5 Step Emotional Overload Reset

My five step reset when my emotions are overloaded. The world has been crazy lately and the constant news updates can trigger emotional overload. This is what I do when I am triggered by something and it all feels overwhelming.

Resources

🤲🏼 Reiki for Grounding - this Reiki video will help you find calm, relaxation and spiritual grounding. Great for when you are overwhelmed and need help connecting. Includes 174 hz music to aid in the grounding.

📰 Environmental Self-Care - your space matter to your mental wellbeing. Just as I use it to calm my mind, there are other impacts to you and your spiritual life. Learn more in this article about how to tend your space.

🎥 Identify Your Emotions with Your Body - sometimes it is hard to name your emotion. This guided meditation taps into the wisdom of your body to help you uncover the emotions you are carrying. Available on YouTube and Podcast Episode 72

📩 Weekly spiritual lessons you can use in your daily life
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to this week's Spiritual Insight. This week I want to talk about how we can handle when we have emotional overload. The past few months feel like there's been so much going on, so much world news, so much things that just make us feel like we're on a roller coaster and are constantly creating difficult energy. And when things are constantly changing and constantly pivoting, we suffer emotionally and usually in the form of we cannot handle one more emotional pivot, one more big emotional event to show up. We get to the point where when that one more thing shows up that we can't handle, we shut down, maybe we burst into tears, or maybe we feel like we want to burst into tears and we kind of just want to climb back in bed, put our head under the pillow, and ignore everything. And I know I can speak from personal experience. I have been there a lot lately, and you're fine one minute. You might wake up great, and then all of a sudden, a new piece of information comes in and it just triggers that urge. It triggers that emotional overload. Recently, I had one as small as I opened the weather app and I didn't like the weather, and it just was too much. I needed a bright sunny day. I needed beautiful Simpson type clouds, and that wasn't happening. And I almost wanted to cry. So I'm gonna share with you what I do when I hit this point, and it's exactly what I did after I saw that weather forecast. That really wasn't all that bad. It just wasn't what I wanted. So, first step, number one, I take a time out. When you are overloaded, when you are overwhelmed, the best thing that you can do for yourself is give yourself a break. And everybody, everybody is allowed to have a regroup moment. So please give that to yourself because we all need a quiet minute to just breathe and regroup. When I was actively parenting with my son at home, it got to the point where I would just look at him and go, I need a mommy time out. And I would go to my room and take a five-minute deep breathing exercise and allow myself that time. It doesn't matter what you're doing, it is just that you take this moment, even if it's just a few minutes, to give yourself a timeout. Now, the next thing I do, I usually do during my timeout, and that's allow myself to feel my emotions. It is very important that you take the time to feel those overwhelming emotions. They are not going anywhere. We tend to want to shove them aside, power through, but if we give ourselves a minute to sit with the emotion, it begins to move through our body and actually release itself. This allows us to better manage any situation that comes towards us. So what I first do is name the feeling or feelings. So for example, I am feeling overwhelmed, I'm panicked, I'm angry. And then after you've named them, just sit with that emotion and notice where it flows in your body. You don't have to analyze it, you are not micromanaging it, you are simply being with the emotion. That's it. Nothing else required. So after you've allowed yourself the time to feel that emotion and let it process through your body, the next thing you can do is journal about the overwhelm. When I am super overwhelmed and there's a lot going on, I personally prefer the brain dump technique. Again, this isn't even about analyzing yet, it's about releasing everything that is overwhelming you. And the brain dump is perfect for this. This is where you write down everything in your mind, making sure to start with the stuff that's really overwhelming, but just get it all out. Get it on to paper. For example, you might write down, I am overwhelmed with the weather forecast, I have a meeting with my boss that's stressing me out, the kids have a baseball game tonight, I still haven't figured out dinner, and my in-laws are coming tomorrow. By writing those thoughts down, you're actually freeing your mind and allowing your nervous system to recognize that those concerns have been somewhat addressed, which helps you move forward. There have been studies in the past that have shown we can only hold about seven things in our conscious mind at a time. So the brain dump allows your mind to go, phew, all right, I'm better, things are gonna be okay. And this allows you to start moving forward. Now, caution on the brain dump. Don't go into analyzing mode. It's not about problem solving, but clearing your mind and your emotions so you can have a clean slate to work from. Now, if you need some journal prompts to get started, here are three that will help you. What am I stressed about right now? What am I worried about right now? And what am I worried about for someone else? I put that last one in there for the empath and highly sensitives out there. A lot of times we end up taking on other people's worries. I also put that in there for the parents. A lot of times we tend to worry about stuff for our kids, even when they're adults. I am completely guilty of this. I worry even when it is literally no longer my responsibility. And so we want to get all of those things onto paper. Now, the next step is to do an energetic reset. So after you've calmed down, you felt your emotions, you've cleared your mind, now