Overwhelmed HSP? Questioning the Belief That There’s Too Much to Do

  By the end of this episode, you’ll discover how to loosen your hold on the overwhelming idea that there is too much to do.

Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I’m your host Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie, a way to question and reduce stressful thoughts. And you guessed it, I’m a highly sensitive person myself.

In this episode, you’ll discover how the idea of too much to do can be the biggest part of the problem, how questioning this idea can make you more effective and relaxed, and how to easily come back to the driver’s seat in any situation. This is an edition of Guided Meditation Mondays, where I’ll be guiding you to do the work of Byron Katie as you listen.

There’s almost nothing as overwhelming as having the idea that there’s too much to do. It can get to you so quickly, and in fact, right now, I’m experiencing that a little bit, and so I’m going to guide us in a meditation to just work with this idea a little bit. As much for myself as for you. So to do this, let’s start by thinking of a situation.

This is something that grounds it and makes it concrete so that we know what we’re talking about. And let’s look for a time where we were experiencing a kind of overwhelm due to having too much to do. So I’m going to look for that myself, and I encourage you to look for it as well.

When were you feeling like there was too much going on? Just too much.

For me, I can Just pinpoint it right here in my day right today, and you know, I’m, I’ve got a lot going on. Creating some training material for a course that I’m offering. I’m, I need to keep up with my podcast. Here I am recording one right now. There’s my newsletter. I also want to protect my downtime, like my meditation, sleep, exercise, family time.

I want to honor my client sessions and ongoing support groups. and employee needs. So all that’s sitting in the back of my mind and I’m looking at my calendar and there is not much time left today. So there’s an example of what I mean by a specific situation. Can you find one where you were feeling or are feeling that there was too much to do?

And if you need more time, just pause the recording and you can take as much time as you like. So we’re going to question that thought. That there’s too much to do. We’re going to actually question what seems like reality. Maybe reality, but we’re going to question it anyway because that’s what we do in the work of Byron Katie and it can often be quite revealing.

So starting with your situation, standing in your situation, let’s answer these questions. Is it true that there is too much to do?

And this is a yes or a no.

Is it true? There is too much to do.

And I want you to go with your real experiential answer and find that, whatever it is.

I’m going to go with a yes for this one. Feels true. When I look at it, I see a lot of proof. I’m landing on a yes. And yes or no, either one is fine. If your answer is a yes, like mine was, then let’s go to question number two. If not, you can just skip this question. Can you absolutely know it’s true? That there is too much to do?

Are you sure?

And again, it’s a yes or a no.

Are you sure there’s too much to do? Can you absolutely know that?

And as always, Look for your answer to come from inside, don’t try to push the answer, don’t try to think your way through it, feel it, see what comes up on the level of experience. Can you absolutely know it’s true? There’s too much to do.

I have to go with a no, that’s what I’m feeling.

So the next question is, how do you react? What happens when you believe this thought that there is too much to do in your situation? Hold that situation. What happens to you? How do you react? I start to get anxious. I start to get tense.

I feel like I’m getting pulled in different directions at once. I feel frustrated. What do you notice when you think there’s too much to do in your situation?

What do you notice going on in your body?

As soon as I said that, I noticed I was holding my hands tightly together.

What are the images you see When you think there’s too much to do.

I see the enormity of the course that I’m offering, the job that I’m needing to do there. I could spend months just doing that with no other responsibilities. And then I see all the other responsibilities competing for my time.

I notice a feeling in my gut now, like in my stomach.

I see myself not doing the best job that I can.

Something’s going to have to fall short. And I don’t like that. There’s a feeling of resistance there, a feeling of fear.

What do you notice when you think there’s too much to do? What are the images you see?

I see myself dabbling. A little bit of this, a little bit of this, a little bit of this. And I don’t feel, I feel a lack of satisfaction.

I want to go into one thing more deeply. And I’m being prevented. There’s almost a kind of anger in there. Certainly frustration, which is related.

And then I fantasize. Do you do that? Like, oh, it’d be so nice if I just had a big block of time I could just work on that till it was done. Maybe not just a big block of time, an infinite block of time that I could take as much time as I needed to really do that one thing well. And then I look at my reality and I think, Oh my God, that’ll never happen.

There’s like a sadness as well.

And these are the effects of thinking there’s too much to do.

What are you unable to do when you think there’s too much to do?

I’m unable to even get started. I’m like paralyzed with looking at all the different things.

Where do I even begin? I can’t finish it anyway. Why even bother starting? It’s a frozen feeling.

So this is how you react when you think that there’s too much to do. can literally paralyze you. It gives that feeling of overwhelm that we HSPs know so well.

So, who would you be in the same situation, the one you found earlier, without the thought that there’s too much to do? Let’s just say all the same tasks and All the same needs are all there, the situation hasn’t changed one bit. But imagine that you didn’t buy into the thought, or didn’t even have the thought, that there’s too much to do.

Who would you be?

It somehow seems calmer to me.

Just without that thought, there’s too much to do. If that thought isn’t there, I still have a course that I’m working on, I still have podcast episodes to do, I still have newsletters to write. I still have family time to honor and client sessions to honor,

but if I don’t have the thought there’s too much to do, it doesn’t feel so overwhelming,

almost like that some things haven’t just reached my, they haven’t reached the point where I’ll be doing them yet. So I see a lot of things queued up and without the thought there’s too much to do, I’m just here. With you doing this podcast

becomes simple with the thought there’s too much to do my mind gets scattered and Spread all around and it can becomes overwhelming without the thought that there’s too much to do Yeah, there’s some things there are a lot of things around to do and I’m just focusing on this one

Yeah, it feels focused. It feels comfortable, it feels interesting. I’m drawn in. I’m experiencing a kind of depth which is satisfying to me.

