March 25th, 2017
Affirmation: Today I am breaking out of old patterns and re-writing old tapes.
Word of the Day: coterminous (adj):
____
The Wizard of O(verwhelm)
I am no stranger to "feeling" overwhelmed. I have never questioned this state as being anything other than an emotional experience, but the more I've reflected upon it, the more I realize that feeling overwhelmed is no more an feeling than feeling "fat" or feeling "faith" or feeling "equality" are. In other words, I've come to the realization that overwhelm is not an emotion at all.
Let me explain.
From my previous experiences (both personal and professional), I know that overwhelm never wanted us to look too closely at it. It evaded scrutiny and even curiosity on our part. Overwhelm derives its strength from the ability to appear enormous and remain vague and ill-defined.
In many ways then, overwhelm is much like numbness - it is an avoidance mechanism that specifically dissociates us from our emotions and the underlying issues contributing to those emotions. When we "feel" overwhelmed, then, we are actually experiencing our consciousness' attempts to close ourselves off from pain, to to shut us down so that we don't have to feel anything.
Overwhelm also serves the function of keeping us distracted and confused enough that we are unable to concentrate for very long. Our consciousness often behaves in this way in order to protect us. Left unchallenged, these reactions form patterns and become defense mechanisms and coping strategies. Unfortunately, while our consciousness's intentions might be good, overwhelm is a poor, maladaptive coping strategy that keeps us from living our lives free from its shackles.
We cannot selectively numb our emotions, so though overwhelm might keep us from facing our intense feelings of sadness, loss, anger, shame, and fear, it also blocks us from fully feeling our joy, hope, excitement, passion, and awe.
When you dare to look behind the curtain of your own making, you fill find that The Great and Powerful (and intimidating) Wizard of Overwhelm becomes the tangible, and not-so-frightening, Man Behind the Curtain.
What in your life right now (if anything) "feels" overwhelming?
What is your overwhelm keeping you from doing and experiencing?
What other emotions could be underlying this "feeling"?
What makes it challenging to allow yourself to feel these other emotions?
How would you life (your day to day and hour to hour existence) look and feel different if you accepted that your overwhelm doesn't truly exist, that it is a guise?
What uncomfortable emotions are you wiling to make room for and feel in order to expose your overwhelm for what it really is?
Affirmation: Today I am breaking out of old patterns and re-writing old tapes.
Word of the Day: coterminous (adj):
1. having the same
border or covering the same area.
2. being the same in
extent; coextensive in range or scope.
A Bowl
Imagine the time the particle you are
returns where it came from.
The family darling comes home. Wine,
without being contained in cups,
is handed around.
A red glint appears in a granite outcrop.
and suddenly the whole cliff turns to ruby.
At dawn I walked along with a monk
on his way to the monastery.
We do the same work, I told him.
We suffer the same.
He gave me a bowl, and I saw.
The soul has this shape.
Shams, and actual sunlight, help me now,
being in the middle of being
partly in myself, and partly outside.
Imagine the time the particle you are
returns where it came from.
The family darling comes home. Wine,
without being contained in cups,
is handed around.
A red glint appears in a granite outcrop.
and suddenly the whole cliff turns to ruby.
At dawn I walked along with a monk
on his way to the monastery.
We do the same work, I told him.
We suffer the same.
He gave me a bowl, and I saw.
The soul has this shape.
Shams, and actual sunlight, help me now,
being in the middle of being
partly in myself, and partly outside.
____
The Wizard of O(verwhelm)
I am no stranger to "feeling" overwhelmed. I have never questioned this state as being anything other than an emotional experience, but the more I've reflected upon it, the more I realize that feeling overwhelmed is no more an feeling than feeling "fat" or feeling "faith" or feeling "equality" are. In other words, I've come to the realization that overwhelm is not an emotion at all.
Let me explain.
From my previous experiences (both personal and professional), I know that overwhelm never wanted us to look too closely at it. It evaded scrutiny and even curiosity on our part. Overwhelm derives its strength from the ability to appear enormous and remain vague and ill-defined.
In many ways then, overwhelm is much like numbness - it is an avoidance mechanism that specifically dissociates us from our emotions and the underlying issues contributing to those emotions. When we "feel" overwhelmed, then, we are actually experiencing our consciousness' attempts to close ourselves off from pain, to to shut us down so that we don't have to feel anything.
Overwhelm also serves the function of keeping us distracted and confused enough that we are unable to concentrate for very long. Our consciousness often behaves in this way in order to protect us. Left unchallenged, these reactions form patterns and become defense mechanisms and coping strategies. Unfortunately, while our consciousness's intentions might be good, overwhelm is a poor, maladaptive coping strategy that keeps us from living our lives free from its shackles.
We cannot selectively numb our emotions, so though overwhelm might keep us from facing our intense feelings of sadness, loss, anger, shame, and fear, it also blocks us from fully feeling our joy, hope, excitement, passion, and awe.
When you dare to look behind the curtain of your own making, you fill find that The Great and Powerful (and intimidating) Wizard of Overwhelm becomes the tangible, and not-so-frightening, Man Behind the Curtain.
What in your life right now (if anything) "feels" overwhelming?
What is your overwhelm keeping you from doing and experiencing?
What other emotions could be underlying this "feeling"?
What makes it challenging to allow yourself to feel these other emotions?
How would you life (your day to day and hour to hour existence) look and feel different if you accepted that your overwhelm doesn't truly exist, that it is a guise?
What uncomfortable emotions are you wiling to make room for and feel in order to expose your overwhelm for what it really is?
I view being overwhelmed as a distress Mayday call from the soul - it is a real fire alarm that needs to be heeded immediately. In my experience it generally comes from a feeling of inadequacy or insufficiency ('not ... enough') and / or the absence of a two-letter word in one's vocabulary - NO - as a complete sentence in itself without the need to rationalize or justify.
ReplyDeleteI agree - but I also think that overwhelm has much less to do with circumstances and much more to do with how we choose to approach them/ our attitude and mindset.
Delete