we tackle getting your body to reset. Intense emotions come with a physical impact. And while the steps that we have already done will help with physical release, there are extra steps that you can take to ensure you are actually getting a full reset. So when I am doing my full reset, my go-to tools are grounding. So connecting with nature, touching earth. If you cannot get outside, you can use a visualization technique to get that grounding. The next tool I use is Reiki. I love a quick Reiki video to help me recenter. And yes, even as a Reiki master, I default to a pre-recorded video in this situation because it takes the stress off and allows me to just soak in the energy. And then my third go-to is exercise. It is a wonderful way to remove excess energy, allow yourself to mentally let go even more. It doesn't have to be a full workout. I will often go for a walk. Even just five minutes can be a big difference. I do this so often that when when my son was growing up, and even now, I will say to him, I am going to take a lap. And he knows that means I'm going out for a walk. Side note to the parents out there, they watch what you do. My son, now, when he is stressed and needs to clear his head, goes for a walk. So it is actually really, really helpful. So practice with a few and decide which is best for you. Remember, we are all different. Now, the final step that I do, and I do this in the moment, but honestly, when I know I'm at this place where I'm kind of on that edge of emotional overload, I implement this one just on an ongoing basis, and that is reduce external inputs. I usually start this in the timeout, and then I will actually continue it for the rest of the day. I turn off all sounds and noises that I can control, such as loud music or phone alerts. The do not disturb is brilliant. And parents who are worried about not being in contact, you can set it so that only your favorites can get through. So even when I put it on do not disturb, my son is able to get through, so is my sister. So that is a fantastic way to just get some of that noise out of there. If you don't control the noise, then put on some noise canceling headphones just to block everything out. Sometimes, actually quite a bit, I even sleep with earplugs to just reduce that noise because all impact inputs are actually impacting you. And so if you can pull some of those out, it's really helpful. And depending on how overwhelmed I am, I may also dim the lights or move to a smaller room where there may be less clutter or I won't see as much of the clutter. Studies have shown that clutter impacts our mental health. So even a room that is clean but has a lot of stuff in it can actually impact your emotional overwhelm. So, for example, my main living room is one large space. It contains the kitchen, the living room, the office, and it is a lot to take in. So on days I am emotionally overwhelmed, I will actually move into my bedroom to work. The less that you have coming at you, the easier it is for you to manage it all. And this is especially important if you are an empath or a highly sensitive, because it can put you into empath overload. And then you have a completely different situation. Now, I want to add a special call out here on reducing inputs because this includes digital inputs. You want to reduce any digital inputs coming at you that might trigger another emotional overload. So, for example, reducing exposure to social media and news, because they can be a very big trigger, even if you're just picking up the energy of what you're looking or watching. Try and limit yourself to one tab on your browser. Just as you have clutter in your room that impacts you, you can have too many things open on your monitor, and that is overloading. So try and bring it down to one tab and only a couple of programs. And then monitor how different sites and even digital tools make you feel because one could be acting as an emotional overload trigger and you don't even realize it. Sometimes it's okay to be interactive with some news sites, but not other news sites. Maybe some social media is great and others aren't. So really start fine-tuning exactly which ones leave you overloaded. Now, after I have done these steps, I do a check-in to see if I need to do more or if I can go back to my day. Now, I know we just spent a lot of time talking about the process, but that entire process typically doesn't take much more than about 10 to 15 minutes, especially if I put on a Reiki video while journaling. So I love to stack things. So I'm gonna go take my little time out, do some deep breathing, journal and Reiki, and that Reiki is playing while I'm doing all the other stuff so that it's not just one thing at a time. It's not five steps that are completely separate. I make this into as condensed a version as possible. The only time mine goes typically longer than about 10 to 15 minutes is if I realize I have a big physical impact and I do want to do a longer workout or a longer walk. So play around with what works for you and don't be afraid to repeat this as many times as you need throughout the day. The world is a bit crazy right now, and you deserve to take the time to reset so you're not overwhelmed. When you don't allow yourself time to reset and regroup, it actually impacts your productivity and your mental health and your spiritual health. And we don't want that. So allow yourself to do this. Allow yourself to have time to figure out what's the best reset for you. Now, in the show notes, I'm actually going to link a couple of resources that you might find really helpful. I do have a YouTube video, Reiki for grounding. It includes 174 hertz music to aid in that grounding. You can use that for your timeout and for your journaling. I'm also going to link an article to environmental self-care because your space really does matter with your mental well-being. So I'm going to link that. And finally, if you do kind of struggle to identify emotions, I do have a meditation that helps you identify emotions through a body scan because our bodies do often hold that. That is episode 72. If you want to try that out. Thank you for joining me today and have a fantastic week.