3 Steps To Take When The Interior Journey Overwhelms You

EPISODE 96 | 3 STEPS TO TAKE WHEN THE INTERIOR JOURNEY OVERWHELMS YOU

[00:00:00] INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Becoming Me, your podcast companion and coach in your journey to a more integrated and authentic self. I am your host, Ann Yeong, and I'm here to help you grow in self-discovery and wholeness. If you long to live a more authentic and integrated life and would like to hear honest insights about the rewards and challenges of this journey, then take a deep breath, relax, and listen on to Becoming Me. 

[00:00:36] Hi, good morning. Okay, today's live is going to be very brief because I only have a very short window. It's a very long and busy day for me today. So, today is day 21 of my 30-day IG Live challenge. And I just want to use this Live to answer a question that one of my clients sent. Okay, for this, she agreed to let me share this for this Live.

[00:01:01] And this is a question that she sent me. She said, "I wanted to ask a question: how do I pace myself on the interior journey when the speed of what comes up, mostly past experiences, childhood memories, et cetera, is faster than what I can process or unpack".

[00:01:23] Okay, so, I'm glad she said it's okay to - I mean, she also would be okay with me answering this question on one of my IG Lives because I know that this is quite a common experience for those who have been on the journey for some time. Okay, so, briefly, succinctly, okay.

[00:01:51] If you're in that situation now, in your journey, where you feel suddenly there's a lot of memories coming up, there a lot of - okay, so, whether it's recalled memories or sometimes you may not recall the incidences but you just find yourself feeling a lot more vulnerable, more sensitive maybe with certain people, and maybe especially with family members or significant people.

[00:02:15] This, all this can lead to an experience of feeling very overwhelmed, right? So, the question just now was that it was things are surfacing at a speed faster than she can process. So what What can you do?

[00:02:29] First, I want to say it's helpful to acknowledge, as overwhelming as this feels, first acknowledge that even being here, at this point, is grace. Okay, because reaching this point, reaching this point where all of a sudden, a lot of memories are surfacing and you're feeling vulnerable, it doesn't usually happen until you have been intentional and consistent in seeking integration and healing and seeking Christ, drawing closer to God for some time.

[00:03:00] So, first, congratulations for reaching this point in the journey. I know it's very uncomfortable and scary and overwhelming. But it is actually a fruit of the work that you've been doing earlier, okay?

[00:03:14] YOU FEEL SAFER
So, this is because it's when you have begun to build more trust with God, and that you've begun to build more trust with yourself, that often, some of these memories that have actually all along been inside you, but disconnected from you, are now, in a sense you could say, feeling safe enough to show up and reveal themselves to you.

[00:03:37] Okay, so, when suppressed memories - and we all have a lot. Especially since the old way of doing things, the old way of living life, most of us, we do it by just suppressing memories and suppressing emotions. Now, because you've entered a new way of being, they're coming up and it can be overwhelming, right? So, you are moving into a new way of being and a new way of living. So, this is a kind of growing pains as well.

[00:04:04] 3 TIPS
Okay, so, I'll just give you three tips. Try and be very concrete. Three things that I have found to be very helpful when I experience this in my journey. Okay, and it still happens from time to time because whenever we go into a new or deeper season of healing, this kind of experience can happen again.

[00:04:24] 1. BREATHE
So, number one, breathe. Okay, breathe. It's okay. Breathe and recommit your journey into God's hands. So, first thing, when it feels overwhelming, remember, not only are you not alone in this journey, you're not the one in charge of your journey. There's someone much more powerful who is in control, who knows exactly what grace you need at each point of the journey, and He has your back.

[00:04:55] God has your back. Your father who loves you has your back, right? Your heavenly father who loves you has your back. So, recommit this journey into God's hands and I would invite you to tell Him of your overwhelm and then listen to what He has to say in response to you. You don't have to so-called just passively take everything that's coming.

[00:05:16] You are an active participant in this process, okay? So, just reminder that you can actually take initiative by telling God this is happening too fast. Please help me. That was the advice that I got early on in my journey during a very, very overwhelming period of my life as well.

[00:05:35] And the priest that I went to see who became my first spiritual director, it was so reassuring when he just gave me a few concrete steps to hold on to. And the first one of them was actually exactly that in a sense, push back, not like reject, but you know, you're not just a passive participant.

[00:05:52] So, tell God, like, okay. You know, like this is a bit fast. Can we slow down? All right, so, and initiate that conversation and hear what He has to say to you. Okay, I find usually once you initiate, and the conversation begins, and I know - because I know the person I'm speaking to, she's a client I've journeyed with her for a while. I know that this is well within your experience and you know that the Lord will respond to you and you can hear what he has to say. Okay, so, that's first.

[00:06:20] 2. RE-EVALUATE
Second one, important, very practical - re-evaluate if your resourcing is sufficient. So, what what I mean is who do you currently have on your team? Who is supporting your interior journey, okay? When we move from one season to another season or one stage to another stage in our interior journey, usually something we need to relook is the support that we have, the resources that we have.

