Overwhelm and Anxiety: Life Hacks to Successful Ways of Dealing with These Feelings

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome to Mindful Wanderer Journeys Within. I'm so happy to be with you all tonight and my topic tonight is going to be one that I'm sure a lot of people are going to be able to relate to. I'm going to be talking about or giving several life hacks on how to deal with overwhelm and anxiety. Now these are definitely two areas that I can definitely relate to. I definitely have experienced anxiety, overwhelm, I mean you name it. So I figure with you know so much happening out there I thought it would be a very relevant topic that everybody could relate to in some way. So the next, well the first thing I want to talk about and it's very simple. It's about breathing. Now breathing is something that we do and we don't even really think too much about it. It's just something that we we do and we go throughout our days 24-7 and we just don't think about it. But there is a concept out there about deep breathing and I just want to do a little exercise right here. So I just want you to just be still and close your eyes and I want you to just take a really really deep breath. I'm going to do one with you. So one, two, three. Let's do it again on the count of three. One, two, three. Doesn't that feel like you're just laying off the weight of the world there when you do that deep breathing? It's definitely something that has helped me. There are many many ways of being able to do deep breathing. But it's something that I've had to do at times when I have felt my anxiety really getting the best of me and I just have to stop and take a deep breath and it really helps. And when I let out that exhale as I did before, it really does feel like that I am getting rid of some of that anxiety. So that is definitely one, you know, like one life hack that you can think of to help with that. So the next one I want to talk about is when you have a lot of tasks at the same time. There was something that I had heard a while ago called the two-minute rule. And when you have a lot of tasks to do, you think about the ones that would take under two minutes or less. Something that can get done like right away. Even just like let's say clearing off a table real quick or throwing something in in the garbage or having to make a quick phone call or send out an email. It could be just something as simple as that. So get rid of those tasks that are really easy to do. And also with tasks, if you have a list, and I'm very big on to-do lists, and it may sound funny in a way, it may sound like it's kind of contradictory because we're talking about getting overwhelmed. And sometimes if you have a long list of like, oh my God, what am I going to do? But what's helped me because I'm a visual learner, a visual person, and if somebody just came up to me random and said, oh, can you do this, this, this, this, this? It's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. I need it written down. I need it written down. I need to see it. So that's something that you can definitely do is especially if you're a visual learner like myself, you can write down the tasks on paper. And again, look at what can be done in like two minutes or less or even five minutes or less. And again, just try to get rid of those tasks, get them done better quick. And then what another tip that I would have here is that when you complete a task and you have a list in front of you, put a check next to it or a star or anything that would indicate that you've completed that task. You can even put a C next to it for complete. I, I have done that when I've gone grocery shopping, when I have a shopping list, I will go through the store and I have marked down what I have picked up because again, it's a sign of completion. And also I don't want to have to keep figuring out, oh, did I get this already? I don't have to keep looking in the cart and driving myself even crazier. It's like, okay, I've already got that. So, and then the list is getting shorter and shorter. So that definitely helps out a lot with that. And again, with a lot of tasks, do they all have to be done in one day? A lot of times they don't. And that's something that I've had to learn too. I stress myself out a lot thinking, oh my God, I got to get this done like today. Yes, there are times when things are urgent and have to be done, but then there are others that, you know, I think I could really put that aside for just a day or two. There, not everything has a sense of urgency, but unfortunately in this culture we're taught that everything becomes urgent and not everything is. There are things that we can put off at times. So, you know, it's another life hack to think about, you know, another tip out there is that do all of these tasks have to be done right away? So let's get into something a little deeper. Another, another big tip in dealing with overwhelm and anxiety has to do with comparison. Now I have touched on this before. I've also touched on it in some of my other social media channels, but when we start looking at somebody else's life, and this happens a lot being on social media and we start looking at, oh my God, he or she has gotten so much farther ahead or he or she has accomplished so much of this. And it's like, Whoa, Whoa, let's just stop here. There is no need to compare your journey to someone else's. You are exactly where you need to be at this time of your life. There is