The Therapy Edit - On feeling less overwhelmed

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

Feeling burnt out and exhausted? Here's why you might be feeling a bit floored by life, plus some ways to refuel and regain some energy.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Welcome to The Therapy Edit. Now, I feel like what a better topic to talk about after the year and a half that we have had than rest and burnout. How exhausted are you? And I'm not just talking that physical exhaustion that like, oh, I just want to go to bed, oh, I just want to sit on the sofa. I'm talking about that emotional exhaustion. I'm talking about the kind of the mental exhaustion, the exhaustion that comes when you have had to put aside so repeatedly your own needs, your needs for space, your needs for comfort, your needs for company. your needs for company for people outside your own home at least your needs for support in order to keep on keeping on now overwhelm and burnout often come when we have been forced to or often in my own life it has been that I've chosen to in some ways overlook your humanness chronically

now how many times have you had to overlook yourself in order to meet the needs of those shouting louder in order to meet the needs of those that can't meet their own needs. You know, how often have you just had to try your very best to keep calm and carry on? Now, this chips away at us. It chips away at our resources. And I think so many moms are feeling utterly burnt out. Of course, this isn't just specific to mums. But when I am exhausted, it is like my skin is thin.

I have less resilience. I have less patience. I have less humour. Have you ever felt so tidy? You just do not find certain things funny anymore. You know, I think also when we are exhausted, we have less to give. And motherhood requires a lot. I'm far more likely to respond to my kids in a knee-jurkey way when I am exhausted because it takes energy to respond in the way that I want to. it takes energy to push down my own kind of tantamie response. If you ever feel that tantrumy like childlike response in you when things are kicking off at home and you're like, I just want it to stop. I just want to run away.

Now that's a really normal human response to circumstances that as mums we often have to suppress. Sure, it pops out sometimes. But that takes energy. And all of the things that you might normally have turned to to replace. plenish some of your energy. Those things have not been as readily available or available at all over this time. Now I think what I want to encourage you in this episode is to start to reprioritise rest. Now rest is really inconveniently the antidote to burn out and I'm laughing

because I know it is really hard to find. But don't worry, I'm going to give you some really good tips. I think it's so important when it comes to thinking about, you know, burnout and overwhelm and that feeling that we so consistently can feel of, I am just not good enough, I am not enough. And we can berate ourselves and criticise ourselves when actually what we need is compassion. Now, sometimes the reason you do not feel good enough is because you are quite frankly not. You were never meant to be enough to fulfill the roles that you have had to fulfill to the standards that you've had to or sometimes it's the standards that we placed upon ourselves. It's too much. And the gap between what you're able to do and what you've been asking of yourselves,

you know, the bigger that gap, the more the guilt, the more the self-criticism, the more that overwhelm, the more that burnout. And we can lessen that gap only with rest and kindness and support. Now, I know that it's not only my fantasy that I would just be able to sleep for a couple of days or jet off on a holiday or just get some space. And I know that those things are often, you know, more often than not, they're not available. But how can you start meeting that need for rest? How can you start refueling yourself so that you can enjoy life more? Because ultimately we need rest to laugh. We need rest to rationalise anxious thoughts. We need rest to address habits. So those things that you keep thinking, oh, I just need to stop doing that or I really

need to go back to some of these habits that used to help me, but I just can't because it takes energy to change habit. It takes energy to make decisions. Anyone else struggling to sometimes decide what to have fatigue. Some of those simple decisions. just feel like, oh, things to grapple with that we just can't seem to find the answer for because it takes energy. So how can you get rest when you can't get rest? I want you to start thinking of small ways. I want you to start asking yourself, what do you need? What do you need? Think about it now. What do I need? What are three things that I need? For me, it's space, it's rest, it's, it's a change of context. Okay, am I going to get those things to the degree that I would love them?

