Tips to Overcome Anxiety When You're Feeling Overwhelmed

Feeling overwhelmed is something that we all go through. We all go through seasons in life where major events or major changes start happening all at once. Our responsibilities start piling up and we're not sure what to focus on or how to find balance. When the starting of a new season brings instability and new responsibilities into our lives it is normal to feel shaken at first. Being thrown out of our comfort zones or regular routines can be challenging and it affects people differently. How well we manage the situation has a lot to do with our previous experience dealing with major changes in life. Also, with the amount of responsibility we're already used to managing. For example; the level of anxiety that a first-time mom has about giving birth or that a first-time parent has about raising a child is going to be much different than for a parent who's having their second or third child. So when we're given new responsibilities or we're adjusting to new roles it takes time at the beginning before we're able to get a grip of things.

A lot of times we feel guilty or ashamed for feeling overwhelmed. It is important to know that feeling overwhelmed is a normal part of life and it doesn't mean that you're incompetent, lazy or undisciplined. It just means that you have more on your plate than you're used to. People like me who struggle with anxiety tend to have more difficulty adjusting to change because of the instability that it brings. When I have a lot on my plate I tend to overthink, which prompts me to procrastinate, which leads to anxiety over not getting things done, which leads to feelings of guilt, which leads me to indulge in negative self talk.. you get where I’m going? At the end nothing gets done.

I've recently been going through a season of change in my life. In the last four years I've experienced the changes of becoming a college graduate, starting my first "real job", growing in my career and learning new skills. I became Christian and I also got married. Long-term relationships ended and some began. Recently though, my husband and I, have had to deal with a lot of health problems that affected every area of our lives. I was experiencing all of this when I decided to start my blog. Which changed my career to a whole new direction. Trying to figure out this new direction, on top of everything else, had me feeling extremely overwhelmed for months. I had no point of