Motherhood & The Brain
Unraveling the Overwhelm of Mom Life
Discover how to reclaim your peace of mind in the chaos of motherhood as I help you navigate the overwhelm many mothers feel.
I'll guide you in distinguishing between the noise in your head and the reality of your situation. You'll learn to sort out your thoughts and identify what's true and what's just heavy interpretation.
We'll address the pressure of societal expectations and the trap of comparing yourself to other moms, giving you tools to create a more manageable and fulfilling motherhood journey.
I will share strategies to handle anxiety and manage your emotions with grace. You'll learn the importance of positive thinking and problem-solving, and how to avoid the paralysis of perfectionism by breaking down big tasks, like work reports, into smaller, doable steps.
For your well-being, I'll show you the path to self-compassion, teaching you how to set personal boundaries and confidently say "no."
By the end of this episode, you'll be thriving in motherhood, balancing self-care and responsibility with newfound resilience.
https://instagram.com/the.help.moms.yell.less.coach
FREE GUIDE:
3 Steps to Reduce Yelling So That Your Preteen Feels Safe to Come To You, Not Fearful.
https://masteryourownwellbeing.com/3steps
Discover how to reclaim your peace of mind in the chaos of motherhood as I help you navigate the overwhelm many mothers feel.
I'll guide you in distinguishing between the noise in your head and the reality of your situation. You'll learn to sort out your thoughts and identify what's true and what's just heavy interpretation.
We'll address the pressure of societal expectations and the trap of comparing yourself to other moms, giving you tools to create a more manageable and fulfilling motherhood journey.
I will share strategies to handle anxiety and manage your emotions with grace. You'll learn the importance of positive thinking and problem-solving, and how to avoid the paralysis of perfectionism by breaking down big tasks, like work reports, into smaller, doable steps.
For your well-being, I'll show you the path to self-compassion, teaching you how to set personal boundaries and confidently say "no."
By the end of this episode, you'll be thriving in motherhood, balancing self-care and responsibility with newfound resilience.
https://instagram.com/the.help.moms.yell.less.coach
FREE GUIDE:
3 Steps to Reduce Yelling So That Your Preteen Feels Safe to Come To You, Not Fearful.
https://masteryourownwellbeing.com/3steps
Welcome to Motherhood from the Brain, a podcast guiding moms of preteen girls on how to navigate emotional challenges that are not addressed in school. We share real stories, expert advice and brain-based methods for handling tough moments. Discover insights to create a deeper connection with your preteen and improve your motherhood journey. Let's tackle the uncharted territory of parenting together, hosted by professional, certified coach, esther Babazi.
Speaker 2:Hello there, my friend, welcome back to the Motherhood and the Brain podcast, episode number 18. I am your host, esther Babazi. Before I begin, I just want to inform you that I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist or any other licensed mental health worker. On this podcast, motherhood and the Brain, I just share what is working for me in my life, what has worked for me in my life, what is helping me improve my own well-being physical, mental and emotional. I share what is working for me in the hope that if you're out there feeling overwhelmed, feeling stuck, questioning your sanity, thinking there's something wrong with you, I just want you to know that you are not alone. I shared some tips and hacks in the hope that maybe you might pick something to help you improve your own well-being.
Speaker 2:In today's episode, I'm going to talk about overwhelm. It is important because, as you probably know, or you know somebody who says they're overwhelmed they feel overwhelmed with all the motherhood tasks and the professional tasks and the I don't know marriage relationship tasks. They don't know where to begin. So that is why I am doing this episode. Let's begin. So how often do you hear this idea that women are naturally wired to be caregivers? It's been drilled in us. It's been drilled in women for millennia. But have you ever stopped to think about how that kind of thinking can lead you to putting everyone else's needs ahead of your own? Being selfless is seen as a noble thing, but when you constantly neglect your own needs, it is a recipe for overwhelm. And let's talk about the comparison game. I catch myself doing it all the time. I compare myself and my mothering skills to other moms out there, people that I meet, people that I know. I compare my skills, my mothering skills, to what society means is good or bad or whatever, and, to be honest, it seems impossible to live up to certain standards. It's a never-ending cycle of feeling like I am falling short, and the feeling of feeling like we are falling short is what leads us to feel overwhelmed. Now, I understand that this may be a little mind-boggling, but overwhelm comes from having too many thoughts. Overwhelm comes from you know. I like to refer to thoughts as sentences, something I learned from one of my teachers.
