A few months ago, we started a project to see how much we can declutter our lives. Much of decluttering is paying attention to all the little spots where things accumulate - the drawer in the kitchen where it always seems easy to shove in that little thing that seems out of place but too good to throw away, the containers with spare items that we believe we might need someday, or the seasonal things that seem to hang around well after they are out of fashion, or long after we have lost interest in the activity.

One of my recent projects was tackling some backyard storage sheds. As I set out, I felt a sense of possibility and excitement, imagining how satisfying it would be to clean up everything we no longer needed. The morning unfolded into a sunny day as I emptied out the contents of a shed. After an hour or two, the shed was empty, and I turned around to find a chaotic heap of all the things that used to be inside on the grass outside. My heart sank. How would I ever make sense or create order out of this chaos? Everything looked like a jumbled, impossible mess. I did what any sane person would do: I sat down and had a little cry.

Feeling overwhelmed is different from being overwhelmed. When I recognize overwhelm as a feeling rather than a state of being, what I need to do is to stay with the feeling until it changes. According to research, feelings are fleeting, lasting around 90 seconds, and I know I am able to do most things for that long.

There are also known steps that help me move through feelings:

• Accept the feeling: Remember that “what we resist persists.” Accepting the feeling without judging it as good or bad is the first step in the process.

• Practice self-compassion: Consider what you might tell a good friend who tells you they feel overwhelmed. Now, say the same words to yourself. Researcher Kristin Neff found that putting a hand on our hearts, hugging ourselves, or acknowledging our struggle - saying something simple to ourselves to acknowledge our pain, can support us in the process of moving through the emotion.

• Recognize our common humanity: Just like I was not the first person to feel overwhelmed by a shed mess, most of our emotional experiences are more a result of the human condition than a personal insult from the universe. Recognizing that our experience is a part of our humanity without minimizing it is another step towards moving through the emotion.

• Turn inward: Consider making time to get curious about the experience and what there is to learn from it. What about the situation makes what might seem like a minor incident for someone else feel like a significant insult to me? What can I learn about what I value, fear, and believe from my reaction to the situation?

• Move: Moving forward isn’t always necessary, but changing our vantage point is an important part of managing our emotional experience. As soccer players play backward to build momentum, sometimes strategic retreats to recover, learn and reset support our ability to show up in the future. At the same time, sometimes even a small step forward can make a difference to our sense of how things are.

• When all else fails, remember “yet.” One strategy to practice a growth mindset is to add “yet” to a sentence. “I don’t know how to bring order in this situation yet.” is an acknowledgement of how things are while trusting my ability to learn new things. When I can’t see a way out of a situation, this is the strategy I return to most often - I know that I have found my way out of every situation I’ve faced until this moment, and I can trust that I will find my way through this one too - as long as I hold on to “yet”.

On this particular day, I let the emotion out and let the sun warm me. I had a cup of tea and thought about all the memories the pile contained. I reminded myself of the pictures we have of all those times. Then the thought of moving all this stuff suddenly surfaced in my mind! “I’m not moving this lot more than once more!” I thought and knew the only way through was to keep going - to clear the clutter and make room for new memories and experiences. I wiped my tears and started making piles for all the categories- keeping, donating, and garbage. When I looked up again an hour later, the impossible-seeming chaotic heap had been transformed into a logical arrangement of items. I packed the keep pile neatly back into the shed, loaded the rest in the truck, and the job was done! That sense of accomplishment that I had imagined had arrived!

Reflecting on this experience, I notice how powerful it is as a metaphor for life. In every project, there is anticipation of the work's outcome, which provides the energy to start. In most projects, there is that moment where nothing seems clear yet, everything seems messy, and sometimes, all I have is a heap of Post-it notes with ideas and a chaotic jumble of thoughts about what I could do. If I treat myself kindly and keep doing the next thing that makes sense, I can lean through that moment. When I am willing to be in the messiness for long enough, there is a moment when things clarify, and I experience a moment of clarity where I know what feels like the next right step. When I practice these steps, I know I will feel the sense of having accomplished something I can be proud of, even when it doesn’t feel like it yet.

I wonder about your experience of chaos and overwhelm. What have you learned from it? What advice would you share?

As always, I look forward to hearing from you.

Cecile