Easily Overwhelmed? Try this
A quick 3-step exercise to get out of your head and into reality
Stop overgeneralizing
In a clouded headspace, it’s so easy to equate one moment of panic with an oncoming catastrophe.
It’s important to remember that not everything is going wrong, just this one thing.
This small moment will not ruin you. It’s okay.
What am I doing? Method
Just stop and ask. This may sound crazy, but somewhere in the opposite of fear is awareness.
Fear comes from thoughts of what is yet to come and the only power it holds is what it’s given. By being grounded in the present, you are actually more likely to be prepared.
By questioning yourself, you open a gateway of awareness and the next steps of what you need to do can become clear by letting your mind find the answer.
Downhill from here
Now that you’ve gauged the current situation, the next step is calming down. Something helpful to me recently are grounding techniques, exercises meant to bring you, ‘back down to earth’ in a way.
A quick fix is the 4,7,8 method —
- Count to 4 breathing in
- Count to 7 holding
- Count to 8 breathing out
Softly doing this a couple of times can clear the mind.
Just remember
- This momentary problem is just that. Momentary.
- Don’t feed into the fear by remembering the task at hand
- Breath out and move on
It’s fine to still feel anxious after but hopefully, these steps helped in accepting this moment of overwhelm and moving along with it.
