Feeling Overwhelmed

In episode 44, we’re talking about overwhelm. If you're feeling overwhelmed, you’re not alone! We all have times where we are caught up in obsessive thinking or we’re barely coping with anxiety. We can get through it together. Overwhelm tells us the solution is “getting things done.” But in a chronic state of overwhelm, this belief actually keeps us trapped in the cycle. Today, we're looking underneath overwhelm, at what it has to show us or share with us about ourselves. Join in the fun! xo

Transcript

Thanks for joining us here on Pretty Spiritual where we're attempting the unthinkable about how to navigate this messy,

Beautiful,

Imperfect life with spiritual tools,

Principles,

And our own personal stories.

So we're not experts,

We're not religious,

We're definitely silly.

We're honest,

Real,

And willing to share.

So join us as we connect,

Bond,

And grow together.

Hey friends,

Welcome back to Pretty Spiritual.

We're so glad you're here.

It is wonderful.

We are together.

We're not overwhelmed.

At all.

Actually.

I am Ella.

Hi,

Ella.

Hello.

And to my left is Annie.

Hello.

And to her left is Pony.

Oh,

Hey everybody.

I'm Lindsay Pony.

Lindsay Pony.

We're all here together trying to rally our spirits to tackle this overwhelmed episode,

Which has,

I'll be real,

Left me feeling a bit overwhelmed.

We were already overwhelmed.

It's a chronic state for me.

That's right.

I've been really struggling with overwhelm and that's why I wanted to talk about it.

I just wanted to start by describing what overwhelm has felt like for me because when I do this kind of description of this monkey mind to other people,

Generally I'm met with a lot of understanding,

Which feels pretty good because I think it's something we all struggle with.

What overwhelm has felt like for me lately is that I'm just fluttering from thing to thing to thing without ever really touching down into life.

I have this swirling tornado mind that is constantly trying to keep track of a to-do list.

I feel really swept up by the whirlwind of anxiety and overwhelm.

It feels like there's not enough time.

I don't have enough resources.

I feel like I'm falling behind without ever being able to catch up.

Then all of a sudden each day it's like,

Oh,

It's 4.

30 and the sun is setting and what do I have to show for it?

This kind of feeling that I haven't actually done anything.

It does not feel great.

I've been feeling really ungrounded and really anxious.

What happens for me when I'm believing my overwhelm is that the solution to the problem is me getting things done,

Me getting myself together.

That's a big kind of story or getting control of my life,

Taking back control of my life.

That's going to solve this.

It's not that I think that those are bad things.

I think those can be really healthy ways to engage with our lives and take responsibility.

For me,

If I'm believing that,

I lose sight of what I actually have to learn from the overwhelm,

Which is something that's a lot deeper than that.

This is a chronic state for me.

I have this chronic state of overwhelm.

If I really want freedom from it,

I need to look beyond the story of getting control of my life or accomplishing things or finishing a to-do list in order to actually get freedom.

I wanted to look at whether it's an acute state of overwhelm or a more chronic thing.

What are some new ways that we can engage with anxious overwhelm instead of getting hooked by the story and trying to control life by getting things done?

How can we look underneath or beyond the anxiety and see what the deeper parts of ourself are trying to express?

That's what I want to use this episode to do.

I want to invite overwhelm in for a nice cup of coffee,

Maybe with some Keto gingerbread eggnog super creamer.

Shout out.

Perhaps a decaf.

Tea.

More coffee,

Please.

Yeah.

Caffeine.

Let's give it Revin.

And see what it has to show us,

What it has to share with us about ourselves.

And I'm hoping we can do that by asking questions like,

What is here right now in terms of overwhelm?

Why might it be here right now?

What caused or created this feeling?

How has it served me in the past?

And what am I believing about myself that's creating this state of rushing from thing to thing to thing?

I am hoping that by engaging with overwhelm in this kind of fundamentally different way where we're not hooked by it,

But we're curious about it,

That maybe we can learn some stuff about ourselves and come out the other side with some new tools.

So with all of that stuff,

I want to ask Annie,

Where do you struggle with overwhelm?

And what does that experience feel and look like for you?

