Overwhelm: From Sinking to Soaring – One Bite at a Time

When was the last time you felt ease and flow in your life? The women I’ve been talking to lately all feel the enormous weight of too many tasks and obligations, with not enough time or energy to meet the demands.

Definition: Overwhelm—to be buried or drowned beneath a huge mass… to feel utterly defeated.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re treading water — between the to-do list, emails, family chores, childcare, self-care, and community tasks — you’re not alone. Every transformational leader faces this storm. That’s what I love about the tools within the programs I deliver: they help you reset and recalibrate the quality of life you’re meant to design and achieve.

Over the years, as I’ve studied stress, I’ve come to understand the need for self-awareness. Stress is a trigger, not the enemy. It’s a signal, like the light on your dashboard. I often think of the frog that finds itself in a pot of boiling water: it jumps out quickly, but if it is placed in cold water, it won’t have the awareness to jump until the boiling point takes over. So often, we don’t take charge until we hit that boiling point, which can be hard to reverse.

As we continue this topic, I’m going to introduce some practical tools to help you take charge.

One of the first tools I invite you to use is conscious breathing. Bringing awareness to the moment you’re in by using your breath can help you relax and feel grounded.

Years ago, I was facing more than a few struggles. The impact on my body was fatigue and restless sleep. I was managing 240 acres and an intentional healing arts community. My body was screaming at me to reset! I used to wait until the “baseball bat” hit me over the head. But this time, I decided to actually use the healing arts tools I’d been trained in. By paying close attention to my feelings, I restructured my priorities and created a vision for the quality of life I wanted to experience. Each day, over months (and years!), the tools I practiced reset my ability to live with grace and ease.

Some of the clues I watched for were shortness of breath, ongoing headaches, and restlessness both day and night. Overeating also became a pattern when I tried to stuff my emotions rather than acknowledge them and use them as guideposts for change.

What’s a visual anchor you could use? Ever had a snow globe? Shake it, and everything’s cloudy. Set it down, breathe, and let things settle.

Spiritual Tie: Breath is Spirit. When you focus on slow, intentional breathing, you reconnect with your peace and inner wisdom.

Quick Practice: Three deep belly breaths, exhaling longer than you inhale.

Mini Mantra: I am safe. I am guided. One breath at a time.

I love this phrase: “Eat the elephant one bite at a time.” We don’t eat a holiday meal in one bite! Life’s big goals are broken down into small, manageable tasks. Look at your task through the lens of: What can I do, with what I have, from where I am? Small steps will get you up Mount Everest. Or as another saying goes, “Small hinges swing big doors.”

And then there’s the topic of Vision Fatigue: you’ve lost sight of the shore.

When we’re overwhelmed, our vision blurs. We forget why we started.

I have a client who started working with me because of vision fatigue; she was having anxiety attacks, frightened by the impact unrelenting demands were having on her life. She’s writing an amazing book that flows with her PhD dissertation and visual arts career. By refocusing on her vision, she was able to reset her intention and achieve better results, finding peace of mind, greater achievement, and celebrating each step from a place of inner calm.

The key point here: Have a vision to shift your awareness to. Close your eyes. Feel the result. Why is it worth it? Reignite the fire within you!

What’s at the root of the change we seek? So often we’re caught in patterns of thinking. Our job now is to rewrite the overwhelm script. That old script may say we’re failing if we can’t do it all. It’s the voice that says, I should be able to do this; I know how to multitask; I don’t want people to see me as a failure; if I stop running, I’ll be overcome. We want to create a new script, one that nurtures a vision that feels life-giving to you.

The number one tool in DreamBuilders is Noticing What You Notice. Awareness of your feelings, followed by acting from the powerful question: What would I love? This is the focus for building new habits and reducing overwhelm. Interrupt the old pattern, reprogram it with your vision, and watch your life shift into something more vibrant. The steps you choose from your vision will support both your mental and emotional health.

There’s a phrase in my work: “Rest, Digest, and Create.” Trust and have faith that by aligning with self-care, you can achieve even greater results. After all, isn’t the reason you’re working so hard because you want results?

Let’s move from sinking to sorting. After all, you deserve to fly high with joy, aliveness, and a truly life-giving vision.

For many years, I used to practice last-minute completions, waiting for the clock to run out and pushing projects until the pressure of deadlines overwhelmed me. I learned this pattern in college. But once I realized the true impact this was having, I set out to reset it, one project at a time. I developed new ways to achieve greater results without the stress and overwhelm of looming deadlines. Now, I achieve more with ease and flow. I feel more confident, and I celebrate my success with greater joy and recognition for being prepared for what life offers.

Here are a few affirmations to support these new patterns of ease and flow: “Step by step, breath by breath, I rise above the overwhelm. I calm my power…one bite at a time, one breath at a time.”

What’s your next step? What will you do to repattern your approach and achieve results you’d truly love?

I would love to hear from you about what you’re choosing to do and the results you’re seeking.