Why do I feel overwhelmed? Understanding how overwhelmed thoughts create overwhelmed experience
Do you feel overwhelmed? What do you think is causing this overwhelm - running your own business, feeling as if there are not enough hours in the day, financial pressure, not having enough time for yourself? The truth is: if you THINK about all the things you have to do, you will FEEL overwhelmed. So that is what you experience in that moment.
Try saying it out loud: “I am feeling overwhelmed because I am having overwhelmed thoughts”. What you might not know is that “Thought” is giving you your experience.
Thought passes through us all day long and can also keep us awake at night. Overwhelmed thinking can create feelings of stress, anxiety, worry, frustration and even anger. These thoughts keep your mind busy and will prevent you from experiencing clarity, being able to have good ideas and as a result, making good decisions.
These overwhelmed thoughts also have the ability to create a physical response, for example high blood pressure, breathing difficulty - even leading to clinical depression and burn out.
Did you know that thoughts are passing through your mind all day long? You have 4 - 8 thoughts a second on average. That is a lot of thoughts! Some we can ignore as we see them as “Thought” but to others, we give meaning and we see them as real. These thoughts fog our mind, giving us a physical response, and prevent us from seeing clearly.
What can we do?
The good news is that there is nothing to do, other than simply see that feelings of overwhelm are coming from overwhelmed thoughts. It takes a lot of thought to try and change what you think, or try to turn it into something positive. Noticing your thoughts is much more powerful than trying to change them. The moment you see your thoughts as thoughts, you allow yourself to see they will pass. When we don’t hang on to thoughts, they pass by like the clouds in the sky, leaving our minds clear again.
Have you ever driven along a beautiful country lane and after a while realised you can’t remember anything you’ve seen? You drive and drive but you are not present. Then suddenly your mind gets quiet and you think “I have no idea how I drove the last 5 miles!” Your mind was busy during that time and then suddenly those thoughts passed, leaving you with a crystal clear moment. That is how our mind works.
Take a moment now to be still
Remember: you have overwhelmed thinking because, in this moment right now, you are thinking about all the things you have to do in the future. This will pass.
There is only this moment right now.
In this moment:
I can hear the birds sing
I can hear my breathing, my heartbeat
My mind is quiet
There is no tomorrow
No yesterday
No anxiety
No worries
No depressed feeling
Only stillness
Tell yourself:
only thought has the power to take me out of this moment into the future or into the past
I am not my thoughts, but thought builds the reality I live in day in day out
When I see that this is true, I am less interested in passing thought and able to be more present. My mind is quieter
This is when I find clarity, come up with good solutions and am more productive
“Thought is not reality, yet it is through. Thought that our realities are created. It is what we as humans put into our thoughts that dictates what we think of life.”
- Sydney Banks
