Feeling Overwhelmed? Here’s What to Do When Everything Feels Like Too Much, with co-host Danielle Benzon

You are listening to The Awakening Woman on the Rise. If you are a woman who is seeking to live

a more authentic life but are feeling not enough to step out fully just yet, you are in the right

place. If you are a woman who is looking to live your personal truth and make the impact you truly

desire, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Wendy Yacboski. Let's step out in this together.

So welcome to session two, and I have a wonderful surprise for you, and that is that I am joined

by a very good friend and colleague, Danielle Benzon, and we are discussing day-to-day topics

that not only come up for us, but I bet they come up for you too. So I invite you to listen

to each episode, see what sparks for you, and take it from there. Welcome, welcome, welcome everybody

to Wednesday Wisdom with Wendy and Danielle. We are feeling a little bit tired today, so I think

that's what we're going to talk about. It's wonderful how the the topic just presents itself.

Yeah, so thank you for being here with me today, Wendy. Oh, thank you so much, Danielle. I love our

time together as always. As always, such a pleasure. We are both pretty frustrated with technology,

and also with our ever-expanding to-do lists. I don't know about you, but my to-do list never

gets shorter. It only gets longer, and I find that kind of annoying. How about you, Wendy?

Does your to-do list shrink and expand, or how many different ways does it go?

It does do both. There was a time where it felt like it was just expanding, and I had

the neatest experience that has stuck with me. I was feeling so overwhelmed with everything,

and somehow, out of the blue, it was, I guess, an intuitive hit or whatever it was.

But I heard this voice in me say, Wendy, just pick one. Because I was going to a place where

everything seemed to be done all at once, and it was just spiraling, right? That is

what I did. Obviously, I was in a place enough where I needed support, and that was the support

that came. It was the start of something really wonderful in that I worked on that one thing,

either completed it or certainly did as much as I felt comfortable doing, and then I chose

another thing. That can be helpful, but I think it took me a while, a long time, not that day,

but over a period of feeling overwhelmed so often. I always seem to get myself to that place

of overwhelm where I'm expecting way more of myself, way more of the time that I think it would

take. It was feeling futile and hopeless and helpless. The only thing that really helped me

was really just doing one thing. It was the wisest advice that I think I've ever had.

I certainly do know that prioritization can be, maybe you have another word for that,

I always go to prioritization, because it would be really good to do the thing that gives us the

most bang for our buck. Having said that, in feeling overwhelmed, sometimes I need to do

something that I feel like I know how to do, so it can almost build my confidence back.

Have we talked about this, the whole eat the frog kind of concept? Have we talked about that

already? I'm familiar with it, but I don't know if we've talked about it. That's the whole eat the

frog concept. As someone with anxiety, that doesn't work for me. I will sit and stare for

ages. I have to stack wins. Sometimes I have the energy. Whenever I try and attack my task list,

I have two steps to it. My first step is to check in with myself. I have to go, okay,

how much time and energy do I have at this moment? Sometimes I've only got half an hour between calls

and I also have to eat, or I maybe have an hour but I'm really tired, or maybe I have an hour and

I'm super energized. I have to check in with myself and go, okay, how much time and energy do I have?

Given the time and energy that I have and given what's on my task list, I'm pretty good at

prioritizing my task list as a separate thing. I do that every morning. I prioritize my task list.

I look at the top thing on the task list and I go, can I do that? If the answer is yes, then I do

it. If it's not, I go to the next thing on the task list and I say, can I do that? I essentially

just go down until I find something that I have the time and the energy for because I can't always

do the most important thing. I don't always have the time. I don't always have the emotional

fortitude. But if I do something, it's better than nothing. That's my little negotiation with

myself. I do do that window thing of important versus urgent. I do do that as well, which does

help. That is so helpful intellectually, just being transparent. It just feels like another

darn thing to do. Yeah, I really have to. It's true. There's a whole emotional element to getting

things done, which I find it's very easy to prioritize when you disassociate yourself from

the task and you're like, well, objectively, these are the things that need to get done.

But when it comes to actually doing them, there's a whole emotional element there that doesn't get

taken into account when I'm doing the objective prioritization. You know, Danielle, I'm just

reminded of, I believe it was Einstein that said that we can't solve the problem at the level of

the problem. So maybe we actually need to get away from the problem, quote unquote, and

get some fresh air, do some breathing, do something that shifts the state.

