Christmas: A Very Special Kind of Overwhelm

The lead up to Christmas can feel particularly challenging when  your life is already overloaded.
What if it's a unique opportunity to create more freedom to be yourself?

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Gentle Rebellion, where overwhelm is optional. Hello, hello, hello, heidi, here this week I thought I'd share something that we're up to inside the Gentle Rebel community. It's my new community we only started in October to a handful of amazing women as founder rebels. I'll be opening the doors again early next year, I should think, once I've kind of got the hang of it and found my way around the new tech. But I wanted to share part of what we're up to this month because I think it's really really important, really important on this one Christmas overwhelm, a very special sort of overwhelm.

Speaker 1: 0:49

So it's that time of year again, isn't it November? The days are getting shorter and shorter as we hurtle towards the shortest day, the solstice, and it can often feel like time's running out and it just adds to the pressure and the overwhelm of everything. So if your life's already overwhelming and overloaded, then well, this time of year tends to really highlight that and can be really too much. I know it used to be for me. I know that this term at school used to just do me in. It went on forever and I was so exhausted and then I'd get flu and then I'd get flu again. I wouldn't normally get the flu until January, february time, but I definitely know it was the pushing to get through to Christmas that caused that illness later, because it was just pushing myself too hard. I'm delighted to report that nowadays, right in the I don't know the prime of my gender rebellion, of practicing listening to myself, listening to my heart, listening to my body and daring to question that overwhelming exhaustion and just the price we pay to have a successful life. From here, from where I am now, from making these tiny changes every day, this commitment to myself, this year I've really noticed a lack of that feeling of pressure, from the days getting shorter and shorter, and I'm really delighted to be able to say that to you, because I used to be where you might be now.

Speaker 1: 2:26

I mean, obviously I don't know exactly where you are, but I'm assuming if you're listening to this podcast, it's because the idea of gently rebelling, of making overwhelm optional for you, resonates with you. So therefore, I'm assuming there's some level of overwhelm and that if you're in the UK or the West, that you're possibly struggling with this time of year where it feels like time is speeding up, and Christmas in particular is a very special sort of overwhelm on top of the time of year that it appears, because it's so emotional, because there's so many memories embedded within the expectations of Christmas, expectations of it being magical and lovely this year, while, at the same time, expectations that the same issues will crop up again with the same difficult I'm not gonna say difficult people, but difficult energies. We create between each other, those patterns. We get stuck in Christmas. A very special opportunity to notice those painful patterns, to notice how draining it can be, to notice how pressured you feel, to notice the overwhelm. It's a very special sort of overwhelm because it is a very special time of year. We want it to be lovely, we want it to feel good, we want it to be better than it was last year, we want to be generous, we want to show the people who matter most to us how much we love them. There's all of that opportunity and there's also that need for community, for light, for feasting, for celebrating in what's called mid-winter.

Speaker 1: 4:02

I always get confused by this because, if you think about it, mid-summer and mid-winter ie as in terms of solstices are not in the middle of the seasons, are they? It's just kind of irritate. It always irritates me that the summer solstice it's not mid-summer, it's really at the beginning of it. And the mid-winter feast of Christmas isn't in the middle of the winter, it's in the middle of the darkness. So it's the darkest time of year and we have all of these lights and this special food and this getting together and celebrating, but it's really the beginning of winter. It's really when I was gonna say, it starts going downhill. I don't really like that. I just mean, for those of us who prefer the summer and who like to feel the warmth of the sun on our bones and who really really do like warm water to swim in this time of year can be really tricky because it can feel like it's something to get through. But anyway, I'm delighted to report I feel much less of that this year in a way I never have before. So it's built up, it's. I've really noticed this year there's been a build-up of sudden realization that what I'm doing is working and that it's gone, and by working I mean I've overshot the mark.

Speaker 1: 5:18

So I just wanted my life back. I didn't want to be waking up feeling exhausted and pressured. I wanted fulfillment. I wanted to keep this house on a lifestyle. I wanted to do something that used my unique gifts. I see that as pretty basic, like I think that's what we should all be up to, if that's what we want. And I just wanted to feel. Well, I wanted these things without damaging my health and my sanity. I wanted to feel at home in my life and at the time it felt huge. It felt like it felt, on the one hand, necessary, like I didn't have any choice because I wasn't going to do it the old way of success again. But on the other hand, it was kind of like if I'd stopped to discuss it, somebody could have pointed out my foolishness. You know who do you think you are. You can't have a successful life and expect no pressure and not to burn yourself out or, you know, be close to exhaustion, and you certainly can't do without overwhelm. Heidi Overwhelms everywhere, everybody's overwhelmed, no big deal. So I just really want I need to talk about this more.

