When was the last time you felt overwhelmed? Where you able to navigate the madness? In this episode we take a closer look at what it means to be overwhelmed and how we can effectively manage the madness.

About the Host:

Jani Roberts is the Owner of Alignment Essentials, a health and wellness company spanning the fitness, self-improvement, and mindfulness spaces. She is the creator of the Warrior® Workout, Moving Meditations™, Inspirational Conversations™ and all of the Alignment Essentials programming content. In addition, Jani is an International best-selling author of the book, Navigating the Clickety-Clack, How to Live a Peace-Filled Life in a Seemingly Toxic World.

Jani has over 40 years of experience in the health and wellness field. She owned and operated a large gym franchise in Florida, as well as a boutique studio for several years where she specialized in health and wellness related services, products, preventative health education, personal training, small group fitness classes, private nutrition and health coaching.

She has literally trained hundreds of thousands of instructors around the world, and she was the featured choreographer and performer on numerous training DVDs. She has presented for dozens of large Health and Wellness brands such as Nike, and Adidas. She holds several certifications through ACE, AFAA and NASM.

Jani travels extensively as a speaker and presenter sharing her Alignment Essentials wellness tools and helping people find more joy in their lives and is currently training at the Shamanic Institute of Healing. 

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What? Life isn't supposed to suck. Get out of here. Life is supposed to be good for me? I don't think so. Truth? Did you know that you have the power to create your own reality? True? Did you know that you can live the life that you've always desired? Holy? That's right. And that's why we're here. Are you ready? Unless you're on Joy overload, you've come to the right place, it's time to get out of your own way and start creating more of what you want, and less of what you don't end up with the excuses. I'm your host Jani Roberts. Let's do this.

Welcome back, Warrior family. So good to be here with you. Really looking forward to our conversation today. I hope this finds you well, I hope this finds you peaceful. And I hope this finds you with a quiet mind versus an overwhelmed one. Yeah, so that is our conversation today. That is the feeling that we're going to discuss the feeling of being overwhelmed. We've all been there. And it can be crazy. It can be beyond this is when we can really shut down. So let's talk about what this means what it means to feel overwhelmed. This is when we are just completely submerged in our thoughts and emotions. And it's all about what's going on currently with our life. And it's usually around challenges, there are problems, right. And they point us in a direction that can excuse me, leave us feeling paralyzed, and we're just unable to function. This is how I get when I get really overwhelmed, I just shut down. I just I just have to walk away, I can't there's not a whole lot that I can do and feel good about, just really need to step away. Now, emotional stress, as you've learned and may have already known, it can be physical, mental, can affect our behavior. It can even be spiritual. It can come in a lot of different ways. And if it is physical, you may experience kind of heaviness in your chest or you might notice that your heart rate goes up, you might thoracic Li You know, through the shoulder neck area feel real, a lot of tension. Your body could ache, you could have more pain, this could all be a result of this feeling of being overwhelmed. It just kind of amplifies everything. Now stress, which I just mentioned is obviously it just it's a precursor, but it also just kind of blows it all up. Right. And it can also come out of nowhere. So we could just have an unexpected event or situation can happen quickly. And we're like, huh, boom. It's just things have been building up and then off, we go into that feeling of being overwhelmed. If we've been challenged with mental health, which I think we all have. And in today's world we are all dealing with trying to I'm sure part of the reason why you're listening to this podcast is how can I? How can I maintain my sanity? How can I maintain some peace in my life, and not just feel like, my life is happening to me and I have no control over it. So these, these accumulative stressors can really take us to a place where we just kind of lose it. And that and we move into that overwhelming and we just check out. So again, we're being flooded by these thoughts, these emotions, the physical sensations begin. And it can be very difficult to manage. So we're all going to feel it from time to time. But if it's where we spend most of our time, we obviously need to look at this, what is triggering it, what's causing it? What can we do about it? Now, this practice of paying attention to how we feel through our living in alignment course, is what we refer to as getting out in front of this kind of experience this experience of feeling overwhelmed by paying attention to how we feel we are able to really stay in front it up. Because once it goes down, it goes down, right? It's always harder to spin once we hit that point, but if we can get out in front of it, different story altogether. So how do we do that? If we're paying attention to how we feel, and we noticed that we can't slow down our thoughts, it like our thinking is kind of all over the place. We can feel things starting to become inflated, we're maybe feeling like we're getting a bit short, or like, we feel like that snappy feeling. And, as a result, we feel like we're not able to deal with our stuff. That's, that's a sign that it's kind of on its way. Right? It's creeping in. So we can get out in front of that. That feeling of paralysis, like, Ah, I just can't, do ever have one of those days where you just keep starting things and nothing is you're just not in the flow. Those are definitely times when I walk away if I can, because I just know, today's not the day for that. Maybe what I need, excuse me, is some quiet time. I mean, I might just turn to my Tai Chi practice or my Qigong practice that we use and living in alignment, five minutes, could be a game changer, I can turn, I can, I can make a lot of adjustments. With with five minutes of Qigong. foreshore, five minutes of breath work. It's amazing. Now, I mentioned that kind of feeling of snapping. So that's that overreacting. Do you notice it just doesn't take much in your like, booth? We want to get out in front of that. That's an indicator. Our mind we're out of balance. So again, what do you turn to? When you get when you feel like that? When you can't like this? What do you turn to maybe don't have anything to turn to, maybe you turn to shopping, maybe you turn to tick tock I don't know, you know, whatever you turn to to distract yourself. But there are things that you can turn to you that are extremely powerful, and can create extraordinary change in a very short period of time. So we want to, we want to look in that direction, of course. Now the other thing that you might find yourself doing is pulling back like kind of withdrawing. You could find yourself just being kind of negative all the way around. And no matter what somebody says you're like, come out without whatever attitude, right? You just feel you're, you're, you're swinging, right, you're angry, and then you're irritable. And then you're, you feel like you just want to cry. And then you feel like you want to scream and you start feeling anxious. All of this is completely normal in our society today, in with all of the incoming. And this is why it's so important that we get out in front of this and we stop this madness. Point blank, it just we have the ability to stop it. There are so many tools. And then we mentioned the physical symptoms when your body just is like, Look, if you're not going to take care of me, I'm just going to shut down I'm going to give you headaches, I'm going to give you indigestion I'm going to give you vertigo, I'm going to give you aches and pains. Yeah, you know, you're going to get uncomfortable, and whatever way that shows up. And when we're feeling like this a lot, if this is more frequent than infrequent, then we can take ourselves into more intense distress. Physically, you know, we can end up with high blood pressure, we can end up with depression and anxiety and addiction and obesity and all of these different things that we find ourselves experiencing. And we're kind of going What the heck how the dad get here. Well, not overnight. So go easy on yourself. Go easy on yourself. This is probably been building up. And it's a good thing that you're understanding now that something has to change because it does. And, and I recently heard a statement and I wish I could maybe I really just had the thought that when it comes to you know severe depression and suicide, suicidal thoughts and this kind of thing. You really do feel as though you know, I've experienced this that you just want to die. And what I want to mention to you is that something does need to die, but it's not you. It's them beliefs need to die, they no longer serve us.

