Transcript
Speaker: Hello friends, you're listening to episode 120 of Outnumber the Podcast. And if there's one thing that we moms know all about, it's being overwhelmed. Audrey and I especially are no strangers to this feeling. And today we're going to walk you through exactly how we can counteract the feeling of being overwhelmed to feel better in no time. In addition to changing our thoughts about feeling overwhelmed, we're also going to talk about some logistical actionable steps to take you from
Speaker: feeling like there's way too much on your plate to nailing this mom thing. Let's do it. Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
Speaker: Welcome back, friends. We cannot wait to talk to you about being overwhelmed today because it is a topic that Audrey and I are intimately acquainted with. We know all about being overwhelmed and feel like it's one of the biggest, scariest feelings that so many moms struggle with. It's what we hear about over and over and over when we talk to moms or have comments on social media. And so we're excited to talk about this. Yes, but first we want to tell you guys
Speaker: We want to give a special congratulations to Melissa. Her Instagram handle is mountainbuzzmama, MTN, mountainbuzzmama. We want to thank her for sharing her review of the podcast on Instagram. And she won a coaching session with Bonnie for leaving a review in the month of March. So if you've been hesitating about leaving a review on iTunes or on Instagram, sharing a screenshot, telling your friends
Speaker: You guys, we really, really need you to do this to help us spread the word about the podcast and help other moms find us too. The reason that Bonnie and I do this for free every week is because we really want to share our thoughts and experiences with you guys, like this week on Overwhelm. And we really love reading your reviews and we want our message to get out to more people. And you can help us do that by leaving a review and sharing the podcast with your friends.
Speaker: Absolutely. Thank you so much. I feel like probably 90 % of our listeners come from a referral from someone else. So we really, really appreciate your sharing. Okay. So I wanted to start off by sharing the definition. Textbook, dictionary definition of overwhelm. And there were a couple definitions, so I'm just going to read most of them because I think they kind of all apply here. And they are to bury or drown beneath a huge mass. I mean, that's literally when you talk about like a ship being overwhelmed by a storm. But that's what it feels like sometimes, right, Isabel?
Speaker: to give too much of a thing to someone, so sometimes it feels like we're overwhelmed by things given to us, put on our plate, to inundate, to be too strong for, or to overpower. So this definitely sounds like a bad thing, right? Especially when you're talking about being overwhelmed as a person. Yeah, all those definitions of overwhelm are definitely appropriate for the ways that we feel as moms. And there's a lot of different things that can feel
Speaker: that I am responsible for everything connected to motherhood, then I get overwhelmed when there's piles of dirty laundry or I walk into the dining room and the meal hasn't been cleaned up or just any number of situations where things aren't
Speaker: that can make us feel overwhelmed.
Speaker: Um, measuring up to the, the ideal picture that I have in my head. So I don't know, maybe when my expectations are too high. Um, so overwhelmed feeling overwhelmed. Also, when I take on, you know, an extra job or an extra project or different extra things outside of motherhood and make commitments that I really don't have the time or the space of the bandwidth to be able to keep those commitments. Um, so yeah, lots, lots of different ways and reasons why we can feel overwhelmed.
Speaker: Yes, I am so glad you mentioned the part about feeling like when you're feeling that you're responsible for everything. So I just want to share a little bit of a mindset shift for those who are especially in the early years of motherhood and you really are responsible for everything because you have all these little people that can't do anything or help you at all.
Speaker: It's very important that we shift into the mindset of being more of a CEO of our household and less of an entrepreneur or solopreneur, I guess I should say, if looking at your household like a business, right? You remember one of our early episodes with Mary Jordan about running your household like a business? Because if you do not, then you run the risk of then being the same overwhelmed, stressed out mom, only with big kids who can help but don't.
Speaker: So a side note, Audrey and I were just talking about this because I've been feeling like this in this transition period with a new baby that my kids haven't been stepping up to the plate. And so this overwhelm comes from knowing that I should be getting more help and I'm not and expecting myself to pick up the slack and that's not fair to me, right? Or to my kids who are not being held accountable. So that CEO mindset means that we are the supervisors, just making sure that the systems are running smoothly.
Speaker: We are not the ones doing all the work, because if you try to do that, you will die. So that's a really important distinction. Oh, that is such a good way to put it. Oftentimes, I'll tell myself, like I'll verbally say to myself, this job, you are overqualified for this job, and you are not serving your children by doing this job for them, like folding laundry. I'm overqualified to fold laundry.
