If You're Overwhelmed

The one sifting through all the bad news.

Aug 17, 2021

I considered titling this post “So Many Disasters, So Little Time.” That should give you a sense of where my head’s at right now. 🙃 (See also: this cartoon.)

……..so hi! How are we doing?

TBH, that question feels so loaded these days, it seems almost ridiculous to ask, but also, it’s more important than ever.

What a news week we are having, huh? Besides the ongoing pandemic (lol “besides”), there’s the major earthquake in Haiti, the severe blood shortage, the voter suppression issues happening across the country, the doomsday-esque climate change report recently released on global warming, and the most recent news of the fall of Kabul and what’s sure to be an impending humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. I’m overwhelmed just writing that all out. It’s been… a lot.

“A lot” is an understatement. The understatement of all understatements.

(And the above list is certainly not capturing everything going on in the world that deserves attention — I know there’s plenty more.)

With all of that swirling around my head all day, from news alerts to the downpour across social media, by last night I was feeling emotionally hung out to dry and ready for the weekend. (Extremely inconvenient considering it was still only Monday.) So, here I am! Thought I’d see how you’re doing as well. Maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed too.

We’ve talked here about how we’re all exhausted and burnt out, and now it’s starting to feel like we’re living on this continual conveyor belt of tragedy… which especially stings considering the initial traumatic event — the one that felt like it really knocked us off our axis, the pandemic — hasn’t even ended yet. That’s perhaps a smidge dramatic, but it just feels like a bit too much when we’re already frayed at the edges. How does one even make space in their mind, never mind their heart, to react to all of this? There are so many tabs open in my brain right now that I’m genuinely surprised I remember to brush my teeth every day.

I imagine some people would say to just ignore everything, turn off the news and log out of your social media accounts for a while, and I suppose all in all, that’s not terrible advice. I 100% support putting your mental health first, along with whatever self-care is necessary to achieve that, and for me, closing social media (literally deleting Instagram off my phone, for example) is quite helpful. That all being said, though, I don’t think ignoring what’s going on in the world will make you feel better — at least not in the long run. It sort of feels like burying your head in the sand to me, and you can only do that for so long.

But it’s a fine line to walk sometimes, right? Tough to care and stay informed about everything without also feeling like you’re drowning or like the world is ending.

Unless you’re a superhero, there’s no way for you to have the capacity or the time to take up every cause, no matter how much you may wish you could, or feel like you should. But, you can do some things, the first of which is staying up to date on the major events happening in the world, and why whatever’s happening matters. (For example, getting a better sense of why the Afghanistan situation is so devastating to so many people, and what it means for the future of girls and women in that country.) Maybe that looks like just checking the news once, at the start of the day and that’s it. (That’s fine! That’s enough.)

{Personally, I love the New York Times’ morning newsletter, as well as their bite-sized daily news podcast "The Daily.”}

Perhaps the second thing is picking an issue/cause/event that feels particularly critical or personal to you, and doing one thing [in a day or a week, or every couple weeks] to support it. For example, donating to a humanitarian aid group supporting Afghan women, or calling your representative in Congress, or volunteering on a phone bank to get out the vote for the California recall election. I’m not an expert in, well, really anything applicable here, but I do know that taking action makes me feel better in most all stressful situations — even if that action is just doing research or literally writing out a list of to-do items.

If we all care and we all do something — even if it’s something small — we can eventually achieve something larger, and at the very least continue to move forward.

…and if you find you have the capacity and interest in doing more than that one thing, go for it! Just remember to still take care of yourself, first and foremost, because the world has not stopped, despite feeling thick with grief and questions and uncertainty, and there’s still all the usual regular life stuff (going to work, caring for your loved ones, making dinner) to do amidst all of *this.*

I’ve done yoga for many years (used to teach too!) and one of the best things it’s taught me is that while you can’t always control what happens in life, you can control how you react. For some reason, I keep coming back to that as I think about what feels like this barrage of bad news that’s come our way. You can choose peace despite any overwhelming information that comes your way, and you can choose to allow negativity to float past you rather taking up room on your mat (or in your head or heart); take what serves you, leave what doesn’t, you know? In other words, we can learn about the difficult and often tragic events happening in our country and around the world, we can (and, I’d argue, should) care, but we don’t necessarily have to internalize it all in a way that makes us overwhelmed or devastated or paralyzed. This may feel like one thing after another right now (and okay — it has been), but the reality here is also that life will always have difficult moments with timing that we may not understand. Often the only thing we can control is our response.

So Many Somethings

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