Speaker 1: 6:25

I think the fact that not only did I get my life back and my health back and my sanity back and by sanity I just mean the ability to feel emotionally stable, to think clearly, to not be so reactive, to not feel like I'm going insane I don't in any way mean it as disrespectful for people who are suffering from serious mental health issues. I mean mental health as in feeling well, feeling stable, feeling okay, not expecting, not expecting to kind of embarrass myself by exploding emotionally at the wrong time, becoming over defensive in conversations, having inconvenient tear leakage, that kind of horrible feeling on the edge, oversensitive, just this ability to pause and respond rather than react. That doesn't mean I never overreact no, there's no perfection going on here. I just mean I feel more stable, I feel more like myself again, I feel able to cope with what life throws at me. And it's not that life doesn't throw stuff at me, it's that I just feel more grounded in myself, more able to cope, and I'm really grateful for that. And I can see that it's because of these tiny commitments.

Speaker 1: 7:51

Every day I'm just noticing how I feel, tuning into my heart, listening to my body and committing to myself, first deciding that I'm not going to push through overwhelm, I'm not going to push into exhaustion. I don't do pressure In fact it's increased, it used to be. I just don't do overwhelm because I worked out, there was overwhelm that caused me to burn out and implode my life. Because if I could see straight, if I could have seen what was going on, I would have not burnt out. Obviously it wasn't stupid and I knew all the stress management stuff. I didn't do anything wrong, as, in a lack of knowledge, I burnt out because I couldn't see any other way and I blamed that on overwhelm.

Speaker 1: 8:37

And so I really and people came to me when I was first just teaching yoga, when I was writing my early gentle rebellion I don't even know I was gently rebelling when I was just trying to get my life back, you know, find a new career, make some money for myself, get my confidence back, heal, get my health back, get my energy back, be able to sleep fully without waking up in some like shocked state of oh, I've got to go into work again, I can't bear it. Just wanted my life back. But people were coming to me stressed and overwhelmed and then they started to say that within moments of entering my yoga class, there are overwhelming stress would disappear. And I was really curious about this. What was going on? What was I doing that was creating such an amazing effect on them? And I studied that and I looked at the people coming to me and then I ended up coaching again, because I'm a coach and despite my bizarre decision to reject that trying to something. I guess I was looking for something what obvious as a career path, because coaching was very new then. Mean, even now it's not that easy, not in the UK.

Speaker 1: 9:49

To say I'm a life coach is still seems a little bit fantastical, especially to somebody who's In really good at it. I'm gonna say that I'm gonna sing my own praises I'm a really good coach. I love coaching is clearly what I'm supposed to do, if there was a supposed to. It's clearly what I want to do. It's clearly what I do do really works, clearly what I love to do. It's clearly what's calling me. It feels like a vocation and you know what it's like when you find that right. The energy, the flow state, the excitement is really cool.

Speaker 1: 10:20

But I guess on the way, when I know that on the way, I lost the confidence in myself to do that, but it kept coming back. It's almost. It's like this irrepressible part of me do you have that, the thing that you're really good at, the thing that you need to find a way to do in a way that works for you? Well, that's what it is for me with coaching, and so to start with, I just wanted my life back. Then I wanted to coach then my, as I got more energy and got more in tune with myself, I discovered that actually I wanted more, and by more I mean rejection of more. So I was already kind of wandering around saying I don't do over, one might do exhaustion, and then it became I don't do pressure, and it's the more as in the more freedom. That's what. The more is, the more freedom to be myself, the more ease, the more magic in my life, that kind of more. The more fulfillment with more ease, the more focusing on what's really important to me.

Speaker 1: 11:24

Once I got my life back, I then wanted just more, more being myself. It's an extension, whereas when before I got my life back, it felt like getting my life back would be Enormous, magical, imagine, imagine if you could do that. And now it just feels. It feels like there's no stopping me. But it's really gentle. I don't mean no stopping me, as in some big Wild, I don't know, disruptive, huge, I don't know what I'm talking about. I just mean there's no stopping me as in.

Speaker 1: 11:55

So now I just want to feel even healthier now. I want to create this project now. I want to do this now. I want to go to that place, experience that it just, it just feels more. It's just more ease involved because I feel more solid within myself as in I can identify what matters to me. I can see and feel clearly because my mind and heart are interconnected, where previously, in overwhelm, I was struggling to really identify what matters to me.

