Can we get raw and real with a topic that has been permeating my life lately, please?

Overwhelm and stress…

…and the possibility (or probability?) of mental/action paralysis.

In the past 3 months, KDO has experienced incredible growth…

•  Over a dozen interviews – there’s a fun one on sugar woes (how to have your cake and eat it too, literally) with Young Female Entrepreneurs and another on Habits for a Happy Belly with expert Nadya Andreeva.
• Over 100 new women who dove in fully to Skinny Dip Society Immersion – shout out to them! 🙂
• 9 live events at kdo STUDIO.
• 100s of hours planning and content writing.
• AND…1000s of women joining the movement to fully come ALIVE – with freedom, contagious joy, and living fully.

Humbled. Grateful. And, of course, giddy as can be.

And with that growth… I faced overwhelm, like the kind of overwhelm that has me starring at my computer screen at midnight with one eye paralyzed and the other eye shedding a tear to my hubbs.

I wanted to retreat.
To quit.
To hide under the covers.
For someone to say it’s okay to give up.

No one did.

In that moment (okay, let’s be real…over a couple weeks), I realized I have a choice.

We all have a choice.

Overwhelm can happen with work deadlines, relationship squabbles, childcare hiccups, starting a new diet/lifestyle, or simply with the day-to-day life.

We have a choice to be paralyzed and retreat because of overwhelm (masquerading fear, self-doubt, lack of clarity, or poor time management), shrinking back into playing small and staying “safe” or…

We can choose to rise, stand, shift the way we view the situation, and reinforce the foundation.

How are you viewing the situation? What’s your foundation?

Here are 5 ways I rebuilt my foundation and stood (plus some awesome secret nutrition tips to assist).

5 Ways to Shift Overwhelm & Reinforce your Foundation

1. Support your body.

Overwhelm is not all mental. If your car was almost out of gas AND needed a tune up (alignment, low air in tires, malfunctioning flux capacitor ;), etc), you wouldn’t keep forcing it to drive across the country and expect the gas to last forever, would you? First we need to manage the current stress, then we need to reset the body back to its sweet spot.

3 natural ways to support your body during stress:

• Rhodiola (an herb) – works with the homeostasis of your body to increase resistance to stress, improve memory, and boost attention.
• Drink water – simple lack of hydration can make your body handle stress inadequately. How much? 1/2 of your body weight in ounces (ex: 150 pounds = 75 ounces of water/day).
• Coconut oil – Add in 1 T. of unrefined coconut oil before/with each meal to assist in keeping your blood sugar balanced and you as cool as a cucumber. (Nope, won’t make you gain weight… actually it’ll help you lose it.)

 

2. Call in the troops – your support team.

Do you need a coach to ask the right questions to provide clarity? A project manager friend to shed some time management insight? A hug and date night with your man? A friend to share in the responsibility? A co-worker to take on an extra task? A homemade dinner and listening ear from you mom? Often times we try to pull the superwoman act and do it all ourselves. This leaves us feeling alone, isolated, and overwhelmed.

1) Identify your key support people and ask for what you need (be clear, concise, explain why it will benefit you, AND why it will positively impact the other person’s life).

2) Hire on more troops if financially possible – house cleaner, baby sitter, book keeper, virtual/personal assistant, errand runner. Don’t have a community? Check out this post: How to Create a Community When You Feel Alone.

3. Get clarity on what you WANT (not what you don’t want).

Often times we’ll give a list of what we don’t want, but we never get clear on what we truly DO want. Take 10-15 minutes (yes, you can find that small chunk of time) and simply write down what you WANT the current situation to feel, look, and sound like. Move towards that instead worry.

4. Set a date for something fun

…that has nothing to do with what you are overwhelmed with. Crafts, date night, fiction book reading, happy hour with the girls, etc. This is non-negotiable. Don’t try to justify why you can’t, you MUST.

5. Be aware of how you spend your time and identify what you can STOP doing.

Feel overwhelmed but you just spent an hour on facebook? Stressed out but you just neeeeded that 3 hours spree of Netflix? For one day, set a timer for every 30 minutes – when the timer goes off, write down exactly what you’re doing. See where your time is going. If that activity feeds you and brings you ALIVE, keep at it. Not so much? Ditch it. Don’t try to be superwoman. Try to be YOU.