[00:06:46] What may have been sufficient in the previous season, when you move into a new season, and I know you're moving into a new season, will not be sufficient. So, you need to re re-evaluate. Okay, so for example, if you have been journeying thus far with certain kind of retreats, maybe with a spiritual director, I know you do have a spiritual director and it doesn't feel like that's enough right now to support you, consider adding, for example, counseling. Because you mentioned specifically, earlier like childhood memories and all these kind of things like wounds.

[00:07:17] This is something that you can't just approach from a purely spiritual dimension. You need the emotional dimension, right? The psychological dimension as well. And it's not your spiritual director's job to give you all that. Okay, it's good to have a sound and good spiritual director with awareness of the emotional and psychological components that affect your spiritual journey.

[00:07:39] But it's not your spiritual director's job. It really isn't spiritual director's job to support you more fully in that dimension. So, that's where looking for a counselor or seeking a therapist would be helpful. And then you will find that now on this other dimension, it can also support you.

[00:07:56] Your spiritual director will probably be glad that you're doing that as well because then when you go for a spiritual direction sessions, you will find that it's also getting a bit more integrated. You are getting the extra support that you need for the emotional and psychological front from another professional.

[00:08:11] Okay, we can, I mean, there's another different thing about looking for a counsellor and spiritual director. So, to the person who asked this question, because she is a client, we can discuss that offline, all right, if you need to ask me my opinion as to how to select a good counsellor or therapist.

[00:08:28] So, that's the second point; re-evaluate if your resourcing is sufficient. Who do you have on your team? Okay, and then pray about how to put together the right team for the new season that you're in.

[00:08:41] So, first was breathe and recommit the journey to the Lord. Tell Him how you're feeling about the overwhelm. Let Him speak back to you, right? So, let Him assure you He's in control. 

[00:08:54] Two, re-evaluate if your resourcing is sufficient. What needs to change on your team? What do you need to maybe add to support where you are right now.

[00:09:06] 3. CREATE MORE SPACE FOR SOLITUDE
Three, also practical, also very important - just as important as the first two points. How can you create more space for solitude and silence and rest in your life right now? Because it sounds to me, if there are a lot of these memories that are surfacing and it's really overwhelming you, you need to create space. So, if like the previous season, you were able to cope, it was still kind of in balance.

[00:09:36] You had all the stuff going on in your life, whether it's at work, with your social life, with maybe your church ministry, community, family life, and all of that. And that was kind of like in some kind of equilibrium, you're okay, right? Now suddenly your interior life is asking for more space, more energy.

[00:09:54] In fact, it's actually going to be drawing more energy, right? All these things are surfacing. When these things surface, well, the old way that we often respond is, let's say, I don't have time, I'm going to push it back down. But that's not what we want to do now, right? Now, we're saying, we do want to make space and room for this because we want to integrate.

[00:10:11] We want to become more whole. We want to move forward, not backward. So, then, you need to make room. So, I think, two days ago, the Live I spoke about also in response to when people are feeling disconnected in the interior journey, right? Like what I mentioned, I gave an analogy of a gestation or an incubation kind of period.

[00:10:33] It's similar to what you are describing when there's a lot of, let's say, memories and stuff that are coming up now that needs processing before we even go to processing. Processing is not the first step. You just need to have room in you to be with yourself during this time because it's a more vulnerable time, right?

[00:10:54] So, see how you can make room for yourself. That would include increasing your space for solitude and silence and rest, which means you need to re-\evaluate. What's on your plate from today, from day to day, what your commitments are, how you're living your life? Just like in step two, I'm asking you to reconsider and re-evaluate your resourcing.

[00:11:14] For step three, you need to reconsider and re-evaluate how you are, how you are living from day to day so that you can rebalance, kind of like re-jig things around to give yourself more room for this interior gestation that's happening. What's most helpful during this time is don't add anything, but look at how you can subtract something or some things from your commitments, from your daily life, so that you can begin to have more space.

[00:11:46] DON'T RUSH
Okay, but don't rush. There's no need to rush into any of this. Take your time. Pray through it, be supported through it, okay, with the people that are around you on your team that are rooting for you, that are supporting this journey that you are on. Okay, so, there's three very concrete steps for anyone who is feeling that the interior journey is getting very overwhelming, that a lot of things are surfacing faster than you're able to process.

[00:12:14] I hope this helped and I gotta take off for my own resourcing. My next appointment is my own resourcing with my therapist. So, I hope that you guys found this session helpful, and I will see you again tomorrow!

[00:12:40] CONCLUSION
Thank you for listening to Becoming Me. The most important thing about making this journey is to keep taking steps in the right direction. No matter how small those steps might be, no matter where you might be in your life right now, it is always possible to begin. The world would be a poorer place without you becoming more fully alive.

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