It All Comes Back to Love-What to do when you feel Overwhelmed

Have you ever been angry, upset, alone, afraid?
Have you ever felt regret, the desire for revenge ?
The loneliness of a broken heart or a belief that you have a failed life?
Can you be alone with your own company and feel good about yourself?
Do you know what your needs are?
Do you know what it is that you truly feel underneath all that goes on in your life?Do you carry out your life based on the beliefs of others, the emotions you have absorbed from others? Are you living out the fears of another person?

Have you been fearful of losing your job, your friends, your spouse or partner?
Have you ever lost what was most important to you?
Do you wake up in the morning thinking worst?
Do you worry about anything or everything?
Are you haunted by your past, terrified of the moment and scared of the future?
Do you feel overweight, poor, misunderstood?
Do you long for love? Do you feel unloved? Do you feel that you cannot love?
Do you feel that you cannot trust your self, other people, and life?
Do you feel that you cannot accept your life as it is, or the circumstances that you find yourself in? Are there things about yourself or others that you cannot accept?
In order to find answers to these questions you will discover that when you feel overwhelmed by all these things, the answer will be that , it all comes back to Love. I invite you to go in search of the answers that are already known deep within you first by asking questions that will guide you back to your self.

Have you ever felt fearful without knowing why? Has the world ever felt just too much to handle. Have you ever had just ‘one of those days’ become a week, a month , and a year? Have you had great success and still felt a failure? Take a moment to ask yourself have you felt any of these things?

If you have, know you are not alone. Many people in your immediate area, your neighbourhood, your work, wherever you are now are probably feeling one of some of these things. You are not alone, just like them, you are overwhelmed.
You may find yourself asking, What is this thing, overwhelm?

It’s a mixture of anxiety, fear, too much information , the pressures of living in a fast world and not having a strong inner foundation to help you live in the world as part of it rather than feeling separate from it. Overwhelm is not a natural part of the human experience as the world at large would have you believe, particularly the modern human experience. Today we have so much going on, that we are told more about the world but know less about whom we are. We are told more but know less about ourselves.

We are in a hurry, the world, we are trying to make it spin faster, but all we want in the deepest part of ourselves, is to move at the natural pace of our soul, the glad interaction of ourselves with life and all living creatures. Three primary emotional experiences that bring us integration are lost when we become overwhelmed. We lose our connection to love, trust and acceptance.

Love, trust and acceptance are the three paths to healing our overwhelm.
In your life how much love, trust and acceptance have there been? Often we seek to possess; in place of love, control; instead of trust and compromise; instead of accept. Why?

We do this because we believe in the effects of been overwhelmed and act it out, we believe in overwhelm and not in ourselves. We do this because we are afraid of Love. So I ask you to ask your Self this most important question: What is it that you believe?

Do not rush to answer, take your time. What you believe goes into making who you are. Most of us though do not know what we really believe in, we mistake our reactions to life’s ups and downs as belief, not understanding that these are reactions. They make us what we have become, not, who we truly are. We are primarily more reactive than conscious.

There are countless false identities in the world thrown at us, from advertising , to fashion, religion, self help guides and which credit card will make you attractive to the opposite sex, that in a world with more of everything, there is less of the things that give us identity. Identity is the search for understanding.

People predominantly try to understand the world through pleasure, power or meaning. They often mix all three but essentially there is one drive. What is yours? Do you try to understand the world, your life through pleasure, power or meaning. There is no moral judgement in this just that people have a basic impulse by which they make sense of things. Take time to think what prompts you, which of these three is your basic impulse?

Pleasure, power and meaning can be good and bad, none more worthy than other. Stop. Sit and think. In your deepest being, what feels right to you. Pleasure? Power? Meaning? Each is a path to self-knowledge and can heal the influences of overwhelm, its how you walk these paths that is the crucial point.

We accept a lot by blind certainty, from how we are educated to where our food comes from, to where our garbage is disposed of, to how we communicate, that we become depersonalised and give away a little of who we are day by day. The modern world of ‘more’ seeks to erode the nature of who we are. We are worth more than this. Each of us is sacred , born already learning the lesson of becoming conscious in the material world. This world would prefer us to stay unconscious.

Do you know what effect you have on another human being, your co-workers, and the people you pass by in the street, or members of your family? We affect each other, yet our society tries to isolate us, the world is getting smaller, we are told, but what is making it smaller? The more overwhelmed each of us becomes, the smaller our minds become and so our life shrinks. This makes the world smaller.

The less we know about ourselves and each other, the emotional quality of our planet shrinks , reducing our ability to love, trust and accept as openly as we can. We live on earth and rock, fed by food and water but we are sustained by emotion and spirit. Are you aware of what you eat and how you eat it, do you respect and care for where you live, its culture, history and environment? Do you love, trust and accept your emotions and spiritual potential?

