Homeword: helping "Overcommitted and underconnected families"

Jim Burns and his guests often talk about the dangers of being overcommitted and underconnected as spouses and as families.

I see the results of living this way everyday - mothers, fathers, and families are overwhelmed, stretched to the breaking point. I see the emotional, physical and relational toll every day and the Mind and Body connection. Insomnia is specifically what I work on but I see chronic pain, cancer, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes. I see stress, unemployment, marital conflict, job stress, relational friction, depression, hopelessness and despair.

All symptoms of an epidemic of stress or inadequate ways of coping with stress. Fathers, mothers, entire families are running around, scrambling from activity to activity, in survival mode or "fight or flight", pumped full of adrenaline. They are like hamsters frantically running on those little wheels. Bedtime comes, the hamster gets off the wheel, but the wheel keeps spinning.The mind continues to race, the muscles continue to fire with tension, the heart and adrenaline continues to pump and the unresolved problems, the anxiety and the loneliness of the day comes crashing down on them, in the stillness and darkness of their bed.

That is the picture of "Overcommitted and under connected" I see people struggling with, the toll it is taking on families. Day in day out, night after night. Existing to pay the bills, get by, survive.
I can't preach at Kaiser or recommend patients listen to Homeword but I can teach some of the principles and pass along suggestions I've heard or seen work.

Here's a vid on Overload Syndrome (~7 minutes)


Next blog: It's not all grim. Homeword provides hope through practical help and can be a lot of fun too.