Speaker 2:Overwhelm comes from all the sentences that are swimming around, swirling around in your brain when things that are outside of our control or circumstances. Some people call them circumstances, Some people call them situations, some people call them events, but I like to call them circumstances. So when circumstances outside of our control happen, when things outside of our control happen, the way we think about those circumstances, the way we think about those things that have happened in our lives, can lead us to feel overwhelmed. Overwhelm comes from your own thoughts, my own thoughts, your own thoughts. It is never that you have too many things to do, no or that there are too many things to read or too much to do or whatever.
Speaker 2:Overwhelm comes from having too many sentences in your brain. As these sentences or thoughts continue to swirl in your brain, you start to feel overwhelmed. You perpetuate the feeling of being unable to cope with those tasks or thoughts that are going on in your brain. And if you are not careful, if you do not have the awareness, overwhelm can paralyze you, making it difficult for you to take any action at all. So the first step is to identify what are you thinking that is generating overwhelm in your own brain.
Speaker 2:And the way I teach it to my clients, the way I have been taught this, is to get a piece of paper or a notebook or whatever and write down every sentence that is in your head. It doesn't matter. You give yourself 10 minutes. We don't want to spend the whole day writing. We don't want to spend the whole hour writing. No, you give yourself 10 to 15 minutes and get everything out on paper. And the purpose of writing things down on paper is to show you with clarity what are the facts, what are your interpretations of those facts, what is in your control, what isn't in your control and what are you doing out of obligation. This is very important when we are learning to manage overwhelm. It is very important to see what are we doing out of obligation.
Speaker 2:Let me give an example. So you get your piece of paper and you're writing. I have so much to do. I never get anything done. I have this book report or whatever report, and the deadline is approaching. I don't want to disappoint my boss. Sarah dropped off a project on my desk. She wants help with it. She asked me to help her with that project.
Speaker 2:My house is in a mess. I don't even know where to start cleaning that house. I am already stressed because of the project or whatever it is. I forgot my son's soccer practice yesterday or the other day. I'm a horrible mother. I'm failing my kids.
Speaker 2:You write everything. Just write whatever comes to mind, give yourself 10 minutes and when the 10 minutes are up, you stop writing. Then you go back to what you have written and start looking. The point of doing this is to separate out the facts from the thoughts and what you're thinking about those thoughts and how you're feeling, because sometimes we mix emotions with thoughts and we don't. Because sometimes we mix emotions with thoughts and we don't, especially if you do not have the awareness. Sometimes people say things and they mean another thing. I'll just give an example as we go. I have so much to do I never get anything done. That is a thought. That is a sentence. That is not a fact. That is a sentence. So you write T. I like to write T at the end of that sentence.
Speaker 2:The deadline for my boss's report is approaching. I haven't even started on the report. That is a fact. Maybe you haven't started, maybe you have started, but you have the report. You have to submit that report by a given deadline. So that is a fact. Your boss gave you a report and you have a deadline. So that is a fact. Your boss gave you a report and you have a deadline. You have maybe a date by Friday, maybe next week, you need to have submitted that report. So that is a fact. So you write C or circumstance, or fact and a fact. How do we differentiate fact from a thought? A fact is something that happened, something that we can go to the court of law and the judge will prove it happened.
Speaker 2:Now, sometimes facts can seem like thoughts, or thoughts can seem like facts, I think, and the reason why that is is because we add our meaning to those things. For example, I feel horrible. That is not a fact, that is something you think, and horrible is a feeling. So now we are mixing a feeling with what we think. And we think it is a thought, but it is not. Rather, we think it is a thought, yes, but it is horrible. Is an emotion. I feel horrible, it is an emotion, but sometimes we think it has a thought because we don't know the difference.
Speaker 2:So you write, you keep writing.
Speaker 2:I have a deadline to submit a report by Friday. That is a fact. What if I mess up the report and I disappoint my boss? That is a thought. That is not a fact. That is what you're thinking. So you write T, sarah gave me, sarah dropped off or gave me this project to help her finish it. That is a fact. Sarah came to you with a project. She dumped it on your desk. Or she dropped it on your desk or she gave it to you. That is a fact. Then you write F or C Sometimes I say circumstance, sometimes I say fact.
