Navigating Life with Ease – What Overwhelm Means from a 3 Principles Perspective

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This podcast is a series of candid conversations exploring the human experience from a completely new perspective. In it, we will be diving deeply into the meaning of commonly used words and pointing you away from that old, stressful way of looking at life towards a new paradigm. This will help you find a sense of calm, cultivate meaningful relationships, and create harmony in every aspect of your life. Here is Navigating Life with Ease with Michaela Ellis and Claire Downer.

Hello. Hello. We should decide who's going to say hello first. How are you?

I'm good. I'm good. How are you?

Yeah, really good. We've got beautiful weather here. I was sat outside in the sunshine earlier.

Nice.

Well, I have got a word for you. Are you ready?

I am ready. Ready, ready.

I can't believe we haven't done this word. Actually, I looked through the list. Have we not done this word? Overwhelm.

Overwhelm. Oh. If I allow myself to really get into it, I can feel the overwhelm. And where overwhelm naturally sits in me, it seems like deep in my chest.

Yes.

And in my. A little bit in my solar. I can feel it pressing down to my solar plexus. Yeah. Yeah. Overwhelm. Well, what is it really? It's just a whole bunch of thoughts of. For me, overwhelm tends to. To look like all of the things that I got to do are all of the things that are on my list or all of the things that I'm. I'm not getting to. You know, it's usually in the. In the. The. Yeah, in the. In the way of things that I need to do that I'm not getting done around the house, that I'm not getting done in the office, that I'm not. You know. You know, all of the shoulds of. Well, that's kind of changing, I was going to say, about feeding my family. You know, my daughter is here, my husband and I, and it's what I should be creating that I should put more effort into. Then it's like, actually, I don't feel that anymore because somehow, naturally, I am just creating things that I used to think were, like, a lot of work or heavy. And they're not anymore, but I'm doing them, like, a lot, so. Interesting. Yeah. Overwhelm. It can be polarizing. It can just stop you. There's. And there's. There's so. And. And I know the flavor of overwhelm can be different for different people. Like, for me, it's about getting things done. Usually for some, it's like Relationship things, you know, it. It can just. Yeah, Really, it's just a collection of thoughts that we're kind of layering on top of each other. You know, it is. It's like overwhelm, you know, it's like one hand on top of the other. Right. Thought on top of thought on top of thought. But really, when you really kind of break it down, there's not very many thoughts in there. It's kind of a loop of the same kind of thoughts or a collection. Like a little bundle. You know, I have a. I have a few bundles of thoughts that I layer on top. You know, I have a lot of things collected from my kids when they were babies and, you know, and growing up and through their school years in memory bins. And, you know, I. It's like that is like one whole body bundle of things that I need to do and, you know, thin out and make it something that. What do I want to keep?

What.

What do they want to keep? And then I have my pictures because I. I still take a number of pictures, but not near as many as I used to.

I.

But I have thousands, like so many thousands of both paper pictures, you know, when you used to take the film in like years worth, and they're in bags and. And you know, some of them have years on them and some of them don't. And there's that. That's sort of another bundle. Oh, Claire, I didn't realize that I had these bundles of things that I. I stick together and, you know, and computers, we tend to keep computers mostly because of all the pictures, because I'm afraid that we don't have them all in one place. So I'm afraid that if we actually get rid of a computer, it's going to take. We're going to lose a chunk of our life that the pictures are on that computer. Yeah. It's so interesting. Maybe this will help others too. See how they have like, little bundles of. Of overwhelm that they then may layer together to make it all like. Oh, you know, like that little emoji with the. The person just lying flat and the. The tank is on E. Because it's like, that's how it feels really. And when. When you catch on to that. Oh, there's just this one moment. Just in this one moment. It's the only moment I can do anything about. And you can only have one thought at a time, really. Even though it doesn't feel like that because they come so fast and furious and we keep adding them on or just circling Them right around our mind. Yeah. When you kind of catch on, we can give you some relief. But before we go there, I want to hear about Overwhelm from your perspective.

I mean, same feeling, definitely. Yeah. Like mid chest. And I often say it feels like somebody sat on there. Like, that's on my chest. Like it's a heavy feeling. Like some feelings are more fizzy. Like anxiety, I would say, like. Or fear. That's like a. Well, one of my clients wants. Call that angry butterflies in your stomach, you know, like that. But. But overwhelm's got this to it. It's like a. You know, it's like a heaviness for me. And it can sometimes start, like, first thing in the morning when I wake up. And like you said, that list of things just goes like it's there in my head.

It's not.

