Lately, it seems the air is thick with something we’re all feeling. A pressure that is building, like a storm about to break. A cloud on the verge of collapse.
Most of us don’t speak of it, because it catches us in the still moments of life—when we glance at our endless to-do list or scroll through our news feed. It’s then that the thickening arrives.
Maybe you recognise when it happens:
Your mind go blank.
Your breath catches.
Your heart skips.
Not the pleasurable kind, but like the pulse of a shockwave, there is a momentary stillness. Every cell on alert. A voice asks: How am I going to manage all of this? What is happening? What can I do? Where do I even begin?
This is what we call overwhelm, and it’s not just a feeling. It is a physiological, emotional, cultural-collective flood. A full-body too much.
I think of it as one of modernity’s inheritances—a byproduct of the stories we’re given:
That time is scarce.
That our worth is measured by output.
That if we just do more, become more, have more—then we’ll finally arrive.
Then we will have made it.
Then we’ll have earned our place here.
Even I, someone who leads a quieter life—with fewer appointments, no strict schedule, a rhythm that is spacious and slow—I’ve been feeling it too.
Struck by the weight of it all. Too many threads to hold. Too much responsibility to carry. Too many things happening.
But instead of responding by doing more, or collapsing beneath the pressure of it, I’ve begun to practice something different. I’ve begun meeting overwhelm, welcoming it—instead of fighting it.
Because I’ve come to understand: like all physical emotions, overwhelm carries wisdom. A message. A story is being told.
And this is how I’ve discovered, when acknowledged, overwhelm can become a threshold.
Not a wall, but a doorway.
A call back to rhythm.
A turning point.
Overwhelm is, in truth, a portal. And this is how I step through:
One: The Temple of the Body
The Buddhist path teaches that if we want to heighten our awareness, the body is the first place to return.
The Buddha taught that being mindful of the sensations that arise in the body—without clinging to them—is essential to any spiritual practice.
Emotion, in this way, is the body’s invitation to re-enter the moment—by feeling it.
So when we practice this in the face of overwhelm, we pause.
We turn toward the body.
We listen for its wisdom saying: Something needs to move. Something needs to shift.
This is when I feel my feet on the ground.
I place awareness on the rise and fall of my chest.
I make space for the sensations to rise.
I let the overwhelm speak through the tingling of my skin, my shallow breath, my racing heart.
I allow what wants to be seen, to be seen.
What wants to move, to move.
What wants to be felt, to be felt—but without the story.
Because when we place our attention on sensation, it gently loosens us from the mind’s narrative. It frees us from the grip of reactivity. It makes space for softening—for opening.
When we focus our attention on sensations, it frees us from the story in our mind. It frees us from what is causing us to be reactive. It allows the possibility of softening, of opening.
This is the body’s invitation: to return to presence. To be here, fully. To not let the mind take over.
In that way, overwhelm becomes the temple bell, calling us home.
Two: After the Pause, the Shift. Changing The Narrative
When we connect to our body on this profound physical level, we allow ourselves to come out of the grip of the narrative. And in that pause, something begins to shift. The body opens. The story loosens. And a new kind of space begins to arise.
Sometimes, to truly feel this opening—especially in the midst of overwhelm—it helps to literally change the scene.
Not as an escape, but as an opportunity.
This might mean taking a walk, sipping a tea, tending the garden—any small act that gives the thread a chance to unspool, so that something new can begin to reweave itself.
When we change the scene, even in a small way, we shift the frequency of our attention. The nervous system begins to settle. The grip of urgency loosens. We are no longer tangled in doing, fixing, or reacting.
A deeper layer of ourselves has space to emerge.
And in that space, there lies an invitation to realign.
This is the moment of return. To remember the goal of life.
To realize:
This is life I am living.
This is beautiful earthly existence.
Not a checklist to conquer.
Not a battle to push through.
But a flow to move with—like a leaf drifting on a river, a thread weaving through a greater whole.
Then I can see more clearly: the story of more, faster, harder—the relentless drive to become and do—is what pulls me away from this deeper rhythm.
It’s what leads to overload, burnout, and disconnection.
From myself. From life. From the earth.
It’s in this wider perspective that I begin to sense something larger than myself. It’s what invites me to soften the boundaries of my singular identity and reconnect with the many dimensions of life.
This is when I know: I am ready to take action again.
Three: When Spirit Enters the Doing
Once the story has dropped, and presence deepens, a new kind of action becomes possible.
Acgion—not from panic, but from presence.
Not from isolation, but from relationship.
From an Indigenous perspective, nothing meaningful can truly be accomplished without honoring the spiritual—the invisible intelligence that moves through and beyond our five senses.
Action taken without acknowledging this larger force can easily become misaligned, dry, or lack fruitfulness.
This is why, after returning to the body and loosening the grip of overwhelm’s narrative, we pause again. Instead of leaping into doing, we remember: I am not alone in this. I am a thread in the living web.
I acknowledge that I can place my “doing” into the current of something wiser and larger than myself.
This is when I ask my surroundings—the plants, the spirits, the river, the hills—for help. I place the task in larger hands.
This is called invocation: a ritual bridge from singularity into co-creation.
The shaman Malidoma Somé puts it this way:
“Invocation suggests that we ourselves don’t know how to make things happen the way they should. And thus we seek strength from the spirits or Spirit by recognizing and embracing our weakness. This way, before getting started with any aspect of our lives — travel, a project, a meeting — we first bring the task at hand to the attention of the gods or God, our allies in the Otherworld. We openly admit to them what we are facing and how overwhelming it is. By ritually putting what we do in the hands of the gods, we make it possible for things to be done better because more than we are involved in its getting done. Also, willingness to surrender the credit of our accomplishments to Spirit puts us in greater alignment with the Universe.”
Invocation, in this sense, doesn’t need to be long or elaborate.
It might be a whispered word. A sentence. A breath of intention. It could be lighting a candle, or simply looking out the window and remembering your place in the larger whole.
Invocation is subtle. Personal. Yet deeply effective. It’s what transforms action itself.
And then—only then—do we act.
This is when I return to my list. Or (em)brace the news.
But instead of reacting to what feels urgent, I move toward what feels alive.
I choose inspired over efficient.
And what comes forth is always aligned—always the product of something greater.
This is what it means to ritualize our overwhelm:
To use it as a sacred threshold.
To let it draw us back into rhythm, into conversation with the unseen, into collaboration with life.
Overwhelm is the invitation—
To feel.
To release.
To invoke.
To act.
Only then does it become a sacred choreography.
Beautiful! I needed to be reminded of this again today. Love it 🫶
Needed to read this Fenja. Thank you for sharing with such gentleness.