#45 - Vulnerability & Overwhelm
Hey, hey ladies. How are you? It is the middle of the afternoon here and it is gorgeous and sunny. And the landscaping crew is here on site and I'm hoping that they don't bring any of the big blowers or mowers over while we're recording this podcast. But if you happen to hear a little bit of background noise, It's just, you know, people out there doing their thing. All right. You guys, episode number 45. We're going to talk about being overwhelmed today. This is an emotion you guys, that I am so familiar with. I want to say that I have chronic overwhelm. I don't know if that's even a thing. And I don't think that thought serves me, it's just overwhelm. It is an emotion that I find that I have to manage my thoughts around so much.
So, let me tell you a little bit about my life right now. I just got back from two weeks of amazing vacation. I took a vacation with my girlfriends, out on private island property. And then I turned around and had one day back home and then took a vacation with my husband and some close family, friends. And went to a beautiful lake property and both weeks, had ample room for relaxation and for just, you know, letting it go and something that I noticed was that my brain really struggled to relax. It really struggled to calm down. It wanted to point out everything that I should be doing everything that I would need to do when I got home. And what happened, was at the end of those two weeks of vacation I did not feel relaxed and recharged and rejuvenated. I felt overwhelmed and anxious. So I look back at this and I'm like, okay. What can I learn? Because this is something I know about me, if when I go through these life lessons, if I don't turn around and go, all right, that happened? How can I do this differently next time? How can I set myself up for success better? And what I've learned from this experience is over the last couple of years, you guys I've created a business that is blowing my own mind. The Lady Sculpt community is growing and is so full of women who want to learn and want to know more and do better. And our competition team going into the October show is the biggest competition team I've ever prepped. And it's a beautiful thing and I am so proud of it. But I also recognize the way that I've created my business, my schedule, this podcast, my email marketing setups, everything. I haven't created room for downtime or rest time. It's all very. reliant upon me. Very little is automatize, very little is systematized. And I kind of knew this, but this last two weeks, you guys, highlight this in such a way that I could not ignore it. I was like, okay. So I came back on Friday. And this past weekend, I really sat down and looked at my schedule and my business. And I was like, what do I want to do? What brings me joy and creates energy and what is zapping my energy? What is not feeding my soul? What have I said yes to for someone else's benefit or for people pleasing reasons, which is a whole other episode or for reasons that don't serve me or aren't aligned with my business goals and values, right. So I just kind of did a bit of a business audit. And that gave me a very clear vision of the things that I want to achieve over the next little while. However, when Monday happened. I had three tasks I needed to do on Monday. And I went to get started on them and my brain drove right into all of the other things that needed to happen as well. And I couldn't shake this feeling of overwhelm and I don't know about you guys. But when I feel overwhelmed, It's almost like a paralytic feeling. I end up, if I indulge myself in the overwhelm, I end up sitting on the couch, watching Netflix, feeling shame and guilt. And then it turns into a shame and guilt spiral. So then I'm sitting on the couch feeling overwhelmed and then experiencing shame and guilt for sitting on the couch. And then I want to eat because I'm feeling shame and guilt. I know I'm not the only one that this happens to, I a hundred percent know I'm not. So I want you guys to know. But this is totally human of us. It's totally human. And yesterday I indulged in it a little bit. I did not do things that I'd planned to do and I felt all the guilt and all this shame. And today I knew that I would wake up feeling overwhelmed because I avoided all of the things I was supposed to do yesterday. So today I woke up and I was like, well, it's not going to serve me if I do the same thing that I did yesterday, right. We know that sitting on the couch and doing nothing, just enhances the overwhelm. Right. The thought I have so much to do that creates the overwhelm that leads to the action of doing nothing, just gives us a result of more things to do. Right. It creates perpetual overwhelm. So this morning, I got up with a better game plan this morning, I got up and I said, okay, do one hour of purposeful movement for you. And this is something that when I get overwhelmed, It slides off of my plate faster than I'd like to admit. When I get busy, my life gets stressful. The first thing to go is my personal self care which shouldn't be that way. You guys, and I'm still working on it. You know, reminding myself that that's so important because when I get up in the morning and I move, I get that workout in, I do, you know, some morning weight training or morning yoga. It creates so much more momentum and energy for me for the rest of my day. So this morning I did that. And then I hopped in the shower. And then I cleaned the house a little bit, got the laundry set up and ready and then I sat down with the list of three things I had to do yesterday. One of them is recording this podcast and we're here now doing the thing, right.
