I entered what sociologists call the sandwich generation—caring for my teenager and my aging parents simultaneously, while tending to all the rest of it: my marriage, a demanding job, a large extended family, friendships, dogs, my home, not to mention my own needs and health. This phase of life is textbook dukkha, which the Buddhist teachings liken to an oxcart with a wobbly wheel creating a persistent friction that makes for a rough ride.
My calendar became a jigsaw puzzle that couldn’t accommodate all its pieces. My to-do lists haunted me from notebooks, apps, and scraps of paper scattered across surfaces. Sitting in front of my laptop became an exercise in the stress response, as I cycled through fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Things fell through the cracks. I missed appointments. I worried whether I was making the right medical decision for my mother, the right educational decision for my daughter.
One afternoon in my garden, I was hastily cutting down stalks of bamboo between Zoom meetings when I suddenly ended up with dozens of minuscule splinters embedded in my hands. A few splinters might have felt manageable,
but together, they were formidable—too small to remove easily, too numerous to ignore. Every movement reminded me they were there—pain when I picked up my laptop, gestured during teaching, or reached for my daughter’s hand. My overwhelm felt like that—not one catastrophic event but many tiny pain points embedded in my daily life.
In the middle of the night, I was jolted awake by the sheer force of my own forgetfulness. Every unfinished task reverberated through my nervous system like an alarm. I thought of the Buddha sitting beneath the Bodhi Tree, meeting Mara—taunted, tempted, besieged by everything coming at him. I, too, felt besieged. What would the Enlightened One make of this moment? What might he teach me about meeting it?
The Pali word for mindfulness is sati, often translated as “remembering.” To practice mindfulness is to literally re-member ourselves: to gather back the scattered pieces of our attention, our energy, our lives. I felt this need acutely. I’d become so focused on managing the countless demands—tiny and significant—of my life, that I’d forgotten to reach for one of my practice’s most compassionate teachings: the practice of taking refuge.
A refuge is a place where we find safety from danger. It’s also a place—like a wildlife refuge—where what’s precious, valuable, and vulnerable is nourished and allowed to heal. Refuge, in the Buddhist sense, isn’t where we go to escape reality. It’s where we go to meet it with greater wisdom and care. Taking refuge helps us restore our equilibrium and access our equanimity.
Buddhism teaches that there are three refuges: Buddha, dharma, sangha. Buddha is both the historical figure who discovered a path to the end of suffering and shared it with the rest of us, and also the buddhanature that lives within each of us.
When I’m overcome by overwhelm, I feel like I’m responsible for carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. As a woman of Afro-Caribbean and Eastern European descent, I know that my particular variety of exhaustion, as well as my resilience, is not only personal; it’s ancestral, passed down through generations, culture, and nervous systems. The weight I feel has been accumulating for a very long time.
As a way of taking refuge in the Buddha, I sometimes visualize his serene, unshakeable presence under the Bodhi Tree and place that presence inside my own body—not something outside of me I have to reach toward but something already here inside me. This visualization is a reminder that underneath the demands and urgency of the moment lies a part of me that’s not overwhelmed. When I pause long enough to remember this, I can glimpse the freedom that’s available—not just to the historical Buddha but to me too. The weight doesn’t disappear, yet I can hold it more lightly. Sometimes I can even set some of it down.
Dharma, the second refuge, is the teachings themselves, which we encounter on the cushion and—perhaps most profoundly—in our everyday, lived experience.
One of the most illuminating insights the Buddha offered is that suffering increases when we resist reality. Looking more clearly at reality, I came to recognize that a big part of my overwhelm arose from my belief that I should somehow be able to manage everything on my plate. Hustle culture fed this belief, insisting that if I were just more organized, more disciplined, woke up earlier, found a better system, I ought to be able to do it all.
The dharma pointed me toward a more honest understanding. There are seasons of life when there is simply too much. No degree of optimization can change that. During these times, we may need to grieve the limits of what can be done. When I stopped arguing with reality, I could begin making wiser choices. I could let some tasks wait. I could ask for help. I could say no. I could recognize that caring for my family, work, and community would always involve trade-offs and that discernment, not productivity, was the real practice.
The dharma also asks us to look clearly at the conditions that produce suffering—the personal ones and also the structural ones, including the unequal distribution of caregiving labor, the expectation of constant availability, and the disappearance of the village that once helped carry the burdens. These are conditions that emerge from a culture that has long valued productivity over humanity. The aim of Buddhist practice is not simply to become calmer inside conditions that generate suffering. It is to help us see clearly and respond wisely to the suffering within us and around us.
The third refuge is the sangha—the community of fellow travelers on this bumpy road.
Overwhelm thrives in isolation. It tells us that we should be able to manage everything ourselves, that everyone else has figured out how to do it. I’ve felt keenly the confusion of being capable but still not able to keep up, the feeling that my struggles reflect some personal lack of ability rather than the very human reality of having too much to carry.
But again and again, when I’ve named my overwhelm to friends, colleagues, or family members, I’ve been met with recognition: me too, and also with care: How can I help? The relief in that shared reality is comforting. It’s not that we’re failing, it’s that we’re human. And we’re often navigating genuinely difficult conditions without sufficient support.
When I open to it, I see community support wherever I look. An old friend holds space for my laments, listening without trying to fix. I hear a dharma talk that strikes a deep chord, reverberating with healing truth. At the doctor’s office with my mom, I catch the eye of a stranger accompanying her mother. Her smile says, I see you. Mine says, I see you too. All of this is sangha. Sangha, to me, is also the natural world. My garden—with its trees and breeze and even the bamboo—offers refuge, a community of care.
I won’t pretend I’ve arrived anywhere. I’m still startled awake some nights, heart pounding with the ominous sense of things forgotten or undone. But when I remember to take refuge, I’m welcomed warmly to my own capacity for freedom, equanimity, and well-being, to the teachings of compassion, to the communities that support me. My oxcart will undoubtedly continue to wobble along bumpy roads. The conditions of my life may not become simpler. But in seasons of overwhelm, I can choose to return to this practice, this deep well of wisdom and sanity.
Practice: When There’s Simply Too Much, Take Refuge
The next time you feel overwhelmed, pause before trying to solve anything. Feel your feet on the earth. Notice what you’re actually carrying in this moment. Then turn toward the three refuges.
Buddha: Feel what’s present in your body, heart, and mind. Remember the Buddha, who met suffering, confusion, fear, and uncertainty with wisdom and compassion. Remember, too, your own buddhanature, that inherent capacity for awareness, clarity, courage, and freedom that lives within you. Even in the midst of overwhelm, these qualities are available. Ask yourself: What would wisdom do right now? What would compassion do?
Dharma: Acknowledge reality as it is. Is it possible there’s simply too much? Can you release the belief that you should be able to do everything? Which of these burdens are truly yours to carry? Can you let go of what doesn’t belong to you and trust the teachings that help you remember that all things are impermanent, that limits are part of being human, and that discernment is wiser than endless striving and productivity?
Sangha: Remember you’re not alone—not in this moment, and not in this life. Who might help you carry this burden? Is there someone you can reach out to today? Is there one thing you can entrust to someone else? Can you allow yourself to receive the support that’s already available? Can you open to the support of the natural world? Is there one thing you can meet with greater kindness in this moment?
Spend a few moments sitting quietly with these reflections. You don’t need to arrive at answers. Simply notice what shifts when you stop trying to hold everything together by yourself.
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