And all the other tasks are kind of in the periphery now.

But as soon as I think there’s too much to do, whoof, they all come piling in and it upsets me. Who would you be in your situation if you didn’t have the thought that there’s too much to do?

There’s a kind of freedom in it. It feels almost irresponsible. in a strangely good way.

In this moment, while I focus just on this podcast, all the other jobs, I’m not putting attention on. I’m being irresponsible, and it feels great. I’m able to put my whole heart into It’s just one thing.

So that’s who I am and that what I’m noticing on the internal level, on the level of my feelings, excuse me, and on my body is that there’s this depth coming in. I can feel it. There’s this depth of energy and depth of enthusiasm. I’m in touch with a kind of happiness that is bubbling a little bit. It’s doable.

I don’t know if I’ll get to everything else and it’s almost doesn’t matter. I’m really just doing this one. That’s sweet.

So the first four questions of the work of Byron Katie that we’ve just gone through allow us to experience the effect of the thought on us. That thought, if you add it into the equation, there’s too much to do. It creates chaos in my experience. And if you remove it from the equation, I resume a more balanced and, and an experience of peaceful, contented, interest, and enthusiasm.

So that’s the effect of the thought. Seeing the effect of that thought, let’s consider if the opposite of that thought could be as true or truer, just for balance. So the opposite, the turnaround, is instead of there’s too much to do, the turnaround is simply there is not too much to do. So let’s hold that as our new Hypothesis, and see if there could be any truth to balance out this idea that we’ve been holding onto.

So in your situation, take a look. Is it possible that there is not too much to do, even though your mind has been telling you that? Is it possible? What do you see? Let’s look for some evidence.

How is it possible that there’s not too much to do, even though it has looked like that?

Well, for me, just what I was discovering in question four comes into play here. There’s not too much to do. There’s really just this one thing to do, which right now is this podcast.

I really love that. It just comes down to the essence of everything here. It’s just one thing, the thing I’m doing,

and keep looking. How is it that these other things that are still around, that still may need attention at some point, are not too much to do from this point of view.

First thing that comes to mind for me is that maybe not all of them need to get done.

Yeah, like who says everything has to stay exactly on schedule? Who says that I always have to have a newsletter written every time? Who says? So from that point of view, there’s not too much to do. There’s leeway. And if you go bigger, like, why am I writing a newsletter? Why am I even sharing a podcast? Why am I creating course material?

Why?

Is it absolutely necessary?

That’s an interesting question. Maybe not.

What if, this is just an interesting idea, what if I just stopped doing all of it? Would I still be okay?

I think so.

Would it mean that I’m now just giving up on things that I’m interested in? Maybe. Maybe not. It may mean that. I am freer to do what I love to do. So this too much to do is a concept, and it may not be that all of those things are really valid to dos. Maybe they’re not as important as I make them. One of my problems since I was young, especially in school, but it still persists in some ways today, is that I tend to prioritize everything equally.

So, you know, in school, every teacher gives you different assignments and I think I have to do all of them and I have to do them all well. And that means that homework could end up taking a lot longer and you just don’t have any control how long it’s going to be. You just have to do it. They’re all required, but I’m learning.

Little by little that I don’t have to do everything. I can choose some things, do some things well, do some other things less well. And that gives me a lot more freedom. And it plays right into this idea that there’s not too much to do. It all depends on how much or on how I prioritize it.

Maybe the turnaround would be there’s too much to not do. Yeah, maybe there’s a lot of things to not do. And maybe I. would do well to spend time thinking about what those are. What are my priorities? And why am I doing things? And if it’s too much, how can I cut down on some of those things?

So it means that I could be the one making some of those decisions instead of having the experience of being like a victim where I don’t have any choice. In this episode, we looked at how the idea of too much to do. can be the biggest part of the problem. Sure, there are lots of things to do, and sure, they’re all pressing, but it’s the idea that it’s too much, or that they’re, that I have to do all of those things, and I have to do them all, that makes it turn into overwhelm.

We also saw how questioning this idea, that there’s too much to do, can make you more effective. and relaxed. At first you might think we’re being kind of irresponsible in a way because we’re we’re not focusing on everything at once but as I was doing this work I was noticing how my focus was actually increasing.

I was feeling more connected to myself and that is when you start to get into that flow and that feeling of where you’re really starting to do something and that that is effective action. We also looked at how to easily come back to the driver’s seat in any situation. And what I mean by that is come back to where I’m actually more in control of my situation and of my life than I think.

And I sometimes kind of play the victim of being of having so many things coming at me that I feel like I have to do them. I have to, I have to do everything. And even if I created some of those things. there’s a certain obligation that I can get caught into. And so coming back, what I mean by coming back to the driver’s seat is like, oh wait a minute, I get to choose which one I work next, how I prioritize, and and then dive into that one and then do the next one when it’s time is there.

So thank you for listening and thank you for participating in this meditation. It’s always a pleasure to do this work with you and to be here with you. And, as always, I look forward to next time, and in the meantime, have a wonderful rest of your day.