Embracing Small Steps: The Secret to Overcoming Overwhelm

You know that feeling of being perpetually overwhelmed? Of feeling like you're constantly on high alert? We've all been there. Welcome, fellow life-rebels, to the Overwhelms Optional Podcast, the space where we challenge the norm of pushing through stress and exhaustion. But how do we practically manage this feeling of overwhelm? Well, it begins with acknowledging its presence and setting the intention of being present. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to The Gentle Rebellion where overwhelm is optional. Hello, hello, hello, welcome to this week's episode of the Overwhelms Optional Podcast. Why, why, why, why? Why make overwhelm optional? Well, here's why Because it wrecks your life. It blocks all of the easier ways for you to do things, and the more optional I make it for myself, the better my life gets, the easier it gets, the easier it is to focus and to know what's important to me. It's just better, it's just a better way to live. It's just easier, it's nicer, it costs less energy. It's just brilliant, honestly.

Speaker 1: 0:48

So it's time to take overwhelm more seriously. Wherever you are on this journey, if this is the first time you've ever listened to this podcast, welcome, welcome, welcome, by the way, or whether you've been on this journey for a while with me, this gently rebelling against the idea that we have to push through overwhelm in order to force ourselves to focus, which costs us tons of energy and tends to lead to exhaustion problems, regulating our emotions, because we get these volcanic reactions, because it's just all too much, this gentle rebellion is making, which starts with making overwhelm optional for you. It matters and it works. It works really, really well, but there's always another level. There's always more freedom, more joy, more peace of mind, even better focus All of it. I just want more and more and more because it's brilliant. So I'm just sharing with you what I'm up to next. And what I'm up to next is I'm committing to soothing my nervous system even more.

Speaker 1: 1:50

So what I mean by this is overwhelm is caused by the constant activation of our high alert system. So the high alert system is designed to save your life from something serious like a bear attack. Obviously there's no bears here in England, but it's that saving your life system. So lots of adrenaline. Prefrontal cortex goes offline. You can't think straight why, because you don't want to be considering what to do in an emergency situation. You need to be able to react. But that constant emotional reaction to things that means that you're in that situation and what most respond is to actually be able to pause and respond. And the time difference is imperceptible, often completely imperceptible. Sometimes we need longer, sometimes we need a whole list of ways to say I'm not sure if that's for me, I'll get back to you and that takes practice, but that in the moment, over reactivity that's a sign to me of the high alert system being stuck, stuck in this chronic overreaction, so that we're just in that high alert system all the time and we're living from there and we feel like we're running, we're scared of something bad happening if we don't do something.

Speaker 1: 3:08

So the completion of an exhausting to-do list, because we feel that if we don't get it done, something terrible will happen. We'll let somebody down, Somebody will think less of us, something terrible will happen. That's a problem, right, because what we're choosing there is not to look after ourselves properly. We're saying it's more important that I push on through, even though the consequences of that will be I won't be home in time for dinner, or when I'm home I'll be grumpy, I won't really be able to hear those I love speak, I won't be really present with them, I won't be able to sleep as well because all the tension stuck in my body. There's lots of consequences of pushing on through, but it's just the way things are done at the moment and I'm saying not only is it unnecessary, but it's mad because it's just it's no way to live.

Speaker 1: 3:58

The long-term impacts of having that chronic stress response where it's just a kind of permanent stage of being high alert, high alert, high alert, and it's it's. This isn't a blaming thing. This is a we've set things up so that your fear centre is constantly being activated and we don't know what we've done to each other. But what I'm saying is, once you know the signs of overwhelm, the brain fog, the exhaustion, they're not being able to think straight, they're not being able to see the wood for the trees, all of that stuff and loads more that I've been into before. But that feeling completely overwhelmed, chronically overwhelmed, that I would argue, is caused by allowing our nervous systems to be over-activated all the time, or too often, and then not being able to down-regulate that. So we're not looking after our nervous systems, because, well, why would we? Who knows anything about it? I mean, even if you know about stress management, which I did when I ended up in this state and I was doing all I could.

Speaker 1: 5:02

But the problem was, is the situation I was in was so out of alignment with who I am. It wasn't allowing me to be myself. I couldn't find a way to look after myself properly, to be myself in the life I'd created for myself. So I thought my job was impossible. But actually I looked back and think it was impossible for me and not because I was lacking something, but it just didn't suit me, it was just wrong. It just didn't work. It was out of alignment with me and my values, and I talked about that many times before. So for me, it's about how can I gain more and more freedom to be myself.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Well, let's go back to the beginning. And this is an interesting journey for me, because I would argue that I'm waking up every day and choosing to make over while I'm optional. So I'll give you an example of that. But what I'm saying is, why would I go back to the beginning when I'm already succeeding? Was because the beginning it works. So do more of it. Do more of what's easy and simple and that already works. So I'm looking at choose not to be an overwhelm by soothing my nervous system. So why not do that more and more and more? Because the thing that's causing the overwhelm is some underlying fear, and there's always some fear to be dealt with that can be released. So we have the courage to step more fully into having what we want. So I'll give you an example of a story.

