Overwhelmed? Line 'em Up! When is the last time you felt overwhelmed? Most of us don’t have to travel very far back in time to answer that question. Feeling overwhelmed is an extremely common occurrence.
Being overwhelmed is like a bottleneck in traffic: too ma
ny
cars trying to get into one lane at rush hour. Another image that always springs
to my mind (very telling) is all three Stooges attempting to walk shoulder to
shoulder through a standard size door at the same time. The result is, of
course, three stooges stuck in a doorframe.
This E-minder is a very simple – what I call "offensively simple" – visualization to help the next time you feel overwhelmed. I hope you will give it a try and let me know how it goes. Heck, if it works, I might even try it myself.
Consider the two images above: the traffic bottleneck and the three wedged stooges. Just look at each image for a moment. What is the solution in each case?
The solution in each case is best expressed in two words: single file. That’s it. That’s all. There ain’t no more. Single file. See? I told you. Offensively simple.
Never fear though, because here comes the complicated part: how to get our overwhelming thoughts into single file. As is often the case, it is not likely that you are going to gain control by being controlling. I’m not sure that ever works. Maybe it works for short periods of time, but not in the long run. To get our overwhelming thoughts in single file, we need a tool – a simple and practical tool. In this case the tool will be a very simple visualization.
Imagine all of the thoughts that are overwhelming you are in fact already lined up. Specifically see them lined up in a horizontal line in front of you, as if they are soldiers presenting for inspection. Step back far enough that you can see them all at once just like you can see the alphabet below lined up in front of you.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Overwhelming thoughts can be anything, and they will vary from person to person and from situation to situation. There is no wrong way to visualize your overwhelming thoughts. Maybe they are just colorful little balls of energy. It really doesn’t matter. What matters for the sake of this exercise is imagining that they are all lined up in front of you, like the alphabet above.
Now, here comes the trick. Count to three. On the count of three see your overwhelming thoughts rotating, automatically, as if by magic (it is magic, by the way). Visualize your thoughts rotating 45 degrees, a quarter of a circle. In other words, they are rotating until they are in single file in front of you, one lined up behind the other.
If the alphabet were lined up as I described, it would look like this:
A
You see the A, the first in line. The B is behind the A, the C behind the B, and so forth. Your practice is to allow one thing to come to the front of the line at a time. When a thought is at the front of the line, deal with it. Do whatever the task is or maybe it is something as simple as deciding whether to agree or disagree with that particular thought/committee member. And just like a Pez dispenser, when one is gone, the next one pops up.
Certainly our inner committees are very undisciplined and
will wander from
the line and try to get your attention without waiting for an appropriate turn.
You job is to recognize a straggler for what it is and to gently, but firmly
send it back to its place in your line.
This is just one little tool, but play with it some and see if it can do you some good. Let me know.
Thom Rutledge is a psychotherapist and author of Embracing Fear. For more information visit his website, www.thomrutledge or contact Rutledge’s office at (615) 327-3423 or email at thomrutledge@earthlink.net