Overwhelmed? Is Life Too Difficult and Too Busy?

A recurring theme, both for me and people I talk to is Overwhelm. Life can often seem just too difficult. And does it feel sometimes like you're too busy? I want to share some tips with you that have worked for me and have worked for people that I know. And as always, there's no judgement here. I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm here to share my experience, share some things that have worked, and I'm hoping will help you as well.

What strange times we are living in, I cannot tell you over the last week, I've had some personal challenges, which I'm not going to go into.  But I've been speaking to so many people who are telling me they don't know what's going on. I've got a friend who is a healer, an absolutely beautiful soul. She is somebody that's been a mentor to me, someone that I really look up to, who inspires me, somebody's got so many gifts. She told me that she'd done something this week that was really out of character for her, she said found herself, almost like an out of body experience listening to herself ranting and she said, ‘I was like the exorcist!’. She knew she was not being rational, she just completely lost her temper, and I know that might be like a bit extreme. But I also know other people that have said to me, ‘I'm not quite sure what's going on this week. I've also had a strange week, I felt very emotional, I felt very angry, I felt very frustrated’. And I can relate to that I really can. And I think sometimes we all just need to take that little step back. And that's why the subject of this week is are you too busy and overwhelmed with life?

 If you are, we know there's a lot of things in the world we know we cannot control. I'm looking out of my window now. And an absolute storm has just started. It's come out of nowhere, when I started writing it  was bright sunshine, and now this really heavy rain has come out of nowhere. And that's life isn't it? things will come out of nowhere, things will knock you off kick off centre, things will knock you off your path that you're on and things that you think you knew, may get challenged.

I'm not even going to talk about financial stuff, environmental stuff. There's a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world, things happening that we cannot always control, you may be able to influence it in our own little way or, or in big way, depending on what our role is. But for the most part, the what's goes on in the world around us we cannot control but what we can control is our inner world and how we respond.

And I talk about this a lot with cancer patients, but it applies to anybody whether you've had an illness or not, you can't control if you get that diagnosis that's out of your hands. But what you can control to degree is how you respond to it. And I think that to me, that's part of my personal growth, and it's part of my journey that I'm on, I'm 60 years old now and I'm still learning stuff, I'm still learning things about myself, that I'm not really happy with, things that I'd like to improve,  mistakes that I've made that I'm looking back and realising I could have done better – while trying not to beat myself up.  I'm trying to show myself some compassion. And I invite you to do the same as well. We all make mistakes, that is the human condition. What we can do, though, is to try and spread some positivity. And that's what I'm here to do. I'm going to give you my top tips, and things that have worked for me that helped me when I'm overwhelmed.

Start your day well

The first thing I would invite you to do is first thing in the morning, instead of checking your phone, check your heart. How are you feeling inside? How's your mood? What are you thinking about? What are you looking forward to?

If everything is getting just too much, sometimes it just helps to look to the day ahead, plan the day ahead as best you can to have a good day. So, what can you do that's going to make you have a good day? It can be something really simple like a lovely cup of coffee, or chat with a friend,  watching a nice film or an uplifting video or listening to some music. Just a small thing that you can just do for yourself, maybe just sitting and breathing for five minutes.

How do you assess your own worth?

In the past I have assessed my worth by my status at work, or my bank balance, or how many things I ticked off my ‘to do’ list. Some people assess their worth by how many likes they get on social media. And I think that's a really dangerous road to go down. Because you can't control that, yes, it's great. If your friends like what you're doing. Yes, it's great if you've got followers if that's what you're into. But that doesn't make you worthy. And if you don't get those likes, and you don't get those followers, that doesn't mean you're unworthy.

So check in with your heart, your heart always knows what's best for you. And if you need somebody to talk to, and work through that, speak to a coach, speak to a therapist speak to me, you know where I am.

Let It Go!