Because I'm sure you feel the same way, and our listeners will too, is that the more we try to

effort a solution or even to do a thing, the less fruitful it is.

Yes. And this reminds me of a conversation I was having with someone about stage fright recently,

and about how when we're nervous, we tend to kind of clamp up and close down.

And like sitting in front of a blank page to write something,

it, you kind of get stuck. And the worst thing you can do is stay still. When you're nervous,

the best thing you can do is move, walk around, sing a song, do a dance. And it allows the energy

to move through you and out of you. Whereas if you try to hold on to, you're like, I will push

these nerves down and make them obey me. Somehow they always win when we try to do that. So yeah,

I think you're right. Taking a break, getting some fresh air, having a dance break,

whatever. It gets us into motion. And as a friend of mine always likes to say,

you can't steer a parked car. So once the car is moving, it's easier to steer it in the right

direction. Yes. Not my thing. Yeah. You know, something that you were saying a bit earlier,

Danielle, that you say, how much time do I have? What do I need to do? How much time do I have?

And I need to eat. Something that when I was working in a corporate office,

so many people were so busy that they took their lunch to their desk. So they're doing it all at

once. But it's not the same as being somewhere else away from the environment that you're

struggling with or that we're struggling with. So I think it's more building on what we're saying

in terms of movement and change of a shift of state, a shift of energy to be able to help us.

Yeah, it's interesting. For me, I find it depends on what mood I'm in. So if I'm in a good focus

state and I'm getting things done, I'd much rather eat at my desk because then I can keep going.

If I take a break and I'm tired, so I'll often have dinner with James in the living room

and I work in the office and I don't want to leave. If I'm tired, if I take dinner too late,

I don't want to come back to my desk and fight with myself and get comfy and so nice. So that

is a danger as well. So I have to kind of negotiate that like, how tired am I? Because once I leave my

desk, I may not want to come back. I mean, I'm hoping not everyone is in burnout and overwhelm.

I have definitely kind of painted myself into a corner this month, but I'm doing okay. I'm

plodding along. But yeah, it's interesting. Why do you think we do this to ourselves? Because

as my therapist continues to point out, this is self-inflicted. I do this to myself.

Why do you think we do it? You know, your therapist has a point because in some ways,

she's giving you the tool, which is yourself. She's giving you the power. So when we know

that we are the creators of what we're experiencing, then we can do something about it.

And yes, even when society is involved or some kind of shoulds are involved, or this is what

you need to do to be successful, everything all at once and within a certain timeframe,

it's hard. Maybe a good question would be, is who needs me to do this?

Like, is it something that I really want to do? Because we definitely are more

juiced up and inspired when it's something that we want to do. But if it's kind of this voice that's

on this track that's going, you know, yeah, and that, and then that, and then that, and then not,

on a mental level, energetic level, it's really draining. And so in the back of the mind,

and that's why I think that, I mean, I've heard it over the years is that

we can, I'm chuckling because I'm looking at my desk as I'm talking to you,

but if we can have a clear space on our desk, working with one file or one project at a time,

it's less demanding of us subconsciously. And of course, if we're seeing it, there

obviously going to be that part that says, oh God, yeah, and that, and that, and that,

and we get tired. So sometimes it can behoove us to just take a bit of time and say,

first of all, who is this most important to? Who wants me to do this? Is it mine to do?

Is it mine to do right now? So that we can somehow lessen the energy that is being called

on, um, and draining us. That is such a good point because I think a lot of my

draining comes from guilt. Like I, like I told someone that I would do this and now I'm behind

my desk. My actual physical desk is pretty clear. My desktop on my computer, however,

whole other story. And I think that's, that's the thing. Like my actual desk is not so bad,

but my, my desktop, I have to go through it once a week and clean it out cause it just gets

ridiculous. Um, but I like what you said about who is this for? Because I think I was just thinking

about like I was mentally going through my calendar and thinking, why am I so exhausted?

And pretty much every day this month, and this is quite embarrassing that I let myself get to

this date, but pretty much every day this month, I, I have an eight hour day of calls.

