Understanding Overwhelm - Why You Don’t Need to Fix It to Find Clarity

The Misunderstanding That Kept Me Stuck

This feels like a deeply personal share, because I spent more years than I care to count trying to manage overwhelm. And the truth is, I didn’t realise that was what I was doing. Not really.

I thought I was trying to fix procrastination. I thought I needed to become more productive, to heal myself into someone who could show up consistently, without fail, in my business. I was bought into the hustle mindset. I believed I needed to be “on” all day, every day. I thought rest would come once I had finished the list, once I had finally earned it.

I never stopped to consider that it wasn’t my productivity that was broken. It was my relationship with overwhelm. And, most of all, it was a misunderstanding of what that feeling in my chest actually meant.

When We Misread the Signs

Like many high-achieving business owners and professionals, I had internalised the idea that feeling overwhelmed meant something was wrong with me.

That I wasn’t doing enough.

That I needed to try harder.

That I needed to manage the discomfort.

Overwhelm, for me, often arrived as a tight heaviness in my chest. I used to believe that feeling was a direct result of my to-do list. So, I focused on doing more. I moved my task lists from Asana to Trello to paper and back again, hoping I could out-organise the anxiety. But all of that effort added more noise, more pressure, more disconnect from myself.

What I understand now is that overwhelm doesn’t come from the tasks themselves. It comes from believing I have to do all of them, perfectly, and immediately. It comes from my mind’s story, not from reality.

The Moment It Changed

I remember one particular morning while I was getting ready. I was thinking about creating a new Insight Timer course. It was my first 10-lesson course, and I felt that familiar pressure rising. A heaviness settled in my chest. My mind told me, “This is going to take ages.” And in that moment, I saw it. I saw that the discomfort wasn’t coming from the course. It was coming from the thought.

That one thought created all that sensation. But the course itself? I was actually excited about it.

And that changed something. I went downstairs, got a cup of tea and I made the course.

Listening Inwards Instead of Managing Outwards

For most of my life, I tried to manage my emotions by fixing something out there. Busyness was my drug of choice. I filled my calendar. I filled every available moment. And eventually, my body said no.

Burnout was my teacher. And it taught me what meditation, journaling, and therapy had not. That no amount of doing would ever calm what I was unwilling to feel. That the guidance I was seeking didn’t live in another strategy or system. It lived in my body. It lived in the breath I was forgetting to take.

You cannot fix overwhelm by managing your way out of it. You can only listen. You can only pause.

The Pause That Changes Everything

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Pause. Breathe. But for someone who is used to being in motion, who has built a life around achievement, pausing feels counterintuitive. It used to feel like failure.

But what I’ve discovered is that pausing is not passive. It is the most powerful action we can take when we are overwhelmed. It brings us home to ourselves.

Overwhelm is a message. Not a flaw. Not a weakness. Not something to get rid of.

It is your body whispering, “Too much thinking.” And the moment you stop trying to fix the feeling and instead become curious about it, something shifts.

Your Body Knows What You Need

We have been conditioned to trust the mind above all else. To override our feelings. To push through discomfort. But your body has always known when something is out of alignment. It is not trying to sabotage you. It is trying to save you.

That feeling in your chest is guidance. That tightness is your nervous system trying to get your attention. It is not saying “get more done.” It is saying “slow down, reconnect, be with what is here.”

And when we do that, we often find that clarity rises. Not from force, but from presence.

You Don’t Have to Earn Rest

We live in a culture that tells us we have to earn rest. That relief comes only after everything is done. But here’s what I know now: you do not need to finish the list to pause. You do not need to tick every box to deserve ease. You do not need to fix the overwhelm in order to move forward.

You just need to be with it.

You just need to see that your emotional state is letting you know about your state of mind. Not your worth. Not your productivity. Not your capability.

Just your thinking in the moment.

Clarity Comes When We Stop Running

Since learning to pause, to check in, to breathe into the heaviness instead of escaping it, I have found more clarity, more creativity, and more peace. Not because I figured everything out. But because I stopped trying to.

When I give myself permission to feel what’s there, I am no longer a pinball being bounced from one task to the next.

I am grounded. Clear. Capable.

And the irony is, from that place, I get more done than I ever did before.

A New Way Forward

If you’re in the thick of it right now, if your chest feels tight and your mind is full, know this. You are not failing. You are not broken. You are simply being invited to listen more deeply.

To stop managing. To start noticing.

To pause. To breathe. And to trust that clarity lives just beyond that next breath.

And if you would like support with this, I will be leading a new course called Overcoming Overwhelm starting on Thursday 5th June at 4pm BST.

With love, always, Clare x