You might wonder why is this guy asking me so many questions? You are reading this to find answers, so I want you to read all the questions over and over again. Are you were content with your life? Is it because you were or are dissatisfied with how you feel, think, live ? Is it because you are or have been overwhelmed.

Content people do not ask questions about how they live, or who they are. This is an age of dissatisfaction, a time of discontent, and every question leads to a place of understanding because in by questioning you can start to regain your inner identity, and after having asked question after question, you will know that in every question, the answer in its essence returns to love, trust and acceptance.

When was your life bigger and brighter than it is now? When did you last have a truly original uplifting thought and could spend time talking less and listening to your inner self more? People imagine that they can run out of time.

Time like our emotions does not function in a straight line, like we would have others believe, as Time works in a cycle, constantly reforming itself bringing the patterns of life in harmony with the patterns of mankind. Time is always on our side, fear would have you believe otherwise, the universe does work nine to five or a forty hour week, it is not concerned with how much money you or anyone else made, the universe expands upon itself recreating itself not because it should but because that is its nature, just as your truest inner nature is.

The divide between you and the universe, is not the world and your life but the negativity within you, the power of overwhelm, the power that you have given to that way of life which has come to overwhelm you.

In dealing with being overwhelmed, you need to start to understand how much you have identified with all the roles you have had, what have you become, other than who you are. Identifying with who you have become is one of the principal causes of becoming overwhelmed.

This means that all the events, people and things that you regard as negative or positive, you have identified with, you have allowed to influence you and you have become a part of them, and they are part of you. They are your lessons.

Yet the paradox here is that what you have become is not who you are. Do you know who you are? Take your time to answer, do not rush…your answer may be coming from all those experiences that have made you what you have become. All the things that contribute to you being overwhelmed.

Overwhelm is all around us, its contagious, just like the common cold. The virus which brings us the symptoms of being overwhelmed are primarily negative thoughts.
The more negative thoughts we have the less motivated we are in changing our state of mind, overwhelm though is not just the accumulation of negative thoughts, but the narrow-minded acting out of negative thoughts, the unconscious acceptance of events, information and experiences in our lives that we take on and identify with.

Most of us become narrow-minded through habitual ways of thinking and this too is part of being overwhelmed. We think in habitual ways, we can even feel in a habitual manner, and so because of overwhelm we become trapped by habits and become less feeling and less thoughtful.

Ask yourself the following questions aloud:

What do I think? What do I feel? How do I think? How do I feel?
Are my thoughts my own thoughts? Are my feelings my own feelings?
Can I love, trust and accept what I think and what I feel?
Can I allow myself to be free of being overwhelmed?
Can I learn new ways of feeling and thinking?

As you ask yourself these questions consider how your life has been affected by these questions, have any of them acted as a kind of marker in your life, or as a repetitive theme? How have these thoughts become attitudes and events in your life. Your life is precious and so you owe yourself the time to ask these serious questions.

As you asked yourself these questions, slowly and with concentration, notice what you felt, not what you thought, because your feelings are the first step in understanding where you are, because once you know what you feel, then you will understand how and what you think.

Clear thinking, rational thinking, dry scientific and legalistic thinking, all forms and modes of thinking come from out of feelings and raw emotional impulse. Each time you ask yourself these questions, go with what you feel; and dwell on that feeling, cultivate it until it grows. Then as this grows you will start to feel love, trust and acceptance rising up within you.

Thoughts are actions. They are yet to be experienced in our daily lives, but they are power of events, deeds and actions. You are made up of thoughts, even your sensory experiences are thoughts. In the everyday world each person alive is a generator of thought energy that helps keep humanity running.

Every thought that is ever expressed has its influence upon all of us. What one person thinks in London another person is influenced by New Delhi, Los Angeles or any other part of the world. The world is increasing in negative thinking, and yet by changing how you are overwhelmed and understanding it, then the negativity loses its power. People are influenced for the better naturally by your intent to improve your quality of life. Remember that most overwhelm is negative thinking influencing the world.

Environmental pollution comes from the thought pollution that exists in the common human consciousness. Selfish thinking creates pollution of the material planet but also of the emotional and spiritual dimensions of the planet that we live upon. As we become overwhelmed as a species so too does our home and if we lose that we are just mere starlight in a great chasm of space, cold, dying, divorced from our origins. Pollution though is not just environmental it can be emotional, you can pollute yourself with emotions and behaviours that cause you to suffer more or to not recognise the lessons that life is offering you. This too is overwhelm.

Make a list of what you feel emotionally polluted by, and then once you have written it down, then note if any key events in your life took place as you felt like this. If you are honest with yourself you may find a startling correspondence.

One of the great forces that belong to overwhelm is the fear of loss. I would now ask you to consider loss in your life. It can be loss of any thing, person, event or situation. How did the loss affect you? How did it affect the course of your life? Loss is fear and it is also a path to self-knowledge. The choice of what it becomes, fear or self-knowledge, is yours. Overwhelm is a choice once you know where it comes from.