I would love, you know, I would just love some time away with friends. I would love a holiday. I would love to just go to bed and no, I'm not going to interrupt and just wake up when I would naturally wake up. Now those things are probably not going to happen anytime soon. So how can we distill some of these things down and think, well, I can meet that need in a small way. And we often overlook the small because the need feels far much greater than sitting down for five minutes. It's so easy to think what is even the point? But let me tell you this. Little is better than nothing. Little is always better than nothing. Now imagine you were driving your car and you only had five pounds on you to put five pounds worth of petrol in and you needed to get somewhere.

would you think well there's no point in just putting five pounds of petrol in or would you put that five pounds in and hope that it could get you where you needed to go? I think so often we overlook the small if you were in a desert and there was a tiny pool of water and you knew that it wasn't going to satisfy your huge thirst. Would you walk on by or would you take that small bit of water for the hydration that it could offer you for the next five, 10, 15 minutes for those. steps that it could fuel. Now start looking for the small opportunities to rest, the small opportunities to nourish yourself. Some things that I've been doing over the last year that I've been forming as habits have been tiny things. I started a kind of initiative on social media called one tiny thing. One tiny change. Not massive because we feel like we're facing a mountain. but how can you strip out what you need and just get the small a small little boost it's better than

nothing i have started doing things like i've had a cold shower every day for two minutes i started off at 30 seconds i don't know why it feels so good but it's become part of a habit now it's become a little something in my day that makes me feel better feel different i started at one point in lockdown when things were just feeling overwhelming and the noise in my home was overwhelming i would take 10 minutes a day to just lie down and close my eyes. And maybe I listen to a meditation or some music or the sound of some birds or whatever it was. It was just a little bit of sensory deprivation to give me that mouth full of water in the desert, that little bit of something. More recently, I've just added a bit of yoga into every day, a bit of stretching,

even just two minutes. It doesn't matter how much it is as long as I do it. And these things just give me something to fuel me maybe through the next tantrum. So don't overlook those small opportunities. Fight the guilt. Fight the guilt when you sit down. If in your head you're thinking, I need to do this, but I need to do this, but I need to do this. There will always be a never-ending to-do list. But you deserve to rest. You are not a machine. The more you give, the more you need. The further you drive, the more fuel you need. I think a big reason. for this kind of collective burnout we're feeling is that we've had to keep driving on and driving on and those opportunities to put some fuel in the car have just not come often enough. So how can you

start introducing them? And as you start topping yourself up, as you start using these little opportunities and noticing those small opportunities to sit down, those small opportunities to let a friend know that actually, I want to say more than I'm okay this time. These are all gestures to yourself. These are all opportunities to give yourself something. And as you give to yourself, you know, I used to feel selfish. I used to feel guilty. But as I have started to see those around me benefit from me not being burnt out,

from living at the bottom of a scraped out barrel, I've started to value them more and take more of those opportunities. But it has come through those small things. The more I am feeding myself, whether it be physically, mentally or emotionally. I'm seeing my family benefit from the fact that I'm laughing a little bit more we can actually relax a little bit more because believe it or not you need energy to relax to be able to push that to-do list aside so I encourage you if you are feeling overwhelmed and burnt out what tiny things can you do that might lead you to start realizing quite how

beneficial and available those moments can come when we look for them don't discount the little because little by little the little things become the good things and I want to teach my children that they too are deserving of rest that it's not like when they hit adulthood suddenly that's it you know those lazy afternoons on the sofa they're gone now because you're grown up this is where you do this is where it all starts this is where you don't get to sit down I want to teach my children that they are deserving of rest and what better way to do it than to start teaching myself reteaching myself that very same lesson you are not the sum of what you do what little things can you do today thank you for listening to today's episode of the therapy edit if you enjoyed it please do share subscribe and review you can find more from me on instagram at anam arthur you might like to check out my two books called mind over mother and know your worth i'm also the founder of the mother Mindway, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mothers' mental and emotional well-being. It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon.