Overwhelm As A Way of Being

Back in my waiting tables days, I would get slammed. Usually at lunchtime when everyone comes around the same time and all of my tables would fill up. I would run around like a chicken with my head cut off, forget things, drop things, and break things. It was always after those really intense days that I would sit straight up in bed at 1am and remember that the guy at table 29 needed ketchup…or a refill…or more bread. I still have the nightmare of remembering the things I forgot during my restaurant days. 

Anyway, I would get super overwhelmed by my tables and the expectation at my restaurant was that lunchtime was a time to get slammed, get your ass kicked, and be totally overwhelmed…and not make great money doing it. 

So I went to work with the expectation of being overwhelmed. There were a few of us that were cool, calm, and collected. Some people thrived on busy-ness or had been doing it for such a long time there was no need to be stressed, those that knew how to stay focused and grounded, and there were those that quite frankly were probably too hung over to care (welcome to the restaurant world, lol). 

As the old adage goes, “How you do one thing is how you do everything,” which was definitely true for me, and sometimes still is. Everything in my life felt like a 5-alarm fire. I was late all of the time, had way too much to do, didn’t manage my time well, took on more than I could handle, and was usually on the brink of tears or anger. I was always rushing and reacting.

Overwhelm spills out of one area of your life into all areas of your life.

It becomes a part of your personality, this is just “How I am.”

When overwhelm (or any frequent emotion) is your way of being, it is reflected in your environment.

Your inner world reflects your outer world or your outer world reflects your inner world.

Another way of saying this, the world you have created is created by the thoughts and feelings that you have most of the time. 

So if inside you feel chaotic, your life is going to be chaotic. 

And the feedback loop will continue: inner overwhelm=outer overwhelm=inner overwhelm=outer overwhelm….and so on.

When you keep expecting life to be overwhelming, it will be. Life will continue to give you what you expect based on your thoughts and emotions.

Just like my expectation that being overwhelmed during my lunch shift was just inevitable.

When in fact, my environment was just giving me what I expected.

Dr. Joe Dispenza says that your personal reality becomes your personality.  You keep that reality the same by continuing to focus on and expect the same.

That might hurt your brain a little bit, especially if you are new to this kind of thinking.  

Simply take away that you have had something to do with the current circumstances of your life.

If you are constantly overwhelmed (or insert your frequently experienced emotion), how are you feeding into that? What are your expectations about how life is going to be for you? Where did that come from?

Ways of being in life can definitely be inherited. You might have watched one of your parents constantly rushing, being late, and feeling overwhelmed. The thought, “This is just how it is in my family” might be conscious or unconscious for you.

The good news is that you can change your inner and outer reality by becoming aware of your patterns, expectations, and staying in the present moment.

Present moment awareness allows you to release the past because you are no longer focusing on it.

You give yourself the energy to make new choices and a new reality. 

Namaste!

Nichole

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