Ronald Chapman's Blog

It Is Easy to Feel Overwhelmed In an Unbalanced World

Two short months ago most of us were coming out of a year-end lull that allowed for holidays and time off from work. Many of us took those weeks to fill ourselves up with family, or rest, or celebration. Then by mid-January most of us were trudging through the start of the school year or ramped up work activities. While it is common to be invigorated by the demands of our lives, it’s also common to be overwhelmed.

If you'd like a really good resource for dealing with these modern-day realities, I'd recommend a fine exploration by a good friend and Master Coach, Karen Van Cleve: End Overwhelm Now: A Proven Process to Regain Control Over Your Life. (If you'd like to listen to my discussion about overwhelm with Coach Karen, click here.)

That said, and assuming you're like many of my coaching clients who are too overwhelmed to read a book about getting free of overwhelm, here a few thoughts I have found to be practical and useful.

Seeing True™ in Action

Since life is inherently unwieldy and uncooperative, let’s talk about self-care.

Why self-care?

The nature of life and our lives is dynamism and flux. Nothing we do will ever change that. Some acceptance of this reality can go a long way. And given that we will always need balancing practices, taking care of ourselves allows us to be more effective in and with our lives.

1.    Planning and Scheduling Regular Self-care

Recognize that each of us needs opportunities to recharge. And let’s be honest that if we don’t take that need seriously and plan for it, most of us will not be able to find the time or commit ourselves.

Pick an interval for getting away from the demands of your life that seems appropriate for you and your circumstances. Many of my clients find that they need a good break every four to five weeks.

Take the time now to commit time on your calendar for a good break on that interval. Set aside long weekends or make plans to get away from your usual life course. Involve your loved ones or friends in making the commitment since their mutual support increases the likelihood of success. Then maintain the scheduling at least three months forward on a continuing basis.

Why forward looking? Because most all of us will otherwise fill up our calendars and continue to defer attending to our own self-care.

Here are a few examples. One of my clients has made travel commitments with his spouse for all of 2018. Another who has difficulty getting away makes plans with her girlfriends for weekend trips that are nearby including Birmingham, Chattanooga, Greenville and Asheville. Another client who has school-aged children rotates ideas with them so they get to choose weekend adventures that are exciting to them.

The point is not what you do with time off and away, but that you ensure you have time off and away. Planning and calendaring is essential.

2.    Prioritizing the Things that Invigorate Us

All of us have some things in our lives that rejuvenate us. One client loves to be immersed in scientific reading. Another is enthralled by climatology. Several are artists. One writes poetry. Some are foodies who either love finding great restaurants or cooking great meals. More than a few are hikers, or bikers, or walkers. Some like to meditate, or love yoga or tai chi.

Every week make sure there is time set aside for what fills you up. One of the best offsets to the demands of our lives is to make sure we engage in the things that rejuvenate us. The invigoration it brings can readily offset aspects of our lives that are overly challenging.

Pick a time of week or day that is likely to be reliably available. I have a client whose staff all telework on Thursdays, so he sets aside two to three hours when he knows there will be few demands on him. Another escapes to her favorite coffee shop at 3 pm every Friday when she can always attend to her writing over a good cup of tea.

Whatever you choose, do everything you can to protect it. Block off the time on electronic calendars. Ask others not to disturb you. Turn off your phone if need be. Invest in yourself by giving yourself precious time and value.

Final Thoughts

Not long ago I heard a great TED talk about the effects of stress on our well-being. It turns out it is not the stress that is the problem, but our relationship to the stress. Literally our body secretes protective hormones when we are at peace with our own circumstances, even if they are demanding. Self-care is a clear psychological strategy to normalize our experience of our lives. More importantly, it is a subtle but powerful cue to our own inner selves that we can and will take care of ourselves.

The only question that matters now is whether you are willing to commit to a better way for yourself. If you are, you’ll see it in your actions and follow through. If not, be honest with yourself and find someone to assist you.

The best investment any of can make is in ourselves. Then we can use the fruit of that investment for the sake of others and the world.

Photo by Autumn Goodman on Unsplash

Listen to "#funkythinkers - Ron Chapman" on Spreaker.

Ron Chapman was recently interviewed on the Funky Thinkers podcast about a wide range of topics, including taking a vacation without wi-fi, doing well in your work, and time in the desert. Listen here and enjoy! 

Every year we make resolutions, set goals, and work towards (ideally) being better people. But one thing we often forget is how helpful it is to hear from a trusted source what we can change in order to hit these goals and keep these resolutions. If getting feedback sounds frightening, then we encourage you to think differently about it, in the latest episode of Speaking True!

Why Sometimes Things Don't Feel Like Success

Not long ago I received a congratulatory note from a woman who used to support me as a publicist. She offered kudos for the number of books sold, and praised me for being successful.

I was surprised. While I am quite happy with all my books and audio sets, I hardly feel like a big success. So I asked her to tell me more.

It turns out that every year over 300,000 books are published in the U.S. Most of those do not sell more than 100 copies. So anything more than that threshold is actually fairly successful. I was quite surprised.