Speaker 1: 6:31

Last week I was at a three day conference and it was nine to seven. Every day. It was in London. It was very, very full on. So I came home Sunday night and I was pretty tired Monday morning and I had a really, really busy week ahead and the Monday I had lots of calls booked in. So I woke up in the morning and you know what it's like if you've been to a conference.

Speaker 1: 6:56

I only do you feel that you're behind, which in my case, is a ridiculous feeling, because I only took one working day off and I have really good systems which are very robust, and I wasn't really behind. Everything was taken care of, as not everything's finished, but everything was taken care of as it had. I had a plan and everything had time allocated. That was important. So there's no need to be feeling behind. But then, of course, when you come home, there's things in the house that you're doing because that's part of life and it's a joyful part of life, apart from when it feels like a pressure. So that feeling that hadn't got time to do some very basic things at home Don't like that feeling. It just feels wrong, that feels off. I want to have my life running smoothly, my home running smoothly and feeling comfortable and good. I want to get nutritious food out of the freezer for dinner that night, for example.

Speaker 1: 7:48

So I woke up with that feeling of heavy tiredness from sleeping in different surroundings and not I didn't sleep that well. The energy of the conference was super exciting and I could feel all the energy in my body and there was lots of processing going on. But I knew that would happen. I'm okay with that. I knew that the sleep will come and everything will be okay, and that I've set my life up so that nothing's a disaster if I don't get perfect sleep. I'm fine with that.

Speaker 1: 8:19

And I expected to feel like this. So you know, I don't mean expected, as I kind of was imagined, I'd feel like that. No, I was expecting to have a marvellous day, because that's what I choose to expect now. But I woke up and I could feel the overwhelm ready to engulf me, as in, there's all of these things that need to be done that you haven't done because you've been away. And then there's all of these new things to follow up on, because, of course, I've got all of these actions from notes I took at the conference, all of these people I've connected with, who I really want to message, all of these books I want to read. Oh, loads and loads of stuff.

Speaker 1: 8:57

So there's all this stuff going on in my head and then I just do my normal thing of why don't you overwhelm? So how can I make my day easier, so allowing the overwhelm to go, allowing the pressure to go, just allowing myself to sink into the day without the overwhelm, so choosing to step out of overwhelm before starting my day? So I already had the priorities for my week set up, because I do that every week, so I'm not having to think it's all done. It's a system. It works really well for me. It's a system that I'm writing up in the book that I'm writing at the moment so I can share it with you, so you can use the bits of it and try them out and see what works for you too. So everything's taken care of.

Speaker 1: 9:45

So, actually, what was going on in my head was unnecessary, because everything was already taken care of, but I was listening to the hijacking. It's a hijacking, isn't it? Hijacking of your mind, by your mind, and it's a fear driven thing of. But there's all these things you haven't done and disaster will happen if you don't remember them. And that hijacking of my mind is what causes the overwhelm, because then I can't remember all of the things that I'd already decided were important, I'd already prioritized.

Speaker 1: 10:15

Now that's me at a stage where I've been deliberately choosing to live out of overwhelm for a number of years now. So I've been gently rebelling on. My first word was a recovery from burnout, and then it was how can I find more and more freedom to be myself? That's the journey, that's the gentle rebellion.

Speaker 1: 10:37

So the overwhelm, the chronic overwhelm, and the horrid symptoms to do with that, that lead to burnout or not doesn't mean you're going to burn out, but they're those horrible surfing the verge of burnout symptoms, the emotional oh the emotional reactivity, unexpected reactivity, the brain fog that everything feels just a little bit too hard, or sometimes completely overwhelming and horribly too hard, like it's just all too much. Your life's not working for you. Everything feels a bit impossible, a bit sludgy, sludgy through, you know, like you're walking through drying concrete or pushing your poor brain against a concrete wall. It's just no way to live, is it so I'd woken up on the Monday morning and that completely understandable response was going in my head, that hijacking. So I noticed it, because I'm highly skilled at noticing it. Now then I noticed it neutrally, because when I noticed it I was like uh-oh, this isn't going to be a disaster.

Speaker 1: 11:41

And then there becomes another layer of overwhelm, as there's all this judgement about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I just caught that as well, noticed it all neutrally and then decided no, overwhelm's not for me, there is no pressure. So I released the pressure, the things that were bugging me to be done urgently, because this is what our mind does, isn't it? We've already got loads to do. And then the mind comes weighing in with oh you better do that. That's really urgent, you're like, but I've already got this backlog of stuff to do. No, none of it was urgent.

