What I Do When I’m OVERWHELMED 😭
My best tips for overwhelm aren't rocket science, but they do kinda feel like magic. What I'm about to share isn't just what I suggest to my clients but things I do to help myself.
**Affirmations or mantras not included.
Overwhelm is our brain's way of telling us we're in danger, but it's highly likely that, like me, you're not dealing with a saber-toothed tiger, either, so this fight or flight response just isn't very helpful. If you are, in fact, faced with a large, sharp-toothed creature, PLEASE do what that fight or flight response is telling you, and PANIC and RUN!!
If not, keep reading.
Ideally, we want to avoid overwhelm by dealing with things when we're at a 2 out of 10 on the anger, frustration, and irritation scale, but sometimes life be LIFEY. You know, your house floods, you're in a lawsuit, people you didn't vote for are in power and scaring the crap out of you, and, btw, you need a $16,000 new roof.
Things like that.
First step? I usually cry about it.
Is this a necessary first step? No. Is it just part of my process? I think so.
Why crying is a good thing:
Crying releases feel-good chemicals, like oxytocin and endorphins, which helps ease pain and improve mood.
Crying activates the parasympathetic nervous system, shutting off the fight or flight response and helps us RELAX.
Crying helps you process and express big emotions like grief, anger, and fear.
It helps you detox stress hormones from your body.
It helps you connect with others, communicating that you may need help and support.
It helps you regulate overwhelming feelings so that you can feel relief and clarity.
It helps you sleep by helping you restore emotional and physiological balance.
By the time I've gotten to overwhelm, the scary thoughts are…overwhelming. It is all worst-case scenario up in here. The no-one-likes-me, everyone-hates-me, guess-I'll-go-eat-worms-because-I'm-failing-everywhere thoughts get freight-train LOUD.
Next steps seem impossible to find. In getting from A to Z, Z seems super far away…like we'll never get there. My brain LOVES to focus on the SUPER FAR AWAY Z, which then gets me paralyzed and splattered. I find myself moving less literally and figuratively. At this point, I couldn't embody Eeyore, Pooh's slow and sad donkey friend more.
I reach for the highly-processed carbs because F it. Happy hour? Why not?
The despair kicks in.
Step 2: Walk. For a long time. Even if I "don't have time" and don't want to.
Walking, as dumb as it sounds, is a bilateral and rhythmic movement that stimulates and enhances communication between both hemispheres of the brain, which promotes better emotion processing AND regulation. It also reduces cortisol (the stress hormone) and increases feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin.
Step 2.5a: Supercharge your walk by adding in an audiobook or podcast from your favorite you-are-good-enough, smart-enough, and-gosh-darnit-people-like-you source. Here are some of my favorites, which MAY NOT be for you:
Anything by Wayne Dyer, but especially Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life.
The Pema Chodron Audio Collection (I don't do the exercises…I just listen and walk) - she is a female monk who is deprecating and hilarious.
Jen Sincero's: You are a Badass AND also You are a Badass at Making Money.
Feeling like a failure or can't quite figure out your passion? Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Feeling stuck or like you're making the same mistakes on repeat? The Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks.
Step 2.5b: Supercharge your walk by adding a non-judgy and supportive friend. Expressing feelings to a friend who will sprinkle some empathy on them means those feelings are a whole lot less likely to fester into shameful thoughts like "I am bad" and "There's something wrong with me." The discomfort of something needing to change is incredibly motivating, but feelings of shame or despair can send us into overwhelm….making us less solution-focused, less motivated, more drained, and spiraling into a sleeve of Girl Scout Cookies.
Step 3: Brain dump into an Eisenhower Matrix.
Do not, I REPEAT, DO NOT make a plain old to-do list from the place of overwhelm.
If you want to feel so much relief that you feel straight up SILLY about the amount of overwhelm you were just buried under use an Eisenhower Priority Matrix.
If you have a Z (like paying $16k for a new roof) write that off to the side or underneath if that's not something you can accomplish THIS WEEK and ask yourself what you can do this week to get you closer to your goal.
In my case, that might mean sending out an email reminding people that our relateWELL Membership is currently on sale (for real, it is priced ridiculously low), sending an email to the next 10 people on my waitlist, and doing more corporate speaking outreach to fill up the few spaces we have left for 2025.
But let's do it with some thought. That membership sale email is URGENT and IMPORTANT because the sale ends WEDNESDAY. Quadrant 1 we do NOW.
Let's say my day is already full, and reaching out to the next 10 people on my waitlist isn't going to fit into today; this to-do list item would go into Quadrant 2 (important, but not urgent), and we would SCHEDULE IT. I head to my calendar to block out an hour to get it done later in the week. Once it's calendarized, it can't keep haunting me, and I can check it off my Quadrant 2 list; it'll be Quadrant 1 later in the week.
The next one is kind of tricky. Quadrant 3 is labeled as Urgent, but Not Important…I like to call it, "Urgent, but not important that I DO IT." For example, is emptying the dishwasher urgent? Yes. Can anyone in my house do this? Also yes. These are great things to DELEGATE.
I'm going to have my assistant reach out to the next few local corporations on our list. Yay, delegation!
Also, besides Z, the rest of my life still needs attention; I need to call my Aunt Jill, find time to work out, and make time to sit down with my husband and get on the same page.
THE THINGS that make for a GOOD LIFE usually live in Quadrant 2, and once life gets busy we need to know that Quadrant 1 is never-ending, but we have to MAKE TIME for Quadrant 2 stuff. WE DO NOT WANT QUADRANT 1, 3, or 4 STUFF GETTING DONE AT THE EXPENSE OF QUADRANT 2.
Also on my hypothetical to-do list is my nails needing to get done before Spring Break. In the context of all of the other crap on my list, this feels like it is neither urgent OR important. I'm going to forget it. Scratch that off the list with NO effort. "The people who love me will love me with or without pretty nails," I say to myself. ←Not a mantra, just a reminder to myself.
Also, don't forget:
“Every storm runs out of rain.” - Maya Angelou
Hope this helped,
