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Sometimes, we just need a timeout from the chaos of life. We might feel overwhelmed by emotions and thoughts, and it can be hard to find that moment of peace. I share my own experiences of feeling like I need to close the curtains and take a break. It's all about understanding that we’re not our thoughts or emotions; they come and go like trains at a station. By recognizing this, we can learn to manage the noise in our heads and create those needed timeouts for ourselves. Let’s dive into how we can reclaim that space and find our calm amidst the storm.

Dealing with OVERWHELMING THOUGHTS and EMOTIONS

You know that feeling when you want to close the curtains, dim the lights, sit on the floor in front of the sofa bring your legs up, and rest your forehead on your knees.

Suddenly thoughts and emotions have become overwhelming. There happens to all of us, there is no shame or anything to feel bad about.

If you have a big heart, you care a lot and sometimes you going to be overwhelmed with emotions.

How to deal with overwhelming thoughts and emotions is the topic of this podcast.

Takeaways:

• Sometimes we just need to close the curtains and take a timeout from life.
• Emotions can overwhelm us, and it's important to recognize when we need a break.
• It's okay to feel anxious or overwhelmed; allow yourself the space to experience those feelings.
• We can't have multiple emotions or thoughts at once; focus on one at a time for clarity.

Navigating through life's chaos can feel like a whirlwind at times. We often find ourselves in those moments when the world feels too overwhelming, and all we crave is a simple timeout. I share a personal reflection on the times I've shut the door, drawn the curtains, and just wanted to sit on the floor with my knees curled up, seeking a moment of stillness. Emotions have this sneaky way of creeping up on us, and if we don't acknowledge them, they can drown us. It's vital to take a step back and recognize our feelings, allowing ourselves that little break to breathe and regain control over our busy minds.

The discussion dives into the metaphor of thoughts being like trains at a station. Each thought pulls in, and before we can even process one, another one arrives, bringing along its own set of emotions. It's a vivid image that resonates with so many of us who feel like we're constantly juggling our thoughts and feelings. We explore how acknowledging one thought or emotion at a time can lead to clarity. By understanding that we can't hold onto multiple emotions simultaneously, we can create our own timeouts, allowing us to better manage the chaos within.

The episode wraps up with practical tips on how to create these timeouts in our lives. From journaling to simply sitting in silence, we can carve out moments to listen to our inner voices without letting them overwhelm us. Each emotion has something to teach us, and by giving them space to be heard, we can find a path to inner peace. It's a gentle reminder that while life can be hectic, we always have the power to pause, reflect, and recharge.

Have you ever been in that place when close the door, draw the curtains, and you don't even want to sit on the sofa.

You want to sit on the floor and you bend your knees up and you put your head on your knees.

Maybe you just take a deep breath and it's like just.

Can the world stop just for a moment?

I just need to take a breath.

I just need some time out.

Just a few minutes.

Please, timeout.

The problem is with emotions.

They overwhelm us, they creep up on us, and some point, they will drown us.

I'll share my story in a moment, but I'm Stephen Webb, and this is Stillness in the Storms and Living Deeper Lives podcast.

And I help people with busy lives and hectic minds and busy overthinking people have a little inner peace in life so they can live the best possible version of themselves.

I remember very often in my life, I just want time out.

You know, the world's going too quick for me.

Not only the world's going too quick for me, but my mind is going too quick for me.

It's like, look, let me sort out that thought before I have another one, please.

And there's another one.

They're like trains at a train station.

You're sitting at the train station.

You have a thought.

Come along.

It's like, okay, let me deal with this one.

Then another train pulls in alongside, and you're like, okay, I can deal with this.

Just two trains.

And then more tracks appear and more trains appear, and then before you know it, it's followed up with emotions as well.

And you just sit in there and it's like, okay, just give me a break.

Just give me that bit of time out, please.

And I always reference the Jack Johnson song breakdown or something, and he's singing about a song, or in the song, he's singing about the trains broken down and he sat out and he sat in the field and.

Or this is the image I have.

He sat in the field and he's enjoying the timeout because the trains broke down.

No one can get hold of him.

There's no mobile signal.

There's no way that anybody can harass him.

And he's got nothing to do but wait for the train to be fixed.

And he's no part of that.

So he has to take that time out.

And he sees it as a gift.

And I have to be honest, so many times in my life, I've wanted that.

And I'm not talking about the big times either.

I'm talking about, you know, just the School run or you've got to do tea, you've got to sort things out, you've got to get work in or you've got to make phone calls.

All of these things seem to creep up on top of us without even without us realizing it.

And it just sometimes gets just a little bit too much.

And I always look at emotions like this.

