Handle, Helm

A woman I admire pointed out that within overwhelm is the word helm. Find a thing to take hold of, she advised, and a path forward.

Another person I admire offered a reframe: overwhelm is a feeling that happens when there is a lot going on. We feel swamped, inundated. Another way to look at overwhelm, though, is an abundance of opportunity — many paths forward, many options. Which looks interesting to you now?

Sometimes we’re inundated with an abundance of opportunities, none of which look particularly like the way we’d like to proceed. Which brings me to handling it. Maybe I should call it helming it. Here’s my go to wisdom on that.

If my own experience had taught me anything, it was that, if a thing had to be done, it could be done. - Gertrude Lawrence (via)

"If I could go back, I'd coach myself. I'd be the woman who taught me how to stand up, how to want things, how to ask for them. I'd be the woman who says, your mind, your imagination, they are everything. Look how beautiful. You deserve to sit at the table. The radiance falls on all of us." - Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water

The women whom I love and admire for their strength and grace, did not get that way because shit worked out. They got that way because shit went wrong, and they handled it. They handled it in a thousand different ways, on a thousand different days, but they handled it. Those women are my superheroes. - Elizabeth Gilbert