Q&A: Stepping Out of Overwhelm

Hello and welcome to today's coaching Q and A session. I'm getting a chance to see if I can want my talk here. We're talking about stepping out of overwhelm today and had had a few little snafus here. So anyway, I believe I'm speaking to you now. So welcome to the session. I'm Wendy Greer. I've been a coach here for 20 years, last week coaching almost all the products here. And I'm happy to represent learning strategies and mind tracks for today's session. As I said, we want to talk about overcoming overwhelm. And overwhelm is a really interesting phenomenon. It manifests in so many ways. But the two that I see most commonly are either the sort of deer in the headlights where there's so much coming at you, you don't know which way to turn, so you just sort of stop and everything's coming at you and the cars are passing. The cars are in danger of running you down, but you're just stuck. You just don't know what to do. You're paralyzed. The flip side of that is people that get into a frenzy of doing without prioritizing. So it's like there's a perception that doing anything is better than doing nothing. So they're almost like spinning tops where they're just spinning constantly and there's no rhyme or reason. They're just whirling all over the place. Those are the two most common. There are a lot of other manifestations as well, which is why there are so many paralyminals that can be pertinent to this situation. I wanted to share a quote quote from brother Steindl Ras that I think really sort of sums this up. I love things that are very either poetic or very succinct in a very effective way. It starts with the antidote to exhaustion. But actually I'm going to use overwhelm instead. But the comment is the antidote to overwhelm may not be rest. It may be wholeheartedness. You are so exhausted because all of the things you are doing are just busyness. You're so overwhelmed because all the things you are doing are just busyness. There's a central core of wholeheartedness totally missing from what you are doing. And that pretty much sums up what was happening with overwhelm. There's a. There's a lack of focus. There's a lack of prioritizing. There's generally a lack of. Of keeping your eye on the ball. There's this feeling of everything's coming at you and you're like a. A balloon that's just being batted this way and that, and you. You can't stabilize. You can't find your center, you can't find your North Star. And so a lot of the time, what, what actually helps with overwhelm is, is disposing of extraneous baggage. It's just too much, too much happening. And it's. It's so common in our culture because there's so many ways information comes at you, so many ways communication can happen. There are so many possibilities. And so it's like a. Like I said, either a paralysis or just a spinning because you don't know where to go. So before I get into the actual parallel, I'd like to share a couple of pragmatic tools that I find to be really, really effective. One is from Jack Canfield, who created our effortless success course with us. And it's an irritations list. And what you do is you pick an area. For a lot of people, this is their home. But it could be relationships with unfinished business or resentments or judgments. It could be. It could be your health that you're not taking care of. And so you're not picking the most nutritious foods, or you're not exercising, or you're not giving yourself any de. Stress time. So you make a list of all the things that are irritating you, and there may be hundreds of them. I mean, literally, because once you start grabbing at them, they're all energetic hooks, and they're all part of what's keeping you in overwhelm because.

They'Ve grabbed onto you and they're diffusing your energy because you know in the back of your head or maybe right up front, that these things need to be dealt with, but you just don't have the time or inclination to do it. So that list, just writing them down, helps do a couple things. One is it detaches you from the circumstances because when you're in overwhelm, everything seems so pressing and so important and everything just has to be done, and it should have been done yesterday. And so it sort of feeds the this, the artificial drama that you've built up around it. And the other thing is it helps you to set priorities. And when you have clear priorities, it can be really, really energizing because you know what's front and center. You know what is. Is the most significant thing, and that's what you're working on. That's being wholehearted. What brother David Steindl Rast referenced as wholeheartedness. You are Totally in the zone. You, you know what you want to get done, you know what's important, you know what's a high priority, and that's where you go. The other thing that can be really helpful is even something like going out in nature, just taking 10 minutes to go to walk outside, or, you know, something else like that. If you play music, maybe pick up your guitar and sing a couple of songs, something that takes you out of that frenetic perspective so that.

