Take the HELM
“I’m feeling overwhelmed by my business, by juggling single parenting and the responsibilities of running my small business,” says Jo, a natural therapies practitioner. “My to-do list keeps growing and I feel stressed that I can’t keep up. I feel anxious that my fiveyear- old son is not getting enough of my time. My life balance is non-existent and I feel out of control. It’s affecting my moods, my thinking. I’m more forgetful. I often feel overwhelmed.”
Can you relate to Jo? Work pressures, parenting responsibilities, financial strains, mental health issues can all be part of the daily strains of living in a fast-paced world but, when they become too much for too long, stress and overwhelm tend to result.
Feeling overwhelmed is a natural response to feeling overcome by anxiety, stress and other emotions and feelings that build up to a critical point. It can be a normal reaction to confronting difficult circumstances in your life. Most of us experience being overwhelmed at some point but what is critical for your wellbeing is to not become chronically overwhelmed and to recognise the situations and reasons that lead to it. More on that later.
Feeling overwhelmed can come from all sorts of directions, but it tends to be associated with anxiety and feeling out of control — or on the verge of being so — when faced with persistent stress, pressures and/or emotions. I’m referring to chronic or ongoing negative experiences of it
