Making Love that Lasts|Dealing with Overwhelm

Hello my dear ones

What do you do when Overwhelm looms on your horizon?

In the 3rd episode of our Making Love that Lasts Series we talk about how to deal with overwhelm.

This could be in your business, your personal life or any other area that can get you frazzled.

You know the feeling, you want and need to get things done, perhaps you have even planned out how and when to get it all done.

And BAM!!! Overwhelm hits up upside your head.  Plans goes awry, others get into the mix, perhaps people “steal” your time (more on that one in later posts, this is a HUGE topic!) or maybe you wake up in a funk and just can’t get going on your list.

First-BREATHE.  I know it sounds too easy, almost trite right?  But amazing things happen when we sit and consciously breathe, more oxygen to the blood and brain, calming to the nervous system.

Next-TAKE TIME FOR YOU…yes I said it. Sometimes you just have to walk away from the to do list and get a different perspective.  It’s like being in the middle of the woods and not being able to see all the trees, the minute you walk out of the woods you can see the bigger picture.

In the Piscean age we were conditioned to push through, those that do are made of steel and succeed.  But we are entering the Age of Aquarius, where experience, not information, is Queen.

And if we allow our bodies to be overtaken by overwhelm we do not leave space to allow the creativity to flow.

It all comes down to putting on YOUR oxygen mask FIRST before helping someone else.

I know we are conditioned to feel guilty for taking “me time,” yet when we don’t we are showing up as our “not so nice” selves and that does not serve anyone.

We truly believe you should feel guilty for NOT taking “me time,” after all that is when you are at your shiniest and brightest self, you were born to shine and you cannot do this if you are not taking of YOU.

So, what do you do when overwhelm smacks you upside your head?  Do you get buried in all that you need to do without taking care of yourself?  Or do you take a breather, change the scenery and come back to the list refreshed?

We would LOVE you to share your comments below and of course please feel free to send this video to your friends that may be in Overwhelm Overload.

Thank you for watching, we look forward to hearing your experiences.

Live, Love and Be Loved

Shivie

System Recovery

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.  The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
Mark Twain

Yesterday I shared that I was approaching,  nay I had arrived at, system overload.  After publishing the post I must have thought of 10 other things I could have added to the list of things to do this past 4 days.  But I am sure you got the gist.

Today is all about what to do when we turn the corner, often at hurtling speed, and see the sign “Alert; System Overload!”

At this point there are one of two choices: get drowned in overwhelm and risk being taken to the loony bin OR do something about it.  Change direction, take your foot off the accelerator, slow down, come to a halt and get out of the car.

But the “To Do List” I hear you cry.  Yes, the list of things to do remains never ending and some things need to be taken care of.  However, before you can take of the “things” you need to take care of YOU.

Or in this case, I need to take care of me.

Time to get out of surviving and thrive.  But how do we do that you may ask.

First and foremost is recognizing that the car we are driving is now driving us and careering out of control.  And bend now we could just spin out of control and lose it.  Time to get out of the car and to do that it has to come to a FULL STOP.

Next is a good night’s rest.  Sleep is my cure all, I am one of those that believes a good nights sleep and a fresh new dawn can make all the difference but it is not enough to get out the wheelspin I find myself in this week.  I need more but it is a good start.

Yoga, yes I need my yoga to get out of my head and into my body.  I managed to go on Wednesday but not yesterday (the day of the post.)  My body dislikes me for not going but will forgive me if I go today, and tomorrow and the next day.

Time out in nature, is there anything better than feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin, the beauty of nature all around you, the feel of the earth under your feet and a blue sky cascading over you?  Indeed a walk in nature is on the must do list for today and we have our favorite dog staying with us so she will enjoy it too!

Good food on my plate, I am generally good with my food and always have a big hearty bowl of salad but in times of overload I might just find myself in the bag of chips Cemaaj enjoys having around.  So not good for feeling better about yourself, in fact it just fuels up the Gremlin Gatekeepers to keep slapping you around at a time when you need to be lifted up.  No chips on the agenda today!

