During our last blog post, we discussed how to manage being overwhelmed. Today, we are offering practical tips that you can use to feel more centered.1. Find the present moment.
Sometimes, our discomfort, worry, and negative feelings can be so loud that they feel all-consuming. In these moments, they can feel forever. But feelings often wax and wane, some days better than others. If you are upset, take note, but don’t let it run the show. Instead, remember that tomorrow is another day, another chance to try again.
2. Identify Your Patterns and Use Safe Relationships To Help
Certain patterns are common with negative feelings, such as over-fixating or avoiding. Notice which ones you tend to get pulled into to give yourself some support next time you are overwhelmed. It might look like:
An over-fixator tends only to see the current stress and struggles to let go and allow things to unfold naturally. They over-worry and over-prepare, struggling not to become derailed by minor annoyances.
If this rings true for you, practice trusting the process and find someone who can help you come back to yourself when you feel overwhelmed. In a relationship, you could say, “When x happens, I worry something might go wrong, and I’m aware I need a lot of reassurance. One thing that might help me is if you do y. Then I can practice letting go, and we can both get our needs met.”
On the other hand, an avoider seems unaware of their emotions or the emotional state of others until they are boiling over with feelings (which tends to be anger but not necessarily). They will avoid, avoid, avoid until they snap, and then they either become angry or retreat.
If this rings true for you, practice catching what we call “young anger”. Next time someone upsets you, provide live feedback in the moment so that you can get your needs met when they are small rather than letting them build up. In relationships, you could say, “When x happens, I feel y, and I need your help ensuring we stay in a good place so I don’t get overwhelmed and explode.”
Of course, the above examples are not rigid, and we can all do both given the day and circumstance, but it’s important to know where you tend to fall on many occasions.
3. Come To Terms With Life
To live gracefully, we must come to terms with the natural limitations of life. Sadly, we cannot do everything all the time all at once at every stage of life, or we will be left defeated, exhausted, and overwhelmed.
For example, if you’ve chosen to have children, it would be difficult to work 100 hours a week while traveling a lot for vacation, writing the next best-selling novel while learning Mandarin, studying the art of oil painting, and being a great parent. As any parent knows, being a great parent requires tons and tons of tons of time. As well as tons and tons and tons of patience. Being a great parent means being a loving caregiver, listener, boundary-setter, teacher, and role model, as well as a willingness to learn, get it wrong all the time, repair, and do it all over again tomorrow. Because all of that is happening many times over the course of any given day with small children. It can wear you down if you are not rested, resourced, and in a half-way decent mental space. But that’s true of nearly anything meaningful. Any meaningful endeavor requires the same thing – love, care-giving, listening, boundary-setting, teaching, role-modeling, learning, mistakes, repairs, and willingness to do it all over again tomorrow. We become masters by showing up so that even the smallest of actions becomes a chance to practice our craft. And learning to master something is a worthy endeavor all in itself.
So next time overwhelm strikes, remember the keys above and practice taking a deep breath, stepping back, and learning more about yourself.