Speaker: Right? Well, honestly, if you have at least a two and a half year old, picking up toys is below your pay grade. The two and a half year old should be doing it, or the five year old, or the seven year old. And it doesn't mean that they will be doing all of the things that they're qualified to do, because kids just don't sometimes, and sometimes you need to help out. But by relegating those easy tasks to the kids that can do it, you help them gain more responsibility and accountability, and you help take things off your own plate. So that's just a side note there.
Speaker: Okay, so we are going to start off this episode by getting a little life coaching on you, because that's how we roll. And we're first going to talk about a kind of mind blowing concept, if you haven't thought of it this way before, or if you're not actively doing life coach work. And it is that there is no scenario or situation that causes overwhelm. So chew on that for a second. And then, Audrey, you tell us what I mean by that.
Speaker: Oh my goodness. Yeah. It's like when my, my, um, toddler says, or my four year old says, he made me mad. And I, I just giggle and I say, he reached inside your brain and made you mad. And they kind of look at me like, did it like, did he reach over and put that frown on your head, like with his fingers, the emotions that you feel are information about what's going on in your brain. It's about what thoughts you are thinking because all feelings are caused by.
Speaker: thoughts that you're thinking. Right. So if this concept is new to you, I'm just going to give an example. Think in your mind about a situation that can sometimes cause different lines of thinking, often conflicting lines of thinking. So here's an example. Your husband comes home late from work. It could elicit the thought, I'm so stressed out when he works late, or I have so much to do and he came home late. That was insensitive.
Speaker: or it could elicit the thought, I'm so grateful that my husband has a job. Almost conflicting lines of thought, but nothing changed in the circumstance. Your husband still came home late. You just chose to think two different things. I think that we generally default to the negative thinking because our brains like to do that, but the positive can often pop up unsolicited
Speaker: Thanks to a recent loss or something. For example, if you've lost your job and all of a sudden your husband gets a new job, you're probably thinking, I'm so grateful my husband has a job when he comes home late. For example, after my daughter had her first seizure, that was very, very scary and we didn't know the reason behind it.
Speaker: I remember being so grateful to hear her scream the next day. Like she was kind of a big yeller and somebody made her cry and she screamed. And I remember thinking, I'm so glad she's here instead of, oh, she's screaming again, right? So that's just an example to help us wrap our minds around the fact that our brains are in charge of the emotions, of creating the emotions by the thought processes that they have.
Speaker: Yeah, and once you start realizing this, it's so powerful because you can control your thoughts, you can redirect your thoughts, you can decide to think or not think certain thoughts, whereas emotions kind of can feel like they're overwhelming.
Speaker: in control of you, but it's very empowering to be in control of your thoughts and then your feelings come from that. So think about a scenario that quote unquote causes you to feel overwhelmed. Dirty dishes or fighting kids or the room is too messy, too much work, those kinds of things. And then think about what thoughts, um, conscious or subconscious could be causing you to feel overwhelmed about those dirty dishes or those fighting kids or that messy room.
Speaker: Right. So dirty dishes don't have to mean anything. They're just sitting there minding their own business, right? But when you come in and look at them and immediately your brain thinks, I will never get to all this. Or why didn't my kid finish this? Or they should be helping more. Or my family members are slobs. Then in creeps the overwhelm, the frustration, the anger, all those negative emotions that we're trying to avoid.
Speaker: Yeah, and let's just say here that our brains, okay, so two things about our brains. Our brains are designed to look for the negative because that's a survival mechanism, right? Like we're designed to look for the tiger lurking in the woods so that it doesn't jump out and eat us.
Speaker: It's just a way that our brains function so that we can stop the bad before it happens. So our brains are looking for negative. This is what they do. And then also, along with that, hand in hand, our brains are designed to solve problems.
Speaker: just kind of allow our brains to think things like, I live with slobs. And then our brain will try to solve that problem by, it's my responsibility to train them up to be better slobs and then all this self -reproach comes on. Or we can
Speaker: We can change or put our brains to work intentionally by, okay, so we can start by asking ourselves if the thoughts we're having are helping or hurting. So asking questions is a really good way to put our brain to work because our brain loves questions, it loves to solve problems. So when we say, is this thought helping or is this thought hurting? Our brain's gonna start working on that to come up with a solution. Oh yeah, this thought is not helping me or them.
Speaker: And so it's going to be like, yeah, no, get rid of that thought. That's a good solution. Um, and then you can ask yourself what a more helpful thought would be. So for example, sometimes when I'm, when I'm, you know, just really in a negative breath, I'll say, or our situation is really bugging me. I'll say, what can I think about that would help me feel better or what thought can I think that would helps would help this situation? Um, or how about.
