I recently saw a badge that read: ‘Excuse me while I overthink this.’ It was excellent, and very funny because it resonated with me so much.
It is so important to think things through, to take the information and work through the ins and outs. HOWEVER, it’s so very easy to get lost within that information, to pull it to pieces and think about all the different elements and all the potential outcomes and all the possible meanings. When we pull something apart like that, we inevitably start to feel anxious, overwhelmed and lost.
I know when I end up in this place I feel very disconnected from any wisdom. I rarely find a sensible way forward, I become quite reactive and just want to get away from the feeling of anxiety and overwhelm.
It’s hard once we’re in the overwhelm and anxiety and overthinking to get out of it. It happened to me recently, and I had to stage an intervention on myself. I firstly got quiet and spent a bit of time being alone, stopped numbing myself with wine, did some powerful meditations by Sarah Blondin on Insight Timer, did some yoga, ran very fast (for me!), delivered one of the Bird webinars on resilience which helped me as well as the attendees, and got some decent sleep. And it worked a treat, I came back to my self-compassionate, calm self and can absolutely see the way to move forward in something that now feels incredibly exciting.
When we regularly practice self-care strategies, it is easier to move out from anxiety and overwhelm. When we’re feeling anxious it can seem like we need to change a bunch of things ‘out there’ whereas actually the place to start is to tend to our inner selves first, and then the ‘out there’ is much easier to navigate.
When we have a tool box of self-care strategies that we are familiar with we can effectively and more quickly help ourselves to move forward.
With love as always, Hannah and Team Bird
Photo by Alexander Possingham on Unsplash