When Things Go Sideways

Do you go into overwhelm? Or does your brain go into overthinking mode? What happens and what can you do to move forward?

Transcript

00:01 Hi, this is Katie, and thank you for joining me on the My Senses, My Space podcast. And this is a podcast about feeling the world intensely, creating time to support your needs and planning your space and life to fit you.
00:15 Thank you so much for watching. Today I wanted to talk about when things go sideways, and I don't want to label it as going wrong because sometimes and I'm tempted to say things happen for a reason.
00:29 No, I actually don't believe in that. But it just kind of came to the tip of my tongue there because it's just kind of this automatic saying that people refer to but things can happen.
00:43 They just pop up in your life. We cannot stop them. They're just going to happen. And it can throw off your morning, your day, your week.
00:54 And what happens in your brain? Like, the first moment that you find out, okay, something has, the plan I had in mind isn't going to go that way, right?
01:08 Like this beautiful plan I had like written down the night before or even that morning when you're like, okay I'm going to, you know, take the kids to school and then I'm going to go and run this area.
01:21 And oops, the place doesn't open in time or there's construction around there or you possibly get into a little fender bender where you have to stop and pause and take care of that.
01:35 Our kid gets sick or, you know, all these things that your beautiful plans that you have can just be kind of thrown out the window, right?
01:48 So what happens in that moment? And I think it's important to slow down and observe what your mind is doing.
01:53 There are lots of us who jump and go, okay, I need to switch up all my plans and I, I, I'm kind of like over alert and overly like thinking things and going, okay, how do I adjust all this and so sometimes that can lead to miscommunications and making assumptions when maybe it's not as bad as you
02:18 think it is or as a, as adjusting, let's see how do I phrase this that you have to make as many adjustments as you are overthinking them.
02:30 It can just be like, okay, panic, panic, panic. What do I do? And I, I tend to be kind of this way.
02:38 I very much jump to a conclusion and I'm like, okay. Let's replan this out because I'm a planner and I definitely think way ahead and I'm trying to plan for not only tomorrow, but six months from now or even longer.
02:53 And so I'm just like, okay, reroute, reroute. What do I do? And sometimes I cause more chaos in that and that's okay.
03:05 Like it happens, right? There's like, oh, okay. I'm assuming you're saying this, so I'm going to go do this and I'm going to make other plans when actually.
03:14 The original plan can kind of move forward and I just kind of spun, spun out, right? So there's that scenario or there is the, oh, immediately going into overwhelm.
03:30 And you shut down and you just stop everything and it's, you can't even think of a way forward and it's like, what do I do?
03:42 What do I do? I have this huge problem. What do I do now? And, that's really hard to deal with too because now you have this completely unsolved problem and you have no idea how to move it forward and you just feel really, really stuck in both of those scenarios you're panicking, right?
04:02 There's, there's going to be some panic in that moment. And for each person the solve, the way forward is going to be different.
04:13 For me it helps to have some kind of plan next. And it puts my mind more at ease that there is like this next portion that I can immediately count on.
04:28 For others it's like, no wait, I have to pause in that automatic pause that like, shut down, could be just the body and the mind wanting to pause so that you can gather all the information and then make a decision.
04:48 So what's really interesting is to try to think back. To what has really worked in those moments that you have to switch up everything.
04:57 What has actually been the best thing? When have you seen the best results in then moving forward from someone else?
05:08 I think there is something to our bodies and minds wanting to pause to gather all the information. And I think for those who forget to do that like myself or who just don't stretch out that moment it's about kind of stretching out that moment and instead of putting big alarm bells on it just going wait
05:31 what is actually going on right now like just what is the assessment what is the observation if we remove the emotions what is actually going on right in this moment that's not going according to plan what is it that i actually need to switch up because it may only need to be half of it it may need 
05:55 to be even more than you think so yeah it's just really kind of assessing and everything and the the thing is is that because we're in these panic modes we often kind of turn off those observations observational skills that we have we you know we're kind of operating more in emotions and so taking
06:19 that time to just kind of like pause and looked at things objectively that means we kind of have to clear out the emotions we have to just say okay I'm really upset by this but I need to kind of put that to the side so I can really assess what's going on now I'm not talking about like if you are 
06:38 in an immediate conversation with someone maybe it's a confrontation maybe it's an interaction maybe there is a misunderstanding but there also could be bias in a conversation that you're having and you may not be safe I'm not talking about like taking steps to not keep you safe and not to right
07:01 a wrong immediately that that's a different scenario that people have to deal with all the time that are like no you are you know intruding on my rights you're intruding on like my space you're intruding on what i need to do and i have every right to be here and to conduct myself in this manner that's
07:25 that's a different thing what i'm talking about right now is like just when your plans and you're able to look at things neutrally because the situation calls for it then like how can we stretch out that pause and and take a step back when we are kind of emotionally charged about it why are we
07:50 emotionally charged about it is there something that you know if we can't go to say like the post office right when it opens or they're not open yet and you have to reroute yourself and go okay well that didn't work what is the emotional part of that that you were like really hoping for everything
08:12 to line up and it just didn't what part of that emotion what what emotion are you feeling what is that because we don't want to say don't experience emotions but there's something there that could be a little sadness it could have been like well if i got all this stuff off my list i could go home
08:31 and really concentrate on some kind of work that i'm doing i could really help my family if i did this something along those lines if you have the benefit of being able to slow down and look at the entire situation and gather more information ask questions right?
08:54 If it's involving other people how can we ask a question? How can we ask google a question as in what are the hours this store is open?
09:03 What is the steps i need to take to renew my passport? Or what is like. Gathering all that information maybe the next step even if you had planned to just show up somewhere and that didn't work out it's okay like there are people who research this beforehand and then they know okay that place is 
09:25 open. This isn't open yet, but I don't think we can just live our lives completely researching everything. I think sometimes we are just out and about running errands and we have to take care of something or we're like counting on a person to be at a certain place or an item to be shipped at a certain
09:45 , whatever it is just recognizing that there's a lot out of our control, out of our locus of control, right? What is within the circle that we can control?
09:57 What is outside of that circle? And I'm talking more about, like, what is outside that we need to reassess. So I know this is kind of like a lot to think about.
10:11 I think when we journal and we write, down our past experiences and kind of reflect upon them. I do a little tiny journal entry every night just to go, oh, that was kind of a hard day.
10:22 Things didn't quite line up. Oh, that was an easier day because like things seem to flow. Just having those kind of written down helped me look back and reflect upon the week or the month that I had and to know like how I can move forward.
10:46 Excuse me, with like how can I do this differently next time? How can I stretch out that time of gathering information so I don't have to completely spin out or if I don't have to completely freeze?
11:02 What can I do to kind of walk through the situation instead of running through or standing at the starting line?
11:11 So, try writing it down, try to reflect, try to kind of understand when you have the moments that maybe it's worth documenting and maybe writing some ideas for next time.
11:25 Not to be your peak, efficient self. It's not about that. It's just about bringing some more ease to your life.
11:32 So, I hope that helps and thank you. Thank you for joining me on the My Senses, My Space Podcast.