When you’re feeling overwhelmed…
When you’re feeling overwhelmed, any new incoming message from the outside worlds feels like a barrage to an already fragile inner world. Your mind may be racing with various ongoing items to tackle on your to-do list, as you try to manage them all like a whack-a-mole of seemingly critical importance. Your body may feel tense, your jaw may feel sore, and your mood may feel irritable or raw, as you try to plough on through the day. A part of you may yearn to withdraw, to escape, to cocoon into a safe cave that feels comfortable and easier to manage. And yet, a larger part of you feels a pull to chip away at the mountain of responsibility you feel weighed down by.
While at other times and in other contexts, you may have felt calm and in control, at this moment these experiences seem painfully out of your grasp. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re balancing the uncomfortable combinations of raw-ness and stamina, of vulnerability and grit, of sensitivity and resistance.
When you’re feeling overwhelmed… you’re tuning in to the intense times we’re in.
While this moment may feel like a mistake or failing (because that is how late-stage capitalism has shaped our minds to feel under less than perfect performance), I want you to know that your experience of overwhelm is far from a personal defect. Instead, it’s a resonance of your inner world to the collectively intense times we’re all undergoing. Like a quivering string on a violin, our individual feelings of overwhelm together form the tunes of the songs of pressure we’re all under as a couple, as a family, as a community, as a country, as a species, as a planet.
Overwhelm isn’t a sign you’ve done something wrong, or aren’t stoic enough – but a reasonable symptom amidst the times of transformation we’re all in. Life is asking all of us to adapt, in ways that ask us to stretch, in ways that matter and are meaningful for each of us, and in ways that may look different between all of us. And yet, what I want you to know is that, even amidst this overwhelm, you can be there for yourself. That, even if at times it feels like you’re being forged in fire, you can go inwards and reconnect with a space underneath the intensity that is soft and strong. That underneath our monkey mind stretched thin from trying to keep it together, lies a deep humming power that has faith in what’s to come.
How to re-connect with your inner fortitude.
While feelings of overwhelm are always a burden on our mind and heart, they can also be the birthplace of a fortitude that lies deep within. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, these are some things I’d like you to try to see if you can slow down and connect with a calm and wise force that rests underneath the intensity.
Take a pause and find a comfortable seating position, sitting upright with a straight back. Try to relax and soften any muscles that may be feeling particularly tight.
Close your eyes and turn your attention inwards. Try to go beyond your logical mind and instead, try to notice any dominant feelings or experiences that may be present.
If things feel intense, do not fear what you find, for very soon, your inner world will shift again. Know that this is simply a representation of your current, fleeting, overwhelm. By shining the light of our attention on it, our inner world will start to feel heard, nurtured and taper down in intensity, as it moves towards a softer experience.
Stay with your attention inwards, and see what comes up, as soon as the overwhelm starts to simmer down. What new inner experience do you find? Allow yourself to sit with it for a minute or two. What outer world action will best allow you to bring forth the inner fortitude or bottomless well you’ve found within?
With kindness and faith that, whether we can feel it or not, we all have this well of soul-deep fortitude slowly humming and unperturbed by passing mental storms.
