Flooded

It’s easy to forget that our mind can only deal with one thing at a time. Much like a movie on a reel, things run together so quickly that they look like a continuous stream. A bunch of static shots looks like moving pictures.

I can tell this is happening when I feel overwhelmed. Everything seems to be speeding at me, and I can’t keep up.

This isn’t real, but it feels like it is.

I noticed this when I sat down to brush my teeth this morning. Three hours of sleep and a sick kid. My plan to work on stuff blown out of the water. Feeling sick myself. A bunch of clients in a row later in the day and none of this is factoring in all the stuff I wanted to do. I have a huge list right now. E-courses and ebooks and new websites and content upgrades and 175,000 words of blogs to sort through. A fence to oil.

I’m just so important.

My body reacted to this. Pounding heart and sweaty palms and a sick stomach. My blood was rushing just a little too quickly.

None of this was actually real while I was brushing my teeth though. The bodily sensations were there, but they were not negative. Just feelings. My thoughts about them caused me to struggle.

Nothing was coming at me either. Nothing was overwhelming. I was sitting down, brushing my teeth. Everything else was imagination and exaggeration and fake accumulation. Everything was coming at me one at a time, limited by the availability of time. Each moment can only bring what each moment brings. It is jumping to the future that causes trouble.

Notice flooding, and recognize it as not being real.

Deal with what is right in front of you.

Nothing more.