And then I start work. So there might be something wrong with that. And a lot of those

calls, a lot of those calls are for me, but a lot of those calls aren't. And saying no

to things, I don't think of myself as someone who has difficulty saying no. However, I also

don't like to back out of things. So I'm like, if someone comes to me with something new,

I'm very good at saying no. But what I'm not good at is quitting. Like if I've said yes already,

if I've already said yes, saying no after that, yes, I find very difficult. So I wonder if maybe

that's something that I've said yes to too many things in the past. I've got very good at saying

no now. But unfortunately, a lot of those prior yeses are following me. And maybe it's time to

start prioritizing my own goals a little bit more. Well, you know what, Danielle,

it'd be so great to be perfect. You know, Wendy, I think you're right. It would be great to be

perfect. But, but here's the thing. And I think it's probably one of the most challenging things

for us personally, in business, whatever, is that most often, I think we make the decisions

that we make or that we say the yeses that we say from a different place, like where we sometimes we

do say yes, when we mean no, I know, I get that. But sometimes we say yes from a place where it

looks absolutely doable. And, and there is, you know, that thought running the treadmill,

I can't say no, once I've said yes, because and so you feel in the here's a thing, here's an idea,

if you if you're one to journal, just saying, yeah, so write down, I can't change my mind,

because dot dot dot. I can't say no, because dot dot dot. And, and, and let yourself fill it out

till it feels like there's nothing more. And then maybe ask yourself, like, go back to each one and

go, give Byron Katie, thanks for this. But is this true? Is this really true? How do I know

this is true? Because if you ever said no, to a friend, and feel felt really crappy or whatever,

but your friend said, Hey, like, no problem. You know, it's like, they don't care about you. They

don't stop, you know, connecting or calling very gracious, you know, and, but that's the thing.

It's we fear the loss of whatever that is in the dot dot dot, because dot dot dot. And, and oftentimes,

we don't think about it. That's where journaling can come in, because you're taking the time to

actually process it in those few minutes. But we're taking the time to think about it. And

actually ask ourselves, is this is this true? Is this real? Or is this my fear? You know, and,

and there can be a part that says, if this did happen, would I be able to handle it? Or how

would I be able to handle it? So yeah, I tend to think so terminally, do you know what I mean?

It's either or there's no gray, there's no and there's nothing like that. It's, it's just this

mindset that we can have sometimes it just says, you know, there can't be changed at all. I remember

with a stepdad, I had one time where I don't remember the full content of the story. But I

remember him saying to me, if you change your mind, Wendy, it means you're wishy washy. So that

would be a because for me, you know, I can't change my mind, because that means I'm wishy washy. And

if I'm, I can't be wishy washy, because no one will respect me. I, you know, I need to be respected,

because, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah.

It reminds me of a very silly joke. My very silly joke. This is, this is, this is a joke.

It's a sexist joke, but it's a joke. But I'm allowed to tell it because I'm, I'm a woman. So

the joke is, how do you get a woman to change her mind? Okay. Agree with her.

Oops, sorry, excuse me.

And I laugh, because it's kind of, for me, it is true. I have that inner teenager who wants to

push back on everything. You know, and if you agree with me, it does it. If you agree with me

unexpectedly. Yeah, I like it when people agree with me. If someone is arguing with me, and they're

they're disagreeing, and they're disagreeing, and they're disagreeing, and they suddenly agree with

me, that is going to absolutely throw me off my game. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. Yeah. But I do think

I do think there's also that, I think it's, I think it's from, it's either from Gosford Park,

or it's from Downton Abbey. It's one of those, it's, it's Maggie, Maggie Smith, playing sort of

old lady. And one of the young ladies comes up to her and says, Oh, you're so you're so contrary.

And she says, I'm a woman, I can be as contrary as I like. You're so contrary. And I'm a woman,

I can be as contrary as I like. And I love that. This is my imperative. But I think in all human

beings, it's okay to, that permission to change one's mind. Yeah, because if we think about it,

and this comes up for people who are, who are coaches and or who are, you know,

online a lot who are visible. Oh, but, but I can't change my mind about that. Because people

are gonna think I'm inconsistent. What about, I have to change my mind about this so that people

can see that I'm evolving. You know, if you never change your mind about anything, you're not

growing. No. So and there is there is a season, you know, it's, it's sometimes it's difficult

to say goodbye to things, like commitments and things that have meant so much to you. Yes. Yes.

And you have to move on because there are so many hours in the day. Yeah. And, you know,

as as our priorities change, we do sometimes have to say goodbye to things. And that is very

difficult, especially if there's still, there's still giving us something just not as much as

they were, or it's not as appropriate, you know, like, they're still giving me something, but

that's not my priority right now. Yes. That is difficult. But I also do think that, you know,

change is inevitable for growth. So I have to remind myself of that, because I do think that,

you know, well, if I change my mind, then, you know, what does that say of my character?