Some situations need to die. Some things do need to go away. But we don't need to go away. This is the truth. So perhaps there are bigger things that trigger it. Like, you know, someone transition. So you lose a loved one or you you work yourself into complete fatigue. And you know, you're just overload, work overload. Maybe there's something going on politically or environmentally. There could be some trauma that's happened. physical trauma, illness, health concerns, maybe life is just really changing. Maybe you're moving from being a mom to all the kids are out of the house. And now you're like, What the heck am I doing or maybe you're starting to caregiver for your folks, or whatever, relationships are falling apart, or they're coming in, a lot of things can trigger. But again, we want to understand that this feeling has probably been building up. So first, and foremost, let's just take a deep breath.

Now, you could pause this and do that 10 times. And you will feel like a different person, you will feel a shift in your energy. And this is what we do through Tai Chi and Qi Gong. You may be doing it through yoga, or you may be just doing it through just the breath work portion of any of these practices. Yeah, we need to just kind of take a minute and step back and acknowledge what we're feeling. Just acknowledge it, cut ourselves some slack. Just say you know, it's okay, this is how I'm feeling. It's not gonna last forever. There are tools, I can manage this, but I do need to manage it. Keep it real with yourself. Go put your feet in the dirt, go for a quick walk. Squeeze your dog, pet your cat. Change your environment. Talk to somebody who always makes you laugh. Take a few more deep breaths. Okay, now, we've acknowledged it. We're okay with this contrast. We understand why it's here and where it came from. Now, what are we going to do about it? perspective we want to look at this a little bit differently.

