Managing Capacity and Overwhelm
Imagine that at birth, you are issued an empty 5-gallon bucket. Everything that you will ever be asked to ‘contain’ must fit in that bucket. If you try to put too much in the bucket, you have no capacity remaining to cope with additional demands and stressors. Your bucket spills over because you have exceeded your capacity to contain the events and circumstances of your life.
As you mature from infancy to childhood to adolescence and into adulthood, you are handed more and more to contain. You have the potential and capacity to process and release most of what life asks you to take in. But if the circumstances and events of your life are too painful or disturbing, your capacity to process may be overwhelmed. In this way, some life experiences get stuck in us and shape how we perceive, think about, feel about, and react to future experiences.
The body’s capacity to function requires access to a balance of resources including nutrition, warmth, and shelter. When access to needed resources is properly balanced, the body has the capacity to remain healthy and fully functional. When out of balance, the body’s capacity to function properly is diminished.
It seems to work the same way with the mind. How we perceive the events and circumstances of our lives can increase or decrease our mental and emotional capacity. The meanings we attach to the events and circumstances of our lives can increase or decrease our capacity to respond to those events and circumstances. The conditioning that informs our meaning-making can be thought of as our belief system.
We perceive the events and circumstances of our lives through a lens which is shaped by our beliefs. Beliefs that accurately reflect reality help us maintain ample capacity for processing what life serves up while remaining mentally and emotionally balanced. Beliefs that don’t align with reality reduce our capacity to process the events and circumstances of our lives. When our beliefs don’t align with current reality, we easily become overwhelmed. Our bucket easily and often spills over.
Janet is a single parent with four children ranging from eight to sixteen years old. She works from home for a large insurance company as a claim processor. Her job performance is measured by closed files.
After getting the kids off to school, she returns home and opens her computer to see another 20 claims in her cue. Janet pours another cup of coffee, notices that her back is already tightening, adjusts her desk so she can stand, and dives into one of her files.
Janet has arranged after-school care for the younger two children and has until 4:30 to pick them up. Other than bathroom breaks and a rushed lunch, Janet hasn’t taken her eyes off the monitor all day. She grabs her purse and car keys, frustrated that she is further behind than when she started the day.
“Maybe I can get some more files closed after dinner and bedtime tonight,” she thinks. Wincing at her piercing back pain and dull headache, she pulls out of the driveway and points her car in the direction of the child-care center. Later that night, close to midnight, she collapses into bed but doesn’t fall asleep until about 2 AM. Four hours later she wakes up a few minutes before the alarm and starts all over again.
Many of us can push and push well past what we believe we are capable of. When, eventually we become overwhelmed, we lose the capacity to respond effectively to the events or circumstances of our lives. We may procrastinate, take short cuts, compromise our values, be short-tempered, become critical of others, feel anxious, or sink into depression. In an unconscious effort to withdraw from the external activations of life, we may find numbing distractions and develop other strategies to buffer ourselves from the demands of life.
Capacity is the maximum amount something or someone can contain or produce. Mental and emotional capacity is the maximum range and depth of thoughts and emotions someone can process at once. When the events and circumstances of life activate internal responses that exceed our mental and emotional capacity, our bucket of capacity becomes overloaded. We become overwhelmed.
To produce desirable outcomes, our behaviors must cultivate conditions that make those outcomes possible. But when life’s circumstances and conditions push us beyond our mental and emotional capacity, we become overwhelmed and lose the ability to effectively respond or to show up in life as the best versions of ourselves.
Bart is a self-employed software engineer. After working for several large corporations, he decided to be his own boss and began working as an independent contractor. Scanning through his email, he finds a notice from his biggest account. They have decided not to renew their annual contract.
Despite his love for software engineering, Bart doesn’t care for the ups and downs of self-employment. He wonders where he will he find another client to replace the income he is about to lose.
When Bart’s wife, Laura comes home from her job, she asks him about his day. Bart thinks about telling her he is losing the account but decides against it. No need to worry her too. They’re already dealing with the surprise expenses of car repairs and a new refrigerator. Talking about money can be dangerous so he keeps it to himself as the knot in his gut tightens. Things will work out, he tells himself.
Laura senses that something is up and asks Bart about it, but he reassures her that everything is just fine. Bart has forgotten that it’s Tuesday. It’s his turn to cook but he has forgotten to pull something out for dinner. He opens his computer and orders dinner to be delivered to the house.
Both Bart and Janet, the mother of four, are feeling overwhelmed by the circumstances of their lives. Neither is happy with how things are going but neither knows what to do about it. Both have been conditioned to push themselves past their mental and emotional limits and have accepted the costs of feeling overwhelmed as part of what it means to be a responsible adult.
Janet and Bart share a problem many of us face. They operate their lives at maximum capacity and are running on fumes. They are overwhelmed by the demands of their lives and have lost access to precious internal resources that could help them solve the problems that are activating their internal distress.
Without a capacity management plan, overwhelm can easily become a way of life. So, what is there to do about it?
One option is to continue being buffeted around by the events and circumstances of life. Lacking a plan or a skillset that manages capacity and overwhelm, life dictates whether you are suffering or happy.
Another option is to develop a skillset and a plan to manage your capacity. This article may have increased your awareness about the problem. If so, you’ve already taken a first step toward a solution. You can’t solve a problem you aren’t aware of.
Over the next week, continue to increase your awareness. Click this link to download a Capacity Log, a tool I created to help you increase awareness and begin to develop a skillset for capacity management. As you become aware of what Increases capacity and what reduces it, you can make a plan to bring you back into balance. The goal of your capacity management plan is to increase your capacity so you can access to the innate resources that will help you stay in balance and enjoy the life you want.
