It's About Overwhelm

When genuine issues, both personal and global, take a back seat to sensational stories that spread uncertainty, insanity, deflection, and gaslighting on a massive scale, we’re bound to realize our stress levels are affected, and we tend to neglect what keeps us sane: healthy eating, exercising, meaningful conversations, a walk in the forest.

This article is about getting ourselves out of that mass of stress we so easily tap into, whether or not we think we need more sleep, time off work, meditation, exercise, or more alcohol. I became a willing participant in stress when I reached out to an online site that matches what you need with businesses that pay for the privilege of being a member of the site.

I was naïve thinking I’d get one or two responses. Businesses using every available method of communication possible bombarded me with their messages. Panicking, I started to sort them out, but soon got overwhelmed. Signing up was so easy; I put a little information about myself and my project in their handy form and pressed ENTER. It wasn’t so easy to read, respond to, and make initial decisions about who I might want to work with. Things got a bit simpler once I specified my desire to work with a Canadian company.

But this post is not about my experiences with online businesses either. I had to let go of my perception that I must make decisions immediately, which resulted in joining the massive stress bubble. Unfortunately, because I’m still recuperating from a serious illness, my body and brain decided to shut down. That made me pay attention to what I was doing to myself.

You, no doubt, have felt the same way, but what can we do about it? To my chagrin, I already knew what to do. How easy it was to succumb to panic, to the idea that I must jump into the fray because I asked for help. If I had to say what this post is about, I’d say it’s about overwhelm. Mary Oliver’s poetry has been an inspiration lately as I strive to leave the world’s insanity behind. She wrote about overwhelm in her poem I Worried.

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers

flow in the right direction, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shall

I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,

can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows

can do it and I am, well,

hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,

am I going to get rheumatism,

lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And I gave it up. And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.

Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems, "I Worried", (Massachusetts, 2010).

I’m so with Mary Oliver when she took her “old body and went out into the morning…” I think my leap to stress was because of faulty thinking that I had to get started on my list of things to do to publish my book. Thoughts about falling behind or not accomplishing what I felt driven to do morphed into the spectre of failure. Time was ticking away, and every day was a struggle to complete even minimal tasks: household duties-check, medications-check, food organized-check, edit poetry books-check, write blog-check, time with my husband-check, nap-check, meditate-check, laundry-check. . . The list doesn’t end, but my involvement with it can. It's called prioritizing.

There are many techniques to tackle my overwhelm issue, but this article is not about that either. My book, now finished and waiting for one last edit before continuing the formatting and printing processes, reminded me of something. How quickly I could forget that hopping from one hamster wheel to another is not progress. Impatient to get my book published, I couldn’t stop thinking. Literally! Getting out of my mind and centreing on soul-led priorities was what I’d spent the last eight years (ish) learning to do. The first lesson I had in getting out of my mind came from a mentor who showed up in a vision. From my book:

I had history with this old healer woman. She first appeared fourteen years earlier in a couple of deep group meditations, led by a friend of mine. Seated on the ground with her back towards me, she was drawing in the sand, completely ignoring me. Before this vision, I had never seen her face. Her presence was commanding, despite not speaking or engaging with me. I was a little apprehensive about whether she would respond this time. As I relaxed my body and entered that in-between sleep and awake state, this vision appeared in vivid colour: The old healer woman was sitting on the opposite side of the fire. I could only see her face and her eyes appeared enormous in the firelight. “Empty your mind,” she said, and kept repeating it when I got distracted. I saw her eyes change from human to a lioness and back. I said, “I hear you.” Over and over, I emptied my mind until I fell asleep. (Journal—February 19, 2020)

She was the one who taught me to get into the meditative state to do the inner work I so desperately desired. It’s one thing to learn how to get into that state and quite another to listen to one’s soul while in that state. My book details what had to happen before I could reconnect and eventually hear my soul’s wisdom, but it does not serve as a step-by-step guide. The journey inward is a highly individual one, calling each person to discover their own path forward.

The old healer woman’s reminder was timely. While my list was always way too long, I am reminded that the easiest way to create something—a website, a finished book, writing, even my day—is to get into the creative flow that is always available to us. It puts us in a space that accesses the spirit of creation itself. I wrote a poem about this process before I realized what I was describing.

The day dawned on a

carefully assembled figure

glaring in defiance.

The face as constructed

as the clothing protecting its wearer,

reflected a startling profile in the mirror.

The face grimaced, peering closer

at furrowed lines etched in

eyes leaking sadness.

The lips, as cracked

as dry river mud, and feet worn out

by countless paths walked,

stood waiting.

A dream stirred in the day’s last hours,

escaping from the depths of a hidden heart.

The eyes pierced the darkness,

as brilliant rays of rippled

light visions lit the sky,

and formed words.

I AM.

I REMEMBER.

Alice Carlssen Williams (2022)

May this post serve as a gentle nudge, encouraging you to look inward, to reawaken the connection with your soul, and to ultimately remember the truth of who you are.