One of the side effects of our rich, abundant 21st
century lives seems to be frequent bouts of feeling
overwhelmed. You know the symptoms: inability to focus
on any one thing because there are just way too many
things that needed your attention yesterday; disconnection
between your words and your thoughts, probably because
your mind won’t let you complete any one thought
before rushing off to remember something else urgent
that you’ve forgotten; exhaustion so severe
you can barely stay awake on the road or the computer
or the phone, while at the same time you are unable
to sleep soundly through the night as, again, you
keep remembering so much of what you have forgotten
(but if you get up to write it down you will again
forget that urgent piece of flotsam before you find
pen and paper); complete distortion of time so that
you actually think it will only take a few hours to
move into a new home or a few minutes to write that
chapter; inability to complete any task because every
task is so huge and depends on 50 other things being
completed first….
You can add your favorite symptom to this
list.
In those moments of panic and desperation in the
face of unending need, call on your own warrior goddess
for help. Inside each of us there is a reservoir of
clarity and strength, a warrior goddess who will fiercely
protect what is true and tender for us. And though
it may seem like constant busyness is just an irritating
but necessary part of our daily lives, in truth it
is much more than that. Continual motion and endless
doing erode our creative drive, our health and our
personal power. They distort our inner compass, sending
us spinning and swirling, unanchored to face the world
without our own reference points. We need nothing
less than a warrior goddess to remind us of what is
really important, to reconnect us with our wisdom
and truth.
Fortunately we each have an inner warrior goddess
ready to help us, eager to share her wisdom with us.
To find her, simply slow down, get quiet, go within.
She resides in your heart, and your gut, in your blood
and your bones, not your head. Call to this warrior
goddess within you. Spend some time feeling her, connecting
with her, remembering her. You may want to ask her
what for you is true and tender and needs her protection
in the midst of all your busyness. She may share with
you ways to get out of your overwhelming whirlwind
or tell you how to use her strength to create the
life you want. Know that you can connect with her
whenever you need to. Her wisdom, your wisdom, is
what’s best for you. Here are some of the ways
I have learned from my warrior goddess to get out
of overwhelm and back into myself:
Either go up or go down
Either get solidly grounded or soar above it all.
Remember, being overwhelmed indicates we are swirling
around, completely ungrounded or unconnected to what
has deep meaning for us. One way we can re-connect
with our truth, our meaning, is by sending our roots
down deep into Pachamama, Mother Earth. You can visualize
yourself like a tree, sending your taproot deep down
into the solidness of the earth while standing spine
straight, solidly connected to the web of life. Breathe
and rest for a moment here. From this place of connection
to Earth and Spirit, to the ancestors and the future
descendents, and to your life purpose, as a warrior
goddess, you can look at the many tasks before you
and see them for what they really are.
You could also get this connected view from soaring
above, like an eagle, looking down and seeing all
the demands on you as part of the ebb and flow of
your life, as part of your role within the unifying
web of all life. From this high view, notice the importance
or insignificance of all these things you absolutely
must do. As you soar like an eagle you can use your
clear, far vision to help you put your current challenges
in a different perspective.
Once you locate yourself and the tasks before you
within the web of life and see the connection to the
Work you are here to do, then gather your energy.
A warrior goddess, like a sorceress, is one who can
“source” energy that is then available
for her use. You will need all kinds of energy to
meet your challenges. Since huge tasks require lots
of energy, you have to keep gathering that energy
from somewhere. Use whatever techniques work for you
to gather your energy. Sleep is a good place to start.
All those things that keep your body healthy and strong
are good, like drinking water and herbal infusions,
eating well, and exercising. Meditation, yoga, connecting
with Spirit through prayer or journey, dancing, singing,
or drawing up energy from the Earth are all ways to
source energy.
One of my favorite ways of sourcing energy is doing
what I call “belly on the ground meditation.”
In this simple meditation, I lie stomach down on the
ground in my garden, clear my mind, connect my belly
with the Earth, feel my roots intertwine with the
plants all around me, and draw up the wisdom of the
Earth and Green Ones. Your inner goddess can suggest
the ways that are best for you. Excessive amounts
of caffeine or junk food may give you short bursts
of energy but they won’t sustain you in the
long run and they usually lead to even more ungrounded
swirling around. Drink up power from those clear springs
that nourish your core.
Determine what you desire
Ever notice how we can work really hard, completely
involved in a project without the energetic stress
that feels overwhelming when we are engaged with something
we really love? My warrior goddess reminds me to keep
figuring out what I want. Far from being selfish or
unloving, getting clear about what I want keeps me
responsible for meeting my own needs and not depending
on others to take care of me. Often when I get grounded
and connected with my inner goddess and then look
at what is making me overwhelmed, I see that I am
giving up what I desire, so much so that I often don’t
even know what I want. So I swirl around gobbling
up all kinds of things, experiences, or accomplishments
that are only surface desires, not necessarily what
I really want. I have censored my deep desires before
I have let them even surface in my conscious mind
because I think I just can’t have them. “Whoa,”
my critic says, “If all you do is what you want
you’ll just lie around, being selfish, losing
your family and friends, becoming bankrupt and homeless.
It is hateful and dangerous to be motivated by desire.”
But my warrior goddess says, “Not true. You
came here with the desire to live your dreams, to
do your Work, to give and receive, to contribute your
part to the beauty of creation. What you want and
what you love can point you in the direction of your
purpose. Don’t settle for the superficial. Stay
connected to your deep desires and your big dreams.”
