Can we have a chat about overwhelm?
It’s a cautionary tale.
I think it’s like an oil slick, let’s start there …
When an oil spill happens at sea you’re shown the picture of an upside down stranded tanker, poisonous liquid floating around it for miles and miles.
Then the images of the affect the spill is having on all the ecosystems in it’s path are shown to you. Dead birds and marine life. Wildlife being rescued and cleaned up by volunteers.
Next are the stories from the inhabitants of towns and villages living on the coast where the spill has reached. They speak about how it will impact their lives that day and in the years to come. The clean up is going to take months, sometimes years. The recovery will be a slow process and the impact long.
It’s hostile.
Unforgiving.
Once it spills, it’s too late to do anything about it. That oil isn’t going to back in the tanker.
Back to overwhelm.
My experience of overwhelm comes from my business (your external could be different). I believed it was my business creating the overwhelm, but the truth (hindsight is lovely don’t ‘ya know) is I created it.
And it got really messy. So destructive I would say it took about two years to clean up fully.
Today, I am in the maintenance. In recovery. Aware of what can happen if I let the external events change the internal thinking, so (for me) it’s lots of preventative measures to make sure that I don’t overturn again and strand myself again.
Let me explain,
A few years ago I thought I was just really busy in my business.
I had this screwed up idea and belief that it was some right of passage for little biz owners to: work average 100+ hour work weeks, get 4 hours sleep a night, spend free time checking and answering emails, saying two words to loved ones (Morning & Goodnight), missing out on the connection with loved ones.
I thought it was perfectly normal that my plate was always full.
I taught myself that I mustn’t be working hard enough unless I had something I had to be doing, starting, finishing, creating and building. That other people appeared to manage it all, so I could had buckle down and get on with it.
The messages I read daily at the time said, ‘Be bigger, bolder, better. Play a bigger game. Make a bigger impact. Be more successful. Demand more from yourself. You must be doing this, this, this, this, this or your business will faaaiiilllll’.
Usually followed by some offer of a £2k course that would show me how to be and do all those things by the end of the week! And much much more, in the bonuses!
Work. Work. Work. Full steam ahead. Plowing through. No time to refuel or take in a port for a bit sightseeing. I didn’t stop. Step back.
I slowly began to resent my business,
No, actually that’s not accurate, at first I began to feel nothing towards it.
I began to not care. Even though all the time I had was spent on it, every day I was moving further away from the reason why I started. I told you it was a cautionary tale!
I cared about clients. Any energy I did have for all areas of my life was reserved for them only. But mostly, looking back, I had no motivation and was seriously lacking in the old passion department.
Tired?
Yep. Always. But on I sailed.
Taking ages to complete tasks or start them?
Certainly. Often. Days of doing, but not doing much. Frustration.
Unable to focus?
Squirrels! Yes.
Lost the use of language?
Yep. Totally. I remember staring at the cooker one day and couldn’t for the life of me remember that it was called ‘a cooker’. Brain freeze.
And, making mistakes. No oomph, vavavoom, totally ignoring everything I taught others, I didn’t apply any of it on myself.
Self-care?
Nope. I didn’t even manage to care enough to take a shower some days.
It finally got to the point where I couldn’t even look at any part of my business. I would feel sick when emails came in. I would snap, react, get angry at small requests from loved ones.
I’d created my own oil slick and it was w-a-y out of control, dictating what could and couldn’t happen in all areas of my life, and impacting everything in it’s path.
I was the sea, and part of my thinking (nearly every thought) was the oil tanker. I knew that it had run aground.
I was moving. Some days. But mostly spinning.
And I was changing everything that lived in my little coast: if you spoke to my beloved now they would shiver in horror at this time. They would say say to you it was like living with an emotional time bomb. That they tiptoed around me just in case they said the wrong thing.
I hadn’t seen what I had slammed into coming. Not until it was too late.
What I thought was a busy, normal, everyone in business feels this was overwhelm.
I had been teetering on the brink, heading for burn out. Not noticing that I had toddled into the deep pan, totally fried. Which is a bit rich for a coach!
