I was SOOOO excited/inspired to do this Festival of Dreams in January. (I'm doing a whole month of free classes, coaching videos + creative dream challenges! Join me here!)

It felt SO GOOD push myself in what felt like a really GOOD way.

(There is good pushing and bad pushing!)

But now here I am with too much on my plate and I just want to cry.

This IS what happens every time.

And this IS why I hesitate to push myself out of my comfort zone at all.

I hate this feeling.

But NOT doing the things I feel inspired to do in order to avoid this feeling.... means I am letting this feeling control me.

Why would I let a thing I hate control my life?

So here I am.

Hello feeling of total overwhelm I just want to cry, can we talk?

The about-to-cry sensation goes away.

Oh cool, you just needed some attention?

Well - you don't have any attention to spare right now, do you? There's just too much coming at you.

Maybe. Kind of. I think I just have a big pile of things, and need to make an organized list. I feel less overwhelmed and more likely to ENJOY my work when it's organized.

But you can't organize all this other stuff that's happening right now.

Yes - a bunch of little things are not quite going well today. That's true. Also I feel super-very-easily-frustrated/overwhelmed by any little thing. Like the fact that the pizza pans from NYE are still dirty! WTF?

Yeah! See! Too much is happening! You should scale back.

Well. Cleaning the kitchen would take like 10 minutes, max. I do have 10 minutes. Or Joseph can do it later. Do you really think it's a reason to not go after my dreams???

What about that other tech stuff that wasn't working this morning?

It's working now. Those things are annoying, but they don't happen that often. Again - is this a reason to NOT go after my dreams? And why didn't you answer the last question?

Oh shit. I'm being evasive, aren't I?

Yes.

That's a bad sign, right? Like it means I'm not really on solid ground.

Well, YOU are on solid ground, WE are on solid ground, but your reasoning around why I should scale back is not on solid ground.

BUT I CAN'T STAY ON SOLID GROUND IF YOU GO THROUGH WITH THIS.

Well. Bingo! There's the issue. That you for sharing your real problem so clearly. It's always easier to work with things that are clear.

(Just in a puddle on the floor, so scared of what will happen)

Oh sweetie. Please. Here (sit down next to her, offer a hug and a mug of decaf eggnog latte)

It's just. Everything is so good now! Why do all of this?

"All of this?" you mean why do the stuff I feel inspired to do and excited to do? Why generate more creative momentum?

Yeah. I mean really. Why?

Because this is what I want.

Well what I want is to lay in bed with the duvet over my head.

I get that. But I also feel like... is that really what you want? For always?

Ugh. Yeah probably not. I do want to do fun things and I do love that feeling you get when you're trying new things and stretching and everything is clicking but you have to go through all these uncomfortable spaces to get there.

Again. That's letting the discomfort control your life. Are you really happy to lay in bed with the duvet over your head and allow a fear of getting uncomfortable to control you?

No. But that does't mean I want all of this either!

Yeah I hear you. So how do we compromise?

Hmmmmmm.

Hmmmmm.

Actually a detailed list feels really good. Spacious. And permission to just cross things off without doing them if it gets to be too much.

Yes, I had already decided that.

Really? I guess I wasn't paying attention then.

I'm glad you see it now - I do want to try to not be overwhelmed as much as possible WHILE ALSO being open to whatever discomfort I need to work through in order to follow the dream.

Yeah, I know. I just hit discomfort and freak out.

It's ok.  So: making an email more detailed list than I have, and holding permission to cross things off if I get too overwhelmed... what else?

(I go over to my list and see where I need to add more details to it)

OK yeah I see the problem now!

I need PAPER LISTS.

And my daytimer for 2021 is not here yet.. so I checked my email to see what's happening with that...

(Got sidetracked and cleared out my emails which had been piling up and THAT FEELS VERY GOOD and overwhelm is shrinking)

... my daytimer has spent the whole last week moving between facilities in California. Not any closer to me in Canada.

Lightbulb! I just realized I've been putting paper-list-making on hold until it got here and that is not going to work.

OK back to my digital list. It's got all the big stuff and what I need is to break down the smaller tasks - I always do that part on paper. So I'll just do it in a random page in last year's daytimer which I hardly used, lol!

OK WHOA.

I felt the overwhelm literally just leave my body. Like in a WHOOSH.

And now I feel energized.

And like "yeah it's going to get messy sometimes but I want to PLAY with all of these ideas and really ENJOY the festival of dreams!"

And I'm off to make that PAPER LIST of the smaller tasks I need to focus on right now.

Update:

On the way to making that paper list, I made a cup of coffee and put all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and started it and asked Joseph to clean the pizza pans and now the kitchen is not an overwhelming mess.

Just to say - my overwhelm often believes things are WAY MORE OVERWHELMING than they are. That's how it FEELS, and even though my feelings are valid - they are not telling the truth about what is happening.

PS: COME TO THE FESTIVAL OF DREAMS IT'S GOING TO BE AMAZING.