Overwhelmed? Good. Here's What That Means.

A 4-step process for turning the freeze into momentum

It's a lot right now. Not just busy “a lot,” but the particular kind of “a lot” where important things are surfacing all at once, and your energy system is quietly doing its best impression of a browser with forty tabs open. If you've been feeling stuck, frozen, or just on the verge of something you can't quite name - newsflash! - it’s not a problem! It’s actually useful information, and I want to show you what to do with it.

The mind often has a tendency to fall back into the story of overwhelm as a reason to freeze, leading to feelings (stories) of being “stuck” or “just on the verge” of something but never quite getting there.

But what if the freezing/stuckness weren’t problems to be solved? What if they were indicators of what would help?

Inside of the BALM and in my own practice, I choose to see the sensation of overwhelm as a great sign that I’m up to big, important things (as we all are - spiritual expansion being an example).

If I ever feel stuck or just on the verge of something, I take it as an indication to pause, reflect, gather, and then create from a place of clarity, calm, and fullness rather than just hanging on for dear life.

Let me model the process for you here. You’re invited to play along.

Step 1: Take a Sacred Pause

Carve out some time to take a break from the chaos. It might be 5 minutes, 10 minutes, an afternoon, a weekend - it’s totally up to you. What freedom!

The key is that it helps if it’s scheduled and you have the intention to slow down and step outside of the busy.

I’m taking such a pause this very moment. I carved out some time in between yoga, coaching sessions, and taking a course with lots of homework to sit down and write. (But actually I’m standing because - standing desk! Love it!)

There’s nothing fancy about taking a pause. You just need to notice you need it, schedule it, and then do it.

That’s what the freeze/stuck energy is about. Not a problem. Just a really clear indication of what would help. Turn the freeze into a pause. That way you’re empowered rather than stuck in victim mode.

Step 2: Reflect

Once you’ve given yourself the gift of the pause, the next thing to do is reflect. You can either do this step by writing, thinking, or speaking out loud (ideally just to yourself). No censoring here. You’re giving yourself the gift of stream of consciousness.

I prefer a little structure, so I like to focus on writing down wins and highlights and then making a list of what’s working in my life.

Left up to its own devices, the mind usually has a tendency to look for what’s wrong. It’s hardwired that way. But - good news - neuroplasticity! We can teach the mind to move from its negativity bias to reprogramming neurons to find the positive.

As such, in this reflecting process, we nurture what’s right. What you focus on expands, so wouldn’t you rather expand what’s right in your life than amplify what’s “wrong?” (Your answer is yes. I hope.)

Let me share my reflections with you.

Recent Highlights

(lovely, delightful, easy things that have happened with little to no effort on my part)

⭐️Attending my son Oakley’s graduation!

⭐️Going to the premiere of my daughter Zoe’s new movie! (The movie itself was not delightful - it’s an 80s slasher-type movie, but it was totally thrilling to see Zoe rockin’ it on screen in a lead role! It’s called Prank Night, and it’s now on Amazon Prime in case campy slasher movies are your thang.) It was especially awesome when people cheered for Zoe’s character when she took out the villain. I’ve never heard an audience do that before.)

She’s in the top left corner of the poster ⬇️

⭐️ Celebrating Oakley’s 18th birthday! Twice!

⭐️ My husband, Paul, got a new job that is exactly his passion and skill set

⭐️ Going for a couple of long walks with Paul and basking in the glorious sun and verdant springtime greens

⭐️ Enjoying the flowers in our garden

Recent Wins

(different from highlights because they take more oomph, as in: I finally did it, or I didn’t feel like doing it but I did anyway so yay me!)

⭐️ Finishing a big project for the Brain Regeneration clinic where I’m the coaching program manager

⭐️ Keeping up with the homework for a 12-week course I’m taking

⭐️ Facilitating a book study of The Anatomy of Awakening where the participants keep having amazing wins

⭐️ Getting more organized than I’ve ever been in my life!

⭐️ Supporting Oakley to finish strong with his last exams

What’s Working List

(write down everything you can think of in every area of life that’s working right now)

⭐️ Getting on the yoga mat every day

⭐️ Going for daily walks and enjoying nature

⭐️ Being consistent with my Instagram posts

⭐️ Writing my weekly blog

⭐️ Getting organized with tracking finances

⭐️ Keeping up with reading The Anatomy of Awakening

⭐️ Stretched my comfort zone by hiring a cleaning service

⭐️ Scheduled and went to a craniosacral session

⭐️ Went to the spa for a body wrap (one of my top 5 favourite things to do)

⭐️Regular dates with Paul

So now I invite you to do some reflecting as well. Aim for 3 things in each category. Do more if you want, but 3 is a great place to start.

Step 3: Gather the Goodness

In this step, the invitation is to go deeper. Really gather the goodness that’s showing up in your life right now.