My wish is that this isn’t familiar to you. If it is. You can do something. You can.
Fried
I knew that I wasn’t getting enough sleep (falling asleep at the computer with fingers on the keys was the biggest hint), I thought I was just feeling the strain a little when I would cry at the to-do list I created. Cry? Yes. Cry. As in sob. I would read articles about ‘How to Cope With Overwhelm!’ Sorry, how to cope with overwhelm doesn’t make sense?! More coping?!
Mentally: eh, what, I dunno.
Physically: zzzzzzzzz.
Emotionally: up and down over a very volatile sea. Or in bed taking a nap.
You’d think the realisation you had hit the rocks would be a relief.
Sadly, no. Well, not in this tale.
I discovered there was another layer under the rock. I want to share it with you, it’s there, you don’t have to make the trip.
When you’re utterly emotional and mentally paralysed (overwhelm), and when you believe you just can’t walk away (for me it was a business), you move into emergency mode, everything is reactionary.
You know you’re burnt out with hardly any energy left. But muster the mojo you must to make sure you that the bare minimum somehow happens.
And the next stage?
No more. It’s no longer a question, ‘I must slow this down’ and ‘Things must change’.
You’re stopped.
FroZen.
Nothing left to give.
You aren’t going anywhere until you admit you’ve created a problem.
Because when you reach the point of nothing more to give, you aren’t going to spill, you’ve spilled. And it moves from prevention into clean up.
I could have prevented it. Simple. Simple. Simple. (Self-care, plan, quit the perfectionist thinking, step back among a few). But I didn’t. I didn’t see the rocks coming until it was too late.
Funny, I am thinking of something I heard someone said once in a marketing course which was, ‘There is always a period of breakdown before a breakthrough’, and I’m thinking now I took it to it’s extreme to find out if it were true. What a pile of BS. It’s not true.
“I was being slowly suffocated by too many layers of blankets. So many priorities that I couldn’t decide which one to start first. Kind of like standing in one of those hurricane-money booths trying to snatch as much cash flying around me as possible and failing to grab any.” Client
The Recovery
I wish I could give a check-list of what to do. All I know is this,
All journeys of recovery are personal ones taken (sometimes with support).
You already know what you need to do to stay healthy, some say: sleep, exercise, stepping away, nature, walks, hobbies, asking for help, time to rejuvenate, speaking to people, nourish, self-care, taking time out (from the content), resting, learning. And, the biggie, the place to begin, changing your thoughts.
Let’s cover a couple of those …
1. Sleep (Of The Quality Variety)
I have no idea how much you need but I’m an eight hours a night peep, you? So many studies have been carried out on sleep and mental-well-being and the need for getting quality sleep. Sleep Matters The Impact of Sleep and Mental Well Being
But if you don’t have time to read that (because you’re too busy … seriously?) why not begin with being honest with yourself about your sleep habits, patterns and needs. You’ll know if you’re depriving yourself of enough shut eye. And you’ll also know when you are sleeping to cope with the overwhelm.
You cannot run on empty. Ever.
“I didn’t realise how overwhelmed with everything I was until I didn’t get up one day. Really, I just couldn’t get up, I wanted to hide. The alarm went of at 6 am, and I knew I wouldn’t be home until 10 that night and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I hid. The next day I hid. The third day I handed in my notice at work. (It had been horrendous for about 18 months). It took me a year to feel like me again. What did I do? I cried. A lot. And then I asked my friends for help.” Client
2. And Then Get Brutal
I know, you may be thinking brutal is an odd word to use, here’s what I mean …
There is no point telling yourself ‘things must change’, then do something different for a couple of days and then slip back into the old ways.
Examples: if you set yourself a new boundary that you will not answer emails, pick up the phone or check social media after a certain time at night. Be merciless with your promise to yourself. Stick. To. It. Thinking: I have to be available for everyone. New thought: I choose to be available to my own needs.
