Squashed Under Overwhelm

I can’t believe I am saying this to you but its true. 

I don’t really get overwhelmed anymore. 

And let me be clear, it for sure isn’t because I have less on my plate. Actually the opposite is true. I have more responsibilities now then ever, but yet I am not overwhelmed. 

I know you want to know, how is that possible? Tell me how we let go of the overwhelm Brooke! 

Before I tell you the how…. I want you to understand where overwhelm comes from.

Life Coaching 101. Overwhelm is NOT caused by what is on our to do list. It’s NEVER caused by what’s going on in our life, it is caused by our thinking. 

Let’s look at these four types of troublesome thinking that leads us to MAJOR OVERWHELM>>>>

The first is All or Nothing Thinking. Yes, you think there are only two ways to do anything. It’s black or it’s white. If you can’t handle all of it, you don’t do any of it. This way of thinking makes you feel more and more overwhelmed. (Although there are a hundreds of choices between all or nothing)

The second type of thinking is Should Thinking. Should thinking brings us to a place of judgement of ourself.  A good way to know if “should thinking” is serving you is to check in on your motivation scale. Does this way of thinking motivate me? A lot of times the answer is no. Should thinking STOPS any motivation. 

Then there is Perfectionist thinking. Perfectionism is paralyzing. We have put on so much pressure that what we need to do needs to be perfect, that a lot of times it freezes us in time and space. It makes it impossible for us to move forward at all. Therefore feeling more overwhelmed. 

Lastly is, People pleasing thinking. This is one of my all time favorites. This is the one that freed me from overwhelm the most. I used to focus so much on what the people around me “needed” that I spent all of my time doing things to make OTHERS happy. Meanwhile I was making myself miserable and crazy. 

Regardless of how we got to this place of overwhelm I want to give you some ways out of it. 

First thing is this….

“I only have to do one thing at a time.” 

This is the thought that grounds me. It allows my brain go from “overwhelm energy” to “doing energy”. 

When we are in overwhelm energy, lets be honest. We don’t do much. We complain how much we have on our plate, making us feel more and more overwhelmed, seeing more and more evidence why we feel this way. We support our overwhelm with perfectionist thinking, all or nothing thinking, and especially SHOULD thinking. We might be spinning our wheels exerting lots of energy (and eating lots of chocolate) but we have absolutely NO traction and don’t move forward at all. 

But this little thought “I only have to do one thing at a time” allows me to breathe in the reality here. Make a decision on ONE task and move forward. It’s true, one task. Let’s do it. 

BUT then we need CONSTRAINT & DISCIPLINE. 

We have made a decision on the one thing we are going to work on. We then have to “have our own back” and stay true to what we said we were going to do. We keep bringing ourself back refocusing on the “one thing”. 

BECAUSE…. What happens when we don’t constrain is we then start questioning ourself, we start getting confused, overwhelmed again. We fall into decision fatigue again, not knowing even what the BEST thing to do is. 

Remind yourself, my brain is trying to bring me back to overwhelm. Yes, our lower brain (our caveman brain) loves to keep us in overwhelm. Overwhelm keeps our brain safe. It keeps us in the cave. It isn’t taking risk of doing something “wrong” or exerting more energy. It has us right where it wants us. 

This is what I want you to understand. Overwhelm is an indulgent emotion. What that means is that our brain loves to stay in this state. It “indulges” in overwhelm. It’s an emotion that is super comfortable to you. Other indulgent emotions include confusion (one of my favorites), worry (aka anxiety), doubt, and exhaustion. It’s very familiar to our brain so it wants to stay in these spaces. To get out of it we have to do the thought work, make decisions, move forward and “have our own back”.

Asking yourself to consistently do thought work and make decisions is what prevents overwhelm. 

Momma, I see you. That’s why I’m writing this. I know you feel overwhelmed, your squished under the unbearable weight of your thinking. I can help you out of there. I want you to be free of all of it, I want you to feel certain and sure. I want you to feel like the powerful, capable, productive woman that you are! This is available to you.