Overhelm, oh my

Overhelm happens.

Then it ends.

Ah, overwhelm. A zillion reasons why it happens. It’s normal (I think?), but it doesn’t feel good.

o·ver·whelm

to surge over and submerge; engulf

Fortunately, overwhelm in its natural state looks like this:

It happens. And it ends.

Unfortunately, there’s a spectrum.

Sometimes I don’t know which intensity I’m dealing with. I think it’s because I don’t want to feel what’s going on in my body (who wants to feel overwhelmed?), so I stay in my head and need a little more help figuring it out.

Am I about to have a meltdown? Am I managing? Also this: Am I trying to take severe overwhelm and manage it? That’s the wrong move. And this: Am I panicking about low-level overwhelm? That’s the wrong move too.

Somehow thinking about it this way helps me get a better understanding of what’s happening in both me and my body. And that helps me feel a little more capable and in control—otherwise, overwhelm has a tendency to land me in helpless and hopeless territory, not to mention the territory of this-will-never-end.

And since I have a tendency to just keep going and plowing through, it also helps me understand what my body needs.

Oh! Rest. Right.

Rest helps me move through it.

Getting stuck in overwhelm is way worse than dealing with and moving through the overwhelm in the first place. So I find time for rest. Of course, other things help too.

Return to zero.

I love zero.