Perhaps we want to write a few things down. Where's this coming from? What are the triggers? Start backing it out. We don't need to relive anything. Where did it come from? So let's say for example, you just got off the phone with someone who just making you completely crazy. And that's the stopping point. That's the tipping point. That's the trigger and you lose it. Perhaps in your mind you're going it was them. They did that to me. But there's no truth in that statement. Because they only have the power that we give them. And I know a lot of people appear to have a lot of power. Well, that was my boss and they threatened to fire me wouldn't be the end of the world. You might find yourself doing something you love more surrounded by people who understand you appreciate you. And don't talk shit all the time. Kind of going down a rabbit hole there but you get where I'm coming from. So fear so let's step away. And if we need to quiet our mind, quiet our mind. You can use the moving meditation for overwhelmed. You could do the breath work. Again you could touch into Qigong you could touch into the Tai Chi practice. You can simply do no awareness exercise, such as look around and find two or three things to appreciate quick go Don't overthink it quick go. I love those shoes. I love that picture. I love that window. I love my hair today, whatever it is, then do it with things that you can smell. Here, taste touch, I don't know, just play, shift your attention to what is working. We want to calm the nervous system. Again, I could do a yin massage through my Qigong practice, to do this to receive a massive shift. I could reach out to someone for help. I absolutely can always ask for help. I could go within or I could go without people will call me. Perhaps they want to do a shamanic session. There's something I'm working on, or there's something that showed up that I feel I need to work on. Can we schedule something? There are so many tools. But our perspective shifts when we realize that this has been coming. This is not new. This has been coming. And all we have to recognize is that we just have some work here to do it's okay. It's okay. Everything is going to be okay. This is shown up what is going on here. What can I learn from what changes can I possibly make so that I can release that feeling of overwhelmed and bring in some peace. And this is great because of this trigger and this meltdown or what have you. It is caused me to go into a state of being overwhelmed. And that then has catapulted me to asking for help. Or finding a practice that's going to help me find some peace. So sometimes we think about good and bad emotions. I would say all the emotions are good. Just depends on what dose Alright, too much joy. I know we talked about this before on other on other episodes too much anger. Right. But doses can inspire. You now if it wasn't for that guy firing me, I never would have decided to do my own thing, get it, edited it edited it. So this is how we can know everything is going to be okay. The bottom line is that when we get into this state, we can find it difficult to take care of ourselves. We may overeat we may not eat. We may not sleep at all. Maybe tossing and turning. So this we get on that hamster wheel right? And it's just not cool. So we got to check in. We got to look at it, you can do this. Again, you don't have to go back into the past. You don't have to dig up a bunch of ugliness. But we do have to work on healing. We do have to figure out a way to move forward. Why would we not choose that? When there are tools, many tools? And many people who can help? Why would we not choose that? Because it's a sign of weakness to ask for help. Another reason to check in, because that is simply not true. takes incredible courage. We've talked about this before. And again, as I mentioned, I will just shut down that totally impacts my relationships. My partner comes home maybe had a great day. And then like or maybe I take it out on them. I don't know. I've done all those things. That doesn't really happen anymore. But I don't that's not because I'm above it happening. Something were to trigger me it could totally happen. But I'm not going to go all the way down the rabbit hole. I've got the tools I'm going to walk away. But to do what I need to do. I'm going to get my feet in the dirt I'm going to breathe. I'm going to look at it. I'm not going to push it away. I'm not going to bury it. Right. Say that out loud. I'm not going to push it away. I'm not going to bury it. I'm going to look at it and I'm going to heal it because I choose used to. I don't want to live in a state of being overwhelmed all the time. Nobody does. And yet, so many do, perhaps even most to Congress conversation can help us understand the roots of these emotions of feeling overwhelmed, we can figure out how to sue that for ourselves, whether it's through moving meditation or quiet meditation, or just movement itself, or we can start to prioritize what we need to do. To stay in that good feeling peaceful place. We just figure it out. And as we figure it out, we begin to heal one step at a time where you're one step at a time. With that being said, it is a choice. So what are you choosing because I know when I go too far off that edge, and I don't get out in front of it, or it catches me off guard, it can get ugly real fast. And at the end of the day, I suffer the most I might have to ask a couple people for forgiveness. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. I might not use the words bad day. I might say, you know I'm really working on my own healing my own self care, really learning to tap into how I'm feeling so I can live a more joyful life. And that was just me sifting and sorting through some stuff. So I apologize if that hurt you in any way that was not my intention. I know what feels better to you. Or to have a lot of power. Be kind to yourself. And if you're feeling overwhelmed, you know that you are not alone. And we are here to help. Until next time warriors nothing but love as always take a nice deep breath. Enjoy the peace