You'Re separated from it just long enough to get out of that blinders the box thing and just open up to all those possibilities and you can see them from a detached perspective. And you know, from that detachment which ones are most significant. Those you pull forward. The rest can stay on the back burner or go on your irritations list to be dealt with later. And the final result with the irritations list is, is you either do it, you delegate it, or you dump it. So it's a done deal. It's no longer an issue. There's an interesting comment that Gandhi apparently once made about, I have so much to do today that I'm just going to have to meditate two hours instead of one. And I always thought that was an intriguing comment. But when you think about it, that's exactly what we're talking about here. We're talking about detaching from it. We're talking about getting a bigger perspective and, and then picking what you're going to proactively start doing for one minute. I just have to put my feng shui hat on too, because another thing that can have a huge impact on your overwhelm is your physical environment. If you have a lot of clutter, a lot of broken things, things that need to be tended to, that will also impact your mental clutter. It's amazing what a clear room will do for your mental state. So, you know, sometimes you just need to look around your environment. You know, people that are really overwhelmed. If you just take everything off your desk and move it to the other side of the room, or preferably out of sight, and then bring back the couple things you're going to work on. The openness and the expansion and just the feeling of resourcefulness that comes from just doing a simple thing like that is amazing. And then you can get to the other things as you can and start letting those go and, you know, moving them on, delegating them or putting them in the recycle bin, whatever, whatever is necessary. And I think there's a plus to proactively doing something like that. Because it's like the entropy is broken. You're no longer sort of stuck in that state of not knowing, not being able to move forward. You're doing something proactive. You're clearing your desk, your screen is in front of you. The contract you're working with is there. And that is being wholehearted, that is focused, that is what you're here to do right now. And all that other stuff is just not important. So those are just a few totally pragmatic perspectives. Now I'm sure you can guess what some of the parallel are. I'm going to recommend, obviously, overcoming overwhelm, because that was what that one is specifically geared to. Simplicity is another one that is really good for helping you to simplify and distill so that you can get out of that overwhelming state. A third one that a lot of people get almost addictive on having to be up to date on their social media and their. Their Facebook and their. They do a lot of digital time that may not be totally necessary and may not be conducive to. To finishing the things that they're overwhelmed by. So break the Habit is another good one. So that would be the, the ones that I would probably recommend most specifically for the. What we're talking about today.

The interesting thing with overwhelm is the number of permutations it manifests in. So I want to bring up a couple of other parallel from that context. Sometimes overwhelm leads to really intense anxiety where there's a sense of being out of control and the inner turmoil and chaos is just almost untenable. I mean, it's so de energizing and it just drains you. And it's constant. It's a constant.

Tension. So anxiety free is where I. What I would probably consider with that. Another one, if you're feeling like the overwhelm is just. You've got all this stuff from the past that you're still trying to deal with and you got this unresolved relationship you're trying to deal with and you got, you got all these. All these things that aren't front and center, but they're still draining you. Letting go. Letting go is a really good one for, for allowing things to be what they are and then taking a look at what you really want to allow in and what you're going to set a perimeter or a boundary and say, no, no, I'm not carrying that forward. And the other one that I often go to when I'm feeling too diffused is focus and concentration. Because.

If you can get focused on what you want more of and get clarity on what that is. And again, that's what it comes down to. Priorities. People that are overwhelmed often have really fuzzy priorities. So that would be another one that I would consider for that. So we did have a few questions today, so I wanted to talk about those.

One of them is very pertinent to what I just talked about. What paralleliminal do you recommend to quickly overcome a sense of overwhelm with work? Probably the last two I mentioned focus and concentration and letting go the 10 minute supercharger when you're at work and you don't have much time. 10 minute supercharger is like a power nap. And 10 minute supercharger can give you a totally different perspective. So that might be one to use at work. But if it's a constant thing, I would consider using the focus and concentration and the letting go pretty regularly until you feel like you've got some kind of handle on the specifics that are happening in the work circumstances. And it may be time to do the irritations list and start delegating. It may be that that is a crucial piece. There's always an answer, there's always possibilities we're not seeing. And that's one of the challenges with overwhelm, because it takes you out of that perspective of infinite resources, infinite possibilities into this is the way it is. And I've got to deal with this as it is. And so anything you can do to get you out of that mindset would be helpful.

Is there a list, a limit of recommended numbers of paralentals in the sleep tracts for optimum benefit? That varies a lot from person to person. I think for most people, two or three paralyminals that are somewhat oriented around the same the. The topic you're working with are probably most productive. Now, the reason I'm qualifying that is I had a really interesting conversation right before we stopped doing live events because of the pandemic. I had the most amazing conversation with a gentleman who uses a lot of our products and he was looping 20 to 30 sleep tracks at night. Different paralyminals. I don't think I could do that. I think that would. Would make me feel really muddled and foggy the next day, but it worked phenomenally well for him. So, you know, if you got to experiment and see what works for you, and that's why it's hard to give really precise answers for some of the paralympical questions, because everybody is different. And that's why paralympos work so well, because they, they're adaptable to those different personalities, those different issues. So, so, you know, get, try it. You know, I like two or three and sometimes I'll do one and I'll just loop it so that I'm listening to the same one. I don't like sleeping with the earbuds in, so I usually line up about 40 minutes worth and then I pull the earbuds out or the take the headphones off as I'm drifting off. So find what works for you. Not trying to dodge the question, but that's, there's so personal parallel and that's why it's so important that you see what, what, what's your best and, and keep doing that. Is there a limit to how many Paralympic per day is beneficial? There is, and again, it's, it's based on personal preference and what you're experiencing. I can usually tell somebody who feels it was using too many because they're, they'll call and say, I did the. The. The anxiety free paranormal and I'm ticked off. I'm just angry at the world. Well, what else did you use today? Well, I started my day with letting go and then I tried, I did new history generator and then I had a break, so I did the. Because I was still feeling anxious. What's happening there is you're not giving your, other than conscious enough time to process the change work. And so it's letting you know anytime you're feeling anxious, angry, resentful, you're just really peeved that you're sitting down and I can't believe I'm doing this again. You're probably overdoing it, so back it down a bit. Either, you know, limit the number of parallel you're using or use a single one, you know, throughout the day, two or three times and see if you do better with that. Again, not trying to dodge the question, but it's just the reason parallel work so amazingly well is they're so organic, they're so pertinent to whatever you've got presenting because they're driven by the intention you set.

