Walking the dog today, I suddenly had this thought about my experience of overwhelm. It's a perspective. It's a way I choose to view things and it's a label I put on to describe my experience in the moment.

When I tell myself, "I'm feeling overwhelmed" or more likely something like, "I can't handle this situation anymore," what am I reinforcing? I'm telling myself what I don't want and it's not a very resourceful or creative perspective for me to come from.

But the truth is it's just a word I use to describe a feeling. It's a feeling that for me is metaphorically like being underneath a huge lampshade.

When I'm under the lampshade I can't see or think very clearly. I don't like what I'm feeling so I sometimes start to justify my experience. I list out all the reasons, experiences and things going on in my life that contribute to it. It's as if I'm saying to myself, "See here's why you're overwhelmed, you're right to feel that way!"

Yet today, when I thought about my recent experience of overwhelm, the truth I got back was that I was actually feeling underwhelmed. I was holding on to the perspective I was overwhelmed and it was blind siding me to the truth which was in-fact I was experiencing underwhelm.

I wasn't doing enough of what lights me up. I was missing that feeling of aliveness and contribution. That meant that the everyday things that would normally not bother me, were playing a much bigger part in my thinking. I was stewing on them!

The next time you catch yourself saying, "I'm overwhelmed" it might be worth asking yourself if something similar's going on for you.