Stress. Pressure. We are slammed with too much stimulation and we are gasping and grasping for a lifeline to a more settled, grounded place.
What I call “the overwhelmed expressway” is this global destabilizing force that combines excessive stimulation, massive information overload, unrelenting pressure and a dread-infusing numbness. Riding the overwhelmed expressway keeps us in energetic debt, borrowing from our reserve tanks until we are running on empty. The overwhelmed expressway blocks emotional intimacy because it scatters and disorients us and—most of all— it keeps us in so much chronic fear that we start seeing each other as threats: competition for resources and stability. In addition, the overwhelmed expressway drains us and we uselessly spend the energy and attention we need to take optimal care of ourselves.
Fear (which manifests as anxiety, angst, and dread), anger (which manifests as irritation), and frustration (which manifests as hostility and rage) are the overwhelmed expressway’s predominant emotional first cousins, operating on adrenaline and apathy that conditions us to be numb to our numbness.
I often wonder, is the overwhelmed expressway a preparatory catalyst to an unprecedented psycho-spiritual and ecological awakening?
Whatever it is, it’s here in the metastasizing nakedness; generating more and more, feeding itself with itself which is extremely overwhelming.
No wonder there is so much depression.
No wonder there is so much widespread anxiety.
No wonder there is so much alcoholism, addiction and massive intake of pharmaceutical medication.
No wonder there is so much hell on earth.
The time for denial is over.
What we humans have feared is already here, looming larger and larger, eating its way into just about all of us, its appetite as voracious as it is blind.
I wouldn’t be saying all this if I didn’t have some Good News!
All is not lost. In fact, there is much to be gained here, but only if we get off the overwhelmed expressway and stop letting ourselves be fed or seduced or engulfed by it.
The overwhelmed expressway will continue to affect us, sometimes intensely, but we don’t have to let it inhabit us. We do this by seeing it for what it is and becoming as intimate as possible with the fearfulness at its core.
Here are a few ways to get off the the overwhelmed expressway:
- Make sure you are not under its spell, not caught up in any sort of cultural, social trance that keeps you distracted.
- Do some in-depth work with your fear and your tendency to go numb.
- Do whatever you need to do to cut through the depressiveness and do it full out. No more pressing down our pain, wasting our vitality, and no more living flat. Workout, Zumba, Tonal, TaiChi, Walk, Wash you hands, Meditate, Run, Yoga, Qi-Quong, use discernment with social gatherings. Well-supported self exploration connects the dots—intellectually and emotionally.
- Endurance and patience will help you to stay the course. What’s required is more than a weekend of work. This is life’s work and it needs to be treated as such.
- Spiritual stamina is essential, don’t postpone it. Develop it. Continue developing it.
- Go to the heart of the overwhelmed expressway, beyond the fear and anger and numbness and shock and there you will find enormous—Grief.
Open the channels for the grief to flow, to cut loose, to break open until its cry is your cry. Then, whatever is below and beyond all the pain starts to come forth, inviting a new dimension, new possibilities.
This is the kind of healing which we stand for and comprehend–a deeper meaning of life.
This is the kind of healing that calls us through all that we are and all that we do. Yes, it is overwhelming, but it’s the kind of overwhelming that cleanses, purifies, heals and awakens. It’s time to move toward it, for the sake of one and all.
Prayer and blessings,
Paula