I believe this one is just a comment. I completed both accelerator phases, achieving the minimum. The year long flare ups that scared me are now gone. My mind played tricks, making it seem like I didn't get results. It loves doing that. Despite outward appearances, there's a lot of work going on beneath the surface and I often have to remind people of that. And that's why I endorse journaling so much. Because if you're charting what's Going on, you'll see your trends shifting. You'll see what's happening.

Instead of going through the accelerate again, I'm going to follow the daily parallel of the day with the same intent for the target. That's a great idea, Charles. I see people use parallel. I would never have chosen for a specific issue. And it's exactly what they needed. It comes from a different perspective. Address is something they weren't even aware was going on beneath the surface, wasn't even on their radar. So that is a really a good idea. Yeah, I'm totally behind that. I have an addictive personality and have concerns that I may end up going down an unhealthy path. While paralimals might help prevent that.

I just wanted to address the comment there. Addictive personality probably means you are really, really good at following through and you're all in. You are wholehearted when you're doing it, but you don't know when enough is enough. One of the things that I, I understood big time on this was from our four elements course where you have the mirrors. I've alluded to this before. You have mirrors that are black, black mirror, and you have a white mirror. And the black mirror is those things you feel are not serving you, that are keeping you contracted or keeping you in turmoil or making you angry or whatever. It is so intriguing to me that the black mirrors were often scattered skill sets that when tempered, they were what that person was here to do. So even though you say you label it addictive personality, it may be that you, you have a propensity for being wholehearted. When you're in, you're all in. So don't denigrate the trait, but learn to modulate it. And you can do that either by tamping it down or by doing something that offsets it. Or like in Five Element theory, fire can be used to control wood. So if you're feeling a little too, a little too grounded, a little too attached to the earth, then a little fire energy to vivify, that might work. And so you just find a metaphor for whatever that would be and bring that in.

Don't resist that addict, that addictive, which we've put this negative context on, because that probably is a wholehearted trait. So, and, and in that gift, if you welcome it, if you welcome that instead of resisting it, you'll probably start seeing how that could be used very creatively, very effectively in a wholehearted way. And that's probably what you're here to do as far as if you feel like it's over the top. I would definitely consider letting go because you're probably taking that. That personality into a lot of areas where it might be that might be better served by not doing that. Focus and concentration is really good for anybody who.

Because you're tending to use that addictive aspect of your personality in a way, if you feel like it's not being productive, then focus and concentration helps you to see where it is pertinent to where it isn't. And when you're really focused, you often notice that some things are taking you away from that focal point. And so that would be probably be pretty. Provide some good insights for you. The other one is self love because any. Anytime somebody judges themselves, you know.

I should or you know, attaching a definition to yourself that is. That is minimizing it just you. You can't make yourself less than you are. You already have everything you need within you. Everything is there. So the self love is a reminder that everything you need is within you. You just need to use the skill sets you've been given, use them in an appropriate way toward a specific goal that you choose based on what you're passionate about, what your focus is, what you feel you're here to provide to the world and then express that, emote it. Because everybody misses out if you don't do that. Anyway, that was fun. We went all over the board. Sorry about the delayed start. I always like to.

I love thoughts that are quick, quixotic or, or a little off kilter or a little creative or, or poetic. And I came across something that I just really wanted to wind this up with. This is from Winnie the Pooh and there's a lot of. There is a lot of wisdom in children's books and the thought is organized. Organizing is what you do before you do something so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up. So that's to me what getting out of overwhelm is. It's about getting. Getting clear on what you want, getting focused, organizing what you're going to do and then doing it proactively. So basically organizing is what you do before you do something so that when you do it.

Do the paranimals, you do it. It is not all mixed up. So from Winnie the Pooh. Thank you for the wisdom, Winnie. On that note, I'm going to say goodbye and send you lots and lots of love from all of us here at Learning Strategies Mind tricks. You take care.

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