Overwhelm

Time to go back in time 11 years for this picture somewhere in the South West of England. Another chaotic scene from nature with the ebb and flow of the water swirling and meandering amid the rocks.

Today I felt that this picture is befitting the emotions that perhaps came up for the past 24 hours for many people globally. Many people must have felt some angst when things all of a sudden stopped working in the virtual world. And it was interesting to hear the story of people around me regarding the outage. It felt for many that the world was coming to an end, their sense of safety crumbling around them with every refresh of the page and it not relaunching the data. The aftermath for some was broken devices, increased heart rates, worry for their livelihood, disappointment, or for some it was just a funny situation observed from the outside. It was interesting to note how a small blip caused a flooding of emotions for some, relief for others, and yet a moment of comedy for different groups.

If you have been reading the blog daily you may remember that I speak a lot of emotions and how they affect us as human beings. Emotions are something we can not turn off, we can not avoid, we can’t fully control. Somehow emotions feel like the water you see swirling around in the image It may fee sometimes smooth and silky and lovely and sometimes can feel like a torrent and can wipe out everything in it’s wake.

Today my encounters in the world were varied. I was part of a group where the participants were talking about their skills sets and were trying to figure out ways to work with others in a more co-operative way. I met with a client knowing full well this was the last session we will ever have, and this led to the client experiencing a heap of emotions, more so because they wanted to maintain the support, but the work we did has run it’s course and they need to go out in the world and try out the stuff they learnt. And then I had an even stranger encounter when someone thought I was the parent of a person but then they were glad I was not as they were hoping to chat up the person I was with. This last encounter ended up in a very awkward shuffling away of the other person when they realised that they had no hope. For me this is a typical day, requiring a well balanced response to each emotional encounter.

How was your day today?

How do you deal with each encounter you have?

Are you able to ebb and flow through your day?

Do you get overwhelmed and then get stuck, being unable to manage?

Or are you able to flow like water just bobbing along? Are there any obstacles that make the emotions stuck?

Or can you dislodge the emotion quickly and level the waters out?

Time to take out your diary and take some notes when answering the questions.

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