I will also spend some time reading something that inspires me.  I will stay away from the cortex of the computer that sometimes sucks me in sapping away both time and energy.  I will tidy up the farmhouse (that is work that makes me feel better and with 200 sq ft it doesn’t take long.)

I will breathe and as my friend, Anastasia reminds me, I will “lean into it,” meaning I will not struggle within the struggle but allow myself to flow through it to the other side.

I will take it one step at a time today.  Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not yet here, today I am in the NOW.  Tomorrow is a different story and I will deal with it when it arrives, En Shallah!

How about you?  What do you do to get out of overwhelm and back into balance. I would love to know.

Breathing in, breathing out.

My to do list today is all about self care and ME!

Photo Credit: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1677

The Treat That Bites Back

Sitting at The Petaluma Coffee and Tea Company on a beautiful Tuesday morning.  It is hot outside and cool inside (by virtue of the many fans).  Coffee is roasting in the big red roaster in the middle of the coffee shop, and the delicate aroma fills the cool air. 

As I sit here, I find myself thinking about treats that bite back.  It is a regular theme that comes by every now and then and asks the question of me, “Do your treats still have teeth or have you learned by now what a treat really is?”

Let me take you back to the first time I consciously realized that my treats did in fact have teeth that not only bite back, but continue to do so with a bigger and bigger bite each time. In fact one can get so accustomed to said teeth that a tolerance is built up around them.  This is dangerous ground.  It is the very hand that treats you which bites you back.

I remember telling my secretary (back when I was a corporate lawyer with my own secretary) that I had eaten McDonalds to treat myself. I explained that I knew I would then take the same meal I had used as a treat earlier in the day only to beat myself up with it later.  You know when the lights were low and I was all alone reflecting on my deeds.  To say she looked quizzically at me is an understatement.  She later asked what I had meant by that statement.

Thinking about it, prior to her question, I had become aware of this on a sub-conscious level yet it had not entered into my conscious state of being.  I knew this because I was still and sometimes continue, to do it.

A treat that bites back is one that the gateway gremlin inside of you screams out “Have it, you deserve it.  You’ve been through a lot/are going to go through a lot/triumphed over a challenge” yadda yadda….the list goes on.  One thing the gremlin is not short of is ways to persuade why you should do the very thing your inner knowing knows you should not. 

The problem is, or so I have found, that the voice of the gateway gremlin is so much louder in some of us than the voice of our inner knowing.  Only in the dark hours, in the solitude of night did my own inner knowing find a voice to express itself.  Self loathing and hatred would then be the tape that ran until I fell asleep.

As I mentioned, at the time my treat that bit me back was a McDonalds-quarter pound cheeseburger, large fries and chocolate milkshake.  I would scuttle out of my office, already feeling a tinge of guilt, around the corner to McDonalds.  Grabbing my order I would return to eat it in my office.  Of course then my office smelled like McDonalds for the afternoon, letting everyone else know what I had done. 

Today I do not eat McDonalds, I do not eat any animal products.  Yet if I am not careful those gateway gremlins can still convince me that I deserve a treat.  Now several years later I am more adept at recognizing the false lull of that voice and my inner knowing is a little louder than it was back then.  But I still have to be aware, especially when busy, tired or stressed.

I now remind myself what is important to me, namely to live a healthy and vibrant life.  The gateway gremlins still knock at my door.  They know my weaknesses and play to them.  But it takes two to play and I have to politely decline engaging them.  It is a constant battle, but now it is one that I am not willing to lose for I have too much to gain.

Now my treat is saying yes to my health, yes to the possibility that it doesn’t have to be the way it has always been.  I know I can create a new moment every moment and not be tied up in my past.  Sometimes they get the better of me (life is a journey after all) but that happens less and less as I become more aware of the patterns.

How about you?  Do you have treats with teeth? What do your gremlin gatekeepers tell you?  How do you deal them?  Are you still grappling with them or do you have a strategy that is working for you? I would love to hear from you.

May all your treats be ones that take you further on your path to health and vibrancy and may you keep your gateway gremlins in their place.

Shivie