The Overwhelm of Good Things
In these short weekly notes, you’ll find:
The Well—something I’ve learned about living wildly AND well
The Wild—words from extraordinary minds who struggled with mental health too
The Way—one small experiment for you to try
The Well
There's a very specific kind of overwhelm that arrives when something wonderful happens.
You're thrilled. You're grateful. You're lit up like a cathedral.
And also: you need to lie face-down on the floor.
This is the paradox we’re rarely warned about—wanting something with your whole heart, receiving it, and then needing to retreat into the quiet as though you've just survived something.
It doesn't mean you're ungrateful. It doesn't mean you "can't handle" good things.
It means your nervous system doesn't distinguish between intensity and danger.
Physiologically, excitement and fear are nearly identical—the racing heart, the shallow breath, the flood of adrenaline. Your body registers magnitude, not meaning. It feels the voltage before it reads the label.
And the truth is, even joy is activation. Even good news is expansion. Even getting what you wanted requires the body to catch up to the mind.
So if you're happy and depleted, exhilarated and raw, deeply fulfilled and in desperate need of silence, know this:
You're not contradictory. You're not broken. You're simply someone whose system registers the full weight of things.
And carrying that weight—even when it's made of light—takes energy.
The Wild
"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final." — Rainer Maria Rilke
"I can wade Grief— / Whole Pools of it— / I'm used to that— / But the least push of Joy / Breaks up my feet— / And I tip—drunken—" — Emily Dickinson
"Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps." — William Blake
The Way
Before your next anticipated “good thing”—a social event you're looking forward to, a goal fulfilled, a celebration—schedule the recovery in advance.
Block the time after as deliberately as you'd block the event itself. Not as damage control, but as part of the experience. The quiet after isn't the cost of joy; it's the second half of it.
And, as always, if you find it difficult to take this time for yourself (as I often do), do it for Emily.
Do it for William.
Do it for Rainer.
