The waves of overwhelm

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Welcome to The Haven…

…a place where you can take a breath, find comfort and understanding, inspiration and ideas to overcome your overwhelm and move forward with more calm and joy.

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We have a natural human need for certainty. Wanting things to be definite, to achieve a goal and say we’re done, tick it off the list. So we strive to be always be happy, to live a balanced life, to never feel overwhelmed – like they’re destinations we can arrive at, plant a flag in and live in that state forever. But (spoiler alert) that’s just not possible.

Happiness isn’t a goal you can complete, life cannot be permanently evenly balanced and overwhelm is not something that you can shut the door on, never to be felt again. These are emotions and states of being that we flow in and out of. We can take action to help ourselves feel more or less of them but they don’t take a tangible form that we can grab hold of or avoid forever.

Like so much in life, it’s simply not that black and white. Overwhelm lives in the grey, it’s a sliding scale.

There will be times when we feel not at all, a little or a lot overwhelmed because: life. Because things happen in life that layer up over time, or that side swipe us. It’s hard to see how anyone can go through life permanently overwhelm-free.

That doesn’t mean that when overwhelm overtakes you you’re powerless to do anything about it, not at all. We can influence how far overwhelm knocks us off our feet and what we can do to overcome it. In that moment we’re able to manage it, and in time get on with our lives as we choose, without overwhelm as a constant presence.

Overwhelm lapping at your feet

I find helpful to think of overwhelm as a water level (in case you didn’t know it I’m a BIG fan of analogies). So when we’re feeling pretty good, we’re not feeling particularly under pressure, the water is a puddle around our feet, it’s barely there. If life gets busier, if we don’t take care of ourselves, if we feel the pressure of expectation from others or ourselves, if our boundaries are crossed, if we don’t feel able to speak up or ask for what we need, if we ruminate over the past, if we imagine what could go wrong in the future, if we curb ourselves, compare ourselves, strive for perfection, worry what others are thinking, put everyone first and ourselves last… the overwhelm water level starts to rise and keeps rising if left unchecked.

We might not even notice when the water is flowing up our legs, past the knees, past the hips. Life feels uncomfortable because the overwhelm water level is above our waists, the power of the water making us feel unsteady on our feet.

As the water rises to cover our chests everything feels tighter, we feel more tense, it’s all becoming harder work. But we’re managing because we’re still upright. Our heads are above water, just. We’re overwhelmed and we’re functioning.

So we’re getting work done, we’re taking care of everyone we need to, we’re doing what we have to do, because, technically, it’s still possible. We might function in this way for a long time, because we get used to it. Because the overwhelm might have crept up slowly without us really realising. But the water level is there, the overwhelm is there, a constant presence pressing down, draining the joy out of life.

The waves come crashing down

There are times when overwhelm goes from lapping around your ankles to a wave of it suddenly crashing over you. When you get bad news, something unexpected happens and you suddenly feel thrown in the deep end and you’re in over your head.

Just as the water can flow up – just as the overwhelm can rise, so can the water ebb away – so can you bring down the overwhelm. But, like so much in life, you need to be aware of something before you can do anything about it.

It might be that you come to realise overwhelm has risen up around you because you feel the water splashed in your face (metaphorically). In that moment you feel it’s all too much (that was always my classic phrase) and you’re acutely aware of how overwhelmed you are.

Or it may be that slowly and surely your awareness of the overwhelm, of the pressure, of the constriction you’re feeling, grows. And you realise that this is not tenable. Feeling like this, living with this overwhelm is not what you want. The overdoing, the overthinking, the trying to be the ‘good’ girl who does what others expect, who puts herself last, who keeps the peace, keeps herself small, wears all the hats, juggles all the balls, who puts her energy into being the responsible, capable, dependable one so there’s barely anything left for herself.

Something’s got to give

This is not what you want.

This is not how you want to feel.

This is not how you want to live.

It’s from that moment that you can start to lower the water level, to reduce the overwhelm. Having the realisation doesn’t mean you necessarily know how to go about it, you may have an idea of the first steps, maybe you need support to bring down the overwhelm.

But that realisation starts to put the power back in your hands. Overwhelm takes away your feeling of agency. It chips away at the feeling of being in control of your own life so when you realise your overwhelm is high and you look around you to see how to tackle it, you’re empowering yourself.

This isn’t about eradicating overwhelm from our lives forever. As human beings we are going to have experiences that create upset, stress and overwhelm, and there will be times when life gets madly busy. But, what’s crucial here is that you can learn how to recognise when overwhelm is rising, what the triggers and signs are, how to reduce the likelihood of it knocking you off your feet and how you can help yourself to bring down the overwhelm more quickly and effectively, in a way that works for you as an individual.

How does this image of overwhelm as a water level rising or lowering around you work for you? Can you picture where the level is for you right now? What causes your waves of overwhelm to rise?

More for you:

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How you can work with me:

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• Take an online course

“Before coaching I felt like I was in a storm, overwhelmed and heading for burnout. I needed help to find a way back to calmer living. Now I am so much more centred in myself. I'm doing things from a point of I want to rather than I should. I'm happier, I'm more fun to be around and I have more energy. Thank you for helping me walk a little taller in the world.” - Julie