And what happens when you try to engage your overwhelm using questions like the ones I just asked?

Thanks,

Ella.

Thank you for those thoughtful questions,

Too.

Overwhelm has changed so much in my life.

So I just want to share briefly about what it was like before even a year ago.

And before I started getting anxiety under control,

Overwhelm used to look like brain fog.

Full inability to prioritize,

Freeze state all the time,

And taking super long to get work done,

Avoiding anything that confused me,

And then taking lots of lots of busy tasks to feel like I'm doing stuff.

But really,

It was denial of overwhelm.

And when you were talking about like what's underneath of that,

It was this really real sense that I was incapable,

That I wasn't good enough,

Somehow that accomplishing or succeeding was bad,

But also failing was bad.

It was just real chaos in my brain.

What moved me initially out of that freeze state was therapy,

Also starting an SSRI,

Which for me helped balance out my brain chemicals.

My brain had been so disordered,

And I didn't know this too,

But it was a lot of trauma effects on my brain,

Which can make a brain very chip choppy and disorganized.

And I didn't understand anything that was happening,

And I didn't know that.

But before any of that even came to light,

The SSRI helped ease this kind of like metal panic cage that was on my brain.

So then that overwhelm didn't feel like it was just this constantly swooping me away.

So all of this has changed so much.

And just on that SSRI,

I started taking it in 2013.

So it's been over six years.

I am now below a therapeutic dose and alternating every day with zero.

So five milligrams and zero milligrams.

And in two weeks,

I'm going to be completely off of it.

So I'm not advocating either way for medication for anybody else.

But for me,

It was a tool that helped me go from a place where my brain was not functioning very well.

And now I don't need it anymore.

Today what it looks like is using prayer,

Settling into hard work,

Asking for courage and strength from my higher power and the ability to notice overwhelm and not get consumed by it.

And so before all of this,

Like before the trauma started getting healed,

Before I had this SSRI tool,

I couldn't just use prayer and things to try to pray my way out of it because it was like my brain was overwhelmed.

That's just the best way to put it.

So when you asked what it looks like now,

Ella,

The biggest thing for me of where overwhelm comes up is resistance to routine.

And I have this story in my head that I'm this bohemian,

Creative,

Free spirit,

And that routine is actually really bringing me down.

And the most that I get overwhelmed is when I resist having a routine.

I had the really great example of this because our plants kept barely being alive and my wife kept saying,

What if you watered them the same day every week?

I'm like,

Why is she just trying to pin me down all the time and tie me to this life?

I'm far too spontaneous to water the same plants the same day.

And about a month ago,

I started watering them every Sunday and they are so happy.

The plants are thriving,

Makes me feel good.

And it's just this funny thing of like,

I used to get stressed out about the plants every time I looked at them and now I don't worry because it's like it's in this routine.

So that's going to be part of my tool.

Thank you.

Thanks,

Annie.

How about you,

Pony?

Oh,

Great.

There's so much to look at here with overwhelm.

And what I can say is that I liked how we were talking and how you just right away got into it about this overwhelmed state that's always been here.

And because it's always been here,

I almost can't notice that it's here.

And that's what I felt like about this is that I was born into an unconscious overwhelmed state and the people around me were either incredibly overwhelmed or completely underwhelmed,

Which I think in both cases,

It really leads to a frozen state.

And the unconscious overwhelmed state,

It has me weaving stories of whenever I'm overwhelmed,

I put so much meaning into the significance.

Yeah,

So it's the significance,

The meaning of what this overwhelm is pointing towards.

So if I need to get this,

This and this done,

And if I don't get this,

This and this done,

The significance behind that is I'm bad,

I'm not good,

It's not okay.

And so I'm living this overwhelm and it means so much.

It just means everything.

It has to do with my worth,

Who I am.

Yeah,

So recognizing my overwhelmed state at any moment,

It's like I'm weaving these stories of whatever is coming up next,

It's too much.

Oh,

My God,

I have to work tomorrow.

It's too much.

I don't want to.

These beliefs and the significance that I'm putting with this is actually what is creating my life.

