When you are feeling overwhelmed it can cause big problems…for you, your family, and your work…it seeps into every corner of your life.

When you eliminate overwhelm from your life, you have:

Clarity on your priorities, and the ability to easily adapt to the natural ebbs and flows of life

Feelings of inner peace and calm

More confidence in your skills and abilities

Higher self-esteem

Less conflict in your relationships

A greater sense of control

A better relationship with time

The ability to get more done, with much less drama ... and so much more...

In this episode of The Happiness Hunter podcast, I'm sharing the most common trigger points for overwhelm and the key strategies to put in place to help you:

Greatly reduce the chance of getting overwhelmed in the first place

Become more aware of your red flags so you can spot them and deal with them, simply and easily

Get back on track when the wheels fall off - immediately and for the longer term.

These are the same strategies I’ve taught hundreds of clients over the last decade, to help them successfully overcome overwhelm.

Fiona

Creating the right environment and doing the right things at the right time.

For us to succeed in our endeavours in life, we need to be practiced and we need to be prepared.

Often, we do things thinking we are doing the right thing, preparing ourselves for what is coming up - and in a sense we are.

The action is right, but the timing is not.

We often miss this nuance.

We do things, which are the right things to do, but it is not at the best time to maximise the outcomes.

In this episode of the podcast, I'm sharing a really simple example of how thinking we are doing the right thing, but not being fully across the conditions for which we are doing that thing, can sabotage our success.

There’s a scene in the rockumentary ‘This is Spinal Tap’ where they have an amp.

And because they are such a hardcore rock band, they have an amp that goes to eleven.

But to get to eleven, you still need to start at one.

If we don’t start, if we don’t just pick up the guitar, metaphorically speaking, and have a go, then the amp is never, ever going to get to eleven.

In this episode of the podcast, I'm sharing about how we self sabotage, how we stop ourselves from ever getting to eleven - either by never starting in the first place or putting the brakes on before we can get there. Once we start anything, we begin to collect data.

And we can review this data which provides a glimpse into ourselves - our patterns and our behaviour. And it is this awareness which gives us an opportunity to do things differently.

Let's allow ourselves to get to eleven, whatever that means, and wherever that will take us.

There are two versions in which we show up.

At our best, we are patient, loving, kind, courageous, forgiving, curious, and empathetic to the needs of others. We have an attitude of learning and growth.

In our highest and best version of being, we value the self, know our worth, and contribute to life and others.

This is referred to as the higher self.

Showing up as your highest self means operating and living life in communication with a higher level of consciousness, without the restraints of limiting beliefs.

And then there is the other side of the coin.

In this state, we are emotionally reactive, stagnated, closed off to any new information, argumentative and operating in victim mode. This is a contracted and closed off energy space.

This is referred to as the lower self.

We also have free will.

In this episode of the podcast. you'll have an opportunity to reflect on which self you are choosing to spend most of your time operating from.

What other people think about you, is none of your business.

But what you think about you. That is your business.

How you feel about yourself should not be determined by whether other people like you or not.

If you like yourself then it doesn’t matter what other people think about you - positively, negatively, good, bad, indifferent.

If you like yourself then you are friends with yourself.

And if you are friends with yourself then you like and accept yourself, just as you are.

In this episode of the podcast (it's super short, and super sweet) you'll have an opportunity to reflect on the relationship you have with yourself, and how much you may be impacted by what you think the outside world thinks and feels about you.

Despite what we know, let's face it, moments happen in which we become emotionally reactive – slaves to our thoughts and feelings.

Some ways you may experience this:

• You are about to lose it, you are losing it, you've lost it
• Yelling or screaming back at another in an argument
• A stream of verbal insults
• Thoughts, intention and action to physically lash out
• Uncontrollable crying

In this episode of the podcast, you'll learn about the Subjective Units of Disturbance Scale (SUDS). This is a framework used to measure the subjective intensity of distress or disturbance experienced by an individual. SUDS is a self-measuring assessment developed by Joseph Wolpe using a scale of zero to 10 to rate the level of emotional disturbance.

The benefits of becoming familiar with this scale (you don't need to know it verbatim) is that it provides an instant self-assessment reference to where you are at, in the present moment.

Because the thing with emotions is that if you can name it, you can change it – this is acknowledgement and awareness.

Using the scale and knowing where you are will allow you to pause and take action to process and ease the level of distress. This may help prevent your emotional distress from escalating, and will help you help others when they are not control of their emotions.

The problem and the solution are two sides of the same coin.

When we can understand our problem, we can understand the solution.

Our problem with other people is nothing to do with them.

It is 100% our problem.

We may know this.

But are we really living it?

Are we embodying what we know?

Are we honestly implementing it in our lives?

Truly, knowledge and awareness are nothing without understanding and action.

In this episode of the podcast, I am exploring this idea from another perspective, and I really encourage you to listen in.

If you are the problem, and if you can completely accept that, then equally, you are also the solution.

When we try to control things around us, like other people or our environment, this is a safety mechanism.

Our primal instinct is that when we feel under threat or feel let down, we immediately try and want to control the situation.

We do this when:

• We feel unsafe

• Fearful that things are not going our way

• The need to be right and get the last word in or prove someone wrong

• We have assumed without complete understanding or discussion

In this episode of the podcast, I'm sharing some examples of how this behaviour shows up, and the impact it has on other people.

You'll have an opportunity to reflect on where you might be trying to control other people and situations, and what you can do instead.