I remembered an author telling me his publisher had jettisoned him because his last book did not sell more than 10,000 copies. Something just didn’t seem to add up. If 100 books is a success, but 10,000 is not enough to hold onto a publishing contract, what the hell?

Upon much reflection, it turns out that our perceptions and expectations are a bit off the mark. For every million-copy book release, or major performing artist tour, or mega-star athlete announcement, there are countless talented, creative success stories that we never hear. And yet the standard to which we aspire is this extremely small segment of the whole.

I flashed back to a concert hall in Asheville, North Carolina some years ago. The singer on the stage was so very good. I could not fathom why she was touring on small stages when clearly she was as talented as some very big name performers.

Therein lies the problem. Our mental benchmark for success is skewed. We compare ourselves and our experiences in unfair ways.

Here are other examples. Every time we see a beautiful, romantic story on the big screen, something that sweeps us into our feelings, we cannot help but compare our own relationships to these glorious ones. Each time we watch the world’s best athletes deliver remarkable performances, invariably we contrast them to our own. Even the successes of our friends can cause our own to seemingly pale.

It turns out that most if not all of the problem is a perceptual one. And it is made all the more challenging because it is so difficult to appraise ourselves and our lives without some basis of comparison.

Turning this philosophy back to myself, I was forced to examine my assumptions and conclusions.

Why do I feel diminished when my books and audio sets don't sell millions? Because without any awareness I unconsciously feel that without marketplace validation my work doesn't matter. And therefore I don’t matter.

Why is my sense of well-being threatened by others’ happiness? Because I fear I will be left out. That happiness is not available to me. At worst, I fear that something is wrong with me.

Why can’t I measure myself, my life, and my actions only by my own inner standards? Because for so long I have accepted external standards suggested to or imposed upon me. It is very hard to unlearn them.

What conclusion do I then draw? That all external appraisal may be invalid. Not that the feedback it contains is not valuable, but that the way I interpret it should be examined quite carefully.

Seeing True™

There is a truism in the rooms of recovery that demonstrates great wisdom - stop comparing your insides to their outsides.

Seeing True™ in Action

Here’s a neat little trick to challenge your assumptions about yourself, your life and your actions.

Pick some area in which you feel you have fallen short. Write at length about how and why you perceive that. Then pick someone you trust, who knows you well enough, and without telling them the details of how you perceive it, ask them how they perceive it. Take notes. You are likely to be in for some surprises, and valuable information.

While it may not be wise to compare ourselves to others and their perceptions, it is certainly valuable to have our own perspectives challenged by other viewpoints. Then some truth can find its way to us.

Ron Chapman was interviewed by Mali Phonpadith for the SOAR Community Network Podcast about what it means to "pour forth into others," the core of the work in Seeing True, and why it's important to listen to your inner voice. 

It is all too easy to judge, condemn, and be fearful of other people for a whole slew of reasons. And despite all the well-meaning educational attempts, there is only one true proven way to overcome these divisions. Join us for this latest episode of Speaking True to learn more! 

Ron recently spoke at the Renaissance Unity Church in Chesapeake, Virginia about the courage to forgive -- them and yourself. To listen to his message and brief meditation, download the latest Speaking True! 

Searching My Soul

For a while now I’ve been engaged in some depth work. It’s been triggered by the heartache I feel from the many stories of women who have been victimized, and the African Americans, Hispanics, Muslims and Native Americans who are being targeted. The Las Vegas killing fields only added fuel to my grief, though I must admit that the deepest hurt comes from the personal stories of friends and loved ones who have been on the receiving end of the targeting. And the denial of these realities in the larger community is deeply troubling, especially the vehement reactions and rejections by those who are largely white, many of whom are male, and a large group who are Christian.

The result is that I’ve been searching my soul. It is unpleasant work, but necessary. While I’ve done much shadow work, peering into by insides to ferret out ugliness unseen, it has never become comfortable for me.

By many standards I’m a reasonably upstanding member of this American culture. Yet if I am vulnerably honest with myself, and now with you, as part of the privileged class of white, educated, financially secure people, I am implicated as a member of the culture that allows or perpetuates such destructive actions. 

So first I ask myself if I have been a perpetrator. The answer is mostly reassuring. I have never knowingly acted against women, blacks, Latinos, Muslims, or Native Americans. I’m not guilty of overt acts.

However, when I search deeply, it pains me to acknowledge that there has been much ignorance on my part. Especially this was true when I was younger, coarser, and driven blindly by my ego and by alcoholism. None of which is an excuse, though it does help me to see that I could not see. I did not understand that I had unconscious biases. I was unaware of a deeply ingrained objectification of women. I certainly had no clue of the many ways that fear ruled my actions.

It was only through a series of deliberate searches including disquieting assessments that I began to see my blind spots. Without the help of a handful of teachers and mentors who poked and prodded at my ignorance, I would still be deeply mesmerized by my own deceptions. Were it not for an intriguing mix of courageous people who opened up to me about their experiences, my heart could never have been broken open.