What are you afraid of losing? Your money, your mind, your house, your relationship, your job, your identity, reputation, your keys, your good looks, your secrets…I can tell you from personal experience that when you have lost all these things you are ready to find yourself again. If you have not lost any of these, start by giving them up emotionally so you can let go of those attachments to these things that cause you to become overwhelmed. What follows is a simple exercise to help you achieve this:

Sit comfortably. Imagine a fire in front of you, fierce, blazing and very hot. The flames are casting their light upon your face. Take each of the things listed, money, mind, house or home, relationship, work, identity, reputation, your material possessions, secrets, fears, everything that you think makes up your life, and one by one throw each of them into the imaginary fire.

Be honest and let each item be burnt away until their essence is left and when this happens observe it, identify with it and give thanks. Only you will know what the essence is for each thing, this is personal and you need not share the experience. Stay with the feeling that comes up and allow yourself to absorb it.

Do this daily for as long as you want. You will start to gain results about how overwhelm influences you in every part of your life. Then your capacity for love, trust and acceptance will deepen. For your self, others and the world at large.

As you do this exercise, you will start to clear away the emotional bonds that tie you to overwhelm, and your emotions, mind, body and way of living will start to become freer. A sense of innocence will return and you will start to feel safe inside of yourself. Trust and acceptance will naturally blossom leading you to love.

Overwhelm happens to most people at work, spilling over into their personal lives. At work as in relationships, there are two people, whether in a group setting, where one holds the power and the other holds the emotion. In your relationships, whether they are personal, work related or with friends, try to identify who holds the power, and who holds the emotion. In regards to the power holder it is that person who leads the way, states what should be done and also can dump their own issues on other, the power holder can be negative as well as positive. This too relates to relationships, the power holder can be dominant towards the emotion holder. The emotion hold is the one who holds the emotions of both partners in a personal relationship, or the person at work who everyone confides in, or whom everyone dumps on. Sometimes but rarely, the emotion holder and the power holder can be the same person. Then overwhelm really kicks in. Also, within ourselves, different parts of our personality become the power holder and emotion holder.

Can you identify which parts with you is each of these and how at various times, one of these two parts become increasingly dominant? When you feel overwhelmed does the power holder take over, directing events or emotion holder seek to soothe everything over. The power holder seeks to direct, order, instruct, control and regulate the situation.

The emotion holder seeks to hold other’s emotions, fears, concerns, issues and wishes to make everything better, and yet also seeks sometimes to contain. There comes a point when the two, the power holder and emotion holder merge and then overwhelm gathers in strength. The skill is to not hold on to power or emotion as both are a fleeting as the other, and although deeply felt in the daily world have no lasting identity.

To find out what is dominant in you, power holder or emotion holder, let’s return to the fire exercise. See it burning as before and allow yourself to throw all your feelings and experiences of power into the fire. Do you in regard to your relationships, past or present, workplace ,family and friendships.

Then do the same for the emotion holder within you. Give yourself time, as and when you discover which is more dominant you will discover how you are prone to be overwhelmed. Power holders seek to understand life through pleasure and emotion holders through power, when you find a balance, you then find meaning. This brings you to another question. Do you know what your life means?

Do not confuse this with what is the meaning of life. I am asking you to ask your self,
What does your life mean? What has your life contributed to others, what humour, kindness and love have you shared with others, seeking nothing for yourself? Every moment, and every day and year of your life has meaning, can you feel it and express it to your self? It all comes back to love. What is your relationship to Love?

Love is the underlying meaning of life. When you ask yourself what does your life mean, you will discover that love is the meaning, nothing else. To be free from overwhelm is to trust and accept love, in all its forms and to know that love does not happen in the way you think it should, love for others, for a special person, for living beings, for enemies, love has its own path and to let love into your life, you need to let love express itself through you.

Trust and acceptance are the two voices of love that can guide your inner self through the daily grind of living. When life gets tough, love all the more. Overwhelm is the absence of love and absence of understanding that you are worthy of love and are always loved. You are loved. Ask Love to be in your life, be brave enough to trust and humble enough to accept…. listen to your self, in doing that you give your self a great gift. Ask for the love within you to become a conscious daily experience, know the power holder and the emotional holder within you understand the basic path you are on. Is it one of pleasure? Of power? Or meaning? They are the same path but on different sides of the road, meaning is in the middle, linking them. Walk the path that is truest to you and overwhelm loses its sting, know how you hold power or emotion and you will express your inner needs clearly, trust and accept and you will communicate clearly and by allowing love to guide you ,overwhelm will heal. Remember this: It all comes back to love. The love that you have. The love that you are. The love that you can be.Thank you for reading..

(ENDS)