Musings | Mistakes We Make When Overwhelmed
“Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen at once”
Some of us feel overwhelmed from time to time. Some of us feel overwhelmed all the time. Alice Boyes, the author of The Healthy Mind Toolkit and The Anxiety Toolkit, tells us that regardless of which camp you fall into, there are five self-sabotaging mistakes we all make when we are in an overwhelmed state. You can view the entire Harvard Business Review article that Alice wrote here. For today’s Mindful Monday, we’ve outlined two self-sabotaging mistakes that caught our attention, along with simple solutions and alternatives.
1) You interpret feeling overwhelmed as a weakness.
What this looks like: You know you are feeling overwhelmed by a situation or a task, and instead of being ok with those feelings and having self-compassion, you are self-critical. Instead of giving yourself grace, you tell yourself the situation or task is not that hard, that you should be able to figure it out and that stressing about it is unnecessary. Such actions do not help you tackle difficult situations or the feeling of being overwhelmed, they perpetuate them.
What to do: Tell the negative voice in your head to go away. Be kind to yourself and accept that being overwhelmed is just a feeling. It does not correlate at all to competence or your ability to handle the situation. You can find tips and information on how to practice self-compassion here.
2) You withdraw from support.
What this looks like: When we are overwhelmed, our emotional energy can be limited. As a result, we may withdraw from the people around us (i.e., we give fewer hugs, feel like we have less time to spend with family or friends, and disengage with certain parts of our lives). Such behavior is detrimental to our well-being because when we are overwhelmed, we need the people around us even more to help us be resilient and to “fill our cups.”
What to do: Determine the important activities that are critical to giving you energy and supporting your self-care. This could be snuggling with kids at bedtime, not rushing a hug with your partner, taking time to bake or do food preparation, visiting with a close friend - anything that helps you feel connected and calm. These are the things you need to make sure you continue to do even when you are feeling overwhelmed, and your emotional energy is low.
We all get overwhelmed. Being aware of how this feeling impacts our behaviors and decisions can help us avoid behaviors that sabotage our well-being and our ability to combat overwhelming circumstances.