Day 83- What to do when you are overwhelmed
📖Daily Reading
Psalms 9-15
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Psalm 13
O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand? Turn and answer me, O Lord my God! Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die. Don’t let me enemies goat, saying “we have defeated him!” Don’t let them rejoin every and my downfall. But I will trust in your unfailing love. Will rejoice because you have rescued me. I will sing to the Lord because he is good to me.
Can you sense David’s feeling of overwhelm as this psalm starts out? By the end can you feel that he has also calmed down? The psalms are a really great example of the things we refer to in our modern language of prayer, meditation and journaling and how effective they can be in helping us deal with feeling overwhelmed. David doesn’t just tell himself ‘get it together man, suck it up, keep quiet, be strong and try harder’. He lets it all out, he acknowledges his feelings which allows him to release them. He gives it over to God and there by reassuring himself that even though he is frustrated, feeling outnumbered, things don’t seem fair etc.. that he can trust that there is a bigger picture and a bigger force (God) that is in control.
This is what prayer and/or meditation and journaling can do for you too. Think you don’t have time for it and you are skeptical of how much of a difference it can make? When you don’t give things over or give them a voice they will get over you - hence overwhelm. The definition of overwhelm is: to upset, overthrow, to cover completely, to overcome by superior force or numbers, to overpower in thought or feeling. Brené Brown says that when you can name something then you can also take the power of it away and you give your brain permission to calm down. When it stays in our heads that is when we can unknowingly give it power and also give it more time to grow and become overwhelming. Interestingly enough our human instincts will convince us that if we keep things quiet they will just go away and if we talk about then we make it a big deal. Quite the opposite is actually true.
Many of us have been conditioned by our families of origin, churches, schools, and communities that having strong feelings is a weakness, admitting that you are feeling sad, defeated, unliked, judged, like we should know better, what ever it is that it is all a sign of weakness. I would like to say that the fact that you are feeling overwhelmed is actually a sign that you care deeply, you don’t want to let others down, that you want to be responsible, trusted etc….This is good right?
When we are overwhelmed our first instinct is to pretend or deny that we aren’t. But if we can see the truth that behind this feeling of overwhelm are good aspects of our character, then we can let go of the guilt and the shame that add on top of the overwhelm. We are so hard on ourselves internally and ‘shoulding’ all over ourselves, which actually compounds the issue and causes more overwhelm, it can feel like a vicious cycle with no way out, except maybe through a glass of wine or five, maybe a pizza and ice cream and netflix, or maybe you are the one that punishes yourself with over-exercising or over-working. 🤦♀️ I am overwhelmed just writing about it. My nervous system is still recovering and coming out of a constant state of overwhelm that I was in for nearly a decade, suffering silently and wearing a ‘I’m fine’ smile on my facing and drinking my Chardonnay.
Personally I decided to finally stopped being stubborn and resistant to prayer, meditation, and journaling, and listen to the experts. Guess what? I am not overwhelmed nearly as often anymore and when I am I know what do about it. It doesn’t overtake me as much anymore, and when it does I can pretty quickly now see how/where/when I got off track and can quickly pivot and get back on track. I also no longer judge myself for having strong emotions and I try not to deny them anymore. I have created safe places in addition to God and journaling to take them and talk about them. I am a verbal processor and until I was ready to journal more in a written way, I used verbal processing as my first form of ‘journaling’. Having a few close friends who are willing to listen is priceless!
If the thought of prayer, meditation and journaling overwhelm you, then start small. That is what I did. I started with just a few minutes a day of just one thing, if you added meditation and got a solid habit of that for a month or two and then added an aspect of journaling or vice versa that would be great! I started by using a guided meditation app, and by keeping a to-do list and a few gratitudes and maybe writing a scripture down.
If you are a perfectionist like I used to be, let go of there being a ‘right’ way and just start, and do it your way. The way you will do something is the ‘right’ way. I also love using guided journals - I love hitting the easy button as much as a I can on things especially while I am learning and building new habits. I started out by using the Calm app and I started with just a couple of minutes a day, I now use the Centering prayer app for 15-30 minutes daily, but it took a couple of years to build up to this. I used guided journals like 100 days of Believing Bigger and the Purpose Driven to get started with journaling, but now can confidently look at a blank page and not be overwhelmed and write daily, but that took a couple of years too.
Allow yourself to be a beginner, keep it simple and allow yourself to practice and experiment and eliminate the word ‘should’ from your vocabulary as much as possible! You have plenty of time to become a master and layer in more complicated things later!
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
What is one thing you can do right now, today and tomorrow to get yourself out of overwhelm and to calm down?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Psalms 16-17
Coaching Opportunity
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