10/40: Flow

There is an awful lot to get done and I would love to let go of the strain of overwhelm in favour of living in flow. How do I do that?

I have been taking a hard stare this week at how overwhelmed I can get at times. The pile of work that remains undone at the end of each day looks reproachfully at me as I crawl into bed and hope tomorrow will be when it gets done.

Overwhelm is a state of mind, a kind of suffering that is not as closely related to the actual amount of work that needs to be done as it may seem. Rather it is tied to feelings of insufficiency and lack, not just of time but energy and other resources that are felt to be needed. '

It’s funny, isn’t it, that some days stretch before one with seemingly all the time in the world to accomplish things, to create, and re-create, while others loom with scary amounts of work?

Certainly a significant factor is how I feel about what is on the to-do list. I shrink away mentally and emotionally from things that I don’t want to do or that feel burdensome while the delightful tasks and appealing times with family and friends are embraced and happily anticipated.

I have not yet succeeded in getting into a state of flow at will. It just seems to happen at times. But it seems to me that there must be conditions that favour it more that could be practised or at least experimented with to see if they make a difference.

Not Overloading the Schedule

An obvious place to start appears to be providing the space in a day for flow to emerge as opposed to trying to pack in too much. The latter is usually a certain recipe for overwhelm. I have a lot of agency when it comes to what ends up on my agenda in a given day, but it’s easy to say ‘yes’ to too many extra items such that it is no longer manageable.

Another source of overwhelming the schedule that came up yesterday is procrastinating things I don’t feel like doing. One in particular ended up consuming too much of my time on a work day that turned out to be a day of being short-staffed, and so it all felt harder than necessary.

Hopefully lesson learned, for the time being, anyway. Doing things on the last possible day is rarely a recipe for success.

To Do Items Are Not Monsters

There isn’t anything I have to do in the course of a day that is as horrible as it feels at times. So one of my areas of growth is to continue to work out what is behind those feelings, where they come from in terms of my parts and unmet needs that push and pull on me from the depths to lead to these feelings of being overwhelmed.

Going back to that Rilke from Letter Eight of Letters to a Young Poet:

How can we forget that old myth, which is to be found at the beginning of all peoples—the myth of the dragon, which at the last moment changes into a princess? Perhaps all the dragons of our life are princesses, who are only waiting for us to show a little beauty and courage. Perhaps at very bottom every horror is something helpless, that wants help from us.

Discovering what beauty and courage I might bring to the tasks I want to procrastinate or that I am resigned to do but feel so very unpleasant.

Remembering that there is something in the dark that is helpless, that I need to draw closer to myself and put my arms around, somehow.

I Am Not Alone

I can easily default to feeling isolated under a mountain of things when I am overwhelmed. But again it is more a mindset than a reality. Though there is a certain amount of being alone in life and work, in the most important ways, professionally, emotionally, and existentially, I know that I am never really alone, and that that feeling is fed by decisions of my parts to soldier on as if I am, rather than actually being on my own.

I have many colleagues who are more than willing to collaborate with me on a host of things that need to be done and staff who when well directed could make tasks more doable. My husband, close family members, and dear friends are incredibly supportive and are always there for me in ways I only imperfectly take in most of the time. And Presence never wavers, nearer than my heartbeat and every breath.

As some of the Tom Petty lyrics say:

Somewhere, somehow, somebody must have kicked you around some
Tell me why you want to lay there, revel in your abandon

So I don’t have to feel alone. At some level it’s a decision, a response to past wounding.

Wellness Practices That Heal and Strengthen

A very important part of not feeling overwhelmed is maintaining the daily disciplines of wellness and healing. Meditation, writing things out as I do here in the wee sma’ hours, getting enough sleep and rest, properly hydrating, eating well, getting my steps in the fresh air and enjoying as much of the natural world as possible, and the other parts of my routine are all important. Any neglect of any of these shows up in a felt deficit, and the more the neglect, the faster the slide into overwhelm.

It is becoming increasingly clear as well that these attributes I have been meditating on in my personal 40 day practice are essential to my being as well in the most foundational ways.

Release of control; transparency (instead of resistance); being with; equanimity; openness; insight (instead of judgment)'; authenticity; acceptance of Now; interpretation (instead of assumptions);

And now flow, at least, living conditions more favourable to it so it may arise in its time.

How about you? Have you been feeling overwhelmed recently? What factors contribute to the overwhelm? What helps you guard from it as well as recover from it? Do you have insights of what contributes in your life to being in a state of flow?