To bury or drown under a huge mass. To defeat completely. To crush. To overpower. To engulf. To surge over and submerge. These are just a few of the dictionary definitions of the word overwhelm.
For me, going into overwhelm is not only a state of mind – it’s an emotional, physical, spiritual state as well. When it happens, which it did to me last week, it feels as if I can’t move forward, can’t accomplish anything, feel trapped, hemmed in, and small. There’s just too much to do, and I might not have enough resources. And I tell myself a story about being all alone under this massive weight. “Why do I have to do everything myself? Why do I have to do it all on my own?”
For a day or so, I allowed myself to get buried. All I wanted to do was curl up under the duvet and sleep. My head was heavy, as if a steel band was gradually crushing my skull.
So far, so many metaphors. Why was this happening? Yes, I had taken on an awful lot of commitments. I had perhaps sucked up too much responsibility for my own good. But what was really going on here?
Overwhelm can usually be broken down into fear, sadness, and a little anger for good measure. I was scared that I couldn’t accomplish my goals. A young part of me felt sad and small. Another part was angry that I didn’t have enough support.
So i processed the sadness, the fear, the anger. I got back into balance, that place where I am resourceful and focused and present. I realised and understood that all this stuff had come up for healing, and all of it was resistance.
Why resistance? Because everything on my to do list, the list that had sent me crashing into overwhelm, was taking me beyond my comfort zone to where I truly want to be – to where the magic happens.
As soon as you start moving towards that place where your soul sings, all your resistance will come at you with some force. My resistance revealed itself because I was about to facilitate my first ever workshop. And because I was about to stand up and rant at Speakers’ Corner. And because in two weeks’ time I will be giving a 10-minute speech in front of an audience of 100. And the week after that I will be running the first in a series of one-day workshops.
These are all firsts for me. These are all things I really, really want to do – to be a workshop leader, an inspiring speaker, an agent of change. And my ego’s answer was to put me into overwhelm. I’m not saying I won’t feel overwhelmed again in the next few weeks. I probably will. But it won’t stop me showing up and being more of who I truly am.
As Susan Jeffers famously said, feel the fear and do it anyway.
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