There are days when I can tell quite early on that too much is demanding my attention at once. Tasks are waiting, decisions need to be made, thoughts jump from one point to the next, and before anything is properly finished, my mind is already occupied with what comes after it. From the outside, none of this necessarily shows. I carry on functioning, getting things done, thinking and trying to sort things out. Even so, something changes within me. I become more restless, start analysing more intensely and eventually realise that my mind is no longer really organising anything. It is simply trying to hold everything at once.
For a long time, in moments like these, I tried to concentrate even harder. I wanted to sort my thoughts more effectively, make decisions more quickly and regain control of that sense of overwhelm as soon as possible. Over time, however, I noticed that this often had the opposite effect. When my mind is already full, more thinking rarely brings back the calm I actually need. Instead, I tend to feel as though I am thinking myself deeper and deeper into the same state.
Today, I recognise this point earlier. Then I consciously take a pause, not because everything is suddenly finished or because I want to avoid the tasks in front of me, but because I can sense that, in that state, I am no longer perceiving things clearly. My mind is so busy that I barely notice what my body has already been showing me. My breathing becomes shallower, tension appears somewhere, and my whole inner experience begins to feel more constricted.
If I have the opportunity, I sit in silence. I do not try to change anything immediately. At first, I simply observe my body and my breathing. I notice where tension is sitting, how my shoulders feel, how my chest responds, whether my breath is calm or short, and how my whole state feels in that moment. It helps me not to force anything. I do not deliberately breathe more deeply, nor do I try to push my thoughts away. I simply observe until I begin to feel that I am returning a little more to myself.
It is often only in these quiet moments that I realise how tense I actually was beforehand. The thoughts do not disappear immediately, but little by little they lose their speed. They are still there, just no longer all at the forefront at the same time. I begin to notice more clearly what is happening physically, and that shift alone already changes a great deal for me.
On other days, sitting is not enough. Then I go outside, usually into the woods. Walking helps me in a different way. My body begins to move, my attention is no longer directed only inward, and it starts to spread back out into my surroundings. I hear sounds, see the movement of the trees, notice the ground beneath my feet and feel the air. I do not go out there to find a solution. If I continue turning the same question over and over in my mind, I simply take all the pressure with me. So I try instead, for a while, not to solve anything at all.
Sometimes I walk for a while, sometimes I sit outside beneath a tree. I do not give myself a fixed amount of time. I stay until I notice that my whole state has changed. My body becomes calmer, my thoughts slow down, and what I experience as my inner vibration also feels different. Less dense, less tense, more fluid again. I cannot measure it, but I perceive quite clearly that my whole system is beginning to reorganise itself.
The interesting moment for me comes when the tasks are still exactly the same, but I relate to them differently. Nothing has disappeared, and yet not everything feels equally urgent any more. I can distinguish again between what genuinely needs attention and what had only become so loud because my own state was tense. Often, the change does not lie in a new thought, but in returning to a state in which thinking, body and perception are no longer working against one another.
The woods, in particular, show me this again and again. Nothing there asks me to move faster. No tree demands a decision, no wind expects an answer, and the ground has no interest in what still needs to be done that day. If I sit there for a while, I often realise only then how much I had been working against my own rhythm before. I had been trying to do too much at once, and my whole body had been responding to it.
As that inner pressure slowly begins to ease, my perception starts to open out again. Sounds become clearer, I notice the light again, the movements of nature come more strongly into view, and more space begins to appear within me as well. That is when I realise that I am no longer completely filled by my thoughts. The world around me becomes larger again, and with it my own inner space begins to widen too.
Often, I then return to what still needs to be done. Not with more time and not with a ready-made solution, but in a different state. Many things begin to flow more naturally again. And sometimes that is enough to remind me that calm does not always arise when there is nothing left to do, but when I no longer lose myself in the midst of everything I am doing.