From overwhelmed to in Control
Have you ever been on the verge of a full-blown panic attack? The kind where the weight of the world seems to be crushing your existence until you’re the size of an ant. You can feel your heartbeat in your ears, the adrenaline coursing through your veins, and all of the words you shouldn’t say ready to fly off the tip of your tongue to cut like daggers.
Maybe these feelings bubble up when work becomes a little too much — when one person leaves and their work becomes your work because you’re just that good. Maybe it’s when you’re stuck in a house with your entire family for the holidays — including those who can’t for the life of them understand boundaries. Or just maybe it’s when your innate people-pleasing millennial behavior enables you to take on the role of being everything to everyone all of the time. Any of these sound familiar?
Congratulations, friend… You’re overwhelmed and you’re on the twelve o’clock train to one of two places: complete and utter burnout or going absolutely postal.
Because my back has been in full-blown spasm for days, and I can’t sit still long enough to find you a statistic about the effects of being perpetually stressed and overwhelmed, put on your rose-colored glasses for me and pretend. It’s bad. We know it’s bad. Stress leads to all kinds of more serious health conditions and will ultimately lead to death. Either yours or those around you. (Kidding)
So… Snap out of it! Just stop being overwhelmed and stressed. Let it go! Have you ever tried just not being stressed? These are the phrases I’ve heard in the past, and you likely have to. OMG, why didn’t I think of that? Because that’s not how the world works. Not for people like us. Not for the caretakers, the people pleasers, the ‘you shouldn’t be putting up with that — enforce your boundaries — oh, but not me, that’s different’ -type folks.
There are many things you can try when everything has reached the boiling point — when you’ve had it up to here. *waves hand around near the crown of my head. Maybe meditation is your jam, maybe it’s journaling, or maybe it’s even running (ew). For me, it’s grabbing a Post-It, journal, or scrap piece of junk mail to practice an exercise I learned on (of course) TikTok.
From Overwhelmed to in Control in 5 Steps
Trust me when I say this should take no more than three minutes. It’s quick — because it has to be. I wish I had the TikTok saved to credit the original creator of the post, but I’ve seen many conversations and threads on other forums with the same concept.
Step one: Grab your pen and paper
I prefer using a sticky note because I can stick this in my peripheral vision and keep an eye on the result when the chaos and panic start to creep in again.
Step two: Write down everything that you’re stressed or worried about
This can be in a bulleted list, mind map, free flow — whatever you need to get it all out of your head and on the paper. No wrong answers here.
Step three: Cross out anything that you can’t control
I know, we want to worry MORE about the things we CAN’T control. I totally get it, but go along with it and try. If it’s not something you have direct control over, if it’s not something you can do something about right now, cross it off.
Step four: Take a long, deep breath then pause
If you’re anything like me, you’re going to want to blow right past this step. You’ll want to start to go into solutions mode and begin strategizing. Take a beat. Pause right here. Acknowledge what you crossed off, maybe even re-read what’s left, and see if there’s anything else that can come off the remaining list.
Step five: Now focus on what’s left — the things you CAN control
Once your breathing is in check, you can start by doing one (or more) of a few things:
Prioritize the items in order of importance, impact, or risk
Identify the steps to tackling them (even if it’s just the first step)
Call in reinforcements and ask for help or see if you can delegate any items
Despite humans often having a pack mentality, we really struggle with asking for help. The sooner we realize that we don’t have all the answers (and that’s ok), that struggling with big emotions is probably the one unifying problem we have in common, and that it will often require the help or perspective of someone outside our own head to process our ‘problems’, the better.
I’m not saying you can’t do it all alone. You probably can. But how much quicker can you get to a place of okay with the helping hand of someone you can trust and rely on? Perhaps someone can take an item or two from you, or aid you in tackling your list. I’ve even called in a friend to guide me through this exercise before — and have done it for friends, too. One person prompts with the steps, the other notates — and respectfully but firmly pushes back (especially on steps three and four).
This piece of paper with a scribbled list, crossed-out lines, and next steps isn’t going to be your sword in the stone moment or magical key to success; but it is going to be your roadmap. Get off the loco locomotive and stick that sucker to your computer monitor, bathroom mirror, or refrigerator and refer back to it to help guide you down a more calm, cool, and collected path.
It may not seem like much, but shedding the excess worry and stress will leave you a little extra room, a little extra brainpower to focus on the right things at this very moment. You’ve got this, friend. I believe in you.