Speaker 2:Then you write C at the end of that sentence. I don't know where to begin. My house is a mess. I don't know where to begin cleaning this house and I would take out the word mess. I would just say my house needs cleaning, because sometimes the way we think about things leads us to feel overwhelmed as well when we give things big meanings. So I would take out my house is a mess. I would say I need to clean my house, or my house is in need of a cleaning and my house in need of a cleaning is an. F is a fact. I'm a horrible mother. Like I said, that is a thought.
Speaker 2:I'm failing my kids because you forgot to go to your child's soccer practice. Now you have two things mixed here. I'm failing my kids is a thought. I forgot my science worker practice yesterday and I feel, and I think I'm failing my kids. There are two different things. You forgot the soccer practice. Okay, that is a fact, that is a circumstance. You forgot the soccer practice and you're failing your kids. That is a thought. So you write tc whatever at the end of the, at the end of what you're writing, and then you take for the end of what you're writing and then you take for the purpose of time constraints of the podcast we can't go through all of them. I'll just go, I'll just speak to.
Speaker 2:So you choose the report. You have to submit your boss's report by next week, next Friday. So you write I have a deadline to meet for my boss's report. That is a fact. That is something you can do. That is something you can break down. And because your brain is telling you you're going to mess it up, you don't have to believe it. I just have to state this is very important. This is one of when you learn this. You are halfway.
Speaker 2:Not everything your brain tells you is true. This is one of the most valuable things I have learned through doing this work. Just like the heart has the function of pumping out blood, the brain, part of the brain's job is to make up sentences, is to come up with all these thoughts. You can't stop it. You can try, but you can't. But you can learn to see things. You can learn not to believe everything the brain comes up with. So when your brain tells you you're going to mess up the report and disappoint your boss, that is not true. That is something your brain is throwing out there. It is not true. You do not have to believe it Because, like I have been teaching on this podcast or stating on this podcast, when you believe a sentence or a thought, your brain will go to work to find evidence to support that thought or sentence.
Speaker 2:When you believe you are going to mess up the report and disappoint your boss, your brain is going to come up with all the evidence to support what you're thinking. So when your brain tells you you're going to mess up the report and disappoint your boss, don't believe it. You just acknowledge that I see what you're doing, brain Noted. But this is where we are going. And then I want to teach you something that is working for me in my life. We call it, or I call it, living in the question.
Speaker 2:So when your brain offers you you're going to mess up the report and disappoint your boss, living in the question would be something like how can I do this report to my best ability? Instead of buying into what your brain is telling you, how you're going to mess up the report and disappoint your boss, you can take the same thing the brain is telling you and turn it around and say how can I write this report to my best ability? How can I show up for this report? How can I do the best job that I can do? How can I write the best report that I can do? How can I write the best report that I can do? And you'll be amazed. You'll be amazed at what your brain can come up with.
Speaker 2:When you ask your brain a question like that that is constructive and hopeful and full of curiosity, the brain will come up with all the answers. It may not come up immediately, but if you let yourself live in that space, in the question space, the answers will start coming. Maybe some won't work, maybe they'll work, but you test them out. So, in this instance of how can I do the best report that I can yeah, you could start with. Of how can I do the best report that I can yeah, you could start with. I have done these reports. If you have done these reports before. I have done a report like this before. This is not new. Maybe this is more advanced than the other, but I have done a report like this before.
Speaker 2:I don't have to look at the whole report. No, I can break it down depending on what report you're doing. I can break this task down and go by task Instead of looking at it as a whole. I take one task at a time. So I take one task at a time, and when you take one task at a time, maybe you put a particular task in your calendar on a given day or hour or whatever. People use calendars differently, but the way I have been told is to write everything, brainstorm all the steps you need to write the report down, depending on what report you're writing, and then take each of those steps and put it in your calendar. Schedule it in your calendar. I don't know. Tony Robbins said if it is not scheduled, it is not done. If you don't schedule something, you will not do it. So you write all the steps you need to write that report and you put each of those steps in your calendar.
Speaker 2:Like you keep asking yourself these questions how can I do this? How can I show up for this report. How can I do the best report that I can? And then we move on. I don't even know where to begin. My house is a mess. That is a thought, like I said. And then you go back into the living in the question approach I talked about and you could say I don't have to clean this house at once. I can start with the room at a time, or I can break the room into two. If you're going to clean the whole room at once, you can divide, or take one room and divide it into two and clean half. You come up with all these things.
