How to Free Yourself From the Top 10 Causes of Overwhelm Show # 25

Let’s start with a definition of Overwhelm

1. To bury or drown beneath a huge mass
2. To defeat completely
3. Give too much of a thing to someone
4. To have a strong emotional effect
5. Be too strong for, overpower

Which definition do you resonate with?  There is a clue here to what triggers overwhelm, make note of it as you may want to investigate further.

I know, if you reading you’re suffering right now from overwhelm or you have in the past.

Maybe you’re working intensely long hours and don’t see an end in sight, or you are putting off projects and the stress is wearing you down, or maybe your relationship is on the edge and you don’t know what to do. 

Does it feel like life just keeps throwing you difficulties almost to test you?

Here is one thing I know for sure.

Ignoring overwhelm makes things worse.  Overwhelm is a message, a very serious message from your unconscious mind.

Not to share you but studies have shown “The most common time for a heart attack to occur is Monday morning.”  I am sure you can surmise why.

Overwhelm is communicating to you that something is wrong. You may know that is wrong, but there may be a hidden cause of overwhelm.  It is now your job to determine what that is, but how can you when you are in the midst of overwhelm?

You may think that simply getting the project done with keep overwhelm at bay.

Here is the thing;  the overwhelm doesn’t go away when you finish the project does it?  Overwhelm just goes to another area of your life, right?

You know you need to get the project done, but when you are in the midst of an emotional meltdown how can you force yourself to solve the problem when the head is spinning?

You need instant access to your emotional resources to think creatively instead of burning up your life force in stress?
I am sure you already know this…

When you under pressure and stress your body goes into fight, flight or freeze mode. We prepare ourselves to react immediately and strongly to a perceived threat. 

Throughout evolution, this is how the lower ancient brain reason learned to respond to acute stress. 

The problem is that this instinctive response is meant to be temporary, lasting no more than a few minutes.  If llow-leveldaily stress, the kind we are all exposed to starts to trigger such a strong response it calls up emotional fuel to handle something that is not appropriate to handle in that manner.  

We can’t fight or run away from or be paralyzed by life situations or people that disturb or distress us.  But the lower brain doesn’t reason this out it simply reacts.

If you get into a pattern of overreacting it becomes a habit. We need to realize that we are all under low level chronic stress that the brain’s response can’t effectively solve.  It needs our higher reasoning brain to solve the problem and handle challenging life situations.

And modern life never runs out of new ways to stress us out!

So what do we end up doing?  We try to manage stressful situations by suppressing our reaction which means we are training ourselves to get used to anxiety rather than heal it.

Fortunately there are ways to exist in the front lines of stress while remaining in conscious control, calm, centered and free of anxiety.

You can learn new coping mechanisms for when stress arises.

The mind in its natural state is always calm and free of agitation.  Now most of us may only feel that when we are mediating, relaxing on vacation or when we are waking up in the morning. 

But realize that is our natural state and it is possible to change how we react to stressful events.

The mind is self-correcting and it wants to return to a state of balance.  When we operate from that natural state anxiety steadily decreases.

In its place we experience a calm, centered state which has always existed beneath the turmoil. Like the still silent depths of a lake undisturbed the storms of life on the surface of the lake can rage on but we remain calm.  

Therefore the first action step is to stop fighting anxious feelings and worries that seem to pop up.  Anything we resist persists.  

Fear is persuasive it tries to convince us that the fear is true and real. 

These warnings attract our unconscious mind’s attention to resolve it and it may not be even real.  But a part of us believes it so all our attention goes to handle the imaginary problem.

When we stop believing and paying attention to the fear our mind gets filled with or suppressing it through distraction it begins to lose its power over us. 

Better yet, we can learn how to take charge of the unconscious mind so that it reacts and responds with natural calmness then we have truly freed ourselves from overwhelm.  

Listen to this radio show to get inside the 10 to reasons for overwhelm and what you can do about it.