Feeling overwhelmed

January 2021 Link Love

January 15, 2021

Things continue to be slow around here. As expected, not much has changed since we turned the calendar from 2020 to 2021. In case you need a little encouragement or food for thought during these strange days, here are a few links I’ve found interesting lately:

The Year That Must Not Be Named was hard on everyone. Still, nothing is all bad. Here are “35 Good News Stories From 2020 You Might Have Missed.”

It’s not too late to make your “21 for 2021 List.”

I LOVED this short and simple story about the nature of happiness.

Sometimes it’s hard to feel like our creative efforts and personal needs and desires matter in the face of frightening and unsettling world events. Jennifer Louden addresses this in “How Do You Balance the World’s Horror With Your Calling?” (Don’t be put off by the word “calling”.) This point especially resonated with me: “Sharing our voices, our ideas, our wisdom is actively building the world we want.”

I love the backpack analogy in this post about coping with overwhelm. Use these tips to unload some of your burdens.

Some habits to drop, some to pick up for 2021 (and beyond).

I wrote this back in 2018, but the advice still stands. 

I love this song, and this was such a fun video:



Happy Friday, and may we all dance into the weekend!

Christmas

Already Overwhelmed by the Coming Holidays? Here Are 7 Ways to Find the Holiday Happy

November 17, 2017

Photo by +Simple on Unsplash

Can we postpone Thanksgiving? Maybe until sometime after the New Year?

It’s not that I don’t have plenty to be thankful for, I do—it’s just that I’m feeling overwhelmed. The last three months have been a blur and things don’t seem to be slowing down. Thanksgiving is next week, and then, oh then, here comes Christmas. (That’s right. I said the C word.)

I’m not ready.

This seems to be a theme with me around the holidays—feeling overwhelmed and stressed. I don’t think it’s just me, however. There are many reasons someone might not feel that happy about the upcoming holiday season. Perhaps you’re feeling sorrow over a death in the family, fighting an illness, or you’re overloaded with work or other responsibilities.

Since I don’t want to be the Bah Humbug of the holiday season, I sat down to ponder what I—and anyone else finding him or herself overwhelmed by the prospect of the upcoming holidays—could do to find some Holiday Happy.

Here’s what I came up with:

1. Work on your communication skills. Communicate what you need for yourself and what you need from others. If necessary, practice saying what you need to say so that you don’t explode or cry or go silent when you have the chance to speak up.

2. Ask for and—even more important—accept help. Gatherings are more fun for everyone when we all get to contribute. No one wants to see you become a shell of yourself because you spent the entire day cooking a fabulous meal and then it was all over in 10 minutes and WHY DID I EVEN BOTHER, YOU UNGRATEFUL WRETCHES. No, no one wants to see that.

On a related note, cut back and outsource. Don’t try to do everything you’d normally do as well as all the holiday preparations. Pick up dinner at the grocery store, have the gifts professionally wrapped, hire a housecleaner just before your holiday party. See: “former shell of yourself,” above.

3. Don’t expect too much. We often raise our expectations about a number of things during the holidays. How our homes look, how much fancy cooking we do, even how we or others will behave. It’s OK to expect to have some special moments during this festive season. Just try not to expect everything to go perfectly. Don’t expect Uncle Elmo to suddenly become the warm fuzzy of the family when he’s more likely to be the Grinch, or that the cat won’t climb the Christmas tree and break at least one ornament. I speak from experience.

4. Take care of your health. Don’t skimp on sleep, vegetables, or exercise. A few late nights or an extra piece of pie will be much easier to recover from if you maintain your basic health habits. And I’m sorry, but pumpkin pie doesn’t count as a vegetable.

5. Choose one or two special holiday rituals and let the rest go. I know there are tempting experiences around every corner, but you’ll just make yourself crazy if you try to do them all.

6. Focus on what you want to celebrate. Being together? Gratitude? Your personal religious tradition? Your child’s (or grandchild’s) first holiday? The fact that it’s cool outside and you don’t have to run the AC on Thanksgiving Day this year? There is always something to celebrate and something to be grateful for.

7. Develop your sense of humor, and don’t take everything so seriously. It’s not the end of the world when the squirrels eat your holiday pumpkin display on the front porch, for example.



