How to look after yourself when the world is overwhelming❤️🩹
There’s a lot going on right now, and it might not feel that easy to hold on to a sense of hope, joy, and optimism in response to all of the news that’s out there.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, now is a good time to pause and explore how you can support yourself to navigate what you’re experiencing:
Back to basics
Sometimes when we’re getting caught up in our thoughts, we tune out from what our bodies need and we forget the core things that can help us to feel regulated and ok:
Drinking enough water
Eating nourishing food
Basking in sunlight
Being warm enough
Allowing time to rest
Accessing a safe space
We have to offer ourselves these things before we can turn our attention elsewhere.
Attention
If we pause and notice where our attention is going, we can ask ourselves whether it is serving us to keep our attention there.
If the answer is no, we have an opportunity to opt out of the push and pull of getting caught up, and bring our attention back ‘into the room’ or towards something that feels more sustaining and supportive.
If the answer is yes because what we’re drawn to feels necessary and important, or we feel we need to bear witness in some way, it can be supportive to stay connected to a sense of our own capacity and resourcefulness at a given time, so that we know when we can focus on something, and when we need to step back and return to it later.
Acceptance
The pressure to ‘move on’, ‘stay positive’, or to simply ‘endure’ can lead us to push away any challenging feelings that arise in us in response to difficult events.This can mean we are less willing to accept the emotions that might help us to heal and navigate the circumstances we find ourselves in.
It’s really supportive to our mental and physical health to accept the range of feelings that can arise in response to tough events or circumstances, and within this, to allow things to have some time to process.
Being able to explore feelings of anger can be especially powerful because it is the emotion that speaks to injustice, and which can voice our needs most clearly to us. Equally, accepting the grief and loss we might be feeling in response to a situation is also a vital act of self-compassion that can help us to pause, recover and transition through what is going on.
Community
When an issue that is integrally important to us takes centre stage in the public sphere in a challenging or negative way, it is common for our mental and physical health to be adversely impacted.
If this happens, it is deeply supportive to our wellbeing to feel a sense of safety and connection with others, especially when it is possible for there to be mutual experiences of recognition and care with those chosen people.
If we can place ourselves within a chosen community (in person or online), or we can connect with others via podcasts, books, or other media; we can surround ourselves with people who can support us or build us back up when things feel difficult. We can be reminded that we are not the only ones who feel the way we do and we can experience a sense of belonging and understanding.
Action
Taking action can help to combat a sense of powerlessness or hopelessness; however big or small that action is.
When we think about what this looks like, we can start by being aware of the capacity and resourcefulness that we have at a given time, so we can decide what kind of action we can offer and sustain.
Sometimes, the best action we can take is to rest, set boundaries, or engage with an activity that brings us joy. At other times, we might choose to protest; contribute to a cause with time or money, or to advocate and raise our voices for what we care about in other ways.
It is an act of hope to take action and it is deeply empowering to do so in community with others because then we can act collectively, and we understand that we are not alone in our experiences, or in caring about the issues that we feel are important.
Gratitude, hope, and joy.
If things feel overwhelmingly negative, the practice of gratitude can offer us a means of opening up our perspective and expanding what we’re paying attention to. This can give us the capacity to see everything that is going on around us and not just the stuff that is the most painful.
Gratitude can also help us to connect with our own experiences of joy and hope.
For each of us, these experiences will be related to people and / or places, as well as practices, activities and hobbies that are personal to us.
One of the best things we can offer ourselves in difficult times is to allow time for these experiences in our lives; making space for them when we need them most, so that we can revitalise ourselves and keep going in our own unique way.
