Overwhelm’s great magical power? TO FREEZE. Sounds a bit dramatic, I know, but in my experience working with clients who are constantly battling overwhelm on so many fronts, I’ve come to believe it’s true. I was reminded of this in recent work with a client.

Over-worked, over-performing, and of course, underpaid – she was OVER IT, and connected with me on how to achieve her goal of making more money. This is an incredibly smart, accomplished professional, yet when it came to figuring out the hows, when, even the what to say in her ask, she was utterly blocked.

As the thoughts of what her boss might say and what could potentially go wrong flooded in, her mind began to fill with more and more details that were completely unhelpful, and she felt increasingly more frozen with overwhelm. What she didn’t realize was at the heart of that overwhelm was she was afraid she would get rejected.

What we were able to do together was get underneath the noise that was showing at the surface. One of the key tools was meditation.

Many people resist using meditation to resolve a very present stressor because it feels passive, but without finding that inner calm space you cannot find the power to release the root cause (spoiler: quite often, it’s fear) of your overwhelm.

After using the meditation, my client was able to quiet her mind and clear out all the unhelpful chatter and noise that was resulting in her overwhelm. She was able to get clear on what she wanted and also feel confident that she could communicate this clearly. In both our work of structuring her ask and in approaching her boss with what she wanted, the meditation helped her to stay focused and calm, strong and confident. Those overwhelming doubts and insecurities were more easily held at bay – what a win!

Are you overwhelmed? (I’m kidding, I know you are overwhelmed. You wouldn’t be reading this far if you weren’t!)

Here’s the great news: you don’t have to do anything with that overwhelm but acknowledge its existence. Here’s the tool I gave my client that helped her cope with her overwhelm, overcome her fears and achieve her goal of asking for more money. It’s a meditation that can lower your heart rate, really pull you out of fear, and cut right through your overwhelm.

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