8 Steps to Tackling Anxious Overwhelm

We can be overwhelmed by those "Murphy's Law" kind-of days, where everything that can go wrong, does. But when we have multiple stressors that are deeper than daily events going wrong, we can feel long-term overwhelm.

Your 5-year-old won't sleep in his own bed

and

your sweet dog is aging, and it shows

and

a loved one gets a scary diagnosis, maybe you are in a caretaking role while she recovers

and

COVID

and

your teenager is withdrawing and you suspect she is lying to you but you can't catch her

and

people on Facebook are arguing

and

you feel unappreciated at work, expected to accomplish the impossible

and

you are bringing work home all the time

and

you are scrambling to make it to all your kids' games

and

you and your husband have become like ships passing in the night

and

inflation

and

you need to exercise

and

Christmas is coming up (the shopping, the planning, the rush of events).

It's like you are one of those street performers who spins plates, you are running back and forth trying to keep them all in the air. If you give too much attention to one plate, the others will fall. You are functioning on autopilot. And hyperdrive.

Just. Keep. Going.

Add in some daily mishaps (think puking dog, flat tire, costly work mistake) and you just want to let the plates come crashing down. You hear about some celebrity checking into rehab for exhaustion and feel jealous that they get a break from their problems. You don't even know how to begin to attack your problems.

A weekly hour of counseling is not the same as rehab at a luxury spa, but it is a place to catch your breath. Nobody needs anything from you for this hour... you get to be the one with needs. I am removed from your problems. I can help you make a plan.

If you are dealing with an immediate crisis, we tackle that first. Safety is top concern and everything else can wait. Adding any kind of major trauma to that list usually makes the plates come crashing down despite your best efforts, and we need to tend to the wounds of all involved.

If there are no crises, I'll talk you through the following steps:

1. List your stressors. When you are running from plate to plate it is hard to really notice how many plates there are and see them as different issues. We tend to lump them all together as "stress."

2. Evaluate your stressors in categories. This helps separate them out and start seeing where your priorities and possibilities are. They will start to seem more manageable when you break them down into smaller groups.

• Which tasks are most important to you?

• Which ones take the most time or energy?

• Which ones have deadlines?

• Which have consequences if you fail?

• Which ones do you want to get rid of if you could?

• Which ones would you never get rid of?

• Which ones feel the heaviest to you?

• Which ones get your emotions triggered?

• Which ones are outside your ability to control?

• Which ones could you pass off to someone else?

• Which ones could you feel ok about just not doing for a season?

3. Think about what would be involved to address each stressor. Get specific. Who could help? What is the timeline? How could you rearrange things to make that work? What do you need to be able to deal with this one thing?

4. Prioritize. This one involves some more evaluating. Decide which ones you can let go of, either by not doing it or delegating. Look and see if any of these stressors would make other ones easier to deal with. This gets a snowball effect going in a positive direction. For example, having a talk with your boss could clarify your work expectations, let him know what you need to be successful at work, and help you get to your kids' games on time.

Are any of them really easy or quick to deal with? These will make you feel better about your ability to handle your stressors, and free up some space in your brain. You’ll feel more in control (and we all usually love to feel like we have some control over things).

5. Write down your plan of attack. You’ll have a prioritized list of the issues and any timelines associated with them. With a prioritized list, you can focus most on the things at the top of the list, attending to lower-priority things that may have deadlines.

6. Break it down into small, do-able tasks. Look at your plan and identify the small, actionable things you can do in the next week. Write them down. Give them due-dates. Set alarms in your phone or sticky notes on the fridge to help keep yourself on track with taking those action steps. You may want to enlist the help of a friend or loved one to hold you accountable to doing those things. Think of them as exceptionally important even if they feel like little things. Little things add up to big changes.

7. Don’t worry about the rest of the plan. You can revisit it weekly to repeat step 6. Just focus on doing the next thing or you may end up feeling overwhelmed again.

8. Find something, anything, that you can do for yourself. Think about what feeds your soul. You may not have the capability to engage in every activity, but once you list them you can more easily identify which things you could work in on a regular basis. Maybe it’s journaling. Maybe it’s a 10-minute walk on your lunch break. Maybe you call your best friend on your commute home. Think of these things as important, especially if you are the person who is holding the rest of your family together. I am sure you have heard the instructions flight attendants give about putting your own oxygen mask on before you help a child with theirs. You can’t help them if you are on the fast track to being the one who needs help. Take time to help yourself however you can each day.

If you are working through this process with me, I'll be paying attention to the underlying things that might be getting in your way. If you are a perfectionist or have tied your worth to making others happy, then we have some deeper work to do that will equip you to feel ok with not being everything-to-everyone-always-perfectly. We may need to do a deep dive on what those subconscious motivations are all about.

Then again, you might just be in a really hard season of life. Those happen, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed by it all, because you do not see an end in sight. It can still be helpful to go through this process because it may lighten your load even a little bit.

Every little bit helps.

My husband once shared a metaphor that I’ve never forgotten. He told me that when there are too many penguins on an iceberg, the iceberg starts to sink. (I have no idea if this is true or not…it’s just a metaphor to me!).

We have to get some of those penguins to jump off so our iceberg stays afloat. When we are going through a tough season, we may have a lot of heavier seals taking up space on that iceberg. It’s harder to get rid of them, and they weigh the iceberg down more than the penguins.

Nonetheless, if we work on some of those penguins, it can be easier to coexist with the seals until the time comes that we get some relief from that situation.

If you want help with managing your stress, feel free to bring your penguins and seals to therapy! I’ll help you through these steps, but also help you figure out what the rest of the iceberg looks like.

Jennie Sheffe is a National Certified Counselor ™ who helps women find freedom from anxiety and peace in their chaos. She sees clients virtually in the state of Pennsylvania, or in her downtown Carlisle, PA office. She offers Christian counseling and EMDR Therapy.