Transforming Overwhelm into a Creative, Productive Energy

By Leo Babauta

I talk to dozens of people every month — Zen Habits readers, coaching clients and Fearless Living Academy members — who struggle with a feeling of overwhelm from all of the things on their plates.

Overwhelm from tasks, messages, and more is completely normal. It’s based on a fear that we can’t handle everything coming our way. That we’re going to fail at juggling all of these balls, and drop them, and be a failure. It’s a fear of inadequacy, that shows up as anxiety.

So what can we do with that fear? What we can realize is that it’s just an energy, present in our bodies. We have all kinds of energy: joy, love, gratitude, optimism, sadness, hurt, grief, anger, power, and more.

These kinds of energies in our bodies have a few properties we can notice from observing:

• They’re temporary. Energies shift throughout the day, depending on what we’re going on, how much sleep we got, how people are acting towards us, how we’re doing with our actions and intentions, etc.
• We create them. It might seem like the energy of, say, anger, is caused by how someone else acted … but we create the energy of anger as a response to the energy of hurt … which we create because of how we interpret their actions. That doesn’t mean it’s a “bad” interpretation, but the point is that we are the creators of our energy.
• We can shift them. If we’re the creators of the energy, that’s good news, because we can then create whatever we want. Have you ever done gratitude practice? It’s a really simple practice of reminding yourself of what you’re grateful for in your life. Doing this might transform whatever sad or complaining energy you currently have, into gratitude and contentment. That shows that it’s possible to shift things intentionally, with practice.

So if we can shift our energy, how do we deal with the energy of overwhelm? There’s not one way to deal with it, but I’m going to suggest a powerful practice.

1. Get present to the energy of overwhelm, in your body. Notice that you’re feeling overwhelmed. You might notice because you’re either avoiding, or rushing to get everything done. You’re feeling anxious about how many things there are. Just pause, and notice how the energy of overwhelm feels in your body. Where is it located? In your chest? What does it feel like? Get curious.
2. Play with the energy. The energy of overwhelm is just energy — it can feel like fear, anxiety, panic … but we can also feel it as excitement, adventure, creativity. These are all just labels. How can you use the energy to generate courage? To make you get up and dance? To light a fire under yourself? Play with it, as if it were a fire you could use creatively to whatever purpose you’d like.

In this way, the overwhelm doesn’t become a thing that controls us, but rather is something we can feel, love, and use however we like. It becomes the clay for our creative act.

I realize this all might sound a bit weird to some people, but I invite you not to dismiss it, because you’ll be missing out on a powerful and beautiful way to work with something that shows up for you regularly.

You get overwhelmed because you care. May you never stop caring.