Episode Transcript
My name is Ken Hanuman, and this is my wife, Dr. Anne O'Hare, we both work in healthcare and have been meditating for many years. We also enjoy a happy and fulfilling marriage. Come listen and see how to demystify spirituality and bring it into your home, your hearts, and in all your relationships. We will share our experiences and how we use these principles in everyday life. Welcome to the spiritual relationship. Hello and welcome to everyone to the Spiritual Relationship podcast. My name is Ken Hanuman and this is my wife, Dr. Anne O'Hare. The topic today is facing overwhelm, or if you wanna say, dealing with overwhelm at work. You know, I've seen people who have. Who have this issue and the, how it changes their performance at work. Personally, I know there are times maybe you feel that way, but I think I manage it well. But I know someone who has, should I quite a lot of experience with, should I, that. So who could that be? Yeah. So I'm gonna ask and come in here and you maybe explain a little bit more about her experience with dealing with overwhelm. Okay. You know, since this is the spiritual relationship, let's talk for a minute about how overwhelm affects the family. Let's talk about that for a minute. Okay. And I might be wrong, but I'll just say this. Is it fair to say that this is kind of a female problem for the most part? I wanna say that it's that, that in this conversation mm-hmm. Let's call it a more of a female problem. Yeah. It, it is. Yeah. I've, I've seen it where women tend to, and my family tend to be thinking about everyone in the family. Yeah. So it's about the husband, about the kids, about the finance, about what has to be done, tomorrow. I mean, there's so many things and when, when you're not able to think in a linear way or you're not able to go from step one to step two to organize, your projects or whatever and, and know in a, in a practical way. Mm. Then what happened I think it makes you feel overwhelmed. Meaning, I don't know what to do, what next to do. And I can also maybe think that the husband is not doing. Yeah. 'cause then what happens is, if I feel overwhelmed, I start feeling unstable. And if I feel unstable, then I'm gonna start looking at things. I'll give you an example from my childhood first, and then I'll talk about my myself. I remember like I grew up in my house and you know, there was clutter in the house or whatever was going on. There was maybe stuff laying around or something like that. My mother. Was, kind of a visual person. Like she would leave things out because that's the way she functioned better. Like if you saw her desk, it was craziness. Now I'm different. I can't, I don't like to work like that. But for her, she had to see where everything was. Everything was all over. So every once in a while she would get overwhelmed and she would, now you gotta realize she has stuff all over the house 'cause she was doing her doctorate and she's got papers and everything, everything her stuff is, uh, like, like a bomb exploded, like all over the house. And one minute she would get overwhelmed and she would be to my dad, she would be like. What is this? And it would be like a pen was like out of place and she would be like yelling at him because the pen was in the wrong place. You know, if I share, sometimes I'll share things. Maybe, I guess I'll share things here about my family. My family's pretty funny, right? Aren't we funny? But anyway, so that was like a funny example, but it shows you like how overwhelm works. It's like you, you're, you're going along and then all of a sudden it seems like everything is on top of you at once and all of a sudden you don't know which way to turn. Like you said, you don't know what to do first. You don't know which way to turn, and that feeling of instability or discomfort or not knowing or not being in control is very uncomfortable. Yeah, it's very uncomfortable. So what do you do? Maybe you get angry. Maybe you get frustrated, maybe you start blaming others. Maybe you start complaining. This all sounds like I keep on saying female, but I'm thinking about how it works in the family, okay? Mm-hmm. If you, let's say the woman is, or anybody, it doesn't have to be woman, but in this case, let's just say it's the woman. Let's say the woman is managing the household bills and managing the kids, and managing this and managing that. And manage, manage, manage, manage, manage, manage, manage. Okay. Now, let's say something changes. So this is Ken will tell you. That for me it was, I got everything going and sometimes I would say it was like I got plates up on sticks, you know, and I got eight plates spinning at once and don't come and tell me something new. Yes. Yeah. Or something unexpected. I'm sitting here balancing all the eight spinning plates and I'm this big balancing act. Don't bring me in something that's different or new. 'cause what would happen was I would basically lose it. Yeah, I mean, like, what would happen, what would I do? Right? I mean, I'm much better now. Yeah. So what would I do then? 