WARNING! ENERGY OVERLOAD!

WARNING! ENERGY OVERLOAD!

This warning came up on our TV this week and as I watched it gliding from side to side across the screen, I began to think........this message before me is so often how we feel but are unable to put into words. 

“Overload” is the new buzz word. 

Information Fatigue Syndrome (IFS), Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) and Information Overload Syndrome (IOS). 

The DSM V has added IAD as a disorder in order to whet the appetites of those in the profession for further research on the subject. 

Richard Swenson has stated in his book The Overload Syndrome (1998) that life sometimes feels like having a drink of water from a fire hose.....the fire hose is progress and our sinuses have never been cleaner!

I hear daily from young people in the 25-35 age bracket of ‘how tired they are’, of ‘how hard life is’. I believe this to be a product of the above but it certainly is not bound to this age group.

Our “A” type personalities, who live with their “carburettors stuck on full throttle,” are in the gravest danger. 

We all recognise the ‘A” types who are in denial of their limitations. It is becoming more prevalent and may eventually lead to overload and to symptoms such as “depression, heart attacks, work dread, ruined relationships, exhaustion and burnout”(Richard Swenson).

Some other symptoms of overload syndrome have been documented: Anxiety, negative thinking, headaches and driving too fast! How many South Africans do that?
 

 

Limits are there for our protection. There are exceptional people but there are no exceptions, we all have limits. We all have to learn and respect our limitations. We are not infinite....we only have 24 hours each day. Limitation is not the enemy, excess is.

 Jeff Davidson states that, “When your brain is always engaged, when your neurons are always firing, when you find yourself in a continual mode of reacting and responding, instead of steering and directing, the best and brightest solutions that you are capable of producing rarely see the light of day.”

It would seem that we are our own worst enemies, we will not attain our ultimate goals if we do not wake up to the fact that we need to work smarter and rest more often.

Rabbi Harold Kushner tells a story of some travellers in Africa. They employed some guides to help them carry supplies through the bush. After three days, the guides told them that they needed to rest the next day, they explained that they were not physically tired but” we have walked too far too fast and now we must wait for our souls to catch up to us.” I love that!

Don’t you think we live like this, moving too far too fast? But we hardly ever take that day of rest for our souls to catch up to us. The Hebrew for rest in Exodus 31:13, 17 ‘shavat’ means literally “he got his soul back.” God rested and was refreshed, restoring His soul.  

Your soul is your emotional-mental component as a person.

How do I restore it?

ANSWER: SIMPLICITY

 

Simplicity as I recognize it in this instance is “the absence of affectation or pretence.”

 “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.” - Henry Thoreau

Our world lives by beliefs such as, “He who has the most toys in the end, wins.” 

For me, "A person's life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." Wisdom calls us to simplify.

It is okay not to be all things to all people as we take time out to rest and find space to heal. We need to give ourselves permission to rest.

David’s Twenty Third Psalm:

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want,

He makes me to lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside the still waters,

He restores my soul.