This might surprise you, but everyone has a set tolerance level for how much good they can handle in their lives. We know we want more, but unless we consciously work at it, there’s a ceiling.

In this step of gathering the goodness, we turn to embodied gratitude in order to increase our capacity to hold the good that’s showing up and make room for even more.

Here’s how you do it.

Write down something you’re grateful for.

For example, I’m grateful for the dance at Oakley’s graduation banquet. It was SO FUN!

Next, ask yourself: why am I grateful for this experience?

I love this step. It goes so much deeper than just writing down gratitudes. I like to focus on how the experience made me feel. This anchors the gratitude not just in your mind, but in your entire system.

In this example, the dance at Oakley’s graduation banquet made me feel fully alive, celebratory, victorious, invigorated, incredibly happy, connected, delighted, joyful.

I love contemplating how an experience made me feel because I learned so much about myself, plus I get to relive it.

The final step of gathering the goodness is to embody the gratitude. We do this by putting on a song and dancing with gratitude as a partner.

Embodiment is the key here. I’ve found that thinking about gratitude is very, very different from embodying it. When something is embodied, it lives in every one of your cells, and then that’s the vibration that you radiate. You become a gratitude magnet so more of that vibration has to come back to you in your life with way less effort. That’s how it works.

So after writing down one to three gratitudes and asking yourself how you feel about them, the practice is to choose a favourite song and dance so that the gratitude goes from just the head and possibly the heart to your entire being.

This is how you gather the good, so I invite you to do that now. Write down a gratitude. Write down how it made you feel, and then choose a favourite song and dance. It’ll just take you five minutes, tops.

Since I walk the talk, I’m dancing right now to “Walking on Sunshine.” Feel free to copy my song choice.

Step 4: Create from Clarity

In this final step, the idea is to proceed with refreshed energy and clarity.

Because you took some time to take a sacred pause, reflect, and gather, you’re more connected with the truth of who you are.

When you practice this process on a regular basis, it becomes easier to make decisions and to know what’s actually true for yourself. It helps you land in your core so that you feel centered and grounded.

I don’t know about you, but that’s the only place I want to create from.

I like to think of overwhelm as a funnel. It has lots of swirling energy - so many possibilities of how you could proceed and what you could do. I imagine all those ideas funnelling down into my body. When I choose to look at it that way, I see my body as a processing system so that I don’t need to do everything at once. I pick one thing and do that.

Overwhelm can be used as an excuse. The mind can say, “Well, I’m overwhelmed, so I can’t do anything.” When we follow the steps outlined above: taking a pause, reflecting, and gathering, it becomes easier to pick one thing to take action on. That’s how you get out of the stuckness. That’s how you train your system to take action even if the mind says that you can’t or don’t want to.

In this final step, you choose one thing from your gigantic list, and you do it. That gives you momentum to keep going.

You’re carving a path through the jungle of the mind.

It can be wild in there, but this process helps you get laser-focused and tuned into the one next thing you can do.

Then, you’re creating from a clear, grounded, centered place and it feels amazing!

Making it a Ritual

These four steps are the bones of something we’ve built into a full ritual inside our BALM community: the Sacred Success Friday Review. I didn’t invent this process in a vacuum. I built it because I needed it, and then I kept refining it because I watched it change things for the women doing it alongside me.

Prior to doing this review, I was overwhelmed most of the time, stressed, double-booking myself, forgetting important events, and living in general chaos.

Now, thanks to this ritual, life is much more manageable. Of course, stuff still happens, but I’ve trained my energy system and my mind to flow through it rather than let things take me out like they used to.

You’re invited to join us in the BALM. In addition to the Friday Reviews, we show up for each other regularly to create coherence in our bodies and lives so that we increase our capacity to hold and navigate whatever’s showing up with ease and grace.

We do practices like conscious breathwork, Rebellious Yoga, BEST/Spiritual BEST healing sessions, and Ugly Awkward Dance Parties.

It’s a full self-care system where all the guesswork is taken out. I’ve done all the research and the planning for you so you don’t have to. The only thing you need to do is show up (either live or to the replays) and then notice your life shift in ways you didn’t expect.

If you want to do this work inside a container where it's already built in - where the Sacred Success Friday Review is on the calendar and the only thing you have to do is show up - the BALM exists for exactly that.

If something in this piece landed for you and you want a community where this kind of practice is the whole point, come take a look at the BALM. It’s where we do this work together, every week, without the guesswork.

And whether that’s for you or not, the four steps above are yours. Use them today if today is a lot.

Life always gives us exactly what we need to grow and expand. If overwhelm is showing up, use it as an open doorway that’s inviting you into more clarity, celebration, and aligned action.

With gigantic love and propelling courage,

Christina

🕺Creator of Courageous Self-Care

🕺Mother of two adults!

🕺Debating whether the cleaning service is something I want to continue. (I’m so picky when it comes to cleaning…)