I got asked this week by a mum – “How can I become less overwhelmed by life?”
Here’s my reply –
Overwhelm is our REACTION to stress which then causes the nervous system to be dis-regulated (see this post here).
A healthy nervous system will be able to handle a stressful situation and then return to feeling calm again (ie ‘fight or flight’ in times of stress then back to ‘rest and digest’).
When your nervous system is dis-regulated – it either ends up staying stuck ‘on’ or ‘off’. So that would mean it would stick in the fight or flight (or as I like to call it ‘alert’ but others might know it as anxiety or hyper-vigilant or panicky) OR it would because stuck in the freeze state (or as I like to call it ‘shutdown’ but it might feel like you can’t move out of bed or have no energy, motivation etc).
So if you’re feeling overwhelmed there’s 3 things you need to focus on:
1. Reducing how much your nervous system is activated
2. Building in DAILY and WEEKLY times where your brain is switched OFF and you can become ‘unstuck’
3. Learn emotional regulation (ie EFT but loads of others too)
I hear so often… I don’t have time for this. Well here’s the thing:
1. Overwhelm is a time thief as you cannot be effective when you can’t think straight
2. You can end up focussing on all the wrong things because you have no clarity
3. The symptoms of overwhelm can end up leading you to waste time procrastinating, unable to make decisions easily or make the wrong decisions and having no motivation
4. Overwhelm makes you busy
We all have time. How we spend our time is our choice. We need to commit to using our time, energy and resources effectively to overcome overwhelm.
Often the issue isn’t necessarily overwhelm but our self worth and where we place importance on ourselves and our needs. We can parent well when we have our needs met. When we don’t, we struggle (see this recent post here – I’m going to write a self worth mini series soon so look out for those in upcoming weeks).
We can’t always change our situation, but we can ALWAYS change how we react to stress. That bit is our choice. But you need to do the work.
What commitment are you going to make to yourself this week to make the time to support change and look after you?
If you want to feel calmer, saner, happier…. you can read my e-book, Thrive Mum Method, here.
Much love, Tricia xxx
