OVERWHELM

​Feeling overwhelmed is dependent upon maintaining boundaries between what is perceived as your inner world and what is perceived as the outer world. In an attempt to protect yourself from the unpleasant aspects of feeling overwhelmed, you try to tighten up this border in order to withstand the pressure you believe the outer world is forcing upon you. This strategy is used over and over again, until it is found to be of no avail. Usually, it takes many attempts at this strategy, and many failures of it, to get to the place where you are ready to drop the strategy altogether.
The first question to ask yourself is, "who is in charge of determining where this boundary exists?" Look around, is there a sense of you that wants to be protected and perhaps hide from a world that seems full of agony and trouble? Why did the world, the seemingly outer realms of reality, become so distressing? This is especially appropriate given what the world "out there" seems like today.
From our perspective, a natural tendency is to enforce the idea that there is a world "out there" responsible for the suffering that has nothing to do with the experience of self in the bubble of the inner worlds. This notion becomes reinforced by every aspect of "real life" lived. There are wars, and starvation and misery as far as your eye can see. Who wouldn't attempt to maintain a sense of separation from all of that? And the idealized version of the spiritual life, living on the mountaintop in peace and serenity, even if in isolation, seems to be the easiest way to maintain the boundary you believe to be necessary.
The deeper dive into all of this reveals that there is no boundary, there is no one in charge of determining where the boundary should be, and most importantly, the illusion of a boundary is not maintainable. Your thoughts are always taking you to one side of the boundary or the other. You are always seeking the peace on one side and rejecting the distress on the other, and this takes you to feelings of overwhelm. For the moment you catch a glimpse of the peace, you can only sense it by simultaneously believing in the distress, that it has been vanquished, and cannot have impact upon you. Over and over again, you are proven wrong. The distress creeps back into your experience, but not because it has more power, because your sense of peace is dependent upon its (the distress) continuing existence. Flipping into the distress just upholds the notion that the counterpoint, peace must live somewhere else.
At some point, you determine the strategy of a boundary doesn't work. This is the moment the complex creation of separation between a you that is victim to the outer influences is no longer victimized. This is the time when you lay down all your fears and realize there is nothing "outside" or "inside" that there is simply and always One Life. The ineffable and indivisible nature of One Life is what frees you from the discomfort of the complexities of seeking peace and avoiding distress in favor of just being who you are, One Life Awareness. This Awareness transcends all the reference points, the "in here" and "out there" positions.
There is no effort in being One Life Awareness, it exists as you right here, right now. There is great effort in attempting to maintain the idea and belief that you have to protect yourself from the power and domination of the outer world in order to maintain the bubble you believe is your inner world of peace and harmony. That effort implies that your inner experience is fragile and falls apart easily if any of the outer world gets in. You can take yourself higher and higher to the top of the allegorical mountain, but you can never escape the outer world, because the mountain and the outer world are totally your invention. They do not exist in any reliable manner. You cannot depend upon any creation to keep your experience limited to a few favored emotional states, you can only become fearless and thereby come to appreciate everything and all that is. This appreciation does not require you to favor the distress, but enables you to see it for what it is, another color in the rainbow of experience.
You may have thought that if you protected yourself from the outside influences of the world, you could avoid pain and grief and all the unpleasantness of the world, yet we would suggest that protecting yourself tends to limit all your experiences, not just the ones you believe you are able to avoid. Life becomes dull and creativity dims if experience is contained or diminished. This is because it is fear that underlies the contraction. In other words, whenever you are motivated by fear, the actions you take initiated by that motivation, do not serve you. They just reinforce the fear.
Another erroneous idea is the notion that you can lessen the distress if you are prepared for it. "Think about the worst that can happen, and then whatever actually happens will pale in comparison." You have probably tried that strategy or heard someone else espouse that idea. The deeper truth is that you will react the way that you will react in the moment, and no preparation for that moment is ever really valid. You cannot numb yourself to pain now to diminish its effects in the future. Pain is pain and is experienced in the moment with very little regard for previous experience of it.
The mystery of being human is always present. At times there will be pain, distress, discomfort. At other times there will be other experiences. Be present with all of it and your life will be full and vibrant. Let go of believing in boundaries and protection as a means of avoiding overwhelm. Instead, adopt an experimental attitude, and you will be able to abide as One Life, knowing One Life Awareness is who you are.