Speaker 1: 12:28

Once I identified, or dared to start identifying because I think it's a one off thing, and I think this is part of the problem with personal development is almost like, well, once you've learned to find your true voice or your truth, whatever that is, or your values or I don't know like it's a one off thing and I that's not my experience. My experience is this gentle, unfolding this, this reconnecting with myself, this improving my relationship with myself, and that connection of mind, body, heart together, working together, all weighing in on the conversation. That's what I've been up to and it's immensely powerful I'm. Now. What I'm learning to do is just say okay, so this, I might identify some overwhelms because I have these embedded practices wake up, notice how I feel. And if I don't do it when I wake up, I'm going to do it very early on, because it's so natural to me now to notice how I feel.

Speaker 1: 13:30

Noticing what's coming up for me Particularly was bugging me. I've noticed that the stuff that's bugging me, that's going round in my head, there's something there, there's a gift as a message, there's there's something to be seen and released or something letting me know, there's a project that's really in my heart bubbling up to come out, like I'm in the process of writing my next book. That that was bugging me. And now there's the space in the darkness of autumn, early winter, to allow that to come out into the world. And as it comes out to the world, I feel energized, I feel better, I have clarity of purpose, I have energy, I feel inspired, I feel really content. And that's in the middle of.

Speaker 1: 14:09

It was when I wrote the first book. The process felt quite painful at times and this time it just feels like oh so I just need to notice it's bugging me, it's like it's queuing up to come out and then I need to give it space. And I did ask for help with giving it space. I took it to a coaching session and just Got a lot of help in getting the structure out and the purpose out, and I got that helped me with clarity. I didn't do all on my own. I really recognize the benefit of asking for help, and Particularly a coach you can just hold the space for you while you work something out is just much faster than doing on your own, and I've really noticed.

Speaker 1: 14:50

And also, this is the second book, right, so there's, there's some of that stuff out of the way. It doesn't mean there's not the same. Will it be rubbish, will it be really painful to Do the tedious bits. That kind of stuff is still there. But it's just clear. It's just are. This has come up, I notice. It doesn't mean I want to be clear here. I'm not like some Zen master over this stuff. It can bug me for ages before I notice. You know I'm not not doing this like instant. All that's bugging me. Now I'm going to turn it into a gift. Sometimes it takes me ages, sometimes it's really fast, it's just a practice.

Speaker 1: 15:31

But having these practices embedded, and particularly because I searched for them and I tried them out and I was determined to find a way to do it without pressure, to do it in a way that work for me, which means it's got to be really effective and really small, because otherwise, being the kind of person I am, I'll go full on into the personal development I'm giving myself and become almost enslaved to it. You know, it's just this big, huge kind of fire work, walking, transformation thing, rather than Gentle, gentle but firm. This is what I need to do today. This is what's coming up with me. It's a commitment to myself to listen to my heart, listen to my body and support my mind, to keep my mind as free fear and over as I can, and that's that's just it. That's it. That's what I'm up to.

Speaker 1: 16:24

It's not it's not really at the heart anything more than that. It's the relationship I have with myself, and what I'm starting to notice is the cycles of the year. So this time of year, with the days getting shorter and shorter, and that feeling of time speeding up, which I was already aware of Very strongly when I was teaching because it was so hard for me just it really impacted me. And then expecting all of that pressure to disappear when I came out of a career that was just not working for me, and finding that it didn't disappear was really interesting, got me really curious. So what's going on for me? And then listening even more deeply and adjusting to things better and allowing myself to heal and get healthier and healthier and healthier has now resulted in yes, I can see the days getting shorter and shorter. I resisted it. I had real autumn grief. I accepted that and then I gradually allowed myself to move into winter and I'm honestly not exhausted and I'm so excited to report that, because that means you can have that too.

Speaker 1: 17:34

Right, because it's not just me, I'm not some oddity. We can do this. We can have the life we want, we can have energy, we can be free from over one. We can have the freedom to think, to think with our minds and our hearts and our bodies together, because it's stronger. Yes, it takes practice, yes, it takes commitment, but you don't have to do it alone.

Speaker 1: 17:56

If you want me to coach you through it, just ask. I'm here. I love, love, love coaching. I'd love to talk about it with no pressure. That's what the curiosity calls for book one, easy to book one.