If you set specific hours in which to, say, work and then close the door, do it. Stick to your plan. Thinking: I have too much to do to simply walk away, one more thing will save me time tomorrow. New thought: I am a human being. Not a human doing. I choose to renew myself every day because I want to create from my core. Whatever works for you.
Write a list. Write down how the external overwhelms you and – more importantly – your thoughts around those events. What are your new thoughts?
Brutal – love yourself enough to be ruthless with acknowledgement of your own needs. You’re mental health matters. It does.
3. Set & Maintain Personal Boundaries (They Keep You Healthy)
Most of us have never even considered what our own personal boundaries are.
I think one of the reasons I became so overwhelmed was because I said yes to everyone and everything. I said yes to answering emails in the middle of the night. I said yes to can I pick your brain requests. I said yes to website help, blogging help, can you create this for me help.
I’m not saying become a cold fish and turn your back on others. Not at all. Part of setting and maintaining your personal boundaries is about being able to express them to others. Being honest about what you can and can’t possibly manage.
Is that not more loving for both of you? For me it was as simple as respecting my own time, resting, being fully there for people with energy, not a on half empty.
4. Unlearn
I said right at the start of this post that I created my overwhelm. But, if you had said to me at the time, ‘Dawn you’re doing this to yourself’, I’ll admit I would have fought you on you’re thinking (like I did with my beloved).
I told you at the beginning what I had heard this week, ‘I feel like I’m spinning my wheels’ (doing a lot, but getting nothing done, frantic, unfocused, messy). But more interestingly how many of those same people have said that with space in-between. Last week they spoke of spinning, two months ago they were feeling great (calm, on top of things) and then three months ago they were spinning.
They are in overwhelm. In extremes. Full steam ahead or one foot on the gas, back and forth. O-v-e-r-w-h-e-l-m-e-d.
Unless you work the inner, the outer isn’t going to change.
The learning is simple: learn what overwhelm really is (your thinking about the external), learn how to look after yourself but before those, learn you matter.
My business did not create my overwhelm. I took on too much, tried to get done a weeks activities in a morning, wanted to be there for everyone and everything. I was trying to learn everything at once. I created these thoughts that I had to be up to speed on everything available to me. My doing. All of it.
Familiar? Do this – talk to someone (with regards you’re overwhelming thinking). Don’t vent. Talk. Big difference. You can’t see the woods from the trees right now, so speak to someone you trust who can help you with another perspective. And don’t fight them. And speak often. Who to? Start with the person who supports you the most. And be ferociously loving with your own self-care.
We consistently focus on self care in The Moxie Project (starts Monday), and at first people are embarrassed about talking about their own emotional, physical and mental needs.
Because to admit our needs we have to ‘fess up to what we are denying and depriving ourselves of.
5. Look After Respect & Nurture (As If You’re Life Depended On It) Your Needs: Emotional, Physical & Mental (Or What Are You Denying Yourself?)
We’ve already mentioned sleep. How do you care for yourself? How do you look after your own needs? Do you eat well? Eat enough? Do you take time to rejuvenate and renew? Do you know your triggers? Do you take enough time out? Are you getting enough exercise? Are you hydrated? Are you spending time with those you love? Are you saying yes and no to requests made of you that you want to say yes and no to? How’s your mindset? Are you able to speak well of yourself? Are you resting your creativity? Are you recharging? What can you do without? Are you asking for help when needed? Do you have a support network? Are you connected? Centred? Are your priorities in the right order? Are you aligned with your values? Doing too much?
Phew, we could be asking these all day.
In short,
Are you taking into account what you need to stay healthy (emotionally, physically and mentally) and are you caring, protecting and maintaining it as if your life depended on it?
Because it is.
I don’t ask anyone to believe what I say. But this I own,
The quality of all areas of your life depends on you being emotionally, physically and mentally healthy.
What are you depriving yourself of?
Is overwhelm part of your story? How did you/are you recover(ing) from it? What happened? Care to share? Maybe your story can help someone else. And if you need to step back, The Moxie Project just might be the most loving thing you can do for yourself and get another perspective.