'cause right, because when you show that, if you wanna say confusion or is like, when am I gonna do all these things? Yeah. And when you say that, the feeling that comes from me. And I guess anybody else who's listening will say, how can I make it better? Right. How can I help? Let's get it fixed, or whatever. Yeah. And then I might say, well, why, why not refuse to do that action? Right. Or maybe if it's possible, I will take it on. Right. But a lot of times, if really and truly you don't want to do it, or there is. It's adding to the confusion and the anxiety, then maybe you should refuse to do it. Do you see how having a linear minded, calm person around is a, is a very good thing, right? Because let's say you didn't have a calm, sensible person around. Yeah. Wouldn't you be reacting to the person? Definitely who is reacting? So this is where, in a family, or in a relationship or in a situation. If I feel overwhelmed, it's a pressure on the situation. One thing I can say right off the bat, 'cause this is about facing it right, it doesn't go away right away, I can say it goes deeper than just feeling overwhelmed. Because you can feel overwhelmed when nothing's happening. Yes, that's true. You can feel overwhelmed at the drop of a hat. Something very, very simple can happen and you can feel overwhelmed. I feel in my experience that overwhelm is a personality trait or a feeling ball of helplessness. Yes. It comes up and it starts to convince me in that moment that I'm helpless. I'm helpless because nobody will pick up the phone at customer service. I'm helpless because the computer won't work. I'm helpless because this person isn't doing what they're supposed to do. I'm helpless because my boss didn't give me the job. I'm helpless because these people won't take responsibility at work. I'm helpless because I weigh so and so amount on the scale. I'm helpless because I I, you see, right? Like I could, I could make anything going on the excuse for feeling helpless, right? So what I wanna share with everyone. Overwhelm is not really overwhelm. Overwhelm is helplessness, right? Yes. The cure, overwhelm is the symptom, is the way of thinking, and your attempt to stabilize by making some kind of outside situation the reason that you feel helpless. But helplessness itself is the issue. One way of helping yourself. First thing you can do is write a list. Yes. That's a very simple way to say, I have a pen and I have a piece of paper. I'm not helpless. I'm writing down. I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. I'm writing it. It's not conquering me. Yeah, right. The moment you put something in writing, you begin to realize that there are some things that are more important than others. There are certain things that can wait. There's certain things you can probably say no to, but the writing itself, itself is the first step. Because it's getting out of your head. Yeah. Isn't it? And what happened to, the way our mind works is that if something is left undone or there's some kind of emergency or something, there. It seems to loop. It seems to go in circle. Yeah. So you get the impression or the feeling is like this, it's too much, it's too much or whatever. But when you actually regular and you realize really it's one thing, maybe I can ask somebody else to do this, or maybe I could do it while I'm doing, or when I'm going out to do one, whatever. Well, but yeah. Let me say it this way. If you are coming from ground zero like I was. Like you're like helpless Olympic level helplessness, okay? Mm-hmm. If you're coming from that, it's gonna take a while to grow these skills to get better. Yeah. But I'm gonna tell you what the sum of the skills are. Write it down. That's one next thing like you just said. Look at it with the understanding that I don't have to do it all today. Those two things will automatically shift it, write it down, and realize I don't have to do it all today. Then another thing that you can do is when you really feel overwhelmed in a moment. Threaten the situation with complete cutoff. Yeah. Like, like complete cutoff. I'm not gonna die you. Yeah. I'm not gonna die. Like, I remember you helped me with this because he's the king of cutoff, so he's the king of this is not working bam. Cutoff. So that really helped me by the way. It helped me to have courage. See, when you feel helpless, you need courage, right? You need courage to try to stand up for yourself in that moment. Overwhelm is that I don't believe that I can stand up for myself. That's the, that's what overwhelm is. So write it down, figure it out, and tell yourself, I don't have to do it today. That's standing up for myself. Next thing is one quick thing. It's a computer's not working. The other day the computer wasn't working and I started feeling that feeling. Mm, a little bit. I'm much better now, by the way. I, this doesn't, I mean, I'm much better, right? Yeah, yeah. Definitely. It's pretty much, can you say it's pretty much gone? Yeah. You're. Almo. Yeah, you're right. I would say yes. It's almost gone because Wow. 