Speaker 1: 18:08

If you can't find a time, ask me. We can talk if you. If you want something less intense, join the community next time I open it. Read my book binge, listen to all these podcast episodes, read my blog, I don't know. Find something. If it's not me, if I've just inspired you, but it's not me you want to work with, find somebody else, but, but you're worth it. You're worth spending the effort on building your relationship with yourself, getting your life back and then moving past, getting your life back into creating a life where you get to be yourself, which means being fully well, feeling stable and grounded and feeling fulfilled so important to me.

Speaker 1: 18:57

Which brings us back to how we can use this very special time of year, this very uniquely overwhelming time of year in general for a lot of us, to gain more freedom from overwhelm. So this year I've learned that some of the darkest times are the greatest gifts, and I all that sounds awful the way I've said it, as if I don't know something about you. I don't know something about that really don't like. So let's just be clear. What I mean is when the shit hits the fan, with help and support, you can find the gift in it. That doesn't mean it's not going to be horrible as you're going through it, but what I've noticed with myself and with my clients is to recognize the gift in the darkest stuff, because If you think of everything, okay. So I've adopted this saying this year of everything is.

Speaker 1: 19:50

For me, it started with everything is always working out for me. And now it's changed to what if it's just a curious question why everything is for me? So in the autumn grief period it was what if every falling and fallen leaf is for me as a reminder to let go of stuff that I don't need anymore habits, beliefs, etc. And then if we just generalize that even more, if everything is for me, then what if this particularly overwhelming, this special kind of very emotional and practical and ridiculously overwhelming, tricky time of year because there's less daylight and tends to be less energy, what if that time of year, that very special kind of overwhelm, is special not just because it's special because it's Christmas and because there's a unique collision of all of those pressures, but because it's a really good opportunity to see what's going on for yourself. It's a really it's such an obvious reminder.

Speaker 1: 20:58

All of the pressures and the overwhelm come up and hit you in the face at this time of year, right In a way that maybe in the summer they don't, because you can look around and go oh, at least it's sunny today, at least there's still some daylight, so there's maybe some energy, although being exhausted in summer can feel worse in some ways, because it can feel like I ought to be feeling really well and energetic. Because it's sunny, I ought to be outside exercising. Anyway, let's not go into summer pressures. Let's focus on what's available right now. If everything's for you, what if the unique collision of pressures and overwhelm for this time of year is a unique opportunity because there's a deadline on it, because it ends, unlike day-to-day pressures and overwhelm, even though we think they're ending, even though we trick ourselves into thinking when I've done that, then this, when I've achieved that, then this, when I've finished this, then that, even though there's that, but it's a cycle and it's never ending and it will stay the same until we decide that's not for me. I'm going to value myself more and I'm going to live without that kind of pressure and overwhelm and we can gradually up-level what we feel we're worthy of. So I'm worthy of more clarity of mind. I'm worthy of more energy. I value my health more than that. I'm not available for other people to offload their stuff onto. That's an everyday thing and it's completely linked.

Speaker 1: 22:25

But what if this very special time of year, with this very special kind of overwhelm because it has an actual deadline ie Christmas does not continue forever. There's a deadline, usually the 25th, but often it kind of leaks a little bit further in. And then there's that weird quiet time between Christmas and New Year which kind of reminds me of that weird quiet time between when somebody dies in the funeral. It's not the same, but you know that kind of like almost time standing still. It's a weird quality and sensation to certain times in our life and times of year and there's something about that. So Christmas does end, I know. Then there's New Year, but they don't really blur because they are a different kind of energy. So because there's an end to it, there's lots you can do with that end.

Speaker 1: 23:21

You can say, okay, so I've got this short amount of very intense time with this special kind of overwhelm to notice, to notice just how overwhelmed I am, to notice just how much pressure I've put myself under, to just notice how impossible I've made my life. And I'm not asking you to do anything with that. Once again, this is a gentle rebellion. The most powerful thing you can do is notice completely neutrally what's going on for you in any moment, because when you can see it you start to get some clarity. What's difficult about that is we don't always want to know, do we? I don't want to know that I've messed up. You haven't messed up. This is just what happens. It's you know. We're working hard, we've got some ideas of what we want.

Speaker 1: 24:10

We build this successful life. It has many elements of the things that we were intended to create, but because of the way we're taught to create success, it doesn't work for us because it's built of the wrong stuff. It's built on overloading ourselves and concy pushing. It's built on the idea that life is hard and success requires sacrifice and that everything you want is on the outside of your comfort zone. And those three things put together result in success, which is hard to maintain, is often uncomfortable. It's very difficult to settle into your comfort zone with that level of wonderfulness to say, wow, I've made it, because it feels like you can never quite relax and to maintain it it's just exhausting. It just doesn't work for you. It doesn't fit together. It's built of the wrong stuff because it's mainly done by overloading our minds and ignoring our hearts and our bodies.

