on overwhelm....

Ever feel like life is passing you by 100 mph? Ever feel like the days are long, but the weeks, months, and years are just flying by right before your eyes? I'm sure I am not the only one out there, because I know of hundreds of people who are suffering from overwhelm! Yesterday afternoon I was trying to take a siesta, if only for about 30 minutes. As I laid in my daughter's bed, trying to relax, I could feel my heart pound hard and fast! I could not, for the life of me, relax. I kept thinking that there must be, there has to be, a demon that I am trying to fight, one that will not allow me to rest. And then it hit me...I'm suffering from overwhelm! My heart was racing, my wheels turning. Why was I trying to relax when my home needed some cleaning, the laundry was piled high, I had homework to do, I have a test this week, grocery shopping needs to be done, and so on, and so on! I laid there, trying to put a rest to my beating heart. I tried breathing....in and out, in and out, slowly. I tried to meditate, to focus on nothing. I tried to recall a beautiful Florida sunset, (which I was able to take in years ago...my sure way of falling asleep), but NOTHING worked. Finally, I realized that my body was not going to relax at that time. I was, quite frankly, going to waste valuable time just laying in bed. Despite the fact that I was doing my best to relax and unwind, OVERWHELM was getting the best of me. Eventually, I got out of bed, and tackled my homework...photo project 5. I knew that if I were able to get one, at least one, of the many tasks I needed to accomplish done, the feeling of overwhelm would subside, or at least, lighten in weight.

Today's activity: overwhelm
By definition: overcome with emotion or perceptual stimuli

Often times in life we are overcome with overwhelm. Our "to do" lists seem like they are miles long, when in reality, things are not that bad. We feel the weight of the tasks we need to accomplish. The thing is, just sitting around, or in my case, laying around, thinking about all of these tasks is typically more overwhelming than accomplishing the tasks themselves. Even accomplishing, or crossing off, one task off of our "to do" list can make us feel so complete, so happy, and so light and free. Today I encourage you to review you to do list. Breath as you read it, breath deep and slow. Organize your thoughts and chores. Once you've taken a look at your lists, prioritize the things that you need to get accomplished. Whether big or small, write all of those mind boggling tasks down. Then, just for the heck of it, GET BUSY, and accomplish one task off of that list. Just one! Whether big or small, do a task, and put a big, thick, black line through it, on your "to do" list. Accomplishing one task will alleviate a world of overwhelm. And who knows, perhaps tomorrow, you can cross another task off of your list. The secret to success is to GET BUSY. Rome wasted built in a day, rather, many small bricks placed one by one, day after day, and today...we have ROME!