When accepting overwhelm might be exactly when we need…

How can we transform overwhelm into sustainability? 

Here’s what I’ve discovered from my own personal experience.                                   An introduction to ‘Thriving’.

We think of overwhelm as really bad for us, something to be avoided, prevented; something we want to stop straight away. Sound familiar?

The thought of ‘self-care’ at that time can just seem like one more thing there isn’t time to do.  There’s lots of excuses not to do it! 

One of the key things that keeps us stuck in overwhelm, unable to move through it, is the feeling of shame - (‘you should be better than this!’ ‘you’re not good enough!’). Shame thrives on avoidance, lies, judgment, perfectionism and silent comparison with others. It lurks in the shadows and gains strength the longer we refuse to face and name it. 

Shame feeds on the refusal to accept something about ourselves - in this case, the refusal to accept that we are experiencing overwhelm. 

The Psychologist Carl Rogers said ‘the curious paradox is that, when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change’.  The route out of overwhelm, starts with the decision to notice and accept that we are feeling overwhelmed, to spot how we judge ourselves simply because we’re experiencing it, and then intentionally letting go of the judgments we hold about it and about ourselves.

‘The antidote to shame is empathy.  If we reach out and share our shame experience with someone who responds with empathy, shame dissipates’ (Brené Brown).  

Shame can’t survive being spoken about in an environment where we’re met with compassion and empathy, because shame is rooted in the judgment and belief that somehow ‘I am bad/wrong/not enough’ and the fear that others will simply confirm that. 

When we take our uncomfortable experiences of overwhelm to someone we trust and value, or when that someone notices we’re struggling and takes time to pay attention to us and to listen to our story, without judging, dismissing how we’re feeling, fixing us or offering unwanted advice, the sense of relief often changes us.

Instead of judgment, what is offered is a kind and safer space to be heard, an intention to relate, to seek to understand and desire to help.  We’re reminded that we all make mistakes, we all experience overwhelm from time to time (it’s part of being human and alive), that there’s nothing ‘wrong with’ us, and we’re encouraged to be kind to ourselves. 

When we have compassion, this naturally provokes in us a wish and commitment to take time to work with others, to find out what they need and how we can best be of help. 

How do we find the perspective, and muster the courage we need to be able to reach out and share our shame experience with another person? The answer I believe, is in developing intentional practices of self-compassion, emotional literacy and courage.  This means choosing to become more compassionate in how we relate to ourselves and more courageous in the ways we respond to the challenging situations we encounter in our lives.  This choice is based on the realization and understanding that compassion and courage are habits and skill-sets that can be learned and developed with practice, persistence and a lot of patience.  

There’s also the question of knowing (or more accurately, ‘discerning’) who to share our shame experience with, and again, this is a skill that develops along with self-compassion.  The decision to share our shame experience is one which requires courage, and courage asks us to face the things we fear – to purposefully step into uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.  

The things that are most likely to trigger fear in us are oftentimes the very things we need to face.  ‘The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek’ (Joseph Campbell).

Experiencing overwhelm and struggling against it, acts as a reminder of the need I have to continually practice self-compassion, emotional literacy and courage, as habits I need to revisit and cultivate with patience. 

The truth is of course that all of us from time to time fall short and that’s part of being human. The problem is what tends to happen next. Too often we spend time ‘beating ourselves up’ for falling short in the belief that we need this harsh criticism to change, and / or we make excuses for ourselves, blame others for the situation, conveniently ignore, cover up, overcompensate or forget what we’ve done. We learn to distract ourselves from uncomfortable emotions by just getting on with it and then we numb ourselves with other habits (drinking, scrolling, shopping, binge-watching etc.)  - activities designed to make us feel at least a little relief. 

We can often carry those (usually unconscious) uncomfortable emotions around with us from place to place, taking them from work to home (taking it out on unsuspecting partners) and then back from home to work. When these emotions build up in us to such an extent we can no longer ‘keep a lid on it’ or ‘contain’ them, we experience overwhelm or even burnout. 

The phrase ‘window of tolerance’ refers to our ability to tolerate stress, to stay calm, process and discuss information, thoughts and feelings rationally, usually in collaboration with others and sometimes with a degree of conflict.

When we’re feeling overwhelmed, there’s usually still a ‘window of tolerance’, though it feels compromised. There’s a sense that we’re ‘up to here with it’ and our patience is ‘wearing thin’. Overwhelm should be seen as a warning sign that things are not right, that the scaffolding (support and safety nets) we need isn’t in place or isn’t functioning as we need it to.  When this warning sign isn’t heeded and action isn’t taken, the likely consequence is burnout.

Burnout from my experience can sometimes look like emotions exploding out of us in uncontrolled rage and anger. But sometimes it looks like the opposite, an absence of feeling, an all-consuming sense of numbness, disconnection, isolation, fragmentation of self, a loss of sense of self. The ‘window of tolerance’ has vanished. 

Thriving is a course designed to support us to identify for ourselves what type of scaffolding we need to prevent overwhelm and to support ourselves to recover and get back on track when we find ourselves getting stuck in overwhelm. Starting with ourselves, we develop the understanding and compassion we need to be able to work more effectively with others.

The Thriving process invites us to work through and work with those unwanted and harmful behaviours that we all fall into by habit, mistake or ignorance, because it’s only by facing and acknowledging those unacknowledged parts of ourselves that we can discover the opportunity to change them. 

It is only by doing this work that we are able to gain insight into what we may need to change, address, do differently, to stop those habits and behaviours from happening as often in the future and limit the harm they cause.  We learn to recover more quickly from each mistake – each instance of harm, identifying the early warning signs and triggers so that we can interrupt our own patterns.  We are able to see more clearlyhow, when and where to act, to most effectively change and/or resist systems and structures that cause, exacerbate or contribute towards harm.  

We can build our capacity as human beings individually; but most importantly, in cultivating our relationships with each other and in our communities to stay well and strong, whilst we’re working ‘at the edge’ to make change happen.  We do this by making sure we have the healthy scaffolding (support and safety nets) we need around us to help us stay present, balanced and aligned with our values, to remind us of our shared humanity and the power of acceptance and compassion when we fall short.

Do you know what your healthy scaffolding would be?

Click hereto find out more about the Thriving course.

Click hereto read Tony’s earlier blog posts about self-compassion.

You can contact Tony the facilitator by email here

You can also contact Jo or Sally at Paradigm to find out more here.