Feeling Overwhelmed?

Feeling overwhelmed can feel like you’re caught in a flood, but you are not alone. Reach out.

I shut down. What was coming at me was too much. The brain was emotionally overloaded.

I think I am a very sensitive person.

Nothing wrong with that.

My sensitivity helps me to listen well.

The disadvantage of this sensitivity is that when I am in highly charged situations, I can easily get flooded. Overwhelmed.

If I am in a room with a group of angry people, I can feel quite overwhelmed.

What they are projecting out — their anger — feels like a movie being played out on the movie screen of my soul. The screen is super thin, and some of the energy pours through. I am flooded.

Caught in a flooded river.

I know why this is happening.

It’s because I am an empath.

Empaths are highly sensitive, finely tuned instruments when it comes to emotions.
They feel everything, sometimes to an extreme, and are less apt to intellectualize feelings.
Intuition is the filter through which they experience the world.
Empaths are naturally giving, spiritually attuned, and good listeners.
If you want heart, empaths have got it.
Through thick and thin, they’re there for you, world-class nurturers. Judith Orloff

Are you one too?

Are you someone who seems to take it all in?

People tell you that you need to ‘harden up.’ Or that ‘you need better boundaries.’

But are you the one people come to when they need a deep connection?

Yes, maybe you need to learn a bit more about yourself and what ‘boundaries’ actually mean to you?

But sometimes, when the overwhelm comes, we loathe ourselves and go into a cave. We feel guilt and shame for not measuring up to what others expect us to be.

We experience the energy of being judged, sentenced and punished.

Jesus feeling overwhelm

I often ponder the energy dynamics experienced by Jesus in his trial before Pilate.

Now Jesus stood before the governor; and the governor asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus said, ‘You say so.’

But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer.

Then Pilate said to him, ‘Do you not hear how many accusations they make against you?’

But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed. Matthew 27:11-14

I wonder at this moment, Jesus, being both fully human and fully divine, felt a kind of overwhelm by all that was happening to him?

The abandonment of his friends
The false accusations of the religious leaders
The raw horror of knowing what was ahead of him – crucifixion

The empathic nature of the Christ taking it all.

So he went inward, finding a place of trinitarian connection.

It was pointless to J.A.D.E. (Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain).

Pilate was amazed. I think anyone, with an openness to see, would have seen completeness.

A Psalm of ascent

Maybe Jesus was quietly singing a little psalm he had memorised as a child as he went with his family on the pilgrimage to the festivals held in Jerusalem.

There is a group of 15 Psalms that are called the ‘Psalms of Ascent'(Psalms 120–134).

He may well have sung Psalm 124 as he joined the masses for the Passover festival in which the city of Jerusalem was now celebrating.

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side
    —let Israel now say—
²if it had not been the Lord who was on our side,
    when our enemies attacked us,
³then they would have swallowed us up alive,
    when their anger was kindled against us;
⁴then the flood would have swept us away,
    the torrent would have gone over us;
⁵then over us would have gone
    the raging waters.

⁶Blessed be the Lord,
    who has not given us
    as prey to their teeth.
⁷We have escaped like a bird
    from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
    and we have escaped.

⁸Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth. Psalm 124

Flooding and overwhelm

The psalmist captures the emotion of the situation.

enemies attacked
swallowed us up alive
anger kindled
flood sweeping us away
torrents going over us
raging waters
prey to their teeth

then release

escape like a free bird
snare is broken

Overwhelm then release.

In the place of overwhelm, Yahweh was by their side.

Jesus sings this psalm every time he goes on a pilgrimage.

Perhaps he sings it quietly now as a form of focus. A meditation for the soul.

Don’t be alone in the overwhelm

I was recently listening to someone share a story of their soul.

They had been spiritually abused by leaders in their church.

A harsh, judgmental use of power.

I went there with her. I was angry, and I was sad.

Sad for her, but I was also sad for those church leaders throwing stones. They also needed help.

All were caught in a flood.

She had been alone, but wasn’t anymore.

Overwhelm can crush an already half-broken twig.

Overwhelm can trigger mental unwellness and downward spirals.

We are human and have a fragility to our existence.

We take it all in, and sometimes it can be too much.

I can take in little comments and big sentences. Feeling the energy underneath, I can nurture it and overthink it.

For me, I create out of this place. I listen from this place.

I get comments from people who say my writing seems to connect at a deep level.

In Soul Talk conversations, people share that they feel deeply listened to.

But what do you do when you feel overwhelmed?

What helps?

1. Meditate on the Psalms

I think many of the writers of the Psalms were highly empathic and intuitive. Creative people often are. The poet seems to be able to go under the noise and energy of what is happening and craft this experience into art.

Jesus, I believe, sang the songs of his youth. The Psalms of Ascent.

2. Have a Soul Friend

Go forth and eat nothing until you get a soul friend, for anyone without a soul friend is like a body without a head. Brigit of Kildare

Everyone of us needs someone to help us when the overwhelm gets too much.

To step into the river, as such, and help us.

Not to F.A.S.S. us (Fix, Advise, Save, Set straight) but simply to be there in the overwhelm.

If you would like me to listen to you, then here is the invitation.

I find you in the overwhelm

I find you in the overwhelm
The floods
The storms
The spill

You find me when I can’t take much more
You pull me up
Dry me off
Warming fire by the shore

When the overwhelm comes
When the energy forces flow
Hide me in that creviced rock
Around you, let it go

Place me in your feathered nest
Supportive friends not foes
Restore the exhausted heart in me
Help me Saviour for you to know

Quotes to consider

A friend is the partner of your soul, to whose spirit you join and link your own and so unite yourself as to wish to become one from two, to whom you commit yourself as to another self, from whom you conceal nothing, from whom you fear nothing. Aelred of Rievaulx
No medicine is more valuable, none more efficacious, none better suited to the cure of all our temporal ills than a friend to whom we may turn for consolation in time of trouble, and with whom we may share our happiness in time of joy. Aelred of Rievaulx
It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister. Thomas Merton
Spiritual growth begins with the easily overlooked disciplines of attentiveness and surrender. David Benner
Spiritual friends help us most when they make clear that their job is to point the way, not to lead the way. And the Way to which they should point is Jesus. David G. Benner, Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship and Direction
Self-acceptance always precedes genuine self-surrender and self-transformation. David G. Benner, The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery