How to Reclaim Your True Self When You Feel Overwhelmed

Overwhelm Disconnects Us from Our Inner Knowing

Over the last few weeks, I have been exploring overwhelm across my content and live sessions. One thing I keep seeing, both with my clients and in my own life, is how easily overwhelm disconnects us from the quieter voice within us.

You might call it your soul. I like to call it inner knowing because that is the journey I love to guide people on. It’s the journey from being led by the inner critic to being guided by inner knowing.

The Endless Chase for More

When we are overwhelmed, we get caught up in our thinking. Our natural voice, our true voice, feels absent. It is not really in the thinking at all. When you are feeling overwhelmed, you are focused outward on all the things you believe you should be doing, pulled away from what is real and grounded inside you.

When I was driving hard in my career, I lived in a near constant state of overwhelm. It got to the point where I completely burnt out. The voice in my head kept saying more was needed. More work, more social life, more achievements, more output.

I carried those expectations with me as if they were mine. But now I see that they were picked up along the way, from family, from school, from culture. What matters is the deep belief I absorbed: that unless I was doing enough, I was not enough.

Searching for Wholeness Outside Ourselves

I spent years looking for my soul out in the world. Promotions, relationships, achievements. I believed each next thing would bring me the feeling of being complete.

But it never came through achievement. It only started to come when my mind began to quiet. It only started when I realised that I did not need to find my true voice. I needed to remember it had always been there, quietly waiting beneath the noise.

If you are chasing the next goal believing it will finally bring you peace, I want you to know: your inner voice has not left you. It is simply covered over, buried under layers of noise and striving.

Your Body Is Speaking to You

Your body knows when you have lost touch with yourself. It sends signals. Fatigue. Anxiety. Headaches. A heaviness in the chest. These signals are not mistakes. They are invitations to pause, to listen, to soften.

Sometimes we believe we have to wait for a perfect, peaceful moment to access our wisdom. But wisdom is always here. It shows up in the noise. It shows up in discomfort. It lives inside the energy that moves through the body.

Sitting with Your Emotions

For me, overwhelm often feels like a heavy pressing in the chest. It used to send me into frantic action. I tried to fix the feeling by doing more, being more, achieving more.

Now, when that heaviness arises, I know it is not something to get rid of. It is an invitation to slow down. To sit. To feel what is real inside me.

Sometimes I simply sit quietly in a chair, away from the busyness, and tune in. I notice the sensations in my body. I allow the energy to move. And in doing so, I reconnect with something deeply real.

Presence Brings Clarity

When we sit with our emotions rather than trying to outrun them, we naturally become present. Our awareness drops out of the frantic mind and into the body.

And when we are present, wisdom can rise. Clarity comes. The next step becomes clear. A creative idea surfaces. A truth we had been missing shows up gently.

That next step might be something small. It might be something profound. But it always comes from a place of authenticity, not from panic.

Expression from the True Self

When I express myself from a place of overwhelm and disconnection, it feels messy. It does not land well with others. It does not feel true to me.

But when I express from a place of presence, after I have sat with myself and allowed the emotions to move, my words come from something much deeper. They come from my true voice. And they connect.

Building Trust with Yourself

This is how we build trust with ourselves again. We start trusting our emotions rather than fearing them. We start seeing them as the beautiful, living guidance they are.

If we are constantly trying to suppress or fix our emotions, we are silencing our inner knowing. We are missing the information our system is trying to give us.

When we listen instead, when we welcome our feelings, we reconnect with who we really are.

Emotions Are Not Obstacles

All of our experience belongs. Not just the peaceful moments, but the messy ones too. Our emotions are not obstacles. They are bridges back to ourselves.

When we avoid them, we stay stuck in the same patterns. When we welcome them, we come home.

You are not broken because you feel overwhelmed. You are being invited to soften. To slow down. To remember yourself.

Coming Home to Your True Self

It all starts with sitting with what is here right now.
It starts with listening instead of running.
It starts with allowing your inner knowing to rise again.

If you would like support in reconnecting with your true self, you are so welcome to reach out. You do not have to do this alone.

Much love, Clare ❤