you can’t work on a full hard drive.

Author:

Jade Kenny Coaching

Instagram: @jadekennycoaching

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