Not there in my head, but it's like, it's very fast that my mind saying, you do this, and I do that and do that. And I've always got so many ideas as well, that they can be overwhelming too. And what used to happen, really was that then because I wanted to get rid of that heavy feeling, I would procrastinate and, you know, faff around and not really get very focused very quickly. But I think I probably noticed it a little faster now. And sometimes I've come into my office and I just go sit in my chair and just. Just feel it for a bit. Because you're right. It's. It's just often say it's the idea that you've got to do it all now. Like, as if you ever could. It's ludicrous, isn't it? But it's like, that's what it feel. It feels like. It feels like that all those thoughts are there. All those things we could be doing, all those ideas, all that. It's all there at the same time. And it's. It's. It's as if we have to do it all now. It's like. And I think, like, I obviously talk a lot about the inner critic, and I think the inner critic is there the whole time saying, well, my. My. My inner voice often just says, well, it's just not. It doesn't matter how much you did, Claire, it'll still not be enough, will it? Because you're just really not good enough. It says all the time. So. So then there's like another layer of it, which is the sense that, you know, you can see all those things and, you know you're not going to get them all done and it feels like you should be doing them all now and then there' shudding yourself and, and that feels terrible too. But I think when we sit within and feel it, as I try to do that more now, it just, it just, it does settle on its own without us needing to do too much about it. And I find then once I let it settle, it is easy to just come and do want one thing at once, which is obviously all we can actually. I know we think we're multitasking as women, but really we're not, we don't multitask. And then I can come and then get on with one thing. And the other thing that I found helpful is around realizing that I don't know how long something is going to take because what I would tend to do is I tend to think about my list and I go, well, I can go do these three big tasks like build a landing page, make a course for insight timer and do some other massive tasks that just. And you've got, I've got two hours. I think I'm going to do all those things in two hours. And that would feel quite overwhelming and of course then that would be an epic fail because it's almost like. Well, I guess what actually is that it's, it's the sense that if I do all those things the feeling will go away, I'll feel better then if like urgency comes in as well, then, well, if I go faster, go faster, then this horrible feeling I've got in my chest will go because I'll have done all those things that I have this illusion I can actually do in a tiny space of time. And one thing I found really helpful is this is kind of refocusing from productivity to focus. And so now I kind of say to myself, right, I'm going to focus on this one thing for X amount of time. And I don't know, I don't know how much of it I'm going to get done, but I'm going to get my head down and I'm going to focus on it for however long, however long I've got to, to do that. And I found that brought so much relief. So I think I've got an article on Substack or my website or something. It's called focus over productivity or focus versus Productivity, something like that. Because when we look at productivity, we're kind of measuring ourselves by how much we can get done and we're really rubbish at that. And we get very overwhelmed by thinking about all the things we can do. But if we just go right, my plan is I'm going to focus for however long on this one thing it. That just takes all that. And then you can kind of feel good about yourself because you did focus on that thing for however long you said you were going to focus on it. And that seemed like. That seems a little easier to control as well. Like not, you know, not that we can control anything really, but that feels a little easier to do. Decide. We can't decide what we're going to be able to do in the future or how long something's going to take. My daughter and I chatted about this and I said I always over underestimate how long something's going to take. She says she always overestimates how long something's going to take. And when she starts, she finds she gets it done a lot faster. So she gets overwhelmed because she thinks something's going to take a really long time. And then when she actually starts it, it doesn't take as long. Whereas I'm the other way. I get overwhelmed because I think I can do 16 things in some time. Clearly. It's almost like my body's going, no, you can't. I think it's a pile of rubbish. That's why it feels blooming awful in your body because you're telling yourself a story. You're gonna get all these things done and you're not. That's madness. Absolute madness. So it's. Yeah, it's. It's a feeling that I'm just. Just about getting a. Not a grip of, but just about getting it now, what it's all about. And. And I guess how to watch. Watch it dissolve because it can. Once we pause and take a breath and, you know, whatever makes sense to us in that moment.

Yeah, yeah.

You have something else when you pass the subject on to me. You had something else, didn't you?

Well, when you said the this, there was a few things that you said that I, you know, brought. You said, it's like you have to do it now. And I never really caught that little nuance before. I've never really sat with overwhelmed to like kind of think about. I just was more thinking about the. But you're right, you're right. It's just like there is this. It's because it's all coming in now. It feels like pressure to do it all now and how am I going to get it done and you know, adding to the list and just.

Ugh. Yeah.

So that was one. I think that was really That's a nuance that's important to note. Yes. There's that layering and then there's the pressure to do now. And what I felt when you said, you know, that you're, you know, you've seen how. Well, this was cool, too, seeing how overwhelm goes to urgency goes to. Like it's never just one thing. Right. There's always a party going on in there. So we're kind of taking.