I'm not a consistent, reliable person. How bad that is, because I was always the reliable one

growing up. But what if it means that I'm changing, I'm stepping into a new space,

what do they say? For every door that closes, a new one opens. You're not going to move through

those doorways. Yeah. If you can't hold on to everything. Yeah. And I really do believe,

and I need to remind myself of this as well, is that I made that decision with the information

I had at the time, whatever that was, intellectually, emotionally, whatever it is,

we make the decision that we can at the time. And then when we get new information, or we,

you know, it's, I agree. Because change is, as an old paradigm, has really been looked at

negatively, like you're saying, the different beliefs we can have about ourselves. But now

we're learning that change is always happening. It's not like, you know, it's the only inevitable

thing. Well, exactly. And what about if we make change, like, but of course, it would need to be

as intelligent change as possible. And I don't mean perfect change, but that change is natural.

It's not the contrary. It's not, you know, it's not the, you know, I'm just, I know I stopped

mid-sentence. Stability isn't the default. That's right. Is that what you're trying to say? Like,

we think of stability as being the default, because that's what we cling to. Yes, that's

really well said. Yeah. But in the universe, it's chaos, right? It's moving and changing all the

time. Yeah. You know, I'm reminded of a principle of the spiritual teaching, A Course in Miracles.

And one of those principles is that I give everything the meaning it has for me,

whether I learned it through someone else, whatever it is. And, you know, to be willing to go

say that and say, if this is true, what else could I make it mean? You know, how could this support

me or whatever that is? Because, you know, if we don't change, well, nothing changes.

Or we get the two by four, and then we go, oh, that's what you meant.

No, the two by four by the universe, not yet.

But yeah, it's, you know, it's a hard thing to explain. And it's something that this thing about

I give everything the meaning it has, but how could it not be true? Because it's our mind that

is thinking. And maybe we learned it, we saw that that's how it happened, or what it meant to

someone else. But that's another empowering, like I was saying about, like your therapist, when she

said that, you know, she gave you the power. This is also gives us a power. If I give everything

the meaning that it has, I can also go through a process and go, is it true? Is it really true?

You know, how do I know it's true? I think those are three really powerful questions. And again,

I give credit to Byron Katie, because it goes, oh, my goodness, it was true, you know, 13 years ago,

but actually, it's not true anymore, for me. You know, but yeah, it's kind of the knee jerk

return sometimes. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah. And, and even when we recognize that there's another step

after that, because I do think that awareness, while it's a big step, it's not the only step.

Yeah. When I go, oh, this, this doesn't have to be true. This isn't true for me anymore.

Letting it go and not holding on to it. Yes. Is that final step, because I, there are quite a

few things that I'm like, oh, this used to be true. It isn't true anymore. And then I hold

on to it for dear life. Yes. Yeah. Hold on to my old patterns and my old stories. Yeah. No,

it's okay. You can let that go now. You're a new person now. And it's not always easy.

No, it's not always easy. And I think I love that your transparency with that, Danielle,

because I can't imagine who wouldn't relate to it. I totally relate to it. And

that it can come to be okay to accept that not everything happens in an instant.

Yes. We're so conditioned that everything is sped up. It's right now, you know, but,

but some things take time. A little bit of time. I can't necessarily just drop it.

Yeah, exactly. More of a weaning process. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember it was kind of like,

I don't know if you'd call it an affirmation or not, but it was kind of like, I'm willing to

fill in the blank. And then if we find we're not willing, then we say,

I'm willing to be willing to fill in the blank, whatever it takes.

I love it. I'm willing to be willing. I will eventually get there one day.

Yeah. Well, it's like a plan. But even, you know, that awareness,

I think is very important because it does, it does, you know, bump us up against it.

But I think also we can get, we can use, if we're really stubborn, we can use an awareness

as a reinforcement instead of what it's meant to be, which is just a reckoning with reality

so that we can continue to move forward. Yeah. Oh, I'm just like this. Oh, I, you know,

I can't do this because I'm just like this. I was like, no, you're, you're, you're an evolving

human. You can choose to change. If there's something you don't like about yourself,

you can choose to change it. You can, you know, you can choose to work on it. You're not going to

change it like a switch, but you can go, I know this about myself. And now that I know,

I am no longer ignorant of it. And I can't claim ignorance anymore. Because I think people do that

a lot, especially, I don't know, with like certain like labels, you know, like, oh, well, I'm just

disorganized. So I never have to be on time for my friends. It's like, no, you know that you're

disorganized. Yeah. If you have an important meeting, you go, I know that I'm disorganized.

