62 | Overthinking and Catastrophizing? The Hidden Stories Fueling Anxiety, Control, and Burnout

Have you ever caught yourself rehearsing the disaster?

Planning the vacation… running every “what if” in your head… trying to control the details so nothing steals your joy.

But what if that’s the problem?

In this episode of The Honest Work, we talk about the invisible stories running in the background of your mind — the ones that feel like protection… but actually keep your nervous system braced, guarded, and exhausted.

Inside this “can’t unsee” episode, you’ll hear:

• Why rehearsing worst-case scenarios doesn’t prevent pain (it just steals peace)
• The difference between healthy planning and fear-based control
• The “70% rule” (when your doer energy is helpful… and when it turns cray-cray)
• A real kitchen remodel story that reveals how all-or-nothing thinking creates shame and stress
• Why we get offended by our own thoughts—and how truth doesn’t have to feel like blame
• How your role as a woman and mom is often leadership, not “just responsibility”
• A simple shift that changed how her family got on board with healthier habits (hint: stop commanding, start inviting)

If you’ve been stuck in overthinking, perfectionism, or control… this episode will help you see the story behind it — and choose something different.

Because the stories you don’t question will run your life.
But the moment you question them, you take your power back.

 👉 If you’re up for trying this — just trying honesty — I created something for you.

It’s called The Honest Work. It’s free, and it’s a simple guide to help you start noticing the lies that keep your nervous system stuck in fear, anxiety, and self-doubt — without fixing yourself or spiraling.

You don’t have to change your whole life.
 You don’t have to get it right.
 You have to be willing to look at what’s true.

You can find it in the show notes or go to LisaCovert.com/honestwork.

I’m walking this way — in truth.
 You can come if you want.

I’ll see you in the next episode.

 ✨ Click Here Now. ✨

 🎶 Instrumental Acoustic Guitar Music by Viacheslav Starostin (original_soundtrack),

