Wait… What?!
If you allow yourself to become “overwhelmed", you'll have a defense to taking on things you don’t want to do.
When people try to get you to do more things, you happily and immediately say, Sorry but I “can’t".
You can’t do anymore because you are… Overwhelmed.
What you cannot say, is NO.
No, I don’t want to do that.
No, it doesn’t fit for me right now.
No, I’m focused on some different things.
No, because just freaking NO.
Overwhelm is a defense to having to actually, just say, NO.
***
One of the weird ways time DOES play into overwhelm is what I call the “Time Blur.”
Ever notice when you’re in your overwhelmed state, that one moment it’s Sunday and you’re trying to get ready for the workweek and the next moment, it’s Thursday night?!
I call that “Time Blur“.
Time just blurs and you look up periodically and realize that you have moved through a whole work day or even the week without consciously realizing it.
That time blur is you, consciously checking out of your own life, so that you can avoid something or hide from something else. We PRETEND it's us being focused!
Unfortunately, our abdication of time responsibility is more about leaning away from some realities you don’t want to deal with yet.
So you get busy. You get stupid busy. You get… Overwhelmed. And time blurs.
And somebody who loves you comes and asks you about a responsibility and you look at them blankly and say "Oh my goodness…I forgot/meant to/can’t believe it’s Thursday already…"
Feel free to change your ENTIRE life by becoming intolerant of Time Blur.
Time Blur says to God & the Universe, that you DON'T CARE about the moments and days of your life. That your time is NOT precious.
That you would rather check out, to avoid momentary discomfort and are willing to sacrifice all the moments lost to that "defensive busyness."
I’ll repeat this again – overwhelm is not about the lack of time. It is about failure to make decisions. It is about avoiding responsibility and discomfort. It is about creating excuses to avoid doing something that you dread.
Only when you are willing to stop indulging yourself with overwhelm, can you require the same treatment from others in your life.
Stop teaching overwhelm to your children by example.