And I've really been struggling with this a lot lately as I've noticed,

I've talked about it before,

But the catastrophizing fortune teller creating my reality.

I'm in there and I'm just talking about how it's all too much.

I can't do this.

It's too hard.

It's going to be too hard.

And that just keeps this overwhelm.

It's like feeding the fire to this overwhelm,

Just more overwhelmed,

More overwhelmed.

And then I do this interesting thing where I add more things to do because I'm overwhelmed as if I get these other little things that I've added in,

Then that's going to give me the self-esteem boost.

But what it does is again,

Perpetuate this state of overwhelm that I was already in from long time ago.

So how to recognize that I feel like there's this timer going off,

It's like beeping and then it starts beeping faster and then it's about to explode is the hum in the background that's going on here.

To recognize that there is no timer and that this story of if I get this all done,

Then I'll be worthy of living is really just this whole cycle that goes on for me that keeps this overwhelm just hummin that I'm almost completely unconscious of until I collapse.

That's my experience with overwhelm.

I'm having it right now.

Me too.

I'm so grateful that you guys are here and you've both done such an amazing job of articulating those feelings.

Gosh,

Yeah,

I really appreciate what it's like to hear my experience coming out of someone else and to feel so stuck and alone in this chronic anxious state and then recognize that it's just this shared experience.

Lindsay,

Thank you for doing such a really good job of exposing how overwhelm is a trap.

Because if we're believing what it's telling us,

Which is like I need to get all this stuff done to have self-esteem or believe that I'm worthy of taking up space today,

Then that keeps us trapped in that same cycle of overwhelm.

It feels so terrifying and counterintuitive for me to pause when I'm in that state of overwhelm and try to center and be in the present moment and see what's happening here.

But it is also so freeing.

I'm so glad that we have all these different ways to work with overwhelm.

I want to give a quick shout out to Carolyn Stewart on Insight Timer and her guided meditation called Overcoming Overwhelm.

It was really helpful for me and she poses a bunch of the questions I stated at the beginning of this episode.

When I was listening to this meditation and probing into the overwhelm of my own life,

I was feeling a lot of the same stuff that the cause of the feeling is there are all these really big life changes happening.

I'm afraid that if I really feel them,

I'm going to shut down completely.

I won't be able to function or live a normal life or do any of the things that I'm supposed to be doing.

The cause of the feeling is really this fear.

Overwhelm has served me in the past because when there's this uncontrollable life stuff going on,

I make a to do list.

Life all of a sudden feels really organized.

I have a straightforward path on how to be okay just today,

Get stuff done,

Put a neat box around it,

Check it off,

Cross it off,

I'm good.

That protects me from touching down into the stuff that is too devastating or incomprehensible to feel without being obliterated.

It's this safety thing my ego is doing to try to protect me.

The things I believe about myself are these feelings of real limitation that I'm not strong enough to handle this.

I can't take care of myself.

This ego shutdown protects me from really touching into these unfelt feelings.

Instead,

I'm distracted on the surface by this tornado because unconsciously or subconsciously I'm believing that I'm not strong enough to handle what's really going on.

That came as a really big shock to me because I was so in the thick of the overwhelm story that I was like,

Duff,

I want self-esteem.

I have to do all the things.

When I tapped in and did this meditation,

It was really helpful to see that believing the overwhelm story was just going to set me up for another cycle of overwhelm.

We're finally talking tools.

I want to look at what tools can help us find relief from overwhelm.

When we look at what we're believing about ourselves when we're in this state of overwhelm,

Seeing how those beliefs can keep us stuck or trapped.

How can we use these spiritual tools to engage with feelings of overwhelm to really probe and inquire like,

What is this?

Why is this happening right now?

Can I learn about myself from it instead of just believing the overwhelm stories and letting them run the show?

So Annie,

Would you like to kick us off with some overwhelm tools?

Yes.

Thank you,

Ella.

I'm excited to check out that meditation that you're talking about.

So I have a couple of tools and some of them are really surface level as far as just managing my body and its actions so that my brain doesn't flip up into that heightened state.

And they are really similar to what we were just talking about are actually like the ego distracting itself.