Speaker 2:Or, alternatively, what is it that other people do to clean their homes? Maybe you could ask in your local Facebook group whether there are people who clean homes for a living, because I know there are. I've spoken to many moms who do this. They outsource cleaning their rooms from people in their local Facebook groups. If you can afford that, that is, and some people are very affordable and you don't know until you have asked. Maybe you can bring in a cleaning lady or cleaning gentleman and that person does not have to clean the whole house. Maybe they can clean. If you don't have the money to clean the whole house. Maybe they can clean part of your house, maybe they can clean the living areas, the common areas, and maybe you do the bedrooms yourself, like you, just let your brain go to work and it will come up with answers for you. And the reason for doing this is not to look at things as a whole in your brain. You break things down and then we move on to the next.
Speaker 2:Sarah dropped off a project at my desk. She wants me to help her do it. And then you go to the living in the question approach. How can I approach this in a better way? Because if I have a deadline to submit a report next week, I am not able to help Sarah with her project. Because if I help her with her project, I will not be able to submit the report next week and my boss will not be very happy with me because he is your boss. So what are you going to do? I have helped Sarah before, but I'm not in a position to help her this time because I have a deadline to meet myself. So I'm going to hand back her report, her project.
Speaker 2:Now I understand she may feel upset, she may feel let down, and it is okay. It is natural and and normal to feel upset, especially if you have been relying on somebody to help you with something and then they come and say they can't, so Sarah might get upset it. It is okay, and I feel awkward going back to Sarah and handing her project saying I can't help her. Now I feel awkward, I feel doubtful, I feel maybe fearful, whatever you feel, and it is okay. What we want here is to establish safety for you. It is okay that you feel that you're a little scared and doubtful, and it is okay that you feel that you're a little scared and doubtful and it is okay that sarah will feel upset. It is natural and normal and human to feel upset when you think someone is going to help you with something and they don't. It is normal and it is okay. And it is also normal for you to feel a certain way when you are going back to hand her her report. Keep doing this Now.
Speaker 2:I did not make it to my son's soccer practice yesterday and I'm a horrible mother. That is something that happened. It is gone, it is in the past. Yes, I forgot my son's soccer practice yesterday. Yes, I'm a human being and human beings sometimes forget things. No one died. My child is not harmed. I am not harmed. We are okay.
Speaker 2:You treat yourself with kindness because there is no benefit to calling yourself a horrible mother. Never, there is never a time there is a benefit to calling yourself a horrible mother. When you call yourself a horrible mother, never, there is never a time there's a benefit to calling yourself a horrible mother. When you call yourself a horrible mother, you start controlling being controlling of other people, being controlling of things outside of you, because you want to prove to yourself that you are not horrible. But what we do is we admit that we forgot, we dropped the ball. Like people say, we dropped the ball, I forgot. Let's talk about practice. But that does not mean you're horrible. That does not define you. I checked on the internet. I looked on the internet and found that the opposite of horrible is delightful. So I'm sure even delightful mothers forget things sometime. So there is no need, there is no benefit, there is no upside to calling yourself a horrible mother because you forgot to do something. None, you just beat yourself up and you spiral out of control when you call yourself names.
Speaker 2:Then we go to the living in the question approach what can I do to prevent this from happening again. What can you do? Maybe in the future you could ask your spouse to take your son. Maybe in the future you could talk to other moms in your local area. Maybe in the future you could schedule all your son's soccer practices in your calendar and put on and set up reminders a day before or something like that, so that you know, so that when a reminder pops up the day before, you can move things around and be ready to go and drop off your son At soccer practice and maybe watch them play or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:But the whole point of this exercise is to go inside of you. We have been taught, we have been brought up to think that we have to go out there and find answers, but we have to learn to return to us. The whole point of managing and minimizing overwhelm is to learn to go on the inside and see what you can do. I think one of my teachers calls it accessing our own wisdom. You learn to access your own wisdom.
Speaker 2:Another important thing to managing overwhelm is learning to say no. Did you know that no is a false sentence? Sometimes, when you say no to people, those people like I said, sarah, for example. They may feel upset or disappointed or let down. So you are going to learn to be okay with other people, feeling upset or disappointed or let down because you are not in a position to help them with their tasks. And when you say no to people, you may feel guilty or resistant or doubtful because your brain thinks that you are letting those people down.