Have you ever been on the beach and down one side of the beach, you've got like a little river.

And we go and play there as children and we try to build a little dam and we try to hold the water back and we do it for so long and we're like, yes.

And then we go and get our sandwiches or something that have got sand in and everything.

You know, you know the drill.

And then you go back afterwards and the water's taken away your dam and you got to rebuild it, rebuild it.

And you keep doing this.

And then at some point the dam just overflows with you there.

And that's when you have what I would say, like mini emotional breakdowns where just, please, just a little timeout would be lovely.

We can actually create these timeouts.

That's the thing.

And if we understand emotions and understand thoughts, we can only have one emotion and one thought at a time.

We cannot have more than one.

You cannot literally be sitting there thinking about a positive thought and a negative thought at the same time.

You know, we have about 30 to 40 thoughts every minute.

The same for everybody.

Even the people we think don't think they have about the same.

And we sit down to meditation and we think those thoughts come thicker and faster, but really we just become aware of them.

And that's what time out is about.

It's emotions will they creep along and they're there, they're information.

And they'll keep trying to tell you whatever you need to know.

Hey, I'm here.

And say fear or something's coming up and the fear is like just, hey, you should be frightened of this.

And it gets louder and louder.

Hey.

Until at some point it will literally paralyze your body and say, right, you need to stop and you need to take notice of this now.

It's the same with the many other voices inside of us.

I was like, emotions as voices.

You know, I got my protector.

I've got my fear person.

I've got my loving person.

I've got my laid back, my chilled.

I've got my, my shame and guilt.

They're all different voices inside of me.

I've even got my ego one and my I say ego.

I mean, go chip on the shoulder one.

You know, the one that likes thousands of listeners to my podcast, the one that thinks I'm absolutely awesome.

And I've got.

The one that thinks I'm terrible and thinks doing this podcast a waste of time.

Nobody will listen.

They're all there, and they're all present, and they're all giving me information.

They're all phoning me, texting me, giving me their opinion.

My.

My head's like one big rave party of people with opinions all sitting around the desk.

And it's interesting because every single one of them doesn't care about the other.

They all think they've got the answer to my problems.

You know, the shame ones.

Like, no, just be in shame.

That's okay.

You can deal with that.

Just be in guilt.

Just be in fear.

Just be enlightened.

Just be desire.

Just have lust for people.

Just go around lusting sex all day.

That was all your problems out.

It really is that much.

It really is as crazy as that in our heads, right?

And then you couple that with all the feelings that come up in our body.

It really is one absolute crazy storm of committee opinions and feelings and emotions.

And then at some point, it's just, Whoa, they overflow.

At some point, they just.

Yeah, it's like, just one at a time, please.

I suppose it's much like a school teacher, isn't it?

It's like if the whole class is trying to give you information, you cannot listen to them all at the same time.

So you try to sit down and listen to each one.

Try to listen.

Right, okay, what's fear telling me?

What's guilt telling me?

But that's so hard to do, isn't it?

Because we're used to just having a couple of emotions.

We're either trying to push away something we don't want, or we're trying to grab hold of someone we want.

So it's either we're trying to resist pain or go for pleasure.

And that's it.

Simple.

That's life.

But it's way more complicated than that, isn't it?

It's way more complicated because of all these complex feelings.

You know, if only Adam had not ate the apple.

Damn you, Adam.

We would still be walking around like animals, like our dogs and cats.

You know, a dog can go and have a fight and rip another leg.

A leg off another dog and come back and go, yeah, so what are we doing later?

Going out for a walk?

They don't have that complex feelings of timeline and emotions.

I Know, I'm going to get some listeners go, yes they do.

My dog has feelings.

Not in the same complex way we do.

They have feelings before.

Adam at the apple.

Adam at the apple.

There you go.

Shame, guilt, fear, anger, all those complex emotions arose in human life a few thousand years before the Bible was wrote.

I'm not saying the Bible is the word of God, I'm not going down that route.

But I'm saying the Bible at the time was a scientific document, we could say, based on their level of understanding at the time.

And they had to come up with a way of how come animals around us don't have these feelings, but we do.

Let's blame Adam, Adam and Eve.

It's all their fault.

It's all their fault.

I need to take time out now.

Close the curtains, lock the door, sit on the floor, turn the light off and go.

Give me a break.

So if you want someone to blame for your breakdown, blame them.

They are the reason.

Counselors and psychiatrists and all of that make an absolute fortune nowadays because we're just trying to sort out that committee in our minds, that committee, that ever flowing river of emotions.

So how do we sort out, how do we help with these things?

Well, first of all, realize that you're not your thoughts.

