A Guaranteed Method to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed
I remember, so often before I actually had the tools to deal with my own sense of stress and anxiety, a feeling of time standing still. A suffocating squeezing of my throat or a tight pressure on my chest made me want to just disappear. There were times when I felt like I just wanted to die.
I would be desperate for that feeling to be over. I recall miniscule incidents bringing on this disproportionate feeling as though I was going to implode.
Examples of these perpetrators are as follows: a nurse rambling about something that could be solved in a few seconds or wasting time listening to mediocre elevator music or a hospital’s name over and over again describing their talent in providing quality care while I waited what felt like years for someone to pick up after immediately returning a page.
The truth: We create our own stress in countless ways.
Trying to live an Instagrammable life.
Curating our children’s childhoods like a Pinterest board.
Aiming to be perfect which will never happen.
Trying to control everything and everyone around us while neglecting to look within, a far more difficult undertaking.
Feeling trapped in our jobs and homes.
This sense of doom made me terribly unhappy. I felt so unfulfilled and really uncomfortable in my own skin. Years of this coupled with the factor that forced me to make changes, becoming a mother, led me to coaching.
In the spirit of concision, I will say my number one method to dealing with this discomfort was to actually begin noticing it in my body followed by the seemingly impossible task of sitting with it instead of wishing it would disappear or trying to force it out. Permitting discomfort made me realize it wasn’t as harmful as I originally thought. No one wants to feel that squeezing up their throat or pressure in their chest; however once you actually hang out with it for a bit like an old and tired friend, you can see it means no harm.
Once I could notice and live in harmony with my own sense of overwhelm, so much of the resistance that caused my prior suffering was extinguished. Furthermore, loving and caring for myself before focusing on those around me simplified my life. Previously complex situations now were so much clearer.
Additionally, realizing I didn’t have to insist on living a life that did not align with who I was eliminated so much unnecessary angst. That lack of alignment caused so much resistance and suffering for me I didn’t even realize until I began listening to myself.
Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed is a page-turner every woman approaching middle-age should read. Her memoir outlines her journey towards listening to the voice in her head she’d been hitherto ignoring. She learns to fight for what she truly wants in spite of the fact that her deepest desires are against everything she’d believed in and had been taught. She shakes shit up so rigorously and in the end, emerges finding her way. Today she is more at peace and happier than she’s ever been.
This story doesn’t have to be her’s alone.
This is mine.
This can be yours.
There is nothing out there actually stopping you except for yourself.