Ep #14: Handling the Overwhelm of Divorce | Becoming You Again Podcast
Overwhelm after divorce can feel exhausting. Listen in as I help you handle the overwhelm.
Every woman alive has felt overwhelm at one time or another. So when we go through a divorce and we are faced with becoming a single mother, in charge of making all of the decisions of the divorce, our lives, our children's lives, along with all other responsibilities feeling incapacitated by overwhelm is a real thing.
Listen in to today's episode where I'll be teaching you to handle the overwhelm of divorce.
If you've tried all of the things to help with the overwhelm, you've asked for all of the advice, you've read all the books and you're still ending your day exhausted and overwhelmed with life after divorce, then your next step will be easy. Click here to schedule your free consult with me where I'm going to walk you through your personalized plan to step out of the overwhelm and into the calm life you desire.
What you'll learn from this episode:
The truth about overwhelm.
The two main ways it shows up and why.
The two-step process to taking back control of your life and dropping the overwhelm.
What this could look like in your life.
List to the full episode:
Featured on this episode:
Interested in the Divorce Betrayal Transformation? Learn more here.
Are you lost and confused about who you are after divorce? Don't worry. I've got 51 Ways to Get to Know Yourself Again. Click here to download.
Want to know first hand how Karin can help you with your specific problems and create an even better life than when you were married? Click here to schedule a free consult.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome back to Becoming You Again. I’m your host Karin Nelson. I’m a certified divorce confidence coach and this is the podcast where I teach you how to reconnect with yourself, create emotional resiliency and live a truly independent life, so you can have an even better life than when you were married.
How is everyone doing today? I’m actually doing really great. I am loving this spring weather that we’re having here in Utah. Where you guys at? Where are you guys living? I am in northern Utah and we are having some beautiful spring weather and it’s about to change. I think we are supposed to get a winter storm which always happens in Utah. I do not know what weather is like in the spring where you live but in Utah it is very much like a couple of warm days and really pretty outside and all of the flowers and trees are blooming and then for like a couple of days we will get a terrible, crazy winter storm, 3 feet of snow – more snow than we have had the entire winter and then it will go back to being really nice outside the next week. So it’s a little bit crazy in the spring but I am really enjoying these warmer days and it is so pretty outside with all flowers and trees blooming.
Alright, so let’s jump into today’s topic and it’s one that I see a lot of when it comes to divorced women. Like probably most of my topics, right? So we deal with so much as divorced women and that is why I am just really excited to be able to give this podcast to you all because I know that there is so much that you are going through that I can help with because I have been there and I have worked through it and I am working with my clients to be able to get through this and I have tools and techniques that maybe some of you do not have access to so I am really just so grateful that I am able to offer you all of this information through this podcast. So first of all thank you for listening and second of all it is just amazing. I am just so excited that this is even a thing.
Almost every one of my clients has been coached on this topic and so I wanted to talk about it in today’s podcast because I think that so many of us women deal with this regularly, whether we are divorced or not, and that is overwhelm. I bet that if we were all sitting in a room together and I asked everyone in the room to raise their hand if they had ever felt overwhelm since their divorce, or even just anytime in their life, really, everyone in the room would raise their hand. Because this topic is so prevalent and if we let it go unchecked it can often become debilitating to the point where we think we have all of these things to do on our to-to list and yet the overwhelm has taken over and we actually end up getting nothing done which continues to perpetuate the feeling of we have too much to do and we cannot get done, or it’s like we’re on the hamster wheel and we’re running around in circles but not actually getting anywhere because we are not getting the important things done. The things that we really want to be doing in our lives, we feel like we’re stuck just doing the daily monotonous everyday things that we have to do and it is so frustrating and exhausting. Right?
So let’s talk about it. Overwhelm is felt when we believe that we have too much to do and not enough time to do it. Or I’ve also had clients who think that the truly world is on their shoulders now that they’re divorced and they have to do it all with no one to lean on for support or help. It’s kind of the same type of thought, right? There’s too much to do and how am I possibly going to get all of this done? Which then creates this feeling of overwhelm when we are thinking those things, right? And then how does it show up in their life when they’re thinking this?
I think there are two main ways this shows up in our lives as divorced women. The first way is we procrastinate doing things on our list because we’re constantly reminding ourselves that we don’t have enough time and there’s too much to do so we don’t even start doing anything. Right? It’s just like, we’re not even going to have time to get it done so why even start? So for example saying things like, I know I have to look for a job and start making more money but it’s too hard. I’m not smart enough for that job or I know they’re not going to hire me because I don’t have the schedule I need so maybe I’ll look for something else next week but right now it’s just too much for my brain and I really just need to check out. It is too hard. It is too heavy. So we put off the really important things because we’re feeling overwhelmed.
And it can also look like we’re trying to do all of it. We’re trying to do all of the things and we think that we HAVE to get it done. We have to feed the kids. We have to make the lunches. We have to get them off to school, and go to work, and clean the house, and run the errands, and exercise, and help the kids with homework, and then cook, and then communicate with the ex, and then take kids to sports and of their other activities, and we have to make the decisions about the divorce, and we have to make the decisions about co-parenting, and we have to show up as the co-parent who is being in control and being reasonable because the other one is being so unreasonable and we have to pay the bills and make the money, and save and try to parent effectively as a single parent, and try to control the kids from feeling unhappy or disappointed or sad after the divorce and then we’re trying to pretend that we’re not feeling sad, or unhappy, or disappointed because we do not want to make our kids feel that way and we do not want them to know that we are struggling and then by the end of the day we just feel completely exhausted. We’ve given no attention to ourselves and what we truly want and need. We’ve been emotionally checking out and pushing down how we are actually feel instead of processing through our emotions which is very energetically draining. And we’ve been so involved in take care of everyone and everything else in our lives that we are just physically, emotionally and mentally spent. The overwhelm is real. Right?
So these actions may look different, but they are actually coming from the basic same thought and they are definitely both creating a feeling of overwhelm. If you’re new to the podcast then I’ll quickly remind all of you newbies and maybe some of you who have been listening but maybe have forgotten that any time you’re feeling something it’s coming from what you’re thinking. Your feelings are never coming from anything outside of you. So the overwhelm is not coming from your to-do list, and all of the things that you think you need to get done during the day. It’s not coming from the divorce and the pressure of the divorce and needing to co-parent effectively and it’s not coming from being the parent and having to make all of the decisions and it’s not even coming from trying to find a new job and make more money. It’s not coming from any of those things outside of you. The overwhelm is always coming from what you’re thinking in the moments when you are feeling completely overwhelmed. When you’re feeling the pressure. It’s coming from what’s happening in your head.