But for me,

Having a routine and sticking to the routine provides me some structure and some safety to where it doesn't,

I won't flip into that place.

And like I said,

I get very rebellious to the idea of a routine.

And it's so weird.

I don't know why my example of the plants was real.

I avoided that for I'm not kidding a year and my plants almost died.

I think that I'm losing something by committing to doing things consistently.

It's fear and it's rebellion.

A side example of this is I restarted writing the Sassy Romance novel.

And I'm saying I'm going to work on it every morning.

And I have a time that I've been working on every morning.

And all that seems like a bad idea to me.

And so I'm just doing it regardless.

Because in my head,

I'm like,

No one's ever going to publish it.

Or if it does get published,

People like it,

Then I won't be able to handle being successful.

Or if it gets published,

No one reads it,

I won't be able to handle failing.

All that stuff,

Ella,

That you were talking about and Pony,

You were talking about trying to know and control instead of me just taking the action of right now.

So part of this for me is just doing the action of today.

I get freedom in having structure underneath all of this stuff.

For me,

There is a lot of truth in doing a steamable acts brings me self-esteem.

And so I do need to do the things.

But then I can also get it really twisted up.

And I recently went to an event with my wife and a lot of her friends were there.

And many of them are quite accomplished.

And a couple of days later,

I commented to her about how I wish my professional life looked different than it did.

And she's like,

Annie,

I think that you're perfect as you are and that your professional life is wonderful.

And I'm really proud of you.

And I just didn't believe her.

I was like,

No,

It's not good enough.

So part of being separate from that overwhelm is how do I keep myself to the discipline of doing the tasks that I want to do?

And for me,

Using the freedom that I can find in structure to grow,

But also just letting myself be who I am right now.

And it really is confusing professionally because in my mind,

I'm like,

No,

You're not good enough,

Annie,

As you are right now.

You should be different.

And that's where that overwhelm kicks in.

I should be.

I'm not.

How do I get there?

Then coming back to like hear my wife's voice of,

Well,

I'm really proud of you.

And you're exactly you're doing so great.

And me not believing her and just letting that be the case and being like,

I don't believe her.

I don't believe that.

Okay.

What if I did believe it?

Would I not be overwhelmed?

Would I be okay with the way that I work right now?

Would I be okay with the work that I was doing?

How can I practice this as an opportunity for spiritual growth?

So that's what it looks like.

So cool,

Annie.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening.

Miss Pony,

What have you got for us?

Thanks everybody for sharing about this.

I really appreciate it.

And the first tool that I'm going to give out is from my partner.

And he really seems to have it all together.

Shout out.

I think that other people should do this and I wish I would.

And so I will just say that he has a time data taking app where he tracks all of the things that he does during the day so that he actually has.

I feel like my brain is going to melt right now.

Because then just like Ella,

You were talking about,

We do all these things during the day and then we're like,

Oh,

I haven't done anything,

But we haven't tracked the data of what we actually did.

So it's just kind of more of another way for us to punish ourselves and say we're not good enough when it's just not true.

So I'm putting,

I have yet to do that and I'm just going to put it out there because one day I believe that I could help myself and do that.

And until then I have beautiful examples in my life so I was going to share that with all of us.

For my specific piece,

My inability to recognize the overwhelm and then to put more on my plate to try and feel better by accomplishing something which just provides more overwhelm for me that comes in the pressure I put on myself and then the meaning that I give the outcome.

If I don't do this perfectly,

Then.

.

.

So great.

It's coming out.

This is overwhelm right here,

Right now.

I just want to say the right things.

What if I believed that what I'm saying is right right now?

Okay.

And that is one of my main basic tools,

But I was really trying to wrap this up in a beautiful bow for you of how I wanted to explain that I don't recognize my overwhelm and then I put a lot more pressure and the significance that I put on it that if,

Because I'm not saying this right,

I'm worthless.

And a really great tool is just a simple sentence which is,

What would you do?

How would you feel if you believed you were worthy and totally adequate in this moment?

And that is definitely one of my mantras is I am completely adequate in this moment and I say it all of the time.

