Stop, breathe, connect to yourself… becoming busy to avoid this is only going to make it worse; your soul is calling, it has something to tell you, and you are not listening….
The glamorization of busy is an epidemic in our modern world.
Overwhelm is inherently a lack of integration in our nervous system. The cause is likely to be a blend of unresolved past experiences, trauma, something you are not attending to because you haven’t felt all the feelings that would integrate the nervous system. You are stuck unwilling to take a step and make a change. You are also disconnected from your soul. The material behind overwhelm is something your soul is calling you to attend to. Unattended, it runs, or ruins, your life. Integrated it reconnects you to your soul’s purpose and a state of well-being. Overwhelm is an opportunity!
Most people, who feel overwhelmed, tend to keep going, keep pushing, they get busier until… they can’t. With overwhelm, it is like the list of things to do gets longer in some futile attempt to change the outside world into a state of peace, and then, and only then, when everything is in order, can you rest.
When we are overwhelmed it is like running around with a short fuse, anything, even a bird song can trigger a reaction in us. We are in a hyper reactive state, we are so busy and just feel totally unable to let ‘anything’ else in. More importantly we are missing the joy of life.
Overwhelm, unattended, can lead to a nervous system overload, as well as conditions like chronic fatigue, adrenal fatigue, digestive issues, a variety of other ills and even spiritual emergency, or nervous breakdown. These are all terms for different flavours of the same inherent problem. Our system is so disturbed (or not integrated) it is unable to cope and do the simplest of things. It maybe so busy in a fight, flight or even freeze mode that there is not enough energy and discernment to even digest food. Digestion problems are rampant, it is not just food we can’t digest, it’s life… we need to catch up with ourselves, slow down, and find centre in our heart.
Unfortunately, in some way most of society is suffering from this situation in varying degrees. Generally people develop coping strategies to combat their overwhelm, though ultimately, these strategies tend to fail and people end up in a crises as they try to cope with too much going on and an inability to integrate all of it and return themselves to a homeostasis imbued with peace and a sense of stability.
In a state of overwhelm the power, appears to be outside of us, we are victims in a situation. Yet the power and the solution are inherently within us. By changing the way we perceive we can change our relationship to the outside word and the myriad apparent events involved in creating overwhelm. Fundamentally when we transform perception we transform experience … also different experiences influence the way we perceive. Ultimately our sense of self shifts, and thus the way we perceive shifts and right along with it, so does our everyday reality. In this way we bring our system back into a more functional state of homeostasis, which incorporates our natural state of wellbeing and joy.
The question I always ask is ‘who is overwhelmed’. We have an idea of ourselves created from past experiences, which set up habits, our character and identity. We become attached to this idea of who we are, particularly in relationship to other people. However, this idea, which creates a sense of self, is changeable neurology. It’s a ghost, the ego, running the show. In order to change it, we have to be willing to change who we think we are, to let go. This new, more open expansive me naturally arises from becoming present to all that is here.
With overwhelm we are shutting out the bits we don’t want of life, trying to control outcomes, powerless and busy. This resistance to what ‘is’, consumes an incredible amount of energy and is futile since we have no control of the world outside of us.
There is a powerful alchemy that naturally arises when we move our awareness, and sense of self to our heart centre. Here rather than attach to a mere idea of ‘who I am’ I can connect with a more powerful sense of self as infinite, love, joy, wisdom and compassion. By adopting a willing attitude of openness to fully arrive in the present moment, with a curiosity to explore the entirety of our present moment experience, then the busyness subsides, and the nervous system can integrate what hasn’t been seen, felt and understood. Resolution happens, information is received and integrated and a clearer sense of direction and action naturally arises from a place of peace.
