Clearing the bucket
We’ve all had those days. The ones when we’re feeling brimful - just about clinging on, living at the most distant edge of what we can cope with. If someone comes along with another problem to be solved, or decision to be made, we’d be done.
We all have to deal with challenges, as they come and go throughout life. When we’re in a good place, we use our inner resources (and feel able to ask for help) to manage these things.
Now, imagine a bucket.
The bucket is our capacity to manage stress.
If we’re not in a good place, it can feel like our bucket is already full. The list of things to be done feels insurmountable. Less like a list, more like a mountain - of demands, issues, stresses, and tasks.
Rubble, gravel, sand
On a stress SOS day, the bucket is full of rubble, gravel, and sand. Each item is one of the things on our list. One of the things weighing on our mind, and making it impossible to even know where to start.
The rubble is the most significant things weighing on our minds. Perhaps worries about finances, work, illness, or an important relationship. The pieces of gravel are the slightly smaller, but still challenging, problems. The grains of sand are the smaller issues - not so significant in their own right, but adding to the general sense of everything feeling out of control (this could be something as simple as the house being untidy, contributing to the sense of chaos).
On full-bucket days, it can be particularly hard for us to work out the individual things that are troubling us. We just have a sense that everything is going wrong - it’s all out of control and there’s nothing we can do to solve it. As I type this, it takes me back to that feeling.
Tackling the mountain
The first step to tackling our overflowing buckets is taking some time to figure out the different items in there. Instead of the general sense that ‘everything is a disaster’, it’s important to pick it apart. What is the rubble? What is gravel, what is sand?
This is an intimidating thing to do. In some ways it’s the hardest part, because we really have to face down the mountain.
For this reason, it’s the most important stage - it’s the moment when we begin to see that the stress isn’t actually a single, huge mountain of impossibility. We can break it apart, and deal with it piece by piece.
Let’s break it down
The next stage is a case of lists. I do love a list.
When you’ve worked out the items in your bucket, you can split them to three lists:
Things I can change myself (or with some help).
Things I can make a start on, or influence others to change.
Things I can’t change or influence.
When you start this exercise, it’ll probably feel like everything belongs in list 3.
But the more we examine each piece of rubble, gravel, or sand in our stress bucket, it will start to become clear that more appear under lists 1 and 2 than we thought.
Stress SOS
The next task is to start to tackle our list 1 and 2 items. If you’re still feeling a little overwhelmed, start with one of the grains of sand. That might be as simple as tidying your room, or replying to a text that has been weighing on your mind.
Now, this is important:
Dealing with the grains of sand - even though they are not the biggest issues - helps to free up our capacity to deal with everything else.
This is the whole point of the stress bucket analogy. When we’re feeling full-to-the-brim, the issue isn’t what’s in our bucket, but the fact that we have no capacity left to deal with any of it.
On our worst stress SOS days, tackling the grains of sand - the quick wins - is what will help us to feel more in control.
Instead of giving in to the overwhelm and doing anything (literally anything) rather than taking a look in the bucket and picking the contents apart, I would invite you to steel yourself, take a (big) breath, and have a piece of paper at the ready.
The gravel and rubble can follow, but only if we have enough capacity to use our inner resources to get started.
Stress and overwhelm are partners in crime, but the grains of sand are there for the conquering.