Speaker: my kids or you can you can replace a negative thought with a positive thought i just love to ask questions but you can also replace a negative thought with a positive thought so like instead of why is this room so messy with toys all over the floor so we can say
Speaker: my kids play really well with toys. They're really good at entertaining themselves with all these toys or I'm glad we have enough clothes for all my kids. Nobody has to share shoes. Homes should look lived in or a messy house is a sign of a busy family, you know, that kind of thing. We could replace
Speaker: these thoughts. And we, and I also love the part of asking my brain questions, putting it to work, kind of like giving it a detour. So it's sitting there, you know, looping on this negative thought, Oh, I'm such a bad mom. I didn't teach my kids how to do chores better. And, and instead put it to work with a question. So what could I think about that would help this situation? Or how can I make chores more fun for my kids? And just give your brain a little question that you ask it that
Speaker: gets it busy sidetracked on work and solving this question that's a little bit more in a positive direction.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. You nailed it. So many productive things we can put our brain to work doing. And one way I like to look at it too is instead of if I'm constantly feeling overwhelmed and maybe I can't fully pinpoint the thoughts that are causing it, instead I try to choose an emotion that I would like to replace overwhelm with. So maybe I want to replace it with contentment. I want to be content with the way my house is and the way my kids work, et cetera.
Speaker: then maybe a thought, what thought would elicit the feeling of contentment? Maybe I'm so grateful for my home or I love that my children are happy and healthy or any number of things. Obviously, it has to be a thought that you believe and not just like, my kids are such hard workers if we don't really believe that they're hard workers. But yeah, to work backwards from the emotion that I want, that's helpful too.
Speaker: This is a lot to take in for one episode. We basically just dumped all the thought work on you. We're going to stop with the thought stuff there, but this thought work is a really great place to start if you've been feeling overwhelmed and haven't even known where to start solving that. From here on out, we're going to give you a few of our favorite logistical tips for confronting this feeling of, I can't do it all.
Speaker: Yeah, and the first place to start in my opinion is to sit down with your spouse and then later with your family and express your concerns and the way that you're feeling. Just get it out there. I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm feeling like the expectation is that
Speaker: I do everything and I don't, I'm feeling overwhelmed. I can't get all this done. I physically don't have enough hours in the day. One cute thing that my husband does when he's talking to our kids is everybody hold out your hands and they all hold out their hands. Now count how many hands are held out. Okay. And they count. Okay. Yeah. There's like 18 hands here. Cool. Yeah. Okay. Wow. 18 hands. Okay. It's going to say no mom hold out your hand hands and I hold up my hands. How many hands does mom have too? Okay. So look guys.
Speaker: 18 hands can make a mess a lot harder, a lot faster than two hands can pick it up. And also, what if those 18 hands get together, I bet 18 hands could clean up a mess way faster than mom could with her two hands could make it, you know, just kind of make it fun for the kids, but get it out there, how you're feeling and that it's okay.
Speaker: Make everybody aware of the place that you're in. Reach out, ask for help. Make a plan of attack with a new job chart. I just did this the other day with a couple of my kids where we had a little situation change and one kid wasn't going to be available as often as the others.
Speaker: Um, for chores. And so we had to reshuffle some chores and we just sat down with a, we, we did it on our chalkboard that you just grab a blank piece of paper and wrote it down. And this is what needs done. Um, a meal plan, a laundry cycle, another system. We have a great episode about systems and organization and all that. Go listen to those episodes again, if you need a refresher.
Speaker: but don't feel like doing these things puts you in control instead of feeling like all this stuff is controlling you because like going back to your illustration of the ship being overwhelmed by the wave, the ship is definitely not in control. The wave is.
Speaker: And so it's our job to kind of, figuratively speaking here, get ourselves back at the helm of the ship and stop feeling like the wave is tossing the ship. A great place to start is both Bonnie and I have really enjoyed Jordan Pade's productivity course. Agreed. Getting back in control without being a control freak, that's like the sweet spot, right? Letting go of the things that your children and husband can do to help, but being in control of your own emotions, that's important.
Speaker: Okay, so then once you've created some new systems, and actually these two steps can be interchanged if needed, but this is just what came to be next was, ask yourself what you can cut out of your life. So just thinking of household tasks, begin there. Does your laundry even need to be folded? I know that's kind of blasphemy to some people, but it's really not.
