16/10/2026
What exactly is overwhelm? It’s not always what you think.
If you’re scrolling and this caught your attention, maybe there's a reason - just gove yourself a couple of minutes to read, and more importantly, reach out or take some action to help break the cycle.
What overwhelm means, how we experience it and the impact it has will be different for us all - we might not even recognise it as it creeps up. Some may think it means having too much on and being too busy but you don’t have to be busy or even stressed out to experience it. It can come from not knowing what decision to make, grief, a particular demand or just too much input at any one time.
You won’t necessarily recognise it straight away but the symptoms can be procrastination, either indecisiveness or putting things off continually, a feeling of inertia, a sense of lacking direction or purpose, dropping the ball on something, neglecting self-care and, eventually, maybe stress, anxiety and physical illness. We push it away with constant scrolling, shopping, w**e, retreating into ourselves. Do you recognise any of this in yourself? Anything else to add to the list?
Instead of treating this with compassion and doing what we need for ourselves we may question our ability to cope, feel frustrated with ourselves and going so far as to berate ourselves. Negative self-talk and trying to force ourselves to “pull it together” and just get on with it then only add to it and so we’re caught in a never-ending cycle. Until we are forced to STOP. ANd we still aren’t happy with ourselves when that happens either! I should be stronger, I should be able to do this, everybody else seems to cope. “Seems” is the key word here - if you’re wearing that mask, how many others are?
I pulled a card from the Rebecca Campbell Work Your Light oracle deck yesterday “The Ever Unfolding Rose”. It reminded me of a poem I wrote and the opening line being “She was cracked wide open”. This was the message behind the card, the constant cycle of healing, experiencing the dips and the lows and knowing that we rise to greater heights when we come through them. So overwhelm is nothing to be ashamed of or to shy away from - it is a message to you, an initiation into a new phase of being where you emerge carrying wounds but, like the beautiful Japanese method Kintsugi of repairing broken pottery, it becomes something that when mended is more beautiful than when it was unbroken. Unbroken it is like all the other vases on the shelf, broken and mended it is completely unique, proudly displaying its golden scars.
So I’m remembering this myself, because as I pulled that card I was trying to see a way through what I’m admitting now is overwhelm. It’s come from feeling raring to go to do do lots of things in the business but then not knowing where to start, what to focus on and in some cases how to do it (not in terms of what I do, more how do I get it out there?!). It’s also come from a frustration of getting Ulcerative Colitis symptoms more under control after starting new treatment, yet still having fatigue and having to continually pace myself. I found out this week it’s due to extremely depleted iron stores - so it’s not something I can physically just push through - my body simply can’t supply what is needed to do that. The upside? It’s giving me time to sit back and write this stuff down that’s been bobbing around my head and to be super intentional with where I spend my energy and what I focus on.
I had been beating myself up about why I wasn’t feeling better - for months while I was still working I was telling myself, it’ll be better when I have finished work. When I finished and was exhausted I thought it’ll be better after a couple of weeks of rest, it’ll be better after the holiday, it’ll be better once the medication fully kicks in. But that’s the point I am always banging on about isn’t it - it’ll be better when…. I can do that thing when… Sometimes we just have to listen and work with what we have with patience and compassion - that same patience and compassion that we would afford to others.
So are you brushing aside overwhelm or the signs that lead up to it like it’s a dirty little secret you need to bury? Do you know your own signs and do you have an action plan for when you start to notice them?
If any of this resonates or has stirred something in you my inbox is open and I’m happy to chat on the phone or meet for a cuppa and just listen. Sometimes we just need the space to be heard.
Image from dreamstime .com