W E B S I T E - LisaCovert.com

I N S T A G R A M - @lisamcovert

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the Honest World. This is the podcast for the woman who is tired of trying harder and still feeling behind. You've done the left. You've got the goal. You've put the goal. And somehow you're still not. I'm like the power. And I'm not here to help you out. Or to help you out. I'm here to help you all the time. The truth about nothing. The truth about performing. The truth about my burnout didn't come out of nowhere. Around here, we don't perform confidence. We don't need approval. And we don't add more to the problem. We flow down enough to see what's actually going on and let clarity regulate. If you're ready to stop living from fear and start living from truth, you're in the right place. Let's do the honest work.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Have you ever caught yourself literally rehearsing the disaster? Think about this one. You're planning a vacation. You think through what could go wrong, so you kind of plan ahead. You think about the kids' schedule and what could go wrong, so let's take this, do this. For me, it's the kids are still young, their homework. Maybe even thinking about like end-of-year expectations. How much did I want them to accomplish this year? What are the problems that can happen? We try to make sure everything lands as perfectly as we can, but it's rehearsing what the disaster could be so that we can be there and ready. But what if we're not protecting joy? What if we're bracing for it to be stolen? What if that is what we're doing by rehearsing it? I mean, I think about the vacation scenario. You could plan that vacation gratuity trying to control or think of every single piece. But the realization is that no amount of planning will prevent grief, sadness, whatever feeling that is, if something goes wrong. Example, what if you get sick on the trip? No matter what planning you do, getting sick on vacation is never fun. So protecting ourselves from what can go wrong doesn't prevent us from pain. But what if it's preventing us and keeping us guarded for s that joy to be stolen away? If we don't bring the perfect close, if we don't have everything crossed and ready to go, then what? What if we're planning so much and putting so much effort into the protection of the disaster that you don't even get to fully enjoy the vacation? You know, I was talking to a friend recently about how again the vacation. It's something that's kind of here and planning now for me, and I don't really leave my kids that often, and let's just say we do a lot, and there's a lot of schedules, a lot of things going on, there's a lot of intricate parts, and you go and realize how much prep before that I am doing, looking at disasters that could happen, prevent this, how will I recover after this? This, you know, as they're getting bigger short-term things, projects are due. What if it doesn't get done? And I was talking about it, and a friend, oh, she was so grounded to say it. She just more of a logical thinker than me. And she just said, planning is a good thing. You know, let's say she's like planning for retirement. If my parents, like, I'm not gonna be silly to think that my parents might need not need assistance one day. Planning for that and not having to upropt her life or to completely move or move her parents in, she would still she wants to plan for that. And like she said, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, preparing for your kids' future and how they're doing this year and keeping on the education. You know, buying a house. If you buy a house you can't afford, that's that's not wise. You want to buy a house that you can afford. She's saying like that planning is a good thing and logical, it almost it gave me permission to go, you're right. That planning is healthy, and it again, it's that permission outside. And sometimes when someone says something, I'm like, hmm, how come I didn't give myself that permission? Again, that keeps that separation. Hearing that was again permission. It's not anti-goals here. It's not, we're trying to anti-fear, we're trying to anti-protection mode. My friend just landed with that logic, and I was like, wow, she's right. And then my other friend landed with the next part, and she said, Love this, love these ladies. Gotta have truth people in your life to really be the best version of yourself. So this friend says, and and she just gave it in a language that worked for me. So first it came the logic was the truth. You know, at least the planning is good. And sitting here and saying, You can't go the other way, it's not like an all or nothing here. So the other friend said to me in such a lovely way, she said, you know what? 70% of that doing in your personality and looking ahead and you know, assessing these things has helped you as put your family forward. It has helped get through things that we have struggled with at school and outside of school. We've we've dealt with dyslexia, we've dealt with ADHD, we've had anxiety. You know, these are pandemic children that have grown up, it's changed. But so 70% of that doer in me is a beautiful part of my personality. Again, it serves my family, it fuels our health, and it really fulfills my purpose. I know it does. But this was the beautiful part that she said. She said, once it crosses that 70% line, it gets a little cracker. And it's true, these qualities of hitting that it is part of controlling, but there is a healthy way of looking at those targets. Like my one friend said, you don't want to just hope that retirement's gonna work out. You need to plan for that ahead. You're planning things, you're planning a vacation ahead of time, you're planning to spend time with your family, you are planning a holiday, you are planning Christmas gifts, you are planning what you're doing this weekend, even if it's nothing, that's still planning something. But it can become too much. Once you cross that threshold, it can get a little cray cray. And I always think of my kitchen. That because my one big thinking, the stories that I used to tell myself, was that per maybe I need to say I need perfect, but I told myself, if it doesn't come out the way I want it to, then it's it's not worth it. I failed. That is all or nothing. That's a perfectionist. So again, my kitchen, it took three years to do the kitchen. We did it on our own. Except countertops. We had somebody put those in, but it was so much preparation. It was moving countertops, I mean cabinets up, removing backsplash, removing counters, changing a structure in the house. It was a lot of work. And three years later, literally the paint that we put on in the beginning had to be repainted because it had been so long. But there was this one part of the kitchen I didn't want to add an extra countertop. And at the time it made sense. I said it would be too tight. We're putting a bench and changing the structures to be a door there. Anyway, so there was this little nook area, like I would say it wasn't even like a foot, maybe a little less than a foot. I'm like, no, that won't be good there, it'll be too tight. Well, guess what? It looked like an eyesore for me, this open spot that everybody kept putting things, and I should have put the countertop in. And I was like, oh my gosh, what a failure! Like, here I did this whole kitchen and the countertop, and do I extend this? What do I do? Everything else. You know what happened? I kind of like started to accept it. And my husband and I sat down and had truth. It annoys me. I feel like it's extra space. I don't want to have a just a countertop of doing nothing there, but those six inches, what are you gonna do? Like, how can we make this useful and make it great as well? And he came up with this great idea. My cookie sheets were the only thing that was annoying in this one can cabinet. So he built it that size, perfectly custom, two slots up and down, so I can put my baking sheets, my muffin tan pins, muffin pans, all