Beating Burnout, Finding Balance

CHAPTER 5ON OVERWHELM AND ANXIETY

Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed from juggling the many things in your life? Whether it's your demanding workload or your busy family commitments — or a combination of both — you are not alone. Many people today feel constantly overwhelmed and don't know what to do about it. Many people I speak to feel so overwhelmed that it creates a constant niggling underlying anxiety, which makes them feel out of control. Our fast-paced world has created more stress, more overwhelm and more feelings of anxiety than ever before and we need some tools and techniques to manage this. In this chapter we will explore this in a bit of detail and give you some applicable tools to help you find balance in our frantic world.

11 000 feet above South Australia

There I was, 11 000 feet in the air and strapped to my skydiving instructor for my first ever tandem skydive. It was something I had wanted to do for some time for the adrenaline rush and to embrace my fear (I sometimes have a fear of heights and I thought this could be a good way to face it). I must admit, I wasn't feeling great because I had had a big night out the evening before celebrating life and drinking far too many Jack Daniels. Not a great idea the night before a parachute jump!

As we ascended in the modest little Cessna plane, I felt a mix of fear, uncertainty, excitement and nausea, but I was ready for it. The door of the aircraft opened just like a car door and the blast of wind immediately woke ...