Overwhelm & Anxiety
Fall is my favorite season of the year. Where I live, the leaves are beginning to change, the temperature is cooling down, and the days are getting shorter. One of the three apple trees we planted when we first moved into our house six years ago has some beautiful, ripe, red apples that I can’t wait to pick.
This year I want to savor the fall because I wasn’t able to fully appreciate it the past two years. Fall has been a busy season for me for a while, with my kids’ activities. The past two years I’ve also helped them navigate some big events and changes in their lives; some good and some not.
Even though I’m wanting to slow down and cozy up this fall season, life’s been busy. My family and I finished building a fence in our backyard for our beagles which you can about in my blog Let Them Be Hound Dogs. My younger son left for college which I share in my blog, Preparing for College: Mental Health Tips, and my older son returned home from New Mexico which I talk about in my blog, Embrace Emotions. I’ve also been caring for my older beagle who had an abscess removed and comforting my daughter since her pet hedgehog died. Plus, there have been soccer games, horse shows, and the release of my book. I have a lot to be grateful for and many of the things going are good, but the truth is there’s just a lot going on and I’m overwhelmed.
Overwhelm
Overwhelm can be a precursor to anxiety for me. Even though I try to actively avoid extreme busyness, this fall there have been many events that are out of my control. As I’m writing this, I can feel the tightness in my neck and shoulders, and I’m having to constantly remind myself to breathe. A tightly packed schedule is hard on my nervous system.
On my Angel’s Gold Healing website, my tagline is “Freedom from Anxiety” because you need to feel free in order to heal anxiety. Packed schedules can create feelings of overwhelm and, eventually, anxiety because it feels heavy and constricting; the opposite of freedom. When I am overwhelmed it feels like my world is getting really warm which is similar to when I have anxiety, which feels like my world is on fire.
“If stress is like being in the weeds, feeling overwhelmed is like being blown.” – Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart
In her book, Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown further describes overwhelm as “an extreme level of stress, an emotional and/or cognitive intensity to the point of feeling unable to function.” Being aware of my own emotions and recognizing when I’m feeling overwhelmed helps me to gently start grounding and pulling myself up straight and moving out of the weeds.
5 Steps to Move Through Overwhelm
Below are the five steps I use to move through overwhelm. These steps bring comfort and support to your nervous system and help you to shift from inaction to action. Remember to be patient and gentle with yourself with each step.
1. Go with the flow.
I’m hesitant to put this in because healing anxiety requires you implement boundaries in certain situations and not go with the flow. My blog, Open Hearts and Minds, goes into more detail about this. However, there’s a time and place to go with the flow. When life isn’t going how you’ve planned, at times it’s helpful to release expectations and just go with the flow. When some events and circumstances are out of your control, such as my dog needing to have an abscess removed, just loosen the reins and go with it. This really helps to reduce feelings of frustration when things aren’t going according to plan. However, if you don’t feel comfortable and safe in a situation, environment, or around a toxic person, you absolutely do not need to bend yourself to fit into molds created by others. In these circumstances, I don’t recommend going with the flow. Instead prioritize your needs and do what you need to do to feel safe and comfortable.
2. Prioritize your to do list.
Feeling overwhelmed is exhausting. My “to do” list seems enormous and feels like more than I can handle. It’s cyclical; when I’m tired it’s easier for me to feel overwhelmed, yet being overwhelmed makes me feel even more tired, eventually leading me to feel stuck. To get out of this overwhelm cycle, I prioritize my to do list. I determine what needs to get done and what I can either cross off the list or postpone to another time when things have settled down. What’s left on the list I then prioritize between what needs to get done first, second, third, and so on, based on my resources (time, energy, and money). Writing down my prioritized to do list helps me to visualize structure and order to what feels like chaos.
3. Take small actionable steps.
After prioritizing what needs to be done, I take small actionable steps according to my prioritized list. Knowing that I need to get five things done in the next couple of days feels overwhelming. Sometimes I feel paralyzed by the fear of how am I going to get it all done, which leads to inaction. To move through this fear and overwhelm, I’ve found it’s helpful to focus on just one task at a time from my prioritized to do list. Once that’s completed, then I can think about the next item. Small actionable steps help you take action, gradually moving you out of overwhelm.
4. Enlist support.
When I’m feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or anxious, I tend to internalize my feelings. It’s an old, outdated pattern that I’m undoing by learning to communicate my feelings to my family (especially my husband) and letting them know that at times I need extra help and support. During seasons when I’m feeling overwhelmed, I often schedule extra support sessions with my health and wellness support practitioner too. Enlisting support can look like scheduling a massage or chiropractor appointments to support your body with the extra stress. Enlisting support also means only surrounding yourself with supportive people. Every day, but especially on days when you’re feeling overwhelmed, protect and nurture your body and mind by surrounding yourself with supportive people who have your best interest at heart and environments that are nurturing.
5. Support your nervous system.
Fruits and raw honey provide glucose to your nervous system, feeding your nervous system and protecting your nerve endings. Good hydration is also vital to support your nervous system. I add fresh lemon or lime juice to my water to activate it, making it living water, so that it can hydrate me at a deep cellular level. Moving your body helps to process and move your feelings of stress and overwhelm. Walk, do yoga, dance, swim – whatever feels good. Getting out in nature is very nurturing to your nervous system as you tune into the sounds and rhythms of nature. Additionally, meditating and taking deep belly breaths are very supportive and calming to your nervous system.
Moving out of overwhelm is about doing what you can rather than feeling like you have to do it all. Feeling overwhelmed is a very uncomfortable feeling and it’s tempting to want to push these feelings aside. Just like with every other uncomfortable emotion, it’s important that you process your feelings of overwhelm in order to move through and out of it. Remember to be gracious with yourself and give yourself the extra love and support that you need. And schedule some fun too so that your cup is full.
Even though this is not exactly how I imagined fall would be, I’m going with it and doing my best. I’m not getting everything done, but I’m doing what I can. By putting my garden to bed, taking long walks in nature, and writing with a cup of hot tea with my candle glowing, I’m still squeezing time in to appreciate my favorite season. Instead of turning my lemons into lemonade, I’m turning my apples into apple cider.
My book Bold Trust – 6 Steps to Unravel the Long-Term Effects of Gaslighting, Unapologetically Trust Yourself, and Heal Anxiety will be released November 7th, 2023 and is available to pre-order here.