The gift of overwhelm. [Wise Wednesdays]

Overwhelm is one of the psychological markers of our time.

Not stress. Not busyness. Overwhelm — the feeling of being buried under demands. It comes from the Middle English “whelmen” meaning to turn upside down or submerge.

Most people respond by trying harder. Working longer. Pushing through.

Meanwhile, your family, relationships, and health pay the cost while you fall deeper into the fantasy of a better future that never comes. This is how we treat ourselves and our planet.

And it doesn't work. 

Why? 

Because overwhelm isn’t a workload problem. It's a signal.

From an evolutionary perspective, overwhelm signalled that the forces threatening you were so numerous or powerful that your usual strategies had failed. It wasn't a call to try harder. It was a call to do something fundamentally different. 

Our ancestors didn't survive predators by outrunning each one. They survived by changing how they related to the environment and extended their power through technology. Find a better cave. Move to another valley. Make weapons. Band with others…

The same is true now.

Our environment carries infinite loads of information, emotional triggers, and decisions to be made - continuing to address each input one by one isn’t a strategy. It's the road to collapse preceded by anxiety and a growing sense of powerlessness. When the volume of information, decisions, and emotional triggers exceeds what you can process - it’s time to understand the gift of overwhelm and stop fighting it.

OVERWHELM AS A GIFT

You’ve heard me say this over the years: there's no such thing as time management. It’s choice management. And if you don't have time to meditate for an hour, meditate for two. Not because it changes the situation. Because it changes how you engage with it (or don’t).

Overwhelm is a call to pause, wake up, and make a fundamental shift. 

It’s asking you to pay attention, update your approach, and restore your boundaries.

This is how I’d use Presence, Power and Possibility to do that:

1: Presence - pausing and welcoming

Acknowledge that in this moment, there’s more than you can hold. Welcome the overwhelm and any sense of vulnerability in it. This is the moment of reconnection with the caring but confused and overextended side of yourself. That's not failure. That's love.

2: Power - waking up

From a place of more openness, you start to see the choices you’re making that don’t truly serve you. You start to see the power of your mind to project reality and your role in it as a ‘controlled hallucination’, to use a neuroscience term. Are you projecting a realm of hungry ghosts who can’t be satisfied no matter how much you work, and believe that without you the world collapses? Or do you show up at the office as if in a permanent war realm where you can’t rest from fending off attacks?…So you choose to keep going when you know it’s not right. Another way to look at this is asking which level of awareness are you engaging from? Victim, Hero, Vessel, Creator (4 levels video). Care and integrity are real and so are systemic pressure, resource limitations and conflict. But our brains are constantly overshooting the reality we live in. They need to regularly pause to make the most accurate projection. Our greatest power isn’t physical but in mentally waking up from mis-projected realities and making a real choice based on the most accurate perception of the situation.

3: Possibility - into the unknown

Now you’re seeing reality more clearly, and how your choices can recreate overwhelm even if your intention is to reduce it, it’s time to try something new. What options exist that currently feel impossible - from a calendar clean up, to a relationship clear up, to a full life declutter? What habits do you need to break or address more seriously? What’s the hard conversation or decision it’s time for? Who can help you? Sometimes it’s just about shifting from ‘what do I need to do today?’ to ‘What can I delegate, make easier, or eliminate?’ for a week or two. Often, change is ready to unfold but it’s just at the edge of what we can see. Sometimes, we’re really afraid of what would happen if we broke a familiar pattern; and of what happens once the overwhelm dissolves. But the journey into the unknown is the path to true choice and ultimate freedom.

Even at institutional level, the response to overwhelm isn't more output - it's an intentionally crafted information environment that protects what matters. Speaking with a board member of a well known international development bank this week, he was very clear that the operational environment was far from ideal. But member countries were actively shaping the information and decision loops they’re part of to prevent overwhelm from the loud demands of divisive actors. These perception level interventions are protecting the increasingly fragile architecture of international cooperation and sustainability.

Overwhelm isn’t the enemy.

It’s a natural signal that protects you. It’s a wake up call to free yourself from the illusion that working harder will relieve the anxiety of incomplete tasks and ordinary uncertainty.

It’s not telling you to do nothing or not work hard. It’s inviting you to no longer be a slave to illusion.

Have a great week.

Amina

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