Speaker 1: 25:05

And when we start shifting, not in one go, no wild disruptions, no upsetting anything, maintaining what you've got, but then gently but firmly rebelling and saying I'm not doing this too overwhelmed. I'm going to get overwhelmed first before I tackle that task, before I set my intention for the day, I'm going to listen to my body today. It's just tiny things each day and these tiny things accumulate and they work together over time. If you want to do things faster, come and work with me, but you're perfectly capable of doing it on your own. Just depends. You know, I pay for coaching when I want to do something faster.

Speaker 1: 25:47

Coaching works. It's amazing. If you find the right coach at the right time, magic happens. We know this those of us who work within the coaching industry, but not everybody knows that yet. If you don't want coaching, find something, find something to support you, but believe that it's possible for you to gently rebel, to build your life, gently but firmly, without creating any wild disruption, without, because the choice is this isn't it. You can do what I did quit, start again, rebuild, or you can maintain your financial stability and gently start to connect yourself and from that place, you can gradually either change how you're working and how you've set your life up, or you can move jobs.

Speaker 1: 26:41

And I always think of that. I think it's Einstein. Is it Einstein who said I can't remember who said this. What is it something about? You can't solve a problem from the same consciousness from which it was created. I die. Sorry I'm messing up my quotes here, but I think of that a lot with the gentle rebellion, because I changed jobs twice and the first job I moved to was my dream job Head of well-being and teaching and learning. Ideal for me, absolutely brilliant.

Speaker 1: 27:09

Didn't work out very well, as just asked. I'm being used to me. They fire the person who hired me, who created the special role for me. Before I got there. It was chaos, not great. So what happened? I created a job for myself out of death. I was in desperate states. I just I couldn't stay where I was. I was so unhappy, it was making me really ill, I was really struggling. So the next one didn't work out. Then I jumped again from the same level of consciousness, or or maybe slightly up, leveling myself, but mainly I was trying to escape.

Speaker 1: 27:43

It reminds me also of the thing we do well, you might have done it, I certainly did it when I was younger of going from one terrible relationship to another terrible relationship until I learned to value myself. I'm also going to value myself and just say actually, this is what I want, and I'd rather be on my own or wait for this person and then that worked out really well for me. There's something in that, but it's a it you don't need to make. This is why I don't think you need to make Huge changes in fact, is quite the opposite is why I think huge changes don't work, because it's an inside out job. We think when we've moved house, when we've changed jobs, when that difficult person leaves, when we get that promotion, all this happens. All that happens, everything will magically fall into place and sometimes things are better.

Speaker 1: 28:34

But the fastest, most effective way is to build your relationship with yourself, is to Change how you feel about things and what you believe is possible for you is an inside out job. It's so powerful and the beauty of overwhelm Is that it's very obvious. Once you are, once you get good at recognizing it, once you decide, oh, overwhelms robbing me of the ability to think straight and without being able to think straight, without being able to connect to my heart and listen to my body, these things keep happening and I'm done with them. So let's just gently but firmly rebel against the normal way of doing things and let's find a different way. I'm going to start listening to my body. I'm going to decide over. One was not for me. I'm going to learn how to make overwhelm optional for me and then gradually it becomes optional not a thing of the past completely, because it's a natural state when our nervous system is alerted, which happens many times a day, particularly in a culture that uses fear and shame for marketing messages, for selling news and films and all this kind of stuff. But once you decide, no, I'm going to make it optional. I'm going to learn the skills of that, which is basically about looking after your nervous system, not doing things from fear and shame or just noticing.

Speaker 1: 30:02

To start with, this is not about huge actions. You have enough to do. You have more than enough to do. You probably have more than enough that you think you ought to change about yourself. Just drop all of that doing and pushing ourselves to be other than than we are. Start with neutral, noticing. It works. That's it. Notice, notice the overwhelm, acknowledge it. Gradually you'll be able to see what's going on for you and that self knowledge and then self acceptance, those insights. They're powerful. Give it a go. Christmas a special kind of overwhelm and a special opportunity for you to notice just where all the overwhelm is in your life. Not to make you miserable, but to create more freedom for yourself. For more resources to help you gently rebel, please visit my website, wwwheidemarkcouk.