And this is a very personal experience which I would have not gotten to without meditation and I just keep putting these little plugs in,

Just like Annie's talking about.

When we talk about routine and these little tools that we use on the constant that then add up,

That give us the ability to be able to see my broken core beliefs around my unworthiness,

My whatever that specific flavor,

My own environment that's going on.

If I'm not sitting down and just being with and being able to recognize and looking inward instead of just outward,

I'm not going to be able to see the overwhelm or the little ways I believe myself unworthy and all of the ways that I'm adding these things up.

So I'm just putting in a little tool for meditation as always,

However you can get to that so that you can really see what your internal environment is and how you're making that your external environment.

And then another great thing that I found in researching this is to recognize the significance,

So the meaning making that you're putting on this overwhelm.

If this is and this is done,

Then that means I'm worthy or I'm okay or I'll be somebody or I can take up space in this moment.

A sentence that I heard recently from a beloved friend that I love so much and that it's just been really quick for me to get out of my head and kind of more embodied and in this moment of believing myself adequate and okay is,

Don't make something out of something that isn't something.

Because that is really where I get into my overwhelm.

This has so much significance.

This means so much.

If I get this done or if these things are that,

I'm making something out of something that isn't something also known as meaning making.

Can I step back and look objectively at this?

So instead of it being so personalized of how this means something about me,

If I look at it,

If a friend was going through this,

If Ella or if Annie really believed that if she got these dishes done by the end of the day,

Then it really kind of sets me back and I can take so much of the meaning and the personalization out of it.

So those are just some ways to try and get there and you're doing so great wherever you are and I hope that I invite you into this moment to love yourself exactly as you are where you are.

Pony,

Thank you.

So sweet,

So perfect and beautiful.

You reminded me when you were talking about how we might be doing this inner work that we're not giving ourselves credit for.

I want to give a shout out to my aunt Donna who is here visiting and she told me a story about a boy she was tutoring and he was really having trouble understanding something and so they were really like breaking down sentences to try to understand helping him learn to read and at some point he got self-conscious about how long it was taking.

He said,

We're taking a really long time and she said,

Sometimes we go fast and sometimes we go deep and it was so helpful for me to be reminded that there's all of this daily spiritual work that I do that I just assume is handled,

Part of the equation.

Got to get it done.

Don't deserve any credit.

That is actually so much work,

Requires so much energy and perseverance and that it is actually the thing that sets me up to have,

It's like the foundation for a house where the way I lived life before was like,

Well,

The foundation is rotted out and full of termites but I'm going to put up this cheerful wallpaper and put a fresh coat of paint on the outside and call it a day.

And instead it's like we're doing all this inner work that is setting us up to have this really strong support for whatever we build on top of it.

It was so encouraging for me to be reminded that I'm doing work even if at the end of the day I'm like,

I have nothing to show for this.

And I love the affirmations too that you shared and what I say to myself when I can see the overwhelm and I'm trying not to pick it up,

I say,

I have more than enough time.

I have more than enough time.

I say that about money.

When I'm stressed about money,

I have more than enough money.

Or I say,

I have more than enough resources when I'm worried that I don't have enough physical stamina to show up for what's in front of me.

And the other thing that really helps me is to trust that whatever gets done today will be enough for today.

Whatever doesn't get done,

I can do it tomorrow or the day after that.

The overwhelm meditation did a really great job of looking at what it's like to hear the message of the overwhelm instead of getting hooked into it.

And so I just wanted to share some self-awareness I had after that meditation,

Which was that overwhelm distracts me from the huge feelings of grief and fear and kind of focuses me on just skimming the surface of my life.

And underneath that,

I saw that if I really feel my feelings,

I'll fall apart and I won't be able to do anything.

And then attached to that is this idea that if I'm not getting things done,

Then I can't have self-worth or self-esteem.

So there's this big fear that the feelings will crush me,

Then I won't be able to get any real integrity or self-esteem and that'll crush me even more.

And then that if I'm.

.

.

This was the really interesting one for me.

If I'm suffering so much being crushed to death by overwhelm and the weight of expectations that I'm putting on myself,

Then I have a very valid excuse to check out in these ways that cause me harm.