Speaker 1: 12:12

So there's absolutely nothing from the conference and I haven't even looked at my notes yet, because I've allocated time for it and I've just parked it. I've let it go. I'm not holding it in my head. I know at some point this week I will look at that notebook and I will pull out all of the actions that I want to do. I'll probably chuck half of them away because they felt like they might be important at the time and now they might not be important, or I might put some of them in my someday maybe list. Just let them go. But they're all safely in a tiny notepad because I found that really helpful at the conference.

Speaker 1: 12:48

I like writing things down. I find that writing loads of notes pointless because I never look at them, but just extracting the things that matter, and then I'll write down things that I think all that might be important later. That was one way of doing it, and then I noticed that when I went downstairs after journaling to start my day, there were all these things bugging me about the kitchen, the bin, the chickens needing cleaning out, I don't know. Loads of things like what are we going to eat tonight? Is there any food in that. Like loads of stuff just flying out at me, the post, you know all the stuff, the stuff of life that we're fortunate to have when we live in a home.

Speaker 1: 13:30

Well, it was flying out, it was bugging me and I really wanted to just clear it all up before starting work, but I didn't have time to do that because I was being coached at 9.30. So that wasn't going to work. That wasn't going to work at all. That was not a priority, but it was bugging me. It was bugging me, it was bugging me. So I noticed that it's bugging me. So what was this about? What's going on?

Speaker 1: 13:52

What matters most to me here, what would be most helpful to settle my nervous system, and what I decided was actually the things that were bugging me were much smaller, but my brain was making this big mountain out of it. Oh, there's all this stuff to do and it's going to take your whole lunch break to get it done. Mwuh, you can't go away. Now I was listening to this thing in my head about it's too hard to go away. It's too hard. You didn't really have time. It just messes everything up. Everything's under control. You're too busy at the moment. And I just stopped that and said to myself I want to be the kind of person who can go off and do these exciting things that I've really longed to do, without it feeling disruptive, without it creating chaos and overwhelm. I want to be that kind of person. Therefore, I need to react as that person who's already got its sus. So that's what I did.

Speaker 1: 14:47

I decided there were just a couple of things outside that I really wanted to get done and a couple of things inside that I really wanted to get done, and then I'd feel better and I really also had this longing to be outside, because the conference was in a room without any windows. You know it's dark and then very bright lights, quite loud music, lots of people. So to just be outside in my garden is such a joy. And we'd arrived home and it was dark because obviously there's not so much daylight at this time of year. So really really longed to be outside and I could feel that longing to just be outside under the sky, in the autumn colours, in my garden, just for a moment, and also to say hello to my chickens. So I went outside, did a few things, came back inside, did a few things, looked at the clock and I swear time had stood still. I think the clock might have moved by eight minutes or not, but I felt better.

Speaker 1: 15:44

Honestly, I had cleared that thing that was bugging me. It just felt so good. I'm like oh, that was easy, got my lunch break back, feel better, feel really calm, feel peace and ease. Now, ha, brilliant me. Came upstairs, gone with my work and then this is funny just twiddling my thumbs a bit before my coaching session. This is like well, should I be more prepared for my coaching session? But I already know what I want. I'm already ready for that question. What would make this an amazing coaching session for you, heidi. I was already ready for that. I was ready. I was ready in so many ways. It was just so good to know that that it didn't take long because I made the decision.

Speaker 1: 16:26

Well, I've made the decision every day for several years now that I don't do overwhelm, I don't do pressure, not all in one go. This has been tiny, tiny steps every day, and I really mean tiny steps. Mostly it's the intention. It's mostly it's neutral, noticing. It's daring to notice what's going on for me, just for a moment, to get out of my head into my body, to feel my feet on the ground, allow my belly to soften, allow my shoulders to come away from my ears if they want to. I'm doing the same. I'm doing exactly the same as I teach in workshops, through writing and on this podcast. I'm doing the same as you, just because it's who I am and it's my work in the world. I'm super committed to it and it works. So that's an example of me feeling overwhelmed, deciding not to be overwhelmed, doing something about it, it not taking very long at all and then everything flowing really well.

Speaker 1: 17:36

From that point in the day, I can definitely say for myself and my clients that the more we do this work, the more we make tiny commitments to ourselves for their big commitments, but their big commitments to do tiny things. The actual doing is very small, tiny things every day until it starts snowballing. Because you get used to feeling more at ease, you're able to find the ease Overwhelmed truly has become optional for you, and so you just want more of that because it's brilliant. So it's time to take overwhelmed more seriously, because then you can not just have your life back, but you can start creating a life that truly works for you. You can start gently but firmly rebelling against the nonsense that overwhelm is just the way things are, that being exhausted I don't know, not just Friday, but every day is just the price you pay to have a full life. It's a nonsense. It's time to do something about it. Start with the overwhelm. It's the overwhelm that's blocking the easier ways for you to do things. See you next week, next week.