When You Feel Overwhelmed

When we feel ourselves closing off and retreating from life, when we feel ourselves holding ourselves back, we must search for the reason why. For when we see and understand this, we are all the more prepared to deal with it. Retreating is our attempt at not only hiding from reality, but stepping aside from the issue at hand. We are trying to remove ourselves from life and from the problem. But of course this doesn't help us, it doesn't solve anything. It only serves to make us feel worse in the end.

The feeling of closing ourselves off is something we have all felt at some time in our life. When we feel overwhelmed and unable to cope, we withdraw into what is comfortable, into what is controllable in our lives. This is our attempt at making ourselves feel better. We are attempting to bring back what we feel we have lost by regaining control over our lives on a very small and protected scale. We block out the world around us so that we can manage to once again feel okay, safe, and protected. This happens for many reasons. Stress, relationships, emotional or physical problems, the list is endless. It is our way of coping with what is happening by essentially hiding from it.

When we close ourselves off, we find it only gets worse. Our plan was to feel safer and in control. But in the end, it leads us to feel like we have no control because we are no longer connected to our life, our friends, our daily activities, the things that gave us balance and meaning. When we hide from life, we are hiding ourselves from everything that has meaning to us as well. When life is hard and all we want to do is retreat, we must understand that this is the worst course of action.

When we want to close the world off from ourselves, we are eliminating our connection, our attachment to life. Understanding the reason behind the desire to withdraw at that moment is very important because it allows you to see and understand yourself before you close that door. Eliminating the world around you is often done without mentally being aware of it; it is more of an emotional response. The response overtakes us because of our overwhelming desire to feel safe and okay again, both emotional needs. Even if our mind is the source of our stress, it is our emotions that respond. So when the desire to remove yourself from life happens, seek out the basis of that desire. What is going on in your life right then? What is happening to you? What do you feel and what are you thinking about? What is pushing you away and making you feel threatened? These are the questions you need to answer to find the basis of your discontent and fear. The reason could be really simple and obvious to you or it may take some time to see. When we face our emotions and our lives head on, we are then in control of what is most important. We are seeing clearly what we are meant to see and not hiding from it. We can help ourselves, instead of ignoring how we feel. Before the feeling to retreat gets too strong, ask yourself why you are feeling this way. Often, once we are aware of it, it gets much easier and life itself becomes more understandable because we understand ourselves.