Note: No part of this post is AI-generated
Overwhelm is a feeling many men share. Recently, I had a client ask me
“If I asked you what three keys someone should keep in mind when everything is falling apart, and you worry you’re too overwhelmed to make a good decision?
You’ve likely been in that situation in so many ways.”
I know this is something so many struggle with. The truth is, the lessons below apply to navigating many difficult emotions. I had someone else ask me this morning about procrastination, and I realized their procrastination was less about avoiding the task and more about avoiding the feelings it might bring up.
In their case, it was about the procrastination of submitting work to clients. The realization was that the procrastination was an effort to avoid the possibility that the client would come back unhappy with the work. In short, and maybe a bit of an oversimplification, they were afraid of rejection.
When it comes to feelings of overwhelm, most of us recognize it as stemming from an exceptionally long to-do list or from many uncontrollable external influences. Things like work stressors, family dynamics, or unexpected events or expenses, such as a car breaking down or an unexpected house repair.
What do we Usually Do?
Typically, we try to control what we perceive to be the sources of that overwhelm. We build better lists. We prioritize our to-do list and set aside funds for emergency expenses. We do everything we can to control or avoid feeling overwhelmed.
We use tools like the Eisenhower matrix to help us navigate our priorities. We create the illusion of setting boundaries to prevent overwhelm, but the truth is that while many of us are reasonable at setting them, most of us are not very good at enforcing them.
While these tools can be useful, they can only control so much. Eventually, life is going to throw you things that are completely out of your control. When this happens, the overwhelm will return. Often returning with an amplified level of frustration. After all, you’ve done all the things you are ‘supposed’ to do.
Why Doesn’t This Work?
The first issue is that we resist the feeling of overwhelm. We push back. We try to solve it as we discussed earlier. The aphorism “What we resist persists” is appropriate here. Overwhelm is an emotion; it carries some information.
When we resist the feeling, when we fight it it doesn’t go away. As men, we tend to like to “conquer” things. We come ready for battle. When we inevitably fail to slay the overwhelm, then we turn inwards. We start to judge the shit out of our inability to stop the feeling.
That judgment can easily turn into feelings of unworthiness. We start to tell ourselves some version of a story that says, “I must not be any good. I can’t even navigate this feeling, let alone all the other responsibilities I have.” We start to spiral, then we isolate.
Dr. John Oliffe, a researcher with the University of British Columbia on men’s mental health, refers to what he calls the three “I’s” for men.
Injury: The event that happens that causes us pain. The overwhelm.
Internalization: Men tend to look inward for a solution. The “I got this!” pep talk.
Isolation: Then, when we can’t find the solution within ourselves, rather than asking for help, we isolate.
This is what Buddhists call the second arrow of suffering.
“In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.”
If overwhelm is the first arrow, our judgment of our inability to navigate or ‘solve’ the overwhelm becomes the second arrow. The first arrow may be unavoidable (the overwhelm), but the second is completely our choice.
The key is to accept the overwhelm as it is. To notice it.
“Oh, there it is. This is what overwhelm feels like.”
You see, you can’t fix a feeling. There is nothing that needs to be fixed. Emotions are simply signals, and the better we get at interpreting those signals, the more peace we will find.
Move from the Story in Your Head to the Sensation in Your Body
The second thing to do is to really pay attention. Start to notice the sensation. Where is it in my body? What is the physical sensation of the emotion? Get out of your head and into your body.
Move from the story in your head to the sensation in your body. It is the ‘story’ that perpetuates the feeling. The feeling doesn’t last on its own. It is the story that keeps it alive.
“OMG, I have so much to do. I’ll never get it all done. And when I don’t get it all done, people will hate me. My partner will leave me. I won’t have any value, and the world will finally see what a fraud I really am.”
When you start to recognize the story being played, use that as the cue to look for the sensation in the body.
Look for the Lesson
Finally, the third step is to look for the lesson in the feeling. What is this trying to teach me that I have yet to learn?
When my girlfriend was murdered, I had some incredibly intense emotions. Most were not particularly positive. Grief, rage, despair, hopelessness, and guilt were just some of what started to come up. They were not easy to sit with and certainly I had thoughts of how to “fix” them. I could have turned to any variety of maladaptive coping mechanisms to numb the feelings.
Already an accomplished workaholic, I could have turned to that for relief. I could have dove into a bottle, looking to numb the pain. There are a variety of ways that we, as men, look to numb our pain.
The trouble is that we cannot selectively numb. When we numb the pain, we also numb the joy. Not to mention that most of the numbing mechanisms we use come with a host of other undesirable side effects.
The day after she was murdered, a friend sent me Ram Dass’s Letter to Rachel. One line in the letter spoke deeply to me.
“Is anyone strong enough to remain conscious through such teachings as you are receiving? Probably very few.”
The moment I read that, I knew that I had an obligation to myself to “be strong” and “remain conscious” through these feelings, as difficult as they were. I knew that there were lessons here that needed to be learned.
Bringing it all Together
Whether we are talking about overwhelm or procrastination, as I discussed at the beginning of this piece, the methodology for moving forward is the same.
- Identify the feeling we are avoiding. Lean into it rather than push it away.
- Identify the story that is perpetuating the feeling. Move from our head to our body.
- Look for the lesson that the feeling is trying to teach us.
With the work I do with our Connect’d Men, I use the acronym S.O.A.R. Where can you SOAR when you are overwhelmed? Where can you SOAR rather than procrastinate?
S – Slow down. Take a breath. Practice the pause. Slow down the flurry in your head.
O – Open up to the feeling. O – Observe the feeling
A – Accept the feeling. Drop judgement get curious
R – Reconnect. Who am I really? Who do I want to be?
Emotions are the fuel of life. As men, we need to stop trying to avoid them and learn to embrace them and the lessons that they bring. Emotions are the foundation upon which reason is built. If we don’t understand the underlying emotions that are the foundation of our logic, we will never live a purposeful life.