So too do I owe a deep debt to my mother and father. Somehow they inculcated in me an ability to have mutual respect for others, to not believe myself better or worse than others. At a much later time as an adult, I came to see that the root of much animosity comes from seeing others as other, different, less than. I wish my parents were still alive so I could thank them for this great gift, though I suspect they would have been mystified by something they did as part of their nature.

My soul searching forces me to look also to my present reality. Am I supporting or condoning conduct of others that is problematic? Do I speak up when necessary, to call out and engage others? Are my actions consistent with the valuing of others as equals and as humans?

On these last questions, I am thankful that despite a human ego and inner shadows yet unresolved, I provide myself a passing grade. At the same time, self-honesty still shows inner work to be done. I am not yet the change I wish to see in the world, though I have come very far.

Finally I arrive at the hardest question. Is there something more I should do?

With that I begin to cry. I do not know the way.

And a prayer arises spontaneously. Help me.

Seeing True™

Are you already living as the solution? Are you willing to do so? Can you even be willing to be willing?

Seeing True™ in Action

Over and over again I am asked how one can find their own way forward. While I have many thoughts, the experiences I described earlier are my best suggestion.

Explore the ways in which we may be in delusion or denial about the real world around us.Take honest stock of where we stand relative to the wrongs of the world. Are we perpetrators? Are we ignorant? Are we complicit?What are we doing to explore our own darkness?Who are we engaging in our growth and development?Are there actions we are already taking? Is there something we can and should do?Can we allow ourselves to truly feel?

Hope through Cataclysm

A young woman who considers me a teacher and mentor asked me last week how to hold up in the presence of so much disharmony in the world. She’s scared by gun violence, nuclear confrontation, global warming, and social and political strife. She’s also a dark-skinned woman and is afraid to travel outside the city of Atlanta. “There are people out there who hate me and want to hurt me,” she whispered.

Her question involves more than “holding up," she wants to know how to navigate a world that seems increasingly dangerous. And though unspoken, she wants to know what she can do. She believes deeply in Gandhi’s proposition that we need to be the change we wish to see in the world.

I am reminded of the words of King Theoden in the face of the onslaught of the darkness-fueled Uruk-hai as they storm Helm’s Deep in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. “What can one do against such reckless hate?” he asks in a moment of hopelessness and despair.

The heartache I feel on these questions and for many friends who carry such burdens is palpable. Somehow we find ourselves in deeply troubling times.

The programs of recovery have taught me that I cannot speak for others, though I can speak of my own experience, strength and hope.

First and most importantly I must deliberately commit to engaging my fear, pain and grief. For me this is the practice of Seeing True, seeing through and beyond to find another way. Father Richard Rohr has offered great clarity on why this matters.

“If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably give up on life and humanity. I am afraid there are bitter and blaming people everywhere … As they go through life, the hurts, disappointments, betrayals, abandonments, and the burden of their own sinfulness and brokenness all pile up, and they do not know how to deal with all this negativity. This is what we need to be ‘saved’ from."

Secondly, I must find a contemplative practice, something that supports me in bridging head to heart and then to Spirit. I cannot find the solution only in my mind and thoughts. What I need is a way to move through the limitations of my thinking. There are so many methods that have been effective for me; and there are many valuable ones to choose from. So I choose a wise path, and then dedicate myself to it.

Third, I must seek out information and people to add information to deepen my understanding. No matter who we may be, an open mind is always limited by the present state of our closed minds. Each of us has deep biases that we do not know or understand. So I must read points of view that run contrary to mine. I must watch and listen to media that challenge my beliefs and certainties. And nothing has broken through my prejudices more effectively than seeking out those who frighten me. Find those with whom we have negative feelings and strike up a real conversation. What we learn will change us.

Fourth, I must extend my practice to those with whom I interact. I must become vulnerable, and open myself outward. There are no solutions for me in isolation. At best, I must try to bring others along with me, or bring me along with others. Joel Goldsmith suggested that we cannot rise to communion without community. Or as I have heard in the rooms of recovery, “It’s a we solution.”

I told my friend these things. It was a long conversation. She asked me how I thought it would all turn out.

“I believe in the power of hitting bottom,” I told her with sorrow. “Recovery has taught me we do not change ourselves or our ways without sufficient cause. Often that means pain and suffering. And sometimes that means some kind of cataclysm, though I hope not.”

She winced as tears came to her eyes. “Oh …”

Then I smiled and shared a favorite quote from recovery. “Cling to the thought that, in God’s hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have – the key to life and happiness for others.”

That’s why I believe in hitting bottom. It gets our attention, and galvanizes us into something we would otherwise not have considered. Pain and suffering will likely have to be the way.  Once we are remade by it, we will see through new eyes.

It’s a strange kind of hope, isn’t it?

We are now facing an unprecedented time of overwhelming amounts of information, choices, and ideas. So how do we deal with all of it in a productive and healthy manner? Join Ron and Coach Karen Van Cleve for this episode of "The Coaching Sessions." 

You can get Coach Karen's book End Overwhelm Now Right Here!