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What Causes Overwhelm?

On 20 January,  my WhatsApp account was hacked and it took me 9 hours to resolve with customer service from WhatsApp being poor to non-existent. And I had to laugh shortly after all was sorted, a well-meaning soul reported the incident and got my account disabled again.  That was much easier to sort.  How is that relevant to you you may wonder….?

Seeing beyond the immediate external reality

Nothing happens without a reason.  The hacking of my account could be a one-off isolated incident; for me though there are no coincidences merely synchronicities.  Seeing it this way in full technicolour makes life more fun.  In my experience colour brightens your day.  You will only be aware of these flirts from the Universe if you slow down enough to allow the heightening of your senses.  As David Pearl says answers are everywhere if you are open to receiving them.

This gift arrived because five days ago I had a bath in bottle 20 pictured to the right.  The bottle’s called Awakening and boy have I been experiencing that of late. To help you awaken you receive shocks which “penetrate” your current state of consciousness. This allows initiations to happen which help you wake up to a deeper sense of what is real.

When you look up the Colour Mirrors description of this bottle, it is all very positive which only gives you the end state, not the journey you take to get there.  It’s like one of my clients who had a mental breakdown 3.5 years ago says having tried so many therapies, I love colour so much because it is very positive. She got the new beginning her soul yearned for; it was not in the way she expected.  Her marriage fell apart, as did her mental health and she lost her home.  Now she is doing better than ever with her work, has a new partner and a new home.

And there is a reason for that emphasis in our system which is beautifully articulated by Michael Neill who says you’re only one thought away from happiness, you’re only one thought away from sadness. The secret lies in Thought. It’s the missing link that everybody in this world is looking for.

I could have got caught up in the drama that was created and in some moments of the 9-hour ordeal of trying to retrieve my WhatsApp account, I did feel the anxiety creep up. And then I would remember to breathe and remind myself that if I let go and let God all would be well and all is well.  And yes that can be tough at first because the ego wants certainty.

What’s really going on?

To answer that question I feel like borrowing from NLP here.  What is happening when you experience minor or full-on panic is that you are allowing your mind to distort or delete information or to generalise about your current situation.  It can be so subtle that you are not aware of it.  What made the momentary overwhelm I felt more excruciating was the agitation that I experienced.  By agitation, I am referring to a belief that life is a competition and we are in a race and how in that place you may find yourself saying there isn’t enough time.  After a meeting with a group of Colour Teachers at the beginning of the week, I felt I was in a different race entirely and had completely blown it!

Fear of missing out generated a sense of panic and it took me most of a day and the listening ear of a good friend to realise that nothing was amiss. It was all perfect; I was on a different path and momentarily forgot how easily we overestimate what can be done in a year.

And even as I share this interpretation with you I am aware that that’s only a part of it. I was also experiencing all those feelings so I re-member what anxiety and overwhelm feel like.  And in that way can be more compassionate with my clients when they show up in this way.  Intuitively I feel it is also in part to release the fear in the collective.  And lastly, it is all part of the journey that moves from agitation to initiative to awakening that we are all on. It is only when you experience the shadow of agitation fully that you can feel what it means to be fully awake.

Three ways to release overwhelm

To transmute overwhelm and find the path to inner peace, try any one or combination of the following:

  1. Notice the thought(s) you are having and ask yourself – is this true?
  2. Remember that linear time as defined by Newton is a manmade concept – you have as much time as you need
  3. Notice what’s around you, even focus on your breath for a few rounds.  For me, I followed David Pearl’s advice and got inspiration from my physical environment.  All week I took 45-60 min works seeing the beauty around me and connecting with it.  The warmth of the copper in the first photo was so inviting and I felt held and hugged by Mother Earth.  And I loved the reminder of the darkness that is in all things as represented by the shadow in the photo at the start of the article.

I would love to know what worked for you in managing your overwhelm and coming back to yourself. Do leave me a comment and I will respond.

Kate Griffiths
Kate Griffithshttps://www.wholeselfleadership.com/
Some call me the coaches' coach. I work with visionary leaders doing world work who are really good at what they do but haven't found their sweet spot yet. I help them unlock their whole selves by learning to build their intuitive muscle and so create more meaning. Ultimately this enables them to move into expanded awareness and the realms of higher consciousness. This is deep work because it requires you to embrace your shadow so you can discover the gold that is hiding there. You have both masculine and feminine energies within you but somewhere along the way you learnt to rely more on one more than the other making you either more of a "prover" or a "pleaser" Working with me you learn to access both energies so you can increase your presence and enjoy greater influence and visibility. Since 2008 I have pioneered an approach that integrates spirituality and business using Colour by blending the esoteric and the practical. I have found that it can transform every aspect of your life and enable you to develop the tools you need to ride the waves of adversity, you will experience in life. If you want to understand how colour can help then why not read my book Colourful Boardrooms. At the very least it will help you discover what type of leader you are. In 2018 I realised that I wanted to help change the story for the leaders of tomorrow so I set up Colourful Classrooms, a social enterprise, and have gone into schools and communities with programmes to support teachers, parents, and students to have better emotional health and wellbeing by building their awareness around what makes them feel more resilient. In terms of where I hang out:I tend to hang out on LinkedIn, so do connect with me there if you want to continue the conversation. And at the moment I am trialling a new social media platform MeWe which has the feel of the "village green" and to show my support for the stop hate campaign. If you like videos then do subscribe to my YouTube channel.

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