Overwhelmed: That Feeling and Why It's a Good Thing
Many things in life can overwhelm us. Our responsibilities, jobs, finances, and family all have the power to make us feel overcome with stress and worry. People handle this in all different ways. Some people avoid everything that overwhelms them. Some people shut down. Other people just keep going.
When I get overwhelmed, my mom always asks me the same question. "How do you eat an elephant?"
And I reply, "One bite at a time."
Normally, feeling overwhelmed seems like such a bad thing. Lately though, I've been realizing why it's a good thing. Feeling overwhelmed helps me to realize why I'm so grateful for all the things I'm overwhelmed by. For example:
My job: The knowledge that school starts in 2.5 weeks makes me feel a little overwhelmed. Thinking about all the things I need to do to get ready makes me anxious. However, it also makes me grateful for my job too. Recently, I just started tutoring a 15 year old boy who failed his math class last year. While tutoring, he is realizing that he actually knows most the material, he just made simple mistakes or had a small misconception about what he was learning. On Friday at the end he told me, "Thank you SO much! You make this SO much easier!" His small comment was a much greater reward than any payment I could receive. The small remark reminded me again why I teach- to help students have that "lightbulb" moment where they didn't get it and then somehow it clicked!
Other things that overwhelm us and we can be grateful for are:
Finances: They teach us how to make a budget, how to communicate about spending, how to live within our income, and how grateful we are to have jobs!
Family responsibilities: Remind us of how grateful we are to have these people in our lives, and how thankful we are to be able to take care of them.
The list could go on and on.
The next time I feel overwhelmed, I'm going to be grateful.
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