To anyone who's experienced overwhelm, and that's plenty of us this time of year, those words may be all too familiar. Whether the overwhelm is sudden or cumulative, chronic or acute, the feeling is one of drowning, immobility and powerlessness.

It's not just everyday busyness and packed schedules. When we're overwhelmed, everything feels too big. Making dinner becomes a monumental effort. Better eat out. Bills, housework? Forget it. Tasks that used to take only 10 or 15 minutes now seem utterly impossible. There seems to be no time for anything. So we do nothing.

Worse, we have no faith that this, too, shall pass. We seem hopelessly mired in the quicksand of "too much." We keep trying to will our way out of the quicksand, but the avalanche of demands is so enormous that we get paralyzed and can't take action.

We live in a very overwhelming time-much more so than in decades past, says Jan Boddie, Ph.D., a California therapist who trains individuals and consults with businesses on the topic. "Our lives are in such fast forward that we don't even recognize we might need help until we're drowning."  

In that cultural mindset, it's not uncommon for a friend or a magazine article, with all good intention, to suggest the "Nike solution": Just do it. Make priorities. Choose three things and accomplish them quickly. Go through the mail as soon as it arrives. Do a "brain dump" and create a huge to-do list with everything that you can think of on it. Now get started!

Not bad suggestions necessarily, but overcoming overwhelm isn't really about measuring accomplishment. It's about connecting with what has meaning for us, with what feeds and enlivens us. That's what creates the fuel for getting things done.

Thus, when we come into alignment with our values and needs, we find the inner resources and spaciousness needed to get on with life.

The first step to get out of the quicksand is to identify our individual symptoms and triggers for overwhelm. Our symptoms can be physical (e.g., nail biting, clumsiness, neck ache); psychological (forgetful, rude, defensive); social (poor hygiene, inadequate boundaries); or spiritual (loss of sense of purpose, unsure of what's important).

Triggers are just as individual: an important deadline, your boss using a certain tone of voice, running late. Noticing these symptoms and triggers is like setting off the two-minute warning buzzer: time for intervention techniques.   

Next, stop and consider what is really important. Rather than feeling overwhelmed with all that needs done during this busy holiday season, think about how you would like to feel when you look back at the holiday. For me, I want the holidays to be a time to have fun with family and friends and to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas. That sure makes checking off things on my to-do list less important.

And don't neglect to do those things that energize you. Take a walk, go for a bike ride, write in your journal or sit quietly for a few moments and focus on your breath. Activities such as these renew your energy and helps you to regain a sense of empowerment and forward motion. Rather than getting stuck in the quicksand of overwhelm, you can step away from it and then take action based on a revised perspective.