What is Overwhelm?

Overwhelm is a feeling, and like all feelings, it has a cause. The cause can be as complex and as long-in-the-making as experiencing Burnout, or it can be as simple and straight forward as just one more thing being added to your To Do list. You are the one experiencing the feeling – you get to decide if what you are feeling is overwhelm -the cause doesn’t have to be huge for you to be feeling all the feels (so to speak). It can be the straw that broke the camel’s back – I’ve just realised what a horrific saying that actually is…

What does Overwhelm feel like?

Overwhelm feels as if you’ve reached your absolute limit. It feels like soul-crushing exhaustion and mind-numbing apathy all mixed into one. It feels as if you everything you ever loved about your life (or your job, or your – you fill in the blank) doesn’t really matter anymore, and that everything you enjoyed is just too much effort. Time for dinner? Surely a bowl of cereal would be easier to get that a healthy, hearty meal. If one more person asks you to do one more thing, you might just pack up and leave – if only you had the energy. Okay, these are extreme examples – but I’ve been there, and I’ve felt it all.

Guilt seems to be a side effect of Overwhelm – feeling guilty for not being able to cope, for letting people down because you’re simply not able to function, and so it goes on. This triggers a veritable storm of swirling thoughts, emotions and even physical symptoms. The symptoms of Overwhelm are described in a more clinical and concise manner by Dr Sabrina Romanoff as:

What causes Overwhelm

Overwhelm is a relatively modern state, brought about by the life we (in the western world) live today. If I imagine the life that my grandparents lived at my age – or even my parents – it was way more simple than it was now. Yes they still had problems to deal with, but what didn’t they have? Email, social media, constant access to the news (which let’s face it is rarely good these days), long-lived parents, children with complex lives of their own and a To Do list a mile long.

I’m no scientist, but Prof. Richard E. Cytowic, MD, MFA is; and when he says that the human brain today has not evolved since the times of our Stone Age ancestors, well, I’m inclined to believe him. Can you imagine a Neanderthal brain trying to deal with modern life? And yet, that is precisely what is happening to each and every one of us, all the time. Is it any surprise that the straw did what it did to that poor camel?

How to overcome Overwhelm?

Theoretically, the only real way to overcome Overwhelm is to reduce the number of plates you currently have spinning in the air at any one time. This can be easier said than done. Whilst we may not be cut out for modern life, there aren’t many of us who are actually in a position to walk away from it. Likewise, we may not always choose to take on more than we can cope with – sometimes life gives us lemons, or elderly parents, or a chronic illness.

There are a number of ways you can attempt to overcome Overwhelm, and these are the typical de-stressing tools that we all know and maybe love… or we just know that we should do and don’t, because we just don’t have the energy to start. So, if you can, try journaling, yoga, walking in nature, meditation and mindfulness.

But what if you really are just some bone-wearily exhausted, and at the same time so highly strung, that you just can’t do any of these – you just cannot.

Can Reiki help with Overwhelm?

Reiki is another tool in your anti stress toolkit, but this one requires less up front effort. A Reiki appointment gives you time when someone else will take care of you. They will hold space for you, which can allow you to begin to heal. Reiki can be very good at straightening out emotions, allowing the recipient to see more clearly than they have for a long time. By moving stuck and stagnant energies through the body, it can help you to prioritise all those things that are currently overwhelming you. It can encourage you to make decisions, and support you as you follow them through.

If you’re looking for examples of how this works, look no further than yours truly. After my first Reiki session I cleared out my office. After my second Reiki session I cleared out my entire loft. To me, this was symbolic of Reiki helping me to declutter my life – and this was where it chose to start. Subsequent sessions saw me cleaning up my work/ life balance and eventually leaving my job and that’s how I come to be talking to you today.