My friend rang a couple of weeks ago and I answered the phone enthusiastically. We hadn’t chatted for ages. Then she burst into tears.
Whoa, I thought, this isn’t a simple catch-up.
She’s a first responder and had been involved with a couple of dreadful incidents that week. But it wasn’t just the nature of her work.
Her team is stretched, with vacancies and people off sick or on stress leave.
Their workload is relentless and growing.
The workplace culture is to: Just. Push. Through. Until you can’t.
And on that particular day, my friend was looking down the barrel of an afternoon shift and feeling that she just couldn’t. She was in overwhelm. She was distressed. And she felt her only option is to leave a job she loves.
She’s not alone. Many of us feel we’re drowning in a sea of overwhelm.
Clinical psychologist Sabrina Romanoff says this can occur from a single event or when a series of stressors accumulate and pile up on us. In this article, she describes signs of overwhelm, including irrational thoughts, paralysis, extreme reactions, withdrawal, pessimism, mood changes, and mental and physical fatigue.
So, what do you do when you are overwhelmed?
Much of the online advice suggests breaking things down into to-do lists and prioritising. Which is great, except it’s hard to break things down when we feel paralysed, powerless or pissed off – all common reactions to overwhelm.
Before we can do we need to work out how we feel.
Once we’d ensured my friend was going to be safe that day (she was determined to go to work), we got together over the weekend and worked through this reactions model. It’s one I’ve used with my coaching clients (and with myself!).
My friend was bouncing around on the left-hand side of the model, fluctuating between paralysed and powerless. She was catastrophising. She felt helpless. And she felt she had no control over what was happening in her work world.
As we talked through the issues, we were able to identify the things she could influence. Which meant she started to reclaim some control. She had a plan.
She called me ten days later to say she’d put it into action.
I was thrilled to hear the power back in her voice.
I hope you aren’t feeling overwhelmed. But if you are, see if you can work out where you sit on this model. And please, reach out if you need help.