#018 How to Deal with Overwhelm

Feeling overwhelmed at times is a common human experience for everyone, including change workers, help workers, doctors, nurses, clinicians, coaches, and anyone who’s out there helping other people. 

In this episode, you get a deep, insightful look into the common challenge of feeling overwhelmed and how to overcome these emotions.

What You’ll Learn in this Podcast:

1. How to make clear decisions. 
2. Trust in Allah’s Divine Wisdom: You can handle anything.
3. How to strive for balance and set boundaries.

Mentioned on the Podcast: (Click on Links)

• Nafs Coaching School
• Mind Health & Relationship training (Free Training & Newsletter)

From Overwhelm to Calm – A Path Forward

Overwhelm often leads to frustration, stress, and burnout, particularly for those in the helping professions.

People are constantly in overdrive. But who and what is the driver? 

People often feel driven by external circumstances, demands, clients, goals, or financial pressures.

A sense of duty and compassion drive many in helping professions and it is a heart-centred profession Alhamdulillah. 

So, whatever overwhelms us, those feelings of stress that accompany the overwhelm cause an imbalance in life.

Most of the time, we don’t think we can actually do anything about it, and we feel stuck in a catch-22.

Alhamduillah I have had the most wonderful experience helping my clients and my students when I myself are most centred. When I’m balanced, when I’m grounded. 

However, I’ve had to learn this the hard way, because this whole balancing thing comes with a whole host of other things to do.

We try time management, we try different life hacks, we try the very techniques that we’ve learned along the way, in psychology, to try and create a sense of balance. 

Overwhelm is created internally due to our perceptions and responses.

Allah (swt) says in the Quran,

لَا يُكَلِّفُ اللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا

Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity.

Allah will not charge you, or burden you, except with what you have the capability to deal with. It’s never going to be beyond your ability.

Then the question arises, who’s burdening you? Where’s it coming from?

Because the one who gives us everything we need is telling us that He’s (swt) is never going to give you more than you can handle. 

So, is that feeling of burden something that we’re doing to ourselves?

The feeling of, “I must do this. I should do that.”

Without a doubt, it’s better to overcommit than to undercommit. 

However, overcommitment and under commitment both have negative consequences. That’s why balance is so important. 

To create a balance, you need to understand where the imbalance is coming from.

You can absolutely balance all of this out, this is something Allah has guaranteed all of us. 

The first step is coming to the realisation that Allah would never burden us beyond our capabilities. We must be very much focused on self-care as a priority.

Taking care of ourselves allows for better care of others. If you can’t be there for yourself, you will find it very difficult to truly be there for others. 

The second key element is, you need downtime. Learn to say no and set boundaries. Being centred and balanced means we’re in a position to give a better service to others.

The third is to make decisions with a clear mind. Your decisions should not be based on fear or any emotion. 

Making a decision with a clearer mind will help you to realign with what you’re doing to help others in your service area. And you’ll be able to see clearly that this is also a service to your Creator, you’re serving Allah. 

If you do your service for the sake of Allah, you’ll always find you can make decisions based on what’s good for you, and good for others. 

At times we fool ourselves thinking that the world needs us, but the world actually just needs us to be good. 

Not overwhelmed, not stressed, not on edge, because that’s when we are able to serve at the most optimal, at the very best us.