Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 113
Overwhelm is not a thing. And what I mean by that is, it's not a puddle that you can step into, and now you're covered in it. It's not a well that you can fall down. It's not a state of being that you can't untangle yourself from.
Overwhelm is a thought. And before you skip over this and go, hang on a minute, she's just gaslighting me. I know completely what overwhelm feels like. Overwhelm isn't an emotion. Overwhelm is quite often a thought that goes along the lines of, "I'm overwhelmed, I've got too much to do. I'm so busy. I don't have enough time for all of this stuff". And I want you to really question, when you think that kind of thoughts, what emotion, a one-word emotion, comes up for you when you think that.
Because when I think things like, I've got too much to do, luckily for me, that actually isn't something that I think very often anymore, because I've done so much work on this stuff, which is kind of wild for someone who effectively has four different businesses on the go at the same time. But I don't think that very often. So that's. I'm kind of using myself as evidence that it isn't something that you have to deal with for the whole of your life. The methods that I teach here do actually work.
But when you think something like, I don't have enough time to do all of this stuff, or there's too much to do, or I think my favourite used to be, "There's not enough hours in the day". What one word emotion. Do those thoughts cause for you? For me, the emotion used to be, I would say, probably if I'm tuning back into that, "I don't have enough hours in the day", it would be anxiety.
And when I'm feeling anxious, the kind of things that I would do would be things like fretting over how many things are on my to do list. Not knowing how to prioritise stuff, not knowing how I'm going to get through everything. Wondering how I'm going to deal with the people that I've let down because I haven't done the stuff. Wondering probably not consciously, but underlying it, always the idea of how I would be speaking to myself about the fact that I'd not set clear boundaries. I wasn't setting. I wasn't doing this stuff to look after myself. I was probably doing it to look after other people, there was an awful lot of people pleasing in my overstuffed agenda.
All of those things. If I look at that list of tasks, the kind of the judging myself, the criticising, the things that I've taken on, the worrying about things, the people pleasing, the outcome of all of those actions would be that I actually create more overwhelm. What I think I'm observing, I'm actually co creating. And so rather than it just being a case of I think I'm overwhelmed, I'm actually creating overwhelm for myself. And that comes from that feeling of anxiety and that anxiety driving all of those actions.
Now to try and flip that on its head a little bit. When I notice that that's what's going on, what I can do is I can pause and say, okay, given the amount of things that I have to do today, what would I like to be feeling at the end of it? Well, quite often something I seek to feel is confidence or competence, either of them. But let's try confidence as an idea as to when we're looking at a great big to-do list of stuff that we've got done. So if I was thinking about how I could feel confident, what do I think someone who was feeling confident might be thinking?
Well, I think me, when I'm feeling confident about my diary and I'm looking at my to-do list, if I was feeling confident, I might be thinking a thought along the lines of, "I got the right amount of things done today", "I trust that I'm going to get through my to-do list". Those kind of thoughts are going to lead me to feeling more confident. And when I feel confident, what do I do? I organise my to-do list into a list of priorities. I get on with the things in hand, I break things into small, manageable chunks so I'm able to get through them in the day. I don't judge, waste time judging myself and waste time spinning in a whole load of despair that I'm not going to get the stuff done, I just get on with it. And at the end of the day, I know that I'm going to have my own back with that thought and trust that I've been practicing of, "I got the right amount of stuff done". So when it gets to the end of the day, I actually feel like I've got a whole load of achievements behind me, rather than a whole load of judgment stacked up.
So the reality is that when I think that I'm going to get the right amount of stuff done today, I actually get a whole load more stuff done and then however much I've got done, I'm not left with a whole load of judgment residue that is making me feel terrible, probably stopping me resting and probably stopping me, preventing me from getting stuff done the next day.
So actually, when I'm thinking that thought, "I got enough done today", what it creates is that I'm able to clear my to-do list with a sense of confidence and ease and also be able to put my work down at the end of the day and be able to have some relaxing time and some time that is just for me.
And the reason why I'm talking you through this stuff today, I think, is because quite often when we tell ourselves that we're overwhelmed, it's a very sticky thought to be repeating to ourselves. And the more that we tell ourselves it, the more we can feel like we're sort of pouring concrete around our feet. It doesn't enable us to move forward and we can feel really like we're weighed down by this. And the end result is that actually our whole time in our diaries feel a lot less manageable. And when we can work out where we want to be heading, we can actually map our pathway there.
This is exactly what I teach in www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk The folk there are learning to do this for themselves, working out thoughts that create the kind of lives and the kind of outcomes that they want and learning to map their way there in such a beautiful, supportive community. If you'd like to learn how to do that, there's some details that follow, but also you can just drop me a little email if you've got any questions, and I can try and help you untangle some of those thoughts that are causing you to feel a little bit stuck and see where we can move forward and give you a little bit more air around the embers so you can move more towards the dream and the kind of life that you want to be living. One that is filled, hopefully, with a lot less stress, a lot less obligation to dos, a lot more ease, and a lot more joy. If you'd like to learn how to do this, there's a little bit to follow.
And I hope that even if you don't choose to join us, that this little breakdown has been a breezy example that you can apply to your own days and your own lives. I look forward to speaking to you next week.
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