of it in there. And it became almost like like a piece of art, and that's the one thing was not intended, but it's almost the most beautiful part. I use it every day. I love it, it's fabulous. And the truth was it wasn't a failure. No, it wasn't the perfect diet plan, but it turned out even better because the truth evolved into something even more useful than I ever thought possible. And I think we're this is the part. So we've got the stories that we tell ourselves. Sometimes it's the all or nothing, sometimes it's the catastrophic events, sometimes it's assessing things for the disaster. But this is where I think the honest work we can see, we're being honest, can once you lay it down, it can change your perspective. You can't unsee it. But most people have an issue with the honest work, but here's the truth. I think we get offended by our own stories. We feel ashamed. We feel defensive to them. Well, that's not why I did it. No, I don't believe that. We feel exposed, you know. Here it is that so I had a thought that if the kitchen one thing didn't go right, that it was a complete failure. It's not something easy to admit. That's vulnerable, but it's real, and without admitting that, I couldn't change it. But it doesn't have to be a blame. We think noticing these truths that don't align with us right now, that we're blaming. But the truth does not have to be blame. I'm example, doing these podcasts, a lot of them, I'm just kind of calling off. I think ahead of time and kinda go, but sometimes I'll record one. I've checked that box, I've got it done, and I didn't feel right. I'll notice it. And I'm like, oh my gosh, now I have to put it back on my list, and I'm stressing it wasn't perfect. And what am I gonna do? I don't have time to do another one. And that's when I sit with the truth. I don't need to be ashamed of it. The truth is, hear it. Did you feel that the message went across? Do you feel that this could benefit people? Then yes. Then I put it out there. But if I'm like, no, I definitely was I can see that I wasn't getting my port across, that I was actually going through something myself and it wasn't being very clear, I'd like to do that again. Not from a a a blame just as the truth. And that's the thing. I think sometimes we know that we're a leader, but I don't think we realize how much of a leader. Like we are a leader of our home. We have we're not the only leader, we're not the leader of everything. But we're a very important, intricate leader within our homes, our communities. If someone hears you and values what you're saying, you're an intricate part. And I can't say that always, because being an intricate part at home, I mean this is how it's like a piff pivot and adapt. We were working on putting more protein in the mornings in everyone. And I said, okay, I'm gonna 25 grams of protein, let me tell you. All I had to do was tell them I need them to do this, or please try. And it's like they're personally sabotaging it. Because, you know, in a house full of men, that's what happens. But then when I sat down and go, Okay, if I tell them them to do this, they're all gonna be ego, whatever. So what does what what does work? So you know what I did? I was watching my protein on a documentary and education, I was watching some videos on TV. Everybody heard it, and then I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. I'm gonna challenge myself to do 25 grams of protein every morning for the next week and see how I feel. And guess what? Every one of them got on the challenge with me because I didn't tell them what to do. They were just listening, and the truth was I needed to shift how I was leading. I needed to shift from a different place to lead them in a positive way or in a it's just it's more, it's more powerful, it's more practical than when you can look at it truthfully and say, this group of people are not led by, hey, do this. These group of people are are led by a little bit of a challenge. Trying to beat me. Because I'm just gonna say, I'm the Connect 4 champion in this house, and they don't like it. They want to get better and better and better. I just had to it just shift as the leader. It's just, I think it's about responsibility too, too. Truth is, again, doing this honest work and seeing things how they are, we don't need to take responsibility for everything. You're responsible of how you show up. You are not responsible how others respond, react, none of that. And again, you can talk about the school project, prepping for the vacation, feeling like everything is on me, because it does. It feels like that sometimes. But I'm also truthfully the person that can do so much. But when that doing it's over 70%, I turn into a cray cray. So, as one friend reminded me, planning ahead and looking at ahead and guess some controlling part is a positive. But it's not, again, I don't, I'm not planning for retirement knowing exactly how it's gonna go. But I'm planning for it. Looking at it logically, how much you would probably need, or you know, if you want to pay your house off, these kinds of things. Or planning for school projects, looking at it truthfully, but I'm also looking at it truthfully to not go to the cray cray point. Because what if the truth is is that you're not failing, but that you're just over-owning. Say that again. What if the truth isn't that you're failing, but what if you're over-owning? Meaning taking over responsibility. Truth is sometimes it's a sucker punch. Sometimes that truth can hit hard. Sometimes at first you can look at the truth and go, wow. So in the back of my mind, that kitchen that we worked so hard on, I was disappointed if it wasn't perfect. Like, thanks for all the work, husband, but it wasn't perfect, so it wasn't good enough. It's a failure. That's I mean, I had to take that truth on. That that was a story I was telling myself. And if I was telling her the big kitchen, how many things were like that? And that's the questioning those stories that are running through. But guess what? It doesn't have to feel like shame. I look at that and I see it as the truth. If I can see this story, that one imperfection feels like a failure, I can choose differently. Now I choose to look at that kitchen and that beautiful cabinet that my husband made. I absolutely love it. It's it's the part of the kitchen I probably love the most. And once the truth and you can again, I'm not saying that the truth doesn't sit hard first. Sometimes it feels like a sucker punch. But it doesn't have to be shame. Again, from that story that we see as the truth, we can choose differently. You don't have to be offended by the truth. You don't have to defend it. You just have to see it. The stories you don't question will run your life. But the moment you question them, you take your power back. You're walking towards the truth. And you are always welcome to walk that truth with me. And as I close every episode, remember I have created the truth work for you and send it right to your email. All you have to do is go to LisaCovert.com slash honestwork, and I'll send it right to you. It's three images and a little audio so I can talk you through it for a moment. That's all you have to do. Or you can go to the this episode notes and there is a link you can click. As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me. I know your time is valuable, and I am so grateful that you have carved your time out to listen to this episode. Thanks, and we'll talk soon.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

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SPEAKER_01 18:50

If this episode made you pause, reflect, or even breathe a little deeper, would you do me a favor? Take 30 seconds and leave a quick review for the show. It helps more women who are stuck in the same overwhelm we've talked about today actually finding this podcast. I'm not here for everyone, but I am here for the woman who's tired of holding all together and ready to live a life that finally feels like her and if you're feeling ready.