Managing Overwhelm - Dealing With The Emotions Before We Get To The Cause
The Restless Midlifer : Episode 45
In this episode, Dave explores the concept of overwhelm and provides some principles and tools to help you manage overwhelm so that you can get back to doing what and being who you really want to be.
Dave Algeo is a Restless Midlifer, searching for answers and adventure. His mission, should you choose to join him, is to seek out ways to get life back on his terms, heading in a more fulfilling direction and enhancing his health in the process. Dave is a writer, coach, and constantly curious person, striving to encourage others to live big - by identifying the small but significant things that can transform the life we are living. Join Dave as he explores how to regain the spirit of adventure and childlike curiosity whilst managing the "grown-up" responsibilities of life.
Dave's approach to making changes in life, health and direction, are rooted in his 'sprout sweater philosophy. Check out his 'Crackerjack' video here https://youtu.be/OZM4ObMSu6U to learn more about the basic metaphor. Check out episodes 30 and 31 to learn more about Dave's approach.
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Crib notes for podcast recording:
The What:
Remember:
Ok so the first thing to recognise is that overwhelm is an emotional state - we feel rather than think - as Paul McGee the SUMO guy says ‘stress makes you stupid’ if you haven’t check out Pauls work - then check out all his books particularly SUMO and how not to worry. Although all are great.
The key then is to recognise that this state of feeling is not conducive to constructive or creative responses that lead to making things better or more manageable - things can often get worse if we respond from overwhelm - permission to be human tho…
So- it;’s important to recognise that when in overwhelm our priority is to manage the emotional state and where our attention and motivation resides as a result - on fight, flight or freeze.
We are not seeking to solve the problem in this state of mind - for two reasons - we need our rational faculties to do so and overwhelm is well overwhelming enough to require all our focus on that - and again it’s easy to not do this right or perfectly.
So having identified our key priority - to manage back to a more rational state I want to share some tips.
Wrong
But what I see many getting wrong here and this includes me is that we direct our efforts in a way that can create more inner conflict and strain rather than working with the natural state of overwhelm - which is an evolved mechanism and pretty damn powerful - so let’s not resist the natural instinct. - let’s manage it
Right:
so I like to use Aikido as a metaphor here - let's work with the force of the opponent - in this case emotional overwhelm rather than directly resist it.
The three R’s
Our aim therefore is not to
Remain - don’t even try unless you absolutely have to and you have some well rehearsed and practiced tools - cite a police officer or lawyer or fighter.
Retain - don’t try to hang on to it for dear life.
Regain - it’s gone - accept - permission to be human then work on regaining focus etc