What do you do if you are stuck in what feels like a perpetual loop of anxiety & overwhelm?
23-year old me, although not religious, used to pray for other people in my life — things were tough for them. My life was spent racing around, taking pride in working three jobs for a decade. Volunteering, trying to be a great friend, partner, daughter, sister, gym 6+ days per week, runner, you name it, I was trying to do it all.
Focusing on other peoples problems and keeping insanely busy.
Society rewards you for this — we are judged by how we use our time.
Money or lots of stuff are seen as measure and symbol of our success. Back then, I welcomed distractions to live a life where every minute of every day was full, barely any room to sit still, to breathe.
What I didn’t know was my real motivation.
The truth is, there is very little time for deep reflection or pondering if you are always running around.
There is very little time for every feeling the spectrum of emotions if you’re always playing catchup somewhere. And it is easy to choose not to feel your own pain or stuff if you focus entirely on others, just like I did.
I’m not talking about being a victim or a martyr, spewing hate or negativity, or sitting around wallowing in our pain, or being an energy vampire.
I’m talking about honouring our innermost core which sends us feelings in lieu of language. Which asks us to please notice what is going on, to please send some of that love and attention to our heart and soul.
Why would you even want to feel the full range of emotions? What is the point?
There is a reason you feel anxiety.
There is a reason you feel overwhelmed.
There is a reason you stay awake at night, overthinking every little thing.
There is a reason your heart hurts, or you can’t stop crying.
There is something you need to pay attention to, your soul — your highest most authentic self — needs you to listen.
I know for sure if we don’t listen to those inner calls and messages, they start to snowball and catch up to us at some point. They are like an emotional bank account — you have to pay the price with compounding interest at some given time in the future if you don’t pay it today.
Something, someone, some incident or your body or brain itself will eventually scream at you and force you to stop, one way or another. And when that happens, it feels awful. I know a lot of amazing women in their 30’s & 40’s who are feeling this way and don’t know what to do. If you are one of them or anyone who is in this place, I wrote this especially for you today.
I think Oprah says it best —
“I say the universe speaks to us, always, first in whispers. And a whisper in your life usually feels like ‘hmm, that’s odd.’ Or, ‘hmm, that doesn’t make any sense.’ Or, ‘hmm, is that right?’ It’s that subtle. And if you don’t pay attention to the whisper, it gets louder and louder and louder. I say it’s like getting thumped upside the head. If you don’t pay attention to that, it’s like getting a brick upside your head. You don’t pay attention to that — the brick wall falls down.’” — Oprah
What do you do if you are stuck in what feels like a perpetual loop of anxiety & overwhelm?
You start to honour those inner feelings, those internal calls, those whispers. Think of them as calls to action, or calls to being.
The next time you feel this way, sit down with a journal, or a scrap of paper, and start writing. Don’t pay any attention to what comes out, write, and notice how you feel afterwards. Does your heart feel lighter? Do you feel the weight of the world easing up, even just a tiny bit?
Read it or don’t, listen to what your intuition tells you to do next. Never then go and blame anyone else, your highest self would never do that, instead use this exercise to purge toxicity from our body & mind without impacting or infecting other people.
If you read it, is there something you’ve written which resonates? A little flicker of hope or sparkle which came from listening?
There may not be anything to do; there may just be being, to honour yourself.
My currency of love is doing, so as I write this, my ego has so much to say about it being ridiculous to ‘just be’, yet I know it to be true.
Not knowing is an incredible place to start.
Not knowing = nothingness.
And from a space of nothingness, EVERYTHING and ANYTHING is possible.
The next time you think ‘I don’t know what to do’, smile and relax. Your brain has given you a space to create.
You can sit with this and know you are truly in a place of curiosity and wonder.