Often we do things we don’t necessarily want
to do in service of something we really do want. I
may not want to cook dinner tonight but I do want
to feed myself and my family nourishing food. I don’t
really want to write that letter to editor but I do
want to support a cause I believe in. You know the
things you do that you would rather not, but you do
them because you are committed to the bigger picture
they paint. That is good. My warrior goddess reminds
me to make sure, though, that I’m grounded and
not swirling, that I can easily backtrack from what
I am doing to what I really want in a few steps. Otherwise
I may be taking a longer route than I need to on the
path of my life’s purpose.
Look at the illusion with your strong eye,
with your inner wisdom
Most of what we think we just have to be doing originates
as messages from monkey mind. You know monkey mind
– the place of an endless stream of confusing
thoughts that lead nowhere, most of which are generated
by that insatiable inner critic. Our thinking minds
also get confused between what is a garden hose and
what is a snake. Everything becomes urgent, terribly
important and unable to be dealt with by anyone but
us right now. And our monkey minds create all kinds
of illusions to keep us from some hard truths. Sometimes
we run faster and faster on the treadmill as a replacement
for looking deeper. Check to see what you may be avoiding
by staying busy. Let your warrior goddess help you
see with your third eye, your strong eye, through
the illusions. Call on her to help you see the truth
about the importance or urgency of the tasks before
you. Let her help you decide if these tasks are yours
to do, to delegate, or to dump.
Remember that every “Yes” comes
with a built in “No”
My job is to decide who or what gets the “no.”
Consider this: every time we say yes to something,
it means we are also saying no something else. If
I agree to help you paint your kitchen, whatever else
I could have used that time for I am now saying no
to. When I decide to answer email at 11 PM I say no
to a bath or reading or sleep. We usually don’t
want to let go of things so we just keep taking more
on, saying yes to more and more. In reality we are
saying no just as much as we are saying yes, but we
usually don’t see the full impact of the no’s
as easily.
Ditch any desire for perfection
The desire to have things perfect makes any task overwhelming.
Striving for perfection is the inner critic’s
way of reminding you, yet again, that you just can’t
do it well enough. Counter that idea with another
perspective. My mother says there are a whole lot
of jobs that are best done half-way. One of my yoga
teachers suggested that for optimum results in yoga
we would do best to apply C+ effort. Yes, this way
is a far cry from “If it’s worth doing
at all, it’s worth doing well,” but I
think the person who said that must have had full
time help at home and at work.
Warrior goddesses don’t need to do things
perfectly,
they know that they are perfect just as they are.
Get clear about what part of this task is yours and
what belongs to someone else
When we feel overwhelmed, we may forget our boundaries.
We can, in confusion, expand ourselves too much. Take
some time to own what is yours and give back what
belongs to someone else. When in doubt, check with
you-know-who. You have a vision for a harmonious,
successful future, but it’s not completely up
to you to make in a reality.
Let death be your ally
This is a powerful deflator of feeling overwhelmed.
Our ego keeps telling us that no one can do this job
but us, or that no one can do it as well as we can.
The truth of the matter is that everyone is expendable.
All of us will die without finishing everything on
our to-do list. And even if we are deeply missed and
mourned for eons, someone else will do what we thought
we absolutely had to do, or it just won’t get
done. Death, and her sisters illness, accident, and
bed-ridden burn-out, have a way of cutting our ego-based
control issues down to size. So occasionally imagine
what would happen if you just plain cannot finish
this task. Start prioritizing from there.
Some of us have jobs or projects or creative endeavors
that we believe in completely and are deeply committed
to completing. We are moved to give all we can to
what we know to be our Work. What if we are overwhelmed
by unending need that we wholeheartedly desire to
meet? Again, connect with your inner warrior goddess
and return to knowing your treasured place in the
interconnected web. We are not alone. No challenge
is ever faced alone. Call on a prayer circle in Georgia
to help you with your work in the inner city. Ask
your ancestors, who faced incredible challenges, to
remind you of how they did the really hard things.
Call on the trees to lend you their strength. Keep
stepping outside of your linear, dualistic way of
thinking. Keep letting go of the need to control.
Give from your heart as much as you lovingly want
to and then trust the wisdom of the Goddess.
Recognize the power of the void
Sometimes we lose all control and drown in feeling
overwhelmed. These are the times when our desire to
manage everything sends us headlong into the void.
In the Wise Woman tradition we recognize the power
of the void, the great mystery from which all is born.
In this place of chaos, of all potentialities, of
“the great nothing dark womb of the goddess,”
as Susun Weed describes it, anything but control is
possible. Not to worry – this is the blessed
place of healing. This is the place of shut down,
break down, going down, down and deep, into the dark
unknown. Sometimes the only way through the illusion
of control is to surrender to the chaos of the void.
Courageous are the embodied warrior goddesses who
let the great unknown engulf them. This is not defeat.
Rather, the void is the source of all possibilities.
From this place entirely new approaches to challenges
are possible. New life, new beginnings, new ways of
living, new growth all come out of the dark chaotic
void. Like the Goddess Innana we can return from our
descent more whole, more powerful, and more deeply
aware of our truth.
These are some of the things my warrior goddess has
taught me. See if any of them have meaning for you.
Remember you can trust that source of wisdom and strength
within yourself to find your own way through the hectic
pace of life.
Christine Thomas is a personal life
coach in the Wise Woman tradition. You can find out
more about her and an expanded version of this article
on her web site www.hawkview.net
. Christine offers a monthly phone circle for women
called Walking the Path of a Daughter of the Earth.
This ongoing mystery school empowers women by reminding
you of your hereditary wisdom, of your innate connection
with Earth and Spirit, and of your much-needed role
in creating a loving, sustainable future for all our
children. If you want to sink your roots deep into
what is holy, to know and access your personal power,
to be seen and honored for who you are and to re-enchant
your daily life then join wise women from across the
land on this path.