“Overwhelm is an illusion that states: ‘I am not capable. I cannot handle all this. It is too much. I am doing this all alone.”
-Shoshona Ortalia Rogers from Goddess: 7 Rings of the Heart

We’ve just returned from a week in New England visiting with family and friends and a week driving back and forth. Our days were busy, fitting in everyone we wanted to see. It was wonderful and exhausting.

Getting back home, though tired, I swung full tilt into Weight Watchers and creating a new way of eating. Learning how to use my new FitBit, (which is at this moment buzzing my wrist because I haven’t taken enough steps in the past hour!) Preparing to co-teach a Goddess class. Taking an on-line writing and publishing course. Writing and editing fiction and non-fiction. Planning for our upcoming holiday and birthday parties. And last, but certainly not least, grandparenting, parenting and spousing (is that a word?). I swung myself right into overwhelm.

Overwhelm is a state of mind. It really has nothing to do with what and how much you are doing.

There are many who can handle a daily schedule that is packed from morning to night and beyond with equanimity. There are those whose flexibility makes it possible for them to easily go with the flow. And there are those who get overwhelmed by any change in their daily routine. I probably fall somewhere in the middle depending upon the day.

Overwhelm has everything to do with what and how you are thinking and feeling about what you are doing.

I experience overwhelm when I perceive a task as bigger than it actually is. This happens particularly when I have a number of different projects and responsibilities that I am juggling at once. They gather together, increasing exponentially, and loom over me, mountainous and huge.

I feel confused. I don’t know where to start, and so I don’t. I am stuck. I feel like there is not enough time to accomplish what I must.  I feel alone, as if there is no where to turn for support.

The specter of resistance then rears its head. My ego-self digs in her heels and pulls in the opposite direction from where I want to go for fear that what I do or create will not be perfect. Sigh…

Overwhelm is not fun.

So, what do we do when the illusion of overwhelm, does its thing and overwhelms us?

1. Understand that the feeling of overwhelm is an illusion. It is a misperception. You have the power to look at things differently.

2. Know that you are not alone. Your Spiritual Support Team is interested in and involved with every little bit of your life. They’ve got your back. You can hand that fear in your gut, which is at the base of the perception of overwhelm, over to your Team. They will take care of it. Today’s Spiritual Toolbox is a visualization guiding you through doing this.

3. Focus and Organize. Break each task down into, small, incremental steps. Then, take one step at a time. As you do so you reduce that looming mountain of overwhelm into manageable, orderly, small piles of pebbles. These you can deal with, one at a time.

4. Express gratitude for each small step that you take. Gratitude shifts your energy, lifting you into alignment with your Higher Self. That’s a nice place to be.

Are you willing to give it a try? Me too!

“You are so lucky to have every day.”
-Shoshona Ortalia Aurora Rogers
 
I’ve been reading a romance novel (my not so secret pleasure) set in rural Ireland about a woman whose heart’s desire was to be a writer. She gave up her city life and moved to a small village in Ireland to pursue her dream.  The description of her walks over emerald green hills in the mornings, then the delight she felt as she sat at her table, steaming cup of tea at hand, and wrote in the afternoons, all touched a chord deep within me. The more I brought up that feeling within me, the more I realized that she described my dream, and despite the difference in location I was stunned to realize I am living my dream.

The author of the trilogy writes so poignantly of her character’s life because she writes with love of what she loves. Why is it that we forget to see with the eyes of love in our every day lives? My dream is all around me and yet all I saw was the mundane and the repetition of every day. I guess even the bright shine of a dream dims from daily familiarity. Or perhaps I changed into it so gradually I took it all for granted, writing, woods walks with my dog, a loving marriage, my family who are my friends and my friends who are my family, my spiritual community. I am living my dream, how did I lose track of that?

Living your dream isn’t really about the physical aspects despite what we may think, it is about the feeling, paying attention to and expressing love in your every day life. The physical aspects of whatever it is you dream of may provide a vehicle for moving into that love, but it is the love and the expressing of love that creates happiness.

“A happy life is just a string of happy moments. But most people don’t get the happy moments because they’re so busy trying to get a happy life.”
-Abraham-Hicks
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Appreciating each thing about every day that you can is an expression of love in your life. It creates happiness and it creates the energy for you to attract more of what you want, more of what you love into your daily experience.

You don’t have to wait until you’ve achieved your dream, whatever that may look like on the outside. For dreams change and shift even as we do. You can focus your attention upon appreciating the elements of today that are your dream, those bits and pieces of your day that you love. As you do so you open up to allow more and more of your dream into your every day.

photo by elijah-hiett - unsplash