What to do When Life Feels Too Overwhelming

It feels like every week I am trying to cram too much into my head - and I don’t know how to stop it. Last year, I built some mental scaffolding, so that my life could hold and support more, but it feels like these shelves are cracking under the weight. 

Photo by @gabrielalenius

It makes me sad that it feels like many of my soul creations are getting squeezed out. I don’t have as much time for them because my life feels so very full of work and projects and personal matters that I have to deal with. It could also be the February lull. Winter is still here and I haven’t gotten out to enjoy the beautiful snow as much as I would like!

Here are some things I’m practicing this season to keep my soul afloat. (And I offer them here, in the hopes that they might help if you’re going through something similar these days.)

Meditation: 

At the start of 2020, I knew that I needed to restart my regular meditation practice. My mind is being used and pushed to a whole new level with my life in the city and I need to have the discipline of mental rest in order to not blow up. I have an interval timer and every morning (ok, most mornings), I push a button and it starts counting down from 10 minutes. I sit on yoga block and I let my mind settle into “space”, into an awareness behind my thoughts. I’ve noticed a subtle but powerful difference in how I approach my days. Little by little, the meditations are training my mind to unwind, to relax, to let go. 

Time for Processing: 

A huge realization that I had from my mental and emotional overload in January was that I need to have processing time. This is different from Rest Time, which I already started scheduling into my life in 2019. I need time to think through any big issues I’m facing. This is time to integrate, to settle into my being, to make conscious decisions, talk to God and surrender my burdens and concerns to God. 

Time for White Space/Self-Care: 

Along with time for processing, I also need time to do nothing. Nothing. It is also a time to remember that I cannot do it all. That I must take care of myself. That I am not a machine. It is a time for me to give the burdens back to God, and just cut my fingernails. 

Time for Exercising: 

I have yet to find the sweet spot for how much exercise I need, but I do know that one yoga class per week, one cardio class per week and one weight class every two weeks helps. What I haven’t figured out is where to dance. I joined a new gym in 2020, in the hopes that I would be able to use the studio to dance. They recently put up signs asking people to keep out when there is no class, and it’s probably because of people like me - dancing randomly. It makes me 

Music and other Artists:

The more that I discover new artists “randomly” on Spotify or the Internet, the more hope I have for humanity. The more I step into my own voluntary identity as an artist, the more respect I have for people who choose to pour hours upon hours into a work of art and put it out in the world. Every few weeks, I find just the song that hits the spot in my soul and I listen to it over and over again. The music takes me somewhere. It lifts my spirit and lightens my soul in ways only God can see.