I've been thinking a lot about being overwhelmed.
I spend a lot of my days overwhelmed by one thing or another. There just always seems to be something weighing on my shoulders, something pulling my down.
It's a suffocating feeling. As if I am drowning in a sea of emotions and experiences. But the more I experience this feeling in my life, as the responsibilities of being an adult pile on, the more I have come to listen to that feeling.
Usually when we are overwhelmed It feels negative. Not always, sometimes we are overwhelmed with happiness, or adventure, or by the love around us. But often when we feel overwhelmed we are feeling something that we deem negative. And even though feeling overwhelmed is burdensome and tiring and frustrating, I wonder how much it can teach us about our needs as humans.
When I am overwhelmed by something I usually find that it is because I have ultimately lost sight of who is really in control over my life, or I am trying to do too much, or I'm not allowing myself to feel what I need to feel. Basically that I am disconnected to my King and myself.
This is not to say that feeling overwhelmed doesn't suck or that we can just make different choices or change our thinking and it all goes away. Or that it is reflection of our faith or any of that nonsense. Sometimes we just cannot get out of there no matter how hard we try. So then what?
We stop fighting it, and just dive straight into it. That's right. We accept that we are overwhelmed by X,Y,Z (or the whole alphabets worth of things sometimes) and allow ourselves to feel that and be okay with it.
Sometimes we can learn so much about ourselves in the midst of this messiness. I have found that when I am overwhelmed I start to attack myself for the very things that I am most self-conscious about. The things I tell myself so subconsciously that I don't even realize it.
Everything we go through can teach us something. Sometimes it seems to have no other purpose than that. And that's okay. Life is a journey, a constant process. We are always learning, and feeling, and crawling through the dark parts. It's okay to be overwhelmed, it's okay to feel like everything is falling apart, even if we think we're being irrational.
Respect your feelings, dive into them, learn from them. Give yourself permission to be whoever you need to be in each moment. Sometimes I literally have to give myself verbal permission to be exhausted, or lonely, or angry, especially when I feel like I have no right to be any of those things.
We need to offer ourselves grace, and the space to grow.
Psalm 61:2, From the end of the earth I will cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
Psalm 121:1-2, I life up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 142:3, When I am overwhelmed, you alone know the way I should turn.
Isaiah 40:28, Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable.
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