Feeling Overwhelmed?
It’s Not Surprising
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun - John Keats To Autumn
The weather is beautiful in the Berkshires—blue skies, crisp nights, signs of gorgeous fall foliage popping up everywhere. You can be forgiven for thinking you had stepped into English Romantic poet John Keats' exquisite poem To Autumn with its "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness".
Over two hundred years after Keats penned this inspiring homage to the natural world, our autumnal landscape is littered with signs of a different type telling today's story. Political signs abound along with the colorful Chrysanthemums and pumpkins, jostling for attention; some are so large it's as though they have megaphones.
As the rhetoric ramps up and the drama plays out in the final stretch of the presidential election, I am not alone finding it increasingly difficult to avoid the accompanying feelings of emotional overwhelm. Such feelings can occur at any point in our lives for many reasons; today we live in turbulent times.
So how is emotional overwhelm different from simply feeling stressed out? When we feel stressed, we are led to act in an irritable, angry or passive-aggressive way. Feeling overwhelmed takes us a step further. It is an emotional state where one is consumed by mental chatter, intense emotions past and present and imagined catastrophic future events. Rather than act we tend to freeze for we cannot know how to change the circumstances.
During the countdown to a presidential election, we are particularly susceptible to overwhelm for the messaging is designed to engulf us, tapping into our emotions. Research shows that people are more inclined to vote with their hearts than their heads.
There is even a phenomenon in the United States called the "October surprise" characterized as a dramatic event in the final days before an election that may influence the outcome. Although it happens infrequently, we know from recent history that the race can be upended in the blink of an eye. We are programmed to a heightened emotional state as we anticipate some dramatic event that can significantly impact our lives and the course of history.
To understand the root cause can help us manage our feelings that stem from resistance to what is. When we are overwhelmed in the present moment, we are out of step with how things are. What happens now is real. No amount of emotional resistance will change the present.
Why should we accept things as they are? Pointless resistance and feeling overwhelmed leaves us weak and unproductive, a state the current political atmosphere exploits.
I suggest we shift our focus, reclaim our power and embrace an October surprise of a different type. Here in the Berkshires, it's been a few seasons since we experienced such incredible fall colors. And if you're not in the Berkshires explore what inspires you in your surroundings, relationships and pastimes.
This is not to say we bury our heads in the sand - quite the opposite. We find joy and fulfillment in the beauty that surrounds us. This will nourish our spirit, inspire and re-energize us as we strive tirelessly together toward a kinder, more inclusive world.
