What a question – with a plethora of answers, most times. Oftentimes there are seasons in life where everything on paper looks quite great. In these seasons of life, from the outside, looking in, you’re present – you’re keeping up, you’re showing up, you’re checking the boxes and getting it done in all the facets of your life… but it’s not really fine at all. Underneath it all? You’re not fine. Underneath it all there’s a steady hum of overwhelm you really cannot quite explain. The quiet hum of overwhelm as you go about your day-to-day life makes it all the more confusing. You can’t quite put your finger on “what” it is and you cannot explain “why” you’re feeling as disconnected and not like yourself, which in most cases makes it that much harder. Because when life looks pretty great on paper, it can become mind-boggling, even downright frustrating, to admit that inside you are not okay.
What does overwhelm even look like? That can be a simple or complex answer. Overwhelm is not always what people think it is. Overwhelm can actually sometimes look like putting off small and simple tasks, feeling mentally tired before your feet hit the bedside for the day, getting really annoyed quite easily, struggling to focus on things you deeply know you care about, perhaps even wanting to “check out” the second you have a free moment. Overwhelm? Well it doesn’t always look like someone spiraling and falling apart – it’s many times quiet, then slowly it builds, then it merges overtime with other subtle facets of your mental load. And over time, that constant, consistent, quiet hum of low-level pressure can start to feel like entirely too much. This is when and where it begins to not only add up in your mind and body, but many times finally bubble to the surface. Invisible stress inside, that slowly starts to manifest in how we perform day to day tasks and truly function throughout our world around us.
Let me remind you, that a lot of the time, this kind of overwhelm isn’t about just one thing in your life. In fact it’s typically not one big thing at all causing your sudden hesitation, making you second guess yourself, keeping you stalling over and over, or even feeling paralyzed… It’s about too many small things. A mental load adds up quietly. The cliche “too many tabs open in my brain” is a very real analogy of what small things adding up can do to your mental capacity – bring it to overload. You have decisions – big ones, small ones, important ones, even not so important ones, but you still have to make them. You have responsibilities – ones you must tackle head on, ones you brought upon yourself, ones you even look forward to, but they are responsibilities nonetheless. You have an endless “to-do” list, things you’re keeping track of and things you truly cannot afford to forget. Oftentimes we do not realize that even when each piece feels manageable on its own, your brain is still tightly, intricately, and exhaustingly holding onto all of it – at one time.
Eventually what happens is that your brain reaches capacity. We all have a limit, a level, a certain amount that we can hold onto, retain, and attempt to get a handle on, before it hits the breaking point. Or many times it doesn’t feel like the breaking point; it feels like it all begins to quietly chip off, crumble, and the mountain of small things slowly starts to become in disarray. A tricky thing about all of this is that it’s still happening underneath the surface. Many people are used to functioning “well” on the outside, even when that mountain is staring them in the face and bringing them to their knees inside. You are capable. You are reliable. You do push through. But pushing through doesn’t mean your brain isn’t working overtime, at max capacity, and the system has reached its limit – yet you just keep going.
Here’s what I want you to realize: the internal mountain, the endless tabs in your brain, the underlying hum, it cannot and is not able to go away overnight. The goal here isn’t to “instantly fix all the overwhelming and out of control feelings in one fell swoop and have life feel exactly the same as it once did when you felt like you were thriving. Well, it might be the goal, but it cannot be approached this way. It’s actually going to start by you creating a little more space. Creating this space can look like: getting things out of your head and onto paper (yes, even the teeny tiny stuff!), reducing the number of decisions you have yourself make in one day, giving yourself complete permission to do things imperfectly, or even building in small (but vital) pauses throughout your day, instead of needing a full reset to keep going. Remember, not everything needs to be optimized. Sometimes your brain just needs a little less to hold, one less tab to even see lingering at the top of your screen.
If you have been feeling this way, I want you to sincerely realize that you’re not alone, and it also does not mean that something is “wrong” with you. Feeling overwhelmed as we grow into our lives is a real thing that many high functioning adults experience in their lives. As we navigate relationships, jobs, school, family dynamics, expectations and timelines in life it’s safe to say we are all dealing with a lot. Sometimes your mind has been carrying more than it should have to, for much longer than you realized. A support system, clear acknowledgement that overwhelm happens to many people, and help when you need it can make all the difference in your life. You can sort through things and function in a healthy way that actually feels manageable again, I promise.
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