'cause I know, I remember what it was before. It's pretty much gone. Okay. Yeah. But I remember the other day, not too long ago, I was working on the computer and the computer wasn't working right. And I started to have that feeling like, that pressurized feeling inside. I can't do it. Not gonna work, whatever. And I told myself, I said, I'm gonna take this computer and I'm gonna throw it in the lake. That's me standing up for myself. In other words, I will not be dominated by the computer. Okay? Don't be dominated by the laundry. Don't be dominated by the work you have to do. Don't be dominated by your body. Don't be dominated by people. Don't be dominated by anybody. You always have the choice to say no. You always have the choice to do it later. You always have the choice to think about it later. I didn't even know that that was a choice I had so much of that helplessness was such a way of being for me that I didn't even know how many different choices I had. But now I think, and you're just saying I'm better. So yeah. Congratulate myself. Yeah. That's the cure. Right. And the other thing too, if you're going to speak with your partner Yes. This is a good point. How did I do it without driving you crazy? Did I? If you write it down, yeah. And, and then we're discussing it, then it becomes something that we can work on together. We can work on together. But when you don't even, you're not even sure about exactly what you want to do now or what is important or what is not important or whatever it is, but you just keep, you're trying to communicate the overwhelming feeling without actually solving the problem. Solving the problem. So it is like what the, the other person doesn't know how to help you. Or to see where they could come in and, and pick up some of the pick up some of the slack. Well, just one last thing about this. You know, you, this is a very good point, what you said. Maybe I've had overwhelm in the past, and I don't think I've done, even when I was overwhelmed did I abuse you? No, no, no, no. Yeah, I did. No, I never did. But that's a possibility, isn't it? That's a possibility. Okay. There could be arguments, there could be blame, there could be all kinds of things going on. And I've seen this happen exactly in a home. So what you wanna do is you wanna take responsibility, but also be honest with yourself. If I have been being abusive or if I have been getting angry, or if I've been whatever, maybe I need to look at that too and say, look, this stops now. Right. This stops now. There's gonna be no more abuse, no more indulging. Like, just because I feel helpless, that gives me the, the right to yell at my partner or yell at my kids or whatever. Yeah. That's not healthy, number one. And I don't, that's not really who I wanna be, right? Yeah. So. That stops now, and now I'm really gonna deal with the feeling itself, and I'm gonna try these techniques, write it down, involve your partner. Be clear. I mean, one of the things even, I mean, I really have come a long way actually. Oh yeah. Because I rem I remember now even with the house, like if something isn't right in the house, like I'll say to him or to our son, I'll say, look, this really bothers me. I can't tell you what to do. But I really would appreciate it if you guys would do this because I, this is how I feel more comfortable in the house. That's a clear communication. Yep. I'm not yelling, I'm not abusing, I'm not making somebody feel bad, and I'm not allowing myself to be overwhelmed either. I'm not allowing myself to feel helpless. The other last thing, I always have so many last things, but the one last, last thing is the thing, when something new comes in. This is where I gotta keep working on it. I'm not fully there, but I'm almost there. Overwhelm and helplessness. That feeling can come when something unexpected happens. Yeah. Right, because you're, you're used to things happening the way they should be. Should be, you're used to routines and then something unexpected happens. Now anybody could have a reaction to anything. Right? Exactly. Yeah. But I, but it could be managed it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's the thing. It's not like you wanna, you, you know, I mean, erase it completely. It is more about managing it where it doesn't affect. You, you know, rob you of your happiness or your self-control. Well then if you practice getting more, like more proactive, if you practice getting more proactive, then when the unexpected comes, hopefully you'll be able to become proactive. Yeah. And not have to fall into this helplessness and overwhelm. So good. I hope that you all got something outta that. We're sharing our experiences and I really, you really can get over it. Yep, you can. So, yes. Yeah. And the thing is, if you bring it on just a notch, you'll, you'll feel the benefit and everybody else feels better too. Right? Right. I think it's a good thing, but I didn't, I didn't abuse. This is the other thing too. Take responsibility for yourself. Wherever you are, take responsibility for yourself. I feel like other people will forgive if you take responsibility. Other people can forgive. Yeah, right. Okay, so thank you all for listening and we will see you next time. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. When you walk into a room, life gets little. You.
