This week, I need you to know...
What's adding to your mental load, and how you can reduce it
Dear Living Journal,
The world is a challenging place in so many ways, right now, isn’t it?
This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the mental load we carry.
I often hear from my clients and the professionals I speak to, that sometimes they feel as though they’re trying to keep too many plates spinning at once - and how it feels like if just one falls, then they might all come crashing down.
Right now, many of us are carrying way more plates than normal - not just in terms of our own daily lives and the things we ‘have to’ do, but in terms of feeling the burden of what’s going on in the wider world.
Anxiety and overwhelm aren’t always proportional to our daily lives and circumstances, are they? Sometimes we feel fine and cope with spinning those plates so well… we feel like we’re flying and it’s easy. At other times, it feels hard to keep even the basics covered.
And that’s because our perception of ‘burden’ isn’t directly linked to our physical world, so much as what’s going on up top - overwhelm is about all the hidden mental and emotional burdens we’re trying to manage simultaneously, often regardless of our physical circumstances.
In other words, it’s not necessarily how much we physically have to cope with, so much as the perception of what we have to cope with that saps our energy.
So, today, I want to gently walk you through what might contribute to piling on the pressure in your world - and offer a little hope for lightening the load.
The Hidden Plates We Spin
The Weight of the Past: Old mistakes, painful memories, times we got hurt and the things we’d rather we’d done differently can all linger in the background, making us feel like we’re stuck in a never-ending negative loop.
Fear of the Future: Many of us live in the anxious space of ‘What If’ World… trying to predict and prepare for every worst-case scenario, constantly living in defense-mode against all the things that ‘might’ happen. Have you noticed - they rarely do…?
The Filtered Present: With relentless negative news and the illusion of perfection on social media, it’s easy to feel like we’re falling short or the world is spiraling out of control. And then we give ourselves a hard time, judge ourselves against unattainable benchmarks and expectations… and forget to just enjoy and appreciate where we are and how far we’ve come!
Other People’s Problems: Caring deeply is a beautiful trait - but carrying others’ struggles as if they’re our own can silently sap our energy, peace - and capacity to really be present.
Self-Doubt: When we don’t trust ourselves, we start looking outside for approval or clarity rather than taking positive steps to prove to ourselves that we’ve got this - leaving us feeling at the mercy of circumstances we can’t control. The ironic thing about self-doubt - is that even whilst tearing ourselves down, we often still feel like we have to be the ones to fix everything and hold it all together. We can’t win, right?!
What I’d Love You to Know
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s not because you’re weak or incapable - but more likely, just that those hidden ‘mental’ plates have become way too big and overbearing. And it’s ok to put them down and refuse to carry those invisible loads…
…the past, the future, the outside world, other people’s emotional stress…
…if none of them are really helping you, now, then it’s ok to decide not to keep carrying them and focus your energy instead on healing you.
It really is.
So, which of those plates feels heaviest for you right now?
And is there one you can consciously choose to set down, even just for today?
Let me know
A x