no need to compare. There's a saying a long time ago that I used to hear all the time. It was called identify, not compare. You can certainly identify with somebody's journey, but to compare it is going to cause so much unnecessary stress and grief and anxiety. And you can save yourself so much from just simply saying like, Hey, this is my journey. This is where I'm meant to be. And I don't have to be like that person or this person or whoever it is. So when you're on social media and you see like you think you start feeling that anxiety about like, Oh, this person is so much farther ahead. Like for example, I'm working on an online business right now. There are people that have made so much more financially with it. They have gone way farther ahead. And yeah, it would be easy for me to say like, Oh, what the heck am I doing wrong? Or why is it that I'm not at that person's level yet? Well, because I'm not that person. And I don't know what their experiences are. I don't know what they've done. But then I look at the fact that I'm farther ahead than someone who didn't even invest in the program and the online business to begin with. At least I had been in it and I had been making videos and I had been doing a lot, a lot with it. So I'm farther ahead than someone who hasn't even taken the first step yet. And that's the way that I look at a lot. It just takes away that anxiety when you know that the journey that you're on, it's individual and it's okay. It's okay to be where you're at. And you don't have to compare to anybody else's journey or whatever it is that they're doing. Be proud of who you are. Be proud of your accomplishments. So another thing that we get caught up in and can cause a lot of overwhelming anxiety is perfectionism. I am what they call a recovering perfectionist. I have struggled with this the majority of my life. I still have to be careful with it, but nothing is perfect. Okay. Like nothing is and to strive for something that just isn't going to happen. It would, it would, just that one tip alone would relieve so much anxiety. You know, when somebody says like, well, it has to be perfect. Well, it's not, there just is nothing that is going to be perfect. You can try your best. I can say that I could do my best at it. I will do whatever I can to achieve the best, but to, but perfectionism, no, it it's, it's impossible. It's impossible. I mean, I, I have a lot of faith, you know, I have faith in God. And to me, God is the perfect being, but we can, we are not meant to achieve a status of perfect because that's not going to happen on this side of heaven. So I, I just tell myself like I am giving my best and some days that best is going to look different. You know, some people say, oh, I strive for a hundred percent. Well, you know what, again, our bodies are not designed for that. We're going to have days where it's going to feel like maybe 80%, sometimes 50% or you know what, maybe all we can do is give 5%. Sometimes even just getting out of bed when you're going through so much, when you're going through a catastrophe or you're in a deep state of grieving, sometimes just 5% is all we can give. And that's okay. That's still giving your best. That's at least putting one step forward. So if, if you look at those two, the comparison and the perfectionism and get rid of them, that is going to eliminate so much stress and anxiety and overwhelm. You know, I, I mean, I, I do this podcast and I want to be very transparent and real. And what I share are things that I have struggled with and things that I have been working on for the majority of my life. And I still do. I also believe in it's okay to have a therapist. That's something that I talk about dealing with stress and anxiety and overwhelm, having somebody else to talk to. Definitely having a strong faith, having a church to go to, or having a community group that you're part of having a safe person. I have lots of safe people in my life that I could talk to when I feel overwhelmed, just to have someone listen to me. I have an amazing friend that I never had met her in person, but we've been Facebook friends for three years now. And she is like one of the safest people for me. I can voice clip her. And if I'm having a rough day, I can just leave several voice clips and she will listen to them. And she just listens without judgment. I mean, she may give some insight and guidance, but it's okay because she is my safe person. She's earned that trust that I feel that I could, you know, definitely take the advice and guidance from her. And yet, you know, you having those safe people to be able to talk with, and it just makes so much difference. So I hope that these have been very helpful for you. And again, just thinking about the deep breathing, you know, just even taking one deep breath would definitely help. You know, having a to-do list, but seeing like, okay, does this all have to be accomplished in one day? Marking off the tasks that have been done already, doing the tasks that are easy to do right away, and then not getting caught up in comparison and perfectionism. Those, if you can manage to do your best on all of those, believe me, you're going to feel the weight of anxiety and overwhelm come off of you. It's going to come off feeling like a wave has washed over you. All right, my friends, I am so grateful to be here with you. And I hope that this has blessed everyone. And I look forward to being with you next time. Have a wonderful evening.