Speaker: essential. It's really okay, even if it doesn't get put away. It needs to be cleaned, but does it really need to be folded and neatly put away? The controller can be screaming, yes, of course it does. But the realist in me is going, no, especially if it means it's going to fall on me. It's not essential. And I've gone many months where we haven't put laundry away. We've just pulled it out of the basket and we've survived just fine. Does your house need to be spotless? Does it even need to be picked up during the day when kids are playing in home all the time?
Speaker: right? I have to have like a kind of a ground zero moment of the day where everything gets reset, you know, I don't know if that's the right term, but anyway. But it most certainly will not stay that way all day with kids home. And that's okay. And just to tell myself that that's acceptable. And that's the way families live takes a lot off my mental load, right? Do the kids need baths more than about once a week? Probably not. You know what, what are you doing that you can cut out
Speaker: and still maintain the quality of life that you really want. Secondly, can you hire help, right? Can you hire a teenager next door? Can you ask a mom friend to come over and your kids can play and you guys can tackle laundry and you can go do it at her house the next day? That could be really fun. You could turn on some fun music and chat and catch up with a friend and not feel so isolated in all the household chores, all kinds of ways to find some help.
Speaker: Yeah, I love all those suggestions. Another thing to examine is your thoughts about having your kids help you. My biggest resource, my biggest to help resource is my family and my kids.
Speaker: And a question I find myself asking my kids often is like, who made this mess? Okay, and they'll answer the question. And then I'll say, so who's supposed to clean up this mess? Like, is it me? Is it my job to clean up a mess that you make?
Speaker: And just kind of get them aware of, oh, look, I, you know, I'm leaving a trail of muffin crumbs behind me and that's going to need to be picked up. Like they're just thinking of them being a big help resource.
Speaker: Okay, another suggestion I have is listen to our survival times episode. In that we talk about choosing your top three priorities for each day. The same thing, just choose three for every day and then keep on, get those mastered and don't do anything else until those three are mastered. And then maybe once you've got those mastered and you've got, you know, two weeks under your belt where those three things are done every day, then then add in one more and just try that and keep that consistent.
Speaker: consistently working and rolling for a week. And then maybe try one more, but don't add extra things to your plate if it's not working out. Yeah. And we're talking like bare basic necessities. So for example, right now, after having a baby, my top three are feeding myself and my children, showering myself, and doing some sort of school time. So that means if that's all we get to that day, which there are many days we do, then that means the house is a wreck.
Speaker: and I'm not getting work done. You see what I'm saying? Like there's a lot unsaid there that I have to just be okay with because right now those are the priorities. Obviously feeding my children is important. And then when I have several days or a week under my belt where we're, okay, we're zipping along, things are getting a little bit better. And then I'm like, okay, now everyone has to be dressed before 10. Now we're going to try, now mom's going to try to get some work done. So you guys are in charge for an hour, right? So you slowly add back in portions of your real life. This is basically just the transition from a survival time to a
Speaker: back to real life, but if you're consistently feeling overwhelmed, then you're probably in survival time. Something has shifted and you need to figure out how to dig yourself out. Yeah. As moms, we are capable of so much. All the things that we could do, I think, becomes a burden to us, but we don't have to do it all right now. If you're trying so
Speaker: Bonnie, you know, you've just had a baby and you're in this survival mode. And if you're trying to shove in too much right now, you're going to look back on these first sweet months with your baby and be like, Oh, I missed it. You know, because they grow and they're gone. You don't have to do all the things right now. There are things that will wait for you. And, you know, we talk about times and seasons and things being cyclical and enjoy the time that you're in.
Speaker: Like just, I don't know, I guess it's when going a little bit back to that thought work, it's when I think that I should be doing more, that I start feeling overwhelmed instead of just relaxing and settling in and looking at the beautiful things around me that I should be enjoying for the time that I'm in right now.
Speaker: Right. And those thoughts and feelings like, why are we so hard on ourselves? I think as women in general, but especially as moms, why do we expect so much of ourselves and then beat ourselves up when we fall short? Most of us need a good, hard look at our lives and where we should be saying no.
Speaker: Most of us need a lesson in how to say no to other people and not feel guilty about it. Most of us need to remind ourselves that we are a priority, so taking care of ourselves physically and mentally and emotionally, and then our children and families. One of my final reminders here is that we get to choose how to feel about our wonderfully full lives. When I find myself letting that feeling of overwhelm creep in, I try to sit down, look around, take a deep breath, and just count the wonderful things in my life.