Right.

And it's out of.

That.

It's like a full moon party all the time. Not all the time, but it can be where there's like lots of different odd things. They get, they. They get linked together and tied together, and it kind of, you know, keeps us in this crazy orbit. Right. Yeah. Until you catch it. Until you see. Until you recognize one moment, one thought, one thing. And when you said about what you're doing now, how you've kind of caught on to this, rather than these are the things I'm going to get done, it's like I'm going to focus on this one thing. I must say, even just saying it out loud, I just felt my energy go. And I had some tingles go down my legs because that. It's like how relieving. How relieving it is on the whole nervous system to just allow yourself to put your attention on one thing.

One.

Thing, and then keep going with that until it comes to a natural end or your time is. Or whatever. But it's like, wow, what a relief. Rather than trying to jam in a bunch of things that it's near impossible to get to the end of in the little tiny block of time that we've set out for ourselves. Yeah, there's. I see there's a number of things at play here. And this whole idea about the urgency, you know.

And I think the antidote is presence, isn't it? Like everything you just said, then I was like, oh, yeah, there's lots going on, but maybe there's just a really simple antidote. I think probably presence may be the simple antidote to an awful lot of things, actually. But it for overwhelming. It is, isn't it? It's like, well, if we're just now, like, I, you know, my mind could flip like it has. I've got a little piece of paper next to me, and there are a few things to do tomorrow on this piece of paper, and they could catch him. And I'm not reading, but the fact that they're there is catching my every so often. But actually the only thing now is to have this conversation with you and then, then there'll be. Well, was having tea with my mother and a boyfriend, you know, that's next, you know, so, so there's just like there really is only now everything else is made up, which is why it feels so blooming awful in the body. It's like the body's going, I don't want to do time traveling. What are you doing? We can't do that. It's like I've never really, like, as I'm saying, I've never really thought why the body CR out so fervently when, when we're. Our thinking is in the past or the future. It's because the body's like going, whoa, hang on, I'm not Doctor who. I can't go like traveling through time. Please, please, let's just stay here where I feel comfortable and where I, where I am actually. It's like, it's almost like the mind's having this weird kind of out of body experience where it's off in, in a different time zone, back or forward, and the body is in the middle and it feels like it's almost been like some weird like sci fi movie, you know, thing. Yeah, yeah. Like that's it, isn't it? That whenever we feel some level of discomfort in the body, it is just that we're not present. That the body is still in the present moment and the mind is elsewhere. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. I love that the antidote to everything that's on your mind and picking at you is presence.

And isn't it cool that the body is made to let us know when we're not present in our mind? Literally wired to do that. You know, you feel you, you're thinking about the future and not having happy thoughts about the future. You're going to feel that, you know, we would talk. We're talking about angry butterflies is how one of my clients describes like that anxious feeling, you know, like if you're in the past with guilt and shame and just feeling bad about something you've done that's going to feel terrible and overwhelm is us like making up that we're going to be doing, you know, that we're off in the future thinking about all the things we've got to do and, and that feels terrible too. What a gift to have a body that provides us with this like dashboard information all the time. Crazy time traveling mind, right?

It is our grounding mechanism. Indeed. My stomach has been growling, telling me that, yeah, this might be like next on The. The next thing to do, we'll see if it's still growling at the end. It does. There's always cues. There's always cues of some kind.

Well, luckily I can't hear it. That's. That's good. Sometimes when I'm recording stuff in my office and I used to have my microphone like here in front of me and my stomach would growl and I'd play the recording back and it would be my stomach growling. I've got it on an arm now, so I don't. It's not my stomach, but it's still. The other day I was recording something and my stomach really like, I just play that back. Yes, there it is. My stomach record. They say.

Yeah, you could. You could make your own background noise sounds just by putting the mic in front of your stomach and just letting it, you know, do its rhythmic thing. You can put it in the background, you can make. Create a talk specifically around. Found something that this. All this growling, gurgling, whatever could relate to. You could do a course on that, Claire.

I mean, I love you, Mikayla, but I think I might give that one a mess if it's all right.

Fun. This is really, really good.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we both have some light insights there, didn't we, about it?

Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you.

Everybody else will find it helpful too.

Yes, indeed. Yeah.

Yeah.

Till next time then, I guess.

Bye. Absolutely. I. I went back to Yorkshire.

There.

It will. Aye, it'll be grand.

Okay, Always a pleasure.

Yeah, lovely. Take care. Bye. Ciao.

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