Speaker 2:Your protective brain thinks that you are going against the norm, and the norm being that we have been brought up thinking that we have to take care of everyone else first. We have to make other people a priority in our lives and make ourselves last. So because you're going against that, your protective brain is going to wake up and make noise and be threatened and think that you are facing a physical threat, because the protective brain does not like changes. The protective brain does not like new things. The protective brain likes things in the status quo. It likes things the way they are. It likes what it has known and when it detects any form of changes or anything new, it thinks that you are physically threatened. Your physical survival is under threat. So it wakes up and creates the resistance that I talked about, especially if you do not feel good about what you're doing.
Speaker 2:And another thing that I learned doing this work. I learned many things when we feel resistance, it does not mean we don't have to do the same thing. I used to think that, for example, if I said no to somebody and my brain was like no, no, no, no, you can't do that, you can't tell them no, you have to go and help them. You have to go and da, da, da, da da. I used to think that my brain was right. I just could not do that. It was wrong to do that, but it is because you are moving away from the norm, you are moving away from what you have been taught, you are moving away from what the brain knows and you are learning something new. That is why the brain is creating resistance for you to change things up, to switch things up. We have established that by you taking on other people's tasks, you barely have time to do your own.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to throw this out there. I know this will hit hard, but do you always, in the case of soccer practice, if you asked your husband or spouse or wife or whatever boyfriend, girlfriend, to step in for soccer practice so you could finish your boss's project next week or whatever, so that you could lie in. Maybe you had a bad night, maybe you had a hard day and you need to lie down, like what is wrong with that? I'm just asking what is wrong with asking the other parent to step in as you lie down? I have migraines, so I know how important lying down is and how well rested I become after I have taken time to lie down. I just say to myself it's migraine time. I'm just going to lie down, drink some water, take a few paracetamols and lie down. And I do that even though my brain is like oh no, you should be doing that, maybe you should go, maybe because you took some medication and drank some water. You can show up, you can still do it.
Speaker 2:I just let my brain go on, because I learned that when I lie down and take a few minutes off maybe half an hour, sometimes an hour when I wake up I feel better. I'm able to do things in a better way. I'm much more awake. So think about it. I'll just leave that there. I know many people can't even fathom lying down instead of taking your son to soccer practice. They can't even imagine it. But if you have a migraine, like I do, and you're going to soccer match and people are shouting. Trust me, it is not a good combination. So when your brain is waking up and resisting, you, calm your brain down. That I'm fine. I am physically safe, I am doing okay. It is because I'm changing things up. Whatever it is because I'm changing things up, I say no to this person. I'm going to say no to this person and it feels threatening, but you have to have these conversations. Person, and it feels threatening, but it is like you have to have these conversations.
Speaker 2:I like to exercise at the gym and because now it's the weather is better and the days I don't exercise, I walk. And I have never liked going to the gym. I have never looked forward to exercising, to working out, never. But I still go. Like every time I go to the gym and I park outside and I have to walk in the gym, I just have to drag my brain with me. I'm like brain, let's go. We know this is good for us. This is what we are doing now. And my brain's like no, we can't postpone it. It's so uncomfortable, it's so painful. I'm like this is what we are doing, brain, this is what we are doing. Let's go. When I'm going for a walk Just yesterday I had decided I was going for a walk.
Speaker 2:Then something happened and I said I was not going. I went out at 8 pm because it is almost daylight 8. I went out at 8 pm because it is almost daylight 8 pm, it is daylight so I went out to walk. I just said to my brain no, we are going, it's okay, it's fine, we are going and I had a very good walk. So this is what I'm saying that our brain is going to always resist things that are uncomfortable because it thinks they are threats to us.
Speaker 2:But we know better. We guide the brain and we say let's go. We guide the brain and say I said no to Sarah, I'm not in a position to help her with a project, and it's fine, she may get upset. Yes, and I don't feel okay saying no, and that's okay too. Nothing has gone wrong here. When you start doing this exercise, when you start making yourself a priority because nobody's going to make you a priority Nobody, nobody's going to come and make you a priority you need to make yourself a priority. Nobody's going to come help you deal with your overwhelm. You just have to find ways to deal with your overwhelm. You just have to make yourself do it, because you know you will feel better after. Thank you for listening today. Have a good day, everyone. Talk to you again next week.
Speaker 1:Bye. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. Your time means the world to us. If you found this episode valuable, we would be immensely grateful if you could spare a moment to visit Apple Podcasts and share your thoughts through a review. Your feedback plays a vital role in helping fellow moms discover our podcast and enrich their own motherhood experiences. Take care and bye for now.