You know, if you are your thoughts when you have a thought and then you think, I remember that, that's a brilliant, brilliant thought, I don't need to write it down.

I'll never forget that amazingly incredible thought I've just had four minutes later.

What was that damn thought?

But if you were, you wouldn't forget.

Apparently every atom in our body changes every seven years.

So I've now changed 1, 2, 3, 4.

I don't know my seven times table, about six times seven, eight times, maybe nine.

But now I've changed like seven times.

It's like going through the Star Trek portal, isn't it?

Every time you go there, you get killed in one and you get born in another.

Beat me up, kill me and then reborn me on the spaceship.

That's basically what's happening.

Is the new person you.

No, it's a copy of the exact moment you left.

What if something went wrong and then there was two of you?

Oh, that's weird.

Even weirder, what if something went wrong and there was two of you and you're left behind, but the new one is where your wife is and then they go with your wife but you're still on the planet.

Is your wife cheating?

Okay, mind blown.

Whoa, that's just, that's Just crazy.

But yeah, we replace ourselves about every seven years.

So we're not even our bodies.

We're not even our bodies.

I'm starting to think replacing mine with somebody a little more, less Buddha centric with a belly might be a nice, nice idea.

Come on, Atoms, if you are listening to me, get a little firmer.

Atoms, please.

Without going to the gym.

But then we have emotions, right?

And just as the thoughts come and go, we have emotions that come and go.

We're not our emotions.

Because if we are our emotions, how come they disappear and they come back and they disappear.

If you were to sit there now and take a deep breath and I asked you what are you feeling?

You could do this with me now, what are you feeling?

Don't judge it, don't like do anything more than just label it.

I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling happy, I'm feeling joyful, maybe neutral, maybe you're feeling alert or focused.

But if I told you a joke and I asked you again how you're feeling, you'd feel differently.

You're still you.

There's something underneath all those feelings that come and go that's still you.

You know, you're not always angry, you're not always in shame, guilt, fear, enlightenment.

Enlightenment.

Enlightened.

You're not always all of these things, are you?

They come and go.

So how do we cope with that time when we just want to close the curtains and draw?

Yeah, close the curtains and lock the door and turn off a light.

Just sit there.

Well, allow it to be, be okay with that.

Don't be shamed into it.

Don't like people say, oh, you shouldn't do that.

You shouldn't lock yourself away.

I don't lock yourself away forever.

Like after nine months, that's a bit, that's strange.

But you know, do it for an hour, two hours, maybe even do it for 24 hours.

But while you're doing it, perhaps write a bit of a journal.

While you're doing it, really look inside and instead of growing these voices and having full on conversations with them, just allow them to be like as if.

Imagine you're the one in the middle of a table and this huge table all around you and all these voices are around the table.

And normally when we're in these situations, it's something big that's going on.

Perhaps we're split up with our partner, perhaps we're going for a new job or perhaps we've just been sacked or something.

There's normally something big going on at the time Perhaps we're going through an illness or something and you could ask each one of them their opinion.

Just bring fear to mind and go, what's your concern?

You could bring your motivator online and go, what's your concern?

She can go around the table and without putting any weight onto any one person's opinion, because they're all there to save your life.

They're all there to protect you.

They all love you deeply and they all there to help you in the only way they know how.

Hello?

Where are you?

Hello?

That's my cat saying hello.

I don't know whether you can hear her on the thing.

Yeah, so they're all there to protect you.

They're all there to help you out and see if you're okay and to guide you in a certain way.

So don't be annoyed by any of them.

Just allow them to have their say.

But also the enlightened ones and the desired ones, the last one, let them have their say as well.

And then after they've all had their say, say thank you to them all.

Thank you for being there for me.

Thank you for protecting me most of my life.

But I've got this now.

I'm the one in charge.

I'm the one making the decisions.

And for the moment, I'm taking time out and tomorrow I will come back and I'll be ready with all of your helps.

Thank you.

What a wonderful way of dealing with overwhelm.

It's like a little mini meditation.

Talking about meditations, you could go over to stillnessinthestorms.com and download my meditations.

That helps you through the most crazy and busiest days sometimes.

I'm Stephen Webb and subscribe or leave a review on this podcast.

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If you can leave a review.

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That would really help.

You know, these people that are overthinkers just like you, that are busy in your life, that have all these same feelings and issues and anxieties and overwhelm just like you have, maybe they could do in my help as well.

So you'll be doing them.

You'll be doing them help as well.

So thank you.

If you want to treat me to a coffee, stillnessinthestorms.com is the best place to do that.

Take care.

I love you and see you next week.

Bye, Sam.