Does Genuine Positivity Help with Overcoming Overwhelm?
A positive approach can help you overcome overwhelm on many levels.
You and I live in a world that’s frequently overwhelming.
I stopped watching the news and reading news websites in depth because it made me feel awful. So many terrible things happening out there. And worst of all – the vast majority of them I can do little to nothing about.
What about the things I do and the people I spend time with? Also tricky, because there are various and sundry personality conflicts, friends who have changed in ways that have lessened or even ended friendships, and other elements of change. And it doesn’t help that the overarching leadership of the reenactment group many of us are a part of seems hell-bent on doing increasingly idiotic things.
Is my family less overwhelming? Hell no. Let’s just say things are chaotic and difficult on many levels, and that can be particularly overwhelming.
You might be in a different boat in these matters. But chances are, if you’re not currently dealing with matters of overwhelm, you have in the past – and likely will in the future.
What’s more, the tools of connectivity intended to bring us closer to one another are mostly distractions. They overwhelm us with data and information, and before you know it that takes its toll more personally – and overwhelm dominates your life.
If overwhelm is inevitable, can you do anything about it? Absolutely.
Start with recognition and acknowledgment
True statement – overwhelm is overwhelming. But because of this truth, it’s often difficult to recognize when you are overwhelmed because – by the time you realize it – you’re already overwhelmed.
What that means is different for everyone. But for me, overwhelm feels like I’m underwater or at the bottom of an hourglass with the sand falling on my head and simultaneously rising to drown me. It feels scary and deeply uncomfortable.
How you experience overwhelm might be the same – or not. But odds are that you don’t know it until you’re in the thick of it. Thus, it feels like recognizing and acknowledging it is pointless.
But it’s not. The first way to combat overwhelm is to recognize and acknowledge it. Why does that matter? Imagine that you’re stuck in traffic, running late to an appointment, and running low on gas. Then, a terrible song you can’t stand comes on the radio. What can you control in this situation? The music. But you must recognize and acknowledge it before you can change the music or turn it off.
Without recognition and acknowledgment, overwhelm overwhelms you. When there are aspects you have ZERO control over like in the above situation, recognizing that is the first step in dealing with it.
But until you recognize and acknowledge the factors overwhelming you – they’ll continue to overwhelm you.
Control and overwhelm
In the scenario of being stuck in traffic, running late to an appointment, running low on gas, and a song you can’t stand coming on the radio, do you see how that can be a state of overwhelm? So many things inundate you, all at once. You can feel like you have zero control.
This is why recognition and acknowledgment are important. Because when you recognize and acknowledge that you’re overwhelmed, you gain insight into why and how. That insight can show you what control you have as such.
One of the first factors in dealing with overwhelm is finding what you can take control over. In the above example, you can’t do jack shit about traffic, running late, or the fuel situation in that moment. But you can remove the annoying music.
That might seem small – but it’s actually huge. Taking control of what you can control is empowering. And that empowerment can lead you to work out what to do with the rest of the situation.
Music changed or turned off, you’ve taken the thing you can control out of the overwhelming equation. That can open the way to allow you to prioritize the rest. Getting fuel will remove that stress, and during that time you can call to let them know traffic is making you run late.
Getting out of overwhelm can be overwhelming – but you are empowered to do so. That’s because you are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Hence, you’re the only one who can experience your overwhelm. But you’re empowered to get out of that state.
One way to help make this happen is via genuine positivity.
Non-toxic, genuine positivity
Positivity, in this context, is a matter of attitude.
As I’ve suggested before – positive and negative are opposites not on a coin, but a long, flexible cylinder. You and I exist between these extremes somewhere.
Thus, you have a choice. Face towards positivity or towards negativity. That’s a matter of attitude.
You choose to seek and find a way involving positivity rather than negativity. When it comes to dealing with overwhelm, this is a matter of taking control of the elements you can control to work your way out of being overwhelmed.
It’s easy for overwhelm to lead to negativity. Overall, feeling overwhelmed is a negative feeling. An attitude of genuine, non-toxic positivity is an excellent approach to combat negativity.
Just a reminder – non-toxic positivity recognizes and works with negativity, rather than put blinders on to the bad or deny its existence. Genuine positivity is a choice of attitude and takes active conscious awareness – here and now – to function. That’s a product of mindfulness.
Everyone experiences overwhelm from time to time. Given instant connectivity around the globe with simultaneous distraction, is it any surprise? But you have the power to overcome it. Adopting a positive approach arms you to fight the good fight and get out of overwhelm.
And remember – you are worthy and deserving of not being overwhelmed.
Using genuine positivity to overcome overwhelm isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge the aspects of overwhelm you’re experiencing, you can see what parts of an overwhelming experience you can and can’t control. Knowing that you can control an aspect of this, you can use an approach of genuine positivity to find your way out of overwhelm and take control over that which you can in this situation.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
Lastly, the better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can also open those around you to their empowerment.
To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the four hundred-and-eighty-fifth entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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