when life feels relentless
When a good friend of mine this week asked me to write about feeling that life is relentless it seemed fitting. She is not alone. Bizarrely (and perhaps it was something to do with the week after half term break) I spoke to SO many people last week who were also feeling overwhelmed, overstretched and that life was... relentless. I too experienced that feeling.
What do we mean by feeling that life is relentless?
For me, it's a feeling of being overwhelmed, overstretched. Like there's no time to pause, rest or think. Like I am just rushing from one task or appointment to the next. It all feels like obligation. Like a struggle. Like I'm trying to keep too many plates spinning. There's little to no joy.
My friend talked about "the burden of the mental load."
Often there can be confusion, indecision or "brain fog" and physical symptoms like tension, digestive issues, poor sleep (and tiredness only compounds the issue).
Recognising the stress response
It's important for us to recognise these experiences as symptoms of having a stress response. When we understand what we're experiencing and why, we can try to be a little more compassionate towards ourselves and perhaps take wise action to reduce this stress response.
What is the stress response? It's when our amygdala is triggered by a perceived threat (and what constitutes a threat is different for all of us) and initiates the fight/flight/freeze response. It is designed to save us from life or death situations, but in our modern lives, most of our stress responses are triggered by thoughts and the human mind's propensity to catastrophise (one of the Mind Traps we often fall into).
The symptoms we experience are caused by stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. There are designed to get us to move to take immediate action. Is it any wonder when we're in survival mode our perception of time is skewed so we feel a pressing sense of urgency? No time to dilly dally in a perceived crisis! The sense of confusion, brain fog and indecision is caused by cortisol blocking access to our pre-frontal cortex (the rational, good decision making part of our brain). Our amygdala doesn't want us to think it want's us to ACT. No wonder we feel frantic!
So what can we do to feel better? Here are some suggestions:
S.T.O.P.
Stop what you're doing.
Take a breath: Take slow, deep breaths making the inhale slower than the exhale. This switches on the parasympathetic nervous system (our rest and digest system) and signals to the brain that all is well.
Observe: What are you experiencing right now? In your body, in your mind? Can you name the feelings? What is happening (and I mean in reality not the story we are telling ourselves about).
Proceed: From this place of clarity, move forward with your day.
You can follow my free audio guide to this practice here.
Move
The best way to burn off those stress hormones is to do what they ask of us. Move. Go for a walk, do some exercise. Let them dissipate and we can settle down faster.
Take a Tea Break
Make yourself a cup of tea (or drink of choice), sit down with no distractions, preferably by a window with a pleasant view and sip it slowly. A cup (as opposed to a mug) gives you about ten minutes to do nothing and catch your breath. Seriously, you can find ten minutes in your day.
Get outside in Nature
There is a very good reason why the Japanese Government created the concept of *shinrin-yoku* or Forest Bathing as a way to help burnt-our city dwellers to de-stress and relax. Being in physical touch with Nature - breathing fresh air, touching soil, stones or grass, hearing birdsong and the rustlings of the wind in the trees, letting your eyes take in the soft greens of plants is calming, grounding and brings peace and perspective. It also reminds us of the slow yet steady pace of Nature.
Do the 3 Ps
Prioritise: Look at your schedule and To Do list for today and take off anything that isn't of vital urgency for today. MAKE SURE THAT'S NOT SELF CARE. That needs to stay.
Plan: Make a plan for when the other stuff might be done. I find it helps to have a Today, This Week and Someday list. (It's amazing how many things I put in the Someday list that end up being deleted because they become irrelevant and unnecessary.)
Pace: See if you can build some breaks and free time blocks into your calendar to give yourself breathing, transition and accomplishment space (back to back meetings leave no time for actually getting shit done and they do this to your brain.)
Do something you enjoy
Even if it's only for ten minutes. We only ever have today. We need to find joy - somehow - in every single day. Life is a gift, a blessing. Remind yourself of what it means to live and to enjoy.
Do these things and I guarantee your perception of time will shift. There is always enough time if we allow there to be. I am reminded of a passage from Inviting Silence by Gunilla Norris:
In our culture we do not trust time.
We try to defy time. We steal time. We kill time.
We want to control the flow of events,
instead of trusting in a natural progression -
instead of trusting that we can and will
meet life as it happens.
We attack life to defend against the mistrust
we have of ourselves. In silence we can learn
to change this. We can give ourselves time,
leaning into it, resting in it. When we do this
the pressure comes off
and we give ourselves permission to feel
and experience - we can participate
in our lives without having to control events.
Then like still ponds at early dawn
we reflect effortless effort.
Getting perspective
And if after having said all that you feel like you still can't take a break, I find it helps to get a little perspective with this thought: if you were to come down with flu today and find yourself totally helpless and out of it in bed for three days, what would happen? Would the wheels come off your life? Would you lose your job or all your clients? Would your family's circumstances be irrecoverably ruined? I highly doubt it. Someone (be it a partner, a family member or a good friend would probably have you covered and work/clients would have no choice but to hang on for a bit longer. It happens to the best of us.)
Sometimes our bodies force us to take a break if we don't listen to its requests. Let's be proactive and take heed before we have no choice in the matter.