And the overwhelm has really taken a back seat because it's very hard to feel overwhelmed as you're being productive. Because when you're being productive, you're doing the things right. You're feeling productive rather than allowing your brain to indulge in the overwhelm. What I've learned about overwhelm is it's a very indulgent feeling. It's kind of like self pity. Which is also a feeling that I indulge in. So between overwhelm and self-pity, both these feelings don't serve me. Right. We're talking about overwhelm. So let's stick to that. When I allow my thoughts to go into a crazy town and overwhelm me, I know from a place of overwhelm. I am not going to be productive, a hundred percent not going to be productive.
So, the fastest way I know how to get over overwhelmed. There's two ways. And I feel like sometimes one works best for me and sometimes the other one does. And you may have one way that works best for you, or you may want to try them both or some days, one might work better than the other. So for me, sitting down and doing a thought download is my go-to. My first thing I did was actually yesterday morning. So sitting down and doing a thought download, getting all of your overwhelming thoughts out of your brain. Put them on paper. All of the things make a list of everything you need to do, get it all out so that you can see it in front of you and decide on purpose. What you actually need to do is what is real and what is just brain drama. Right. And then from there, what I was able to do yesterday is come up with three main things that would propel me forward three things I had to do. And yesterday, I think one of my flaws when I'm looking back in retrospect is I didn't put myself first yesterday. I took my dog for a walk. But I did what he likes to do instead of what I like to do, which isn't a bad thing, but we walked to the park, we stayed at the park. We played, we walked home. It was very hot. And when we got home, I was tired. I was sun-heated and tired. So I took it some downtime and I just, you know, never got back to it. Sometimes that happens and my goal is to figure out why that happens and try and live the most sculpted life possible. You guys have heard me talk about this, right? The sculpted life is just a life that is purposeful. So when I commit to doing three things, whether it be for me or for somebody else, and I put them on my schedule, I want to show up in a way where I do what I say I'm going to do. I get those things done that to me is a sculpted lifestyle. And I do feel like over the last few weeks even the last few months I've been living in a very reactive space. I don't feel like I'm winning at the sculpted lifestyle right now, you guys, and this is me being vulnerable and telling you that it's real. So if you're out there, try to live a sculpted life too. If you're one of my members in Lady Sculpt, and you feel like you're juggling too many balls and you feel like you're dropping balls and you feel like your life isn't sculpted right now, and you're not doing the thing and you're not achieving your goal. It's okay.I want you to not beat yourself up more for it because trust me, I know how that feels too, because I do that as well. But what I know is that just taking one step, and this is the other thing you can do when you experience overwhelm. So one is a thought download. Two, is what I did this morning, which is just pick a thing. Anything on your to-do list? For me, it was to do a morning workout before I even walked the dog. I let Dude out for a pee. He wanted to go for a long walk to the park and I was like, Nope, workout first. Came back into my office. I did my workout. It was so nice out this morning. I actually did part of my workout outside. And after my workout, I felt really good. Right. And it was able to perpetuate me into doing the next thing. Jumping in the shower and then taking 10 minutes to do the self care post shower, put on the lotions, wash my face, put on my face. You know, take that extra special time to take care of me so that when I put on my clothing this morning, I felt really good. And that perpetuated into my work and that's how I want to show up. So I know you guys, when I'm feeling overwhelmed, it's because I'm neglecting myself. It's because I'm not taking care of myself first. And that my friends are what I've learned about being overwhelmed this week.
So if you're in a place where you're feeling kind of perpetual overwhelm or chronically overwhelmed, or you just feel like you're juggling all the balls and dropping all the things and you have too much going on in your brain. Step one, write it down on paper, get it out. Thought, download it, write it all down. Step two, just take action on one thing. Hopefully actually, I'm going to, I'm going to add a side note to this one. On one thing that is for you self care, a commitment to self care first, because if you're overwhelmed with life, babe. And know you're not taking care of yourself. And you need to do that first. I'm going to suggest movement. Just start with movement, maybe yoga feels best for you. Maybe a walk to clear your head, maybe a workout, whatever feels best for you. Movement wise, five to 10 minutes of that will propel you into the next thing. Okay. All right my friends, that's vulnerability and overwhelm.
