OVERWHELM

Most of us experience some degree of overwhelm, often frequently. Too much to do, too little time, too little support, inadequate resources, insufficient peace and quiet, and barely ever an empty stillness.

How best to alter this?

First is to recognise the patterns. Overwhelm has a strong emotional content. There's that convergence of sensory overload, turbulent thinking and emotional mayhem that has you feeling powerless. At sea without a paddle. Unable to take control. Uncertain of what you'd be controlling.

That powerlessness, that incapability, where time (as you experience it) squeezes, crushes, overwhelms your ability to act clearly, begins perhaps to feel inescapable.

The more you remonstrate, the tighter you make your own binding.

Emotionally, that sense of being constrained, of being over-loaded and inadequate, can catapult you into a mighty stack of historic layers.

Often, the first response is in child mode. You lash out. You violently blame another. The violence, of course, an attempt to break free of the bindings. Or to break the bindings. Or to break the irrational, emotionally imagined, binder.

You might become flooded with anger. Even though Rational You knows how irrational the self-judgement, you are hard on yourself: inadequate, apparently powerless, a failure. Or frustration - with self - floods your emotional being. "Here I am, again", you inwardly complain, thus adding to the initial overwhelm.

It's all so unbearable that you limit the experience as best you can. You block out the signals within you. You shut down your sensory input. You take a break, maybe look away. And then you put on a different face. Perhaps you do what works well in lots of adult situations: you pretend.

You pretend that you are not overwhelmed. Pretend that you are not angry. Pretend that you have a handle on life. Pretend that you are calmer and capable of serenity, able to rationalise or to take control.

And when you do this, you are lying to yourself and presuming you can deceive others. Under these circumstances, all your many parts - mind, body, emotions, spirit/essence/the part of you unlimited by ego, your feeling and sensing self - are intentionally out of alignment with each other. There is no flow. All the life force drawn in on a breath is unable to flow freely without impediment.

You have become thoroughly weakened. By your own responses. And added to the overwhelm.

These cycles of overwhelm, exhaustion, inadequacy, of objection, rage and outrage, of feeling terrible, trapped, powerless, of wanting to turn away, curl up, strike out, distract yourself and then pretend some more, these cycles need interrupting.

Start with any of them. Interruption might come through

• life events
• other people
• a change in circumstance offering a different starting place

Or, you might just be so pissed off with how you are living, you look for new ways.

Easiest of all, when overwhelmed you simply slow down.

This might seem counter-intuative. Overwhelm tends to create haste. But if you are to take the energy out of the emotional rollercoaster, you have to disconnect from the charge of emotional history. In other words, to unplug from that frequently familiar loop of thoughts intensifying your emotions, emotions generating more runaway thinking, or a pressing need for greater control.

HOW

Begin with one in-breath and notice the next out-breath.

You'll automatically breathe in again.

Then, as you exhale, give away.

Invite any amount of overwhelm to fall away from you as you breathe out.

Do this again, and again. Slow down your breathing. Just a little. Make your out-breath feel equal in length as your in-breath.

If possible, breathe in, and out, through your nose.

As you exhale, see yourself as emptying.

You're making space to receive, which of course you're doing on the in-breath.

Continue emptying on the exhalation, and drawing in on each inhalation.

Don't hold on. Breathe in, receive, and breathing out, give away, shed.

Keep this going - your slightly lengthened in - and out-breath - until you begin to have a sense of deepening within yourself. Of dropping down. Perhaps of broadening out.

You'll begin to receive more deeply. Don't hold on, keep on the rhythm, giving away as you breathe out, taking in as you quite naturally breathe in.

Soon, the rhythm of this exchange over-rides your awareness of duality, of in and out, of inhalation and exhalation. This rhythm is calming.

If you begin to think, give away each thought as you exhale. And receive again as you inhale.

You might start to feel heavy. You may feel that you are dropping down, the rhythm taking you deeper within yourself.

Go with this. Don't look for it. If it happens, give away thought (on the out-breath) and allow for the possibility of feeling more of your physical self. Perhaps too your senses, your sensory awareness of how your body is informed, or how your body informs you.

You will be, quite naturally, broadening out. Dropping deeper, finding a wider foundation for all those experiences that constituted the overwhelm. Those experiences have spread outwards a little, they're less personal, that receiving on the in-breath has made you more porous, better at taking in all that you need. You're getting to be better funded.

Switch back to normal breathing whenever you like. But continue from time to time giving away on the out-breath, so that in the emptying out you're making space to receive, drawing in vitality, as you inhale. Like this, you'll be better resourced,

You don't have to follow a rigid practice. Slow down and repeat this whenever you like. The occasional feeling of gratitude for the gift of life, and for our togetherliness, can also quieten and broaden your sense of self.