Recognizing Overwhelm in Our Lives

Quote: “A woman who lives with the stress of an overwhelmed schedule will often ache with the sadness of an underwhelmed soul”. – Lysa Terkeurst

I remember the day clearly, not long before my cancer diagnosis in March of this year, when I sat at a table and screamed out and cried as I expressed to my spouse Don and my daughter Sivanna, how overwhelmed I felt.

I said things like “It’s just all too much.” “I can’t take it anymore”. “It’s all just too, too, much!!!!”

The Soul Speaks

It appears that my soul was screaming out loud and clear that I needed to address this. 🙂

And addressing the issue indeed happened. I was diagnosed and my whole life changed, and for the better I might add. I am now a proponent of limiting both my stress and my overwhelm and I seriously wish I that I had been better at doing this years ago. I am not one for regrets so it is simply full-speed ahead and moving forward with less overwhelm and more grace in my life.

Overwhelm can come in many forms and from many sources. For example, we are now in an information age and that in itself can be overwhelming. Another factor that can lead to overwhelm, especially for women, is that we tend to take on too many tasks in order to make sure everyone else’s lives run smoothly, and unfortunately that sometimes means that we let ourselves get run down and frustrated and thus overwhelmed.

These days, you will often hear me say the words “no stress” or “no stressing” when it comes to a conflicting appointment or something throwing off a schedule for example. I find this really helps to remind me to just ‘back off’ and to not let the stress run the show and take charge of me. I take charge of it before it can lock itself into place, just like a cancerous tumor creates itself in the body.

I like to now think of myself like my cell phone in the fact that I don’t want my battery to run low or to 0. I want to keep me at full vitality and to not get depleted. Depletion of energy and overwhelm are a deadly combo.

What about you? Can you look at areas in your life where you feel overwhelmed? Can you recognize that? That is the first step.

When we own our own power and practice self-care we can ramp up our vitality and decrease overwhelm.

Maggie is honored to have received this award 2 years in a row