Speaker: This house is a mess. We have a house. We have stuff to make a mess with. I have beautiful healthy children that are running around playing and fighting and just being so full of life. I have a husband who comes home at night. I have whatever it is that is, that are blessings that can help you shift more towards contentment and away from that easy to get to overwhelm will help put a smile on your face and remind you of what a wonderful life you really do have.
Speaker: Yes, that is something that has really, really changed 2021 for me is at the beginning of 2021, I started a gratitude journal and not in the traditional sense of people keeping a gratitude journal, although I'm sure that's a very healthy thing too. But mine is kind of a combination between a gratitude journal and a bullet journal, I think.
Speaker: So what mine is, is I just write down the numbers one through five and I write down five things that made me smile or made me feel good or
Speaker: Um, something positive about myself just to, um, I know I shared this in one of our Patreon episodes, but it's just to, at the end of the day, kind of resolve into this positive space where I think back through the day about some good positive things. So, and just little tiny, simple things. Like the other day I found, um, some cilantro volunteer.
Speaker: starts in the garden. And I was so delighted because I could grab cilantro and put it on my salad. And I wrote that down in my bullet gratitude journal at the end of the day. Found cilantro starts in the garden. Okay. And then, you know, just things that
Speaker: make me happy and put me in positive mental space. And what it's actually done for me is made me, through the day, look for positive things, good, happy, find myself smiling, and I'll be like, oh, hey, I could write this in my journal at the end of the day.
Speaker: And it's kind of changing my way that I think through the day. And the reason I started this was I was just feeling really overwhelmed, not by all the physical things to be done, but just really overwhelmed by all the negativity that was just living in my brain. And I just wanted to start changing the trajectory of my brain out of this negative mental space and into a more, a more positive space and not feel so overwhelmed by just being inundated by negative thoughts all the time.
Speaker: So that is one little thing that I've been doing that's really, really helping me when I feel overwhelmed. Just, you know, in the midst of everything else, crazy and overwhelming that was going on in that day, I found this little tiny cilantro plant in the garden and it was awesome.
Speaker: I love that. And it really is a testament to how powerful gratitude can be when everything seems to try to sink you, right? And generally, when we are feeling overwhelmed, it's because we have a very full life, right? And so it's actually just a slight shift of perspective and of mindset that can take us to contentment and happiness from all the things, right? But we have to be very purposeful in it.
Speaker: Yeah, I have another little mind trick that I do. A Jedi mind trick? Yes, a Jedi mind trick. Due to my own brain. And what I do is it gives me perspective to think about somebody else who's in a much harder situation than I am. So one thing that I've been thinking about a lot lately is I have a friend who has a daughter
Speaker: eight years old who was in a, they were out hiking, running around, they've gone hiking hundreds of times before. And on this day, a boulder rolled and pinned the little girl and her bottom half of her leg from halfway from her knee down has to been amputated. And this sweet little girl
Speaker: is now going through all the therapy and everything to face the rest of her life from her knee down on her one leg amputated. And so I've been thinking so much about her and her life going forward. And then thinking about her mom and her parents and her siblings and how much their life is changing because of this situation.
Speaker: And so then I look at my kids and they're being jerks running around, you know, you know, doing something that's annoying me. And I'm like, my goodness, I am so blessed and I am so thankful and not. OK, let me say again that this did not happen to these people because they're not blessed. It was just one of those things that happens, obviously. But I can look at the misfortune of others and be really, really thankful.
Speaker: for my life. And I'm sure there's other people who can look at my life and say, Oh my goodness, at least I don't have nine kids. Well, and that happens to me with my own life as well. When I go through trials, and I come out on the other side, I think, Oh my goodness, I'm so grateful, right? Like how have you ever
Speaker: thought when you get a cold, oh my gosh, why am I not more grateful for being able to breathe out of my nose? Yes. Right? And as soon as that cold goes away, you're like, oh, so something you never even think twice about until it's taken away from you. And so that's something that can really help us with that mindset shift is to remember the last time life was a struggle. And I mean, you might be in it right now, but things, life ebbs and flows. It goes up and down and changes and back and forth.
Speaker: And whatever stage you're in now, there are pros, there are cons. Relish the pros.
Speaker: try to stop dwelling on the cons so much and be so grateful for the fullness that you are experiencing because who knows what's going to happen in the future. So we hope that this episode has been a little bit of a glimmer of hope for those of you who find yourself in that kind of constant state of overwhelm. You are doing an amazing job and it is completely up to you to choose to feel differently about your life and we know you can do it. So best of luck out there.
Speaker: Thanks for listening friends. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to our email and never miss another episode. Show us some love by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing the podcast with a friend. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week.
