Tips To Stop Overwhelm

Overwhelm is not an emotion!

Overwhelm is a result of a habit that stops you from creating health.

Overwhelmed is the symptom of a habit. It is not an emotion. Let's unpack that. I'm going to say it again. It's simple, but you have to wrap your head around it.

Overwhelm is not an emotion. It is the symptom of a habit. Now I have a question for you. How many times have you been overwhelmed? I know my husband used to have a running joke, and he'd say, if I had a dollar for every time you said, I'm so overwhelmed, I'd be a multimillionaire.

That was my number one emotion that would come up. Now, you might experience overwhelm. Also, if you do, it stops you from creating health or creating anything else in your life, for that matter. So let's go to some facts. 

Fact number one, your subconscious wants to keep you exactly the same as you are right now.

Exactly the same. It does not want you to change because it is safe right now. And so it wants to keep you exactly the same. But we say we want something better, right?

We want to be healthy. Well, if we want something different than what we have right now, we have to do something different, which means we have to push against the subconscious. Now, if you have had that experience of overwhelm, it's the habit of not being present.

It's the habit of looking at all of the things you have to do instead of taking action on one thing. So when that emotion comes up, instead of thinking of all the things we need to build that muscle between planning and action. So, for example, I love planners. I love them. It's different to dream and collapse and think and plan about a planner than it is to execute the use of the planner.

So to stop the overwhelm, we have to be in the present, not looking at all the things in the future that we have to do. The more we cave to the overwhelm, the stronger our subconscious rules us and the harder it is to create health.

So start taking micro-actions. Basically, I want you to take micro action. Your ultimate agenda, taking micro action because you're learning things. That's my goal, is that you're learning things. But the learning can add to your overwhelm. Taking action on something, even if it is small, take action. 

You will get overwhelmed, and then you stop creating. When you stop creating, you're not moving your health forward.

If you add up all of the times that you've been overwhelmed, you've spent a lot of time not creating. And remember, overwhelm is not an emotion. We're hardwired as human beings to not deal with negative emotions. If we're viewing overwhelm as a negative emotion, we're going to push it away and not deal with it, meaning it comes right back stronger. It's not an emotion.

It's not an emotion. Say that with me. Overwhelmed is not an emotion. It's the product of a habit. And the habit is looking at everything.

Living in the future instead of being focused on the present. So it really walking away from overwhelm and understanding how it works increases the quality of your life because you build that muscle to live in the present. Shelley and I were talking yesterday and we've had some software issues, and she was on a telephone call with one of the people from the software company. And at the end, they were not wanting to continue following through. So they kind of checked out and got on their phone and they were not in the present making a difference in the situation.

We've all done that. All of us have done that. When we do, we increase the chance of overwhelm hitting us. But if you'll remember, overwhelm is not an emotion. Say it out loud.

Write it down, put it on your mirror. Overwhelm is not an emotion. It's the product of a habit of looking at everything. Now there's sometimes we need to look at everything, but a lot of times we just need to be in the present and focus on one thing we can do right now. So as you practice that muscle of going from planning to action, planning to action, that walks you away from the experience of overwhelm and build your muscles of living in the now, all of that energy spent on overwhelmed.

If you have 100 energy points and that's all you get for the entire day, 24 hours, you get 100 energy points. How many energy points are you giving to being overwhelmed?

If we take those energy points back from being overwhelmed, we have more ability to create different things to increase our energy and put our focus on something else. Overwhelmed is the product of a habit. 

So the next time overwhelmed comes up, there are two things that I like to do. One, ask yourself, what can I do right now? One thing that I can do right now that will help. The next thing to ask yourself is how long has it been since I've been outside? Because remember this whole Walk with Me series we're talking about the Sunshine.

How long has it been since you've been outside? Because that Sunshine recodes you to your potential. Stepping outside in the sunshine is a beautiful action to help you walk away from being overwhelmed. 

What would you do if you take all your overwhelmed points and you fill it with something else? What would you do? What would you do with them?

You need to connect to what you're losing by the overwhelmed. So I want to know, what would you do? 

I would spend more time water coloring. I would spend more time outside in nature. Oh, move forward with your life. Yeah. And when you move forward, that means you're growing and creating.

Determine what things you would do. I would practice on my hand lettering. I would be deeply connected with those around me and create more time to do that. So do you see those things that I can fill, those energy points that I used to do with overwhelm? Now here's the thing.

It's so simple. Overwhelm is not an emotion. It's the product of habit building. That muscle takes daily action.

You need to take action and teach yourself to live in the now quit looking at everything. Go from planning to action.

Think of what you're creating instead of that overwhelm so here's this little silly thing that I do and it works for me. I don't know if it's going to work for you but I'd love to know if it does. So when that overwhelm hits me and it still does, I think, okay, what action am I going to take?

One thing and it doesn't have to be a big thing. In fact, usually the smaller the better and so I'll do that one action, and then I'll celebrate like, oh, I'm amazing. Look what I just did. Look what I just did and then I do something else and then I celebrate. I usually have some music on in the background because that helps me build that muscle.

So say it with me again. Overwhelm is not an emotion. It's the product of a habit. It does not need to be avoided and we can take those overwhelmed points and put them toward doing something much more meaningful. Now we're at the end of our time together today and I want you to think of our mantra.

We start our morning with the sun we end our day with the sunset. Sunrise sunset. I want you to focus for the next minute on matching your breath with the sounds of this beautiful Pacific ocean that's behind me. Are you ready? 1 minute. Go.