So getting on eBay for hours and hours or all these other things I do to self-soothe that end up not feeling great.

Most of them amount to avoiding my life.

And then at the end of this meditation,

She was asking,

What are your true wants or your true intentions?

My true want is to,

Like Pony was saying,

To love myself unconditionally.

And secretly my brain says,

Unconditional love is BS.

There's no such thing as that.

You get love because you're doing stuff.

So I can recognize I really want to trust that unconditional love is real and that it applies to me.

And then in this meditation,

She asked,

What do I need to do to move toward that today,

To move toward this true want or real intention?

And the things that I saw for myself were to stay,

To stay with being in the present instead of getting hooked by the tornado of overwhelm,

To ask a higher power for the strength to focus and do one task at a time.

When whenever I felt myself getting swept up by the tornado,

I could come back to that prayer that I can live from the inside out,

Even though part of me thinks that that's not good enough and that I can give myself permission to do all the things that help me feel safe and cared for.

And that when I'm doing those things,

Then I have more trust that me feeling overwhelmed isn't a mistake or something bad,

That it's really this experience that needs my attention.

And I can actually practice using overwhelm as a pathway home and forgive myself for,

You know,

Just the stuff that human brains do.

It's not personal and it doesn't make me bad.

It's just what's here right now.

So we're hopeful that this overwhelm episode hasn't totally overwhelmed you.

But if it has,

We can understand.

And we want to know what kind of tools you use to deal with overwhelm in your life and how they're working for you.

If you want to listen to that meditation,

We'll have a link up on our tools tab on our website.

We sure will.

So if you're interested in listening to our podcast,

We have a link up on our website on our website,

Getinetouch.

Com.

You can send us a message from the get in touch part of our website.

You can also say,

Hey,

You can also visit us on Instagram and tell us about what your overwhelm is like or not like.

Pony,

What are you going to talk about next week?

This is very exciting.

Next week,

We are going to talk about spiritual growing pain.

Wow.

Here we go.

Hurtin already.

We love you.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

Bye.

Reviews

Thank you! I was listening to this as I was stressingly watering my plants. Chastising myself for not "just picking the same day each week to do it." I also rebel against the routine that I know provides safety and peace. I found this podcast helpful for understanding "the why" - if I do all the things, only then will I be worthy. Appreciate the reminder to cancel that very unhelpful thought. Thanks again!

Always excellent stuff from these gals. And they’re funny.

Thank you ladies really useful insightful podcast ❤️

WOW. I am AMAZED at how much I just learned from you all! You have opened my eyes and given me some huge Aha's - namely, the Link btwn trauma and my dizzying episodes of overwhelm. Its like I'm constantly re-creating a "trauma loop"! Thank you for your openness and vulnerability, you all were wonderful!

So good!!!! 🙏🏻. Loved your complete honesty and completely related. Thank you so much.

🌿✨💜✨🌿 Thank you. Xxx

Omg, fairy goddess sisters, this episode spoke to my heart, my mind, and the core of my overwhelm. Thank you, infinite pranams and deep bows of sincere gratitude for your vulnerability, perspective and insight, as well as mission to support the Community in this way. I’ve been experiencing so much overwhelm the last weeks and even months due to life being unstable and the resurfacing of some deep, toxic core beliefs wrapped up in “old tapes”. Mediation, mantra, and movement help! So do support groups, walks in nature, salt scrubs and letting the tears flow. Also, the support of western meds is helping me come back to balance. One day at a time. Sincere thanks. Peace and blessings, Light squad. Xx

Another great podcast! So many helpful tools for overwhelm and also helpful to hear I’m not alone. Loved Ella’s aunt’s mantra “sometimes we go fast, sometimes we go deep.” 🙏🏽❤️

Great insights from all you ladies! We all fall to overwhelm at points in our life. It’s what we do with it that makes the difference.

Thanks for the recommended meditation you mentioned. I will definitely check it out.

Have a great day ladies and I’ll see you next week. 💜

Everyone can benefit from this! It’s so authentic, down-to-earth, and compassionate. ‘Let’s invite Overwhelm for a cup of tea!’ ☕️💗