The next thing I would suggest that can help you when you're feeling overwhelmed, is to let stuff go. And that can be mental stuff that you're carrying around, you know, ‘she said this’, and ‘he did that’ and all the stuff that we carry around, find a way to let that go. Talking therapies can be helpful here. But so can just doing something that gets your brain to focus on a different subject.  Getting outside in nature, or doing some exercise can help you let stuff go.

But also letting go of physical stuff can be so empowering and nurturing for you. I am a huge fan of Feng Shui,  of decluttering,  of having good energies in your home. And a top tip I would give you is if you are overwhelmed by the clutter that's in your home, just start a box or a bag for charity shop. I like to always keep one in my car. And if you're overwhelmed, and you don't want to spend a lot of time decluttering your home, just do a little bit every day. Five minutes, just let three things go every day. If you'd let three things go every day out of your home, clothes that don’t fit and you don't wear,  pens that don't work, maybe cutlery in the drawer that never gets used. If you got rid of three things every day over a year, that's over 1000 items.  And what you're doing is expanding the energy and the space that you've got around you.

I know how good I feel when I’ve done a really good wardrobe declutter. It's so much easier to get rid of everything that doesn't fit you, everything you've not worn for over a year. Everything that's seen better days, anything that you're not really in love with anymore, let it go, give it give it to charity, if it's still in good condition. And what you have got left, you can organize much better when you have less stuff, and you can see what you've actually got to wear.

If you really want to get stuck into it a really thorough decluttering, set a day aside for that. But if I don’t have time to do that,  I like to have short bursts of tidying and decluttering, I like to set a timer, and for 20 minutes, it’s easy to focus, and it can be surprising how much you can achieve with a concentrated effort. I decide that I'm going to tidy my desk, or I'm going to clean and organize my makeup bag, whatever it is, that always gives me clarity. It gives me a little bit of control, stops that feeling of overwhelm dragging me down.

Get Over Yourself

Over analysing, over thinking and over reacting are all huge energy drains. Get over yourself. And what does that mean? Well, we all do it and I'm guilty of this over analysing, overreacting. But also this week, I've been conscious of over explaining I've offered an apology to somebody who didn't want to accept it, my apology was a genuine apology, I explained what happened. I  just can't keep over explaining. that is draining my energy. That apology hasn't landed well, but that's outside of my control. So again, I'm all about thinking about what can I control? I have to stop overthinking about that. Move on, stop over explaining stop overanalyzing what's happened in the past, we can't change the past. All I can do is learn the lesson, and reflect and learn.  

Be Kind

My last tip I'm going to give you is something I've said before and I'm going to keep saying it until, until it lands because I still am still learning this lesson. And that is to be kind, especially to yourself. Be soft, bit gentle, be forgiving with yourself. You know, you're not a machine, you are human, you may make mistakes. We all do. That doesn't make you a bad person does it? Make some time for yourself. Give yourself some grace. If somebody's reaching out to you reach back out to them. Be conscious of who you are spending your time with, be conscious of who you are giving your energy to. People around us sometimes underestimate how much influence they have on us. And I know that I don't I can't bear to watch the news on TV anymore. It's just bad news, dragging you down, negative energy. I would much rather watch something on YouTube I follow a number of people who inspire me people who have something interesting to say, I can have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea and sit and watch something that lifts my spirit, not drag it down.

I hope this is useful for you, and helps you to come back to the lovely person that you are before what life wore you down.

Be kind to the people that love you and the people that you love. Get more of that in your life. Reach out to me if I can help you with anything. But please remember this week, the most important thing is to be kind, especially to yourself, you deserve it. Crazy times in the world. But how do we change that? And I think we change that by being kind to ourselves to others starting ripples of kindness around the world. I really believe that's how we change the world. Love is always stronger than hate. We can do this we can get through these difficult times and I'm always here for you. So thank you so much for listening to me. You know where I am 

Reach out to me if I can help you, I’d love to connect with you.

Thanks for reading