I’m going to try to follow my own advice, and make this a happy—not harried—holiday season. How about you?

What special holiday experiences do you look forward to every year?

Everyday adventures

Five Ways to Cope When You're Overwhelmed

July 27, 2015

Photo courtesy Schicka

Every life has its ups and downs, its simple pleasures and everyday adventures. It also has times when an adventure becomes a bit more than “everyday”—when it challenges your skills and emotional resilience, stretches you beyond what you think you can do, and threatens to overwhelm you. This is how you grow.

Lately, overwhelm has been my constant companion. I’m hip deep in revitalizing my freelance writing—simultaneously taking online classes, building a writer’s website, and brainstorming ideas for pitches. There’s nothing at all curvaceous about my learning curve right now: it points straight up!

I know I’m not the only one who’s experienced this. We all have times in our lives when we take on big projects or face major life changes that leave us feeling exhausted and scared. Here are some ways I’ve been coping that might help you, too:

Do something related to your project every day, no matter how small. Make lists of ridiculously small steps and cross them off as you go. Build on those steps. If you’re learning something new, reread the information you read yesterday and you’ll probably understand it better. Experiment over and over with that new art technique, or set a timer and work on your project for 15 minutes. Just keep at it. Working on it every day helps to desensitize you to the scariness.

Sit with the uncomfortable feelings. Let them roll over you, and often you find they pass and you can get on with your work. If you’re especially worried, allow yourself a designated “worry time,” and whenever anxious thoughts arise, tell yourself that you’ll think about them during worry time.

Plan treats for yourself while you’re going through this experience. Choose something comforting for mind, body, or soul, something that refills your emotional well. Last week I had a massage and met a friend for lunch to offset the hours I spent struggling with my new website.

Keep your focus on the small step right in front of you. Don’t allow yourself to drift into thoughts of “what if,” fantasize about failure, obsess about the next 10 steps you’ll need to take, or even let your mind wander to the big picture. There will be time for that later. I’m encouraged by E.L. Doctorow’s words about writing: “[It] is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

When it all becomes too much, step aside before you reach the crying and/or cursing stage (or, even worse, the drinking stage). If I’m tired, or if I’ve been at it for several hours, little setbacks can seem insurmountable. When I start to feel overwhelmed and hopeless, I know it’s time to stop for a while. I’ll return when I’m feeling rested and energetic again.

Even though I’ve felt overwhelmed lately, I’ve also felt more energetic and excited than I have for a while. I think the challenge is worth the struggle—and that makes me happy.

When you’re faced with a big, overwhelming project or experience, how do you cope?

Excess

Less Is More

January 11, 2013



Between sickness (nearly recovered from) and jury duty (completed), I’ve been a bit delayed in my customary reflection on the past year and planning for a new year. Even so, in the past couple of weeks, an odd little theme has appeared in my thinking: “It’s all too much.”

A few years ago, I read a book by organizer Peter Walsh called It’s All Too Much and ever since then, that phrase pops into my head whenever I’m overwhelmed. As you know, that’s just what I’ve been feeling lately.  Instead of choosing a word of the year or setting out to remake my life, I’m just…not. At least, not right now. I’m not setting new goals or embarking on bold new adventures. I’m simplifying and downsizing.

I just have too much—books, food, possessions of all kinds, hobbies, interests and the wonderful blessing of friends and family relationships. I really am grateful for all that I have—I’m not complaining! I have, however, allowed my life to get out of hand. I have too much, and I try to do too much. Nearly every day I find myself putting aside activities that would feed my soul or work that really means something because I’m drowning in the sheer mass of life, much of it menial and unimportant.

So 2013 begins with a purge—of the physical (How many empty boxes does one need? Does this old radio even work?) as well as the non-physical. Activities I take for granted will be scrutinized—do they really need doing? By me? At this particular time or to that standard?

I don’t consider having too much a “real” problem. I’m not suffering heartbreak over it. I realize I’m lucky to be in this position when so many people around the world face true need. But getting rid of excess will help me appreciate what remains while cutting down on waste, guilt and chaos. Spending less time and money on what doesn’t matter will free up more for what does. I look forward to seeing what fills my life when the excess is gone.

What do you have too much of?