A Reminder for Managing Overwhelm

Dear friends,

I don’t know if any of you can relate, but these past few weeks have felt extremely chaotic and overwhelming. I’m not sure if it’s the changing of the seasons, Mercury in retrograde, or just the complexities of my personal life coming to a head all at once, but life feels like a lot right now and my feelings of overwhelm are very real.

Truthfully, I recently let these feelings get the best of me. I just felt like there was no way out of all of the complicated issues that I had to deal with; almost as if I was trapped in my own chaos.

None of these feelings are new, there have always been seasons of high stress and uncertainty, and there will be many more to come. The waves of life come and go, and we do our best to manage it.

In this instance in particular, I noticed a dynamic that I was engaging with that was unnecessarily adding on to my stress and overwhelm. Pinpointing it in the moment, and cultivating the awareness that I was doing it, helped me immensely in managing my stress, and I thought, maybe you all could benefit from this, too.

As I was processing my own feelings and sorting through how to manage all that I needed to do, I noticed that I was also taking on the challenges and difficulties of the people around me. In short, I was carrying baggage that wasn’t mine to hold.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve had to learn in this season of my life is how to discern where to place my energy, and what I can and can’t control. In this case, I was letting the life challenges and struggles of friends, family, and even the world pile on to my own difficulties, leading me to feel extra taxed and burned out.

As caring, kind human beings, it’s a natural response to feel invested in our loved ones struggles. We all want to do what we can to help, in whatever way we can. However, it’s important that we remember that we cannot take on other people’s problems as our own. No one benefits when we do this.

If you’re managing a season of stress and overwhelm, I invite you to take inventory of where these feelings are coming from, and pinpoint the issues that are yours, and the ones that you can release. Remember, this doesn’t preclude you from lending support when needed, but rather, setting healthy boundaries within yourself to help you maintain your precious resource: your energy.

Remember, too, that no feeling is final, and the seasons of our lives are always changing.

xo, Michelle

 

If you liked this post, here are some more helpful reminders:

3 Reminders When Faced With Change

6 Things to Remember When Hurting

5 Things To Remember When Life Isn’t Where You Want It To Be

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