What steps am I going to take? Yeah, make sure or to to make it much more likely that I show up on

time. Yeah. And things like that. It's not an it's not a, it's not an excuse. Awareness isn't an

excuse. It is, it's an opportunity to be compassionate with yourself. Well, that's

true, which works a lot better than the hammer. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I've just been curious,

you know? Yeah, exactly. Curious. I love that, you know. And I also like the word explore.

I also like the word play with it for a while. I also like the word, how can I make this an

adventure? You know, one that that draws me forward, but but but I'm taking it a step at a time.

Ah, you know, I, I love what you said, Danielle, like in terms of the the overwhelm.

I'm not exactly sure whether overwhelm is a word for it. But when we're stuck in this state,

let's say of, I'm just like this, you know, I've always been like this, I can't be different,

that on some level, energetically, I think it is a block that can feel over, you know,

overwhelming. And, you know, our languaging can be so, so helpful. I loved what you said about,

I may not be saying the exact words, but what I've observed about myself or what I noticed

about myself, which already has objectivity is not that I am that I noticed I do that I

noticed I have a behavior of. And, yes, yeah. Yeah, I like it. Yeah. Yeah, being I love the

idea of treating it all like an experiment to everything. Yeah, yeah, every human interaction.

But also just, you know, my approach to my calendar, my approach to my day, my approach,

my energy management, all of it as an experiment. Yeah, because it does, it makes you a little bit

more objective. So, you're not identifying with I am this bad thing. It allows you to kind of go,

oh, here's an interesting puzzle. How can I solve this puzzle? Oh, I've only given myself

five hours of sleep a night. That's an interesting puzzle. How can I solve this puzzle? Do I take

naps? Do I cancel something? You know, like, what do I do? Yeah. But it becomes and we love problem

solving, you know, and I think, and a lot of people like puzzles. So looking at things like

that, and I think that curiosity can reach past my task list into my relationships. Yeah, my

relationship with myself and also my relationship with others, you know? Oh, I noticed I have a

tendency to do this. That's interesting. What can I do about that? Yeah, I noticed that when this

person does this thing, it makes me mad. That's interesting. How can I explore this? What kind of

troubleshooting can I do? Yeah. And I think it's so important for us to consider and practice with

not thinking we are a bad person because we have certain behaviors. We develop them

for whatever reasons that we did. No harm, no foul, but being able to acknowledge it and also

to, I'm finding for me, is that when I look at the overwhelm I experienced, like the story I was

telling you about that I felt like I had everything to get done and it was all at once, is that

feeling the result of the overwhelm, like the actual feeling, even though I sort of reached

out for help, to put it simply, it was not wanting to feel that way anymore. That almost became my

why. I don't want it to be this hard. What if it doesn't need to be this hard? And what if I could

just do one thing at a time? How might that help me? But I know that if I'm judging myself

and saying I shouldn't be feeling that, if I feel that, that means that, or if I do that, it means

that. It's a hard hole to dig oneself out of. The more I practice being compassionate with myself

and knowing that I created that pattern for a really, really good reason whenever I created it,

but that doesn't mean it's forever. It means that I've noticed I've been doing this for a few years.

And it was serving me and now it's not. So maybe just let it go.

Exactly. Yes, I want something different.

And not to put any meaning on that, not to put any judgment on it, but just to kind of

okay. I was doing this. It was helping. Now it's not helping. Circumstances have changed.

Life has changed. What am I going to do about it now? I love that so much. So for those of you who

are listening, what is there in your life that you are potentially holding onto or not even,

maybe you're only starting to become aware that you're holding onto it right now.

What is there in your world that you are feeling trapped or dragged down by that maybe is just

something that's left over that you could choose to let go of or choose to start letting go of

incrementally, something that you can go, oh, wow, this is a thing that I've observed.

How do I experiment with it to let it change? So I invite you to think about that. And as

always, Wendy, such an interesting conversation with you. Thank you so much for being here with

me today. I'm so happy to be here. Oh, that was so good. See you next week. See you next week.