It's Okay to Do Less: A Gentle Reminder for Your Healing Journey

In today’s shorter episode, I want to offer you a gentle reminder: it’s okay to do less. When you have less to give, it's important to honor that and adjust your commitments accordingly. This week, instead of pushing myself to create a longer, more researched episode, I’m giving myself permission to record a shorter one – and I’m encouraging you to do the same in your life.

Far too often, we get caught up in the cycle of doing more, but healing happens when we make space for it. If your load feels heavy right now, take a moment to assess what you can let go of – whether it’s tasks, internal expectations, or the pressure to be constantly productive.

If you're struggling to figure out how to make space for rest, healing, or anything else important in your life, my team and I are here to support you. Through our RESTORE 1:1 coaching program, we help clients audit their stress loads and strategically make room for healing.

If you’re curious about how this approach could help you, I’d love to invite you to book a pressure-free discovery call. We’ll explore if this is the right step for you, and if not, I’ll try to help you find your path forward.

Link to book a discovery call: CLICK HERE

Website: https://www.regulatedliving.com/podcast

Email: amanda@regulatedliving.com

Instagram: @amandaontherise

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@amandaontherise

Transcript

0:00  
Amanda, welcome to regulate and rewire an anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong, and I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here. Now let's dive in. 

Hey, welcome back. You might have noticed from the timestamp, but today's chat is going to be considerably shorter than our typical weekly episode, and I have just a simple reminder to drop in for you, for your nervous system, and it is a reminder that it's okay to do less when you have less to give. Do less when you want to give more of yourself to something else. In particular, you're going to have to give less to other things in your life. Far too often we focus on doing more, more, more, more, more. 

And none of you listening are new to me talking about my personal patterns of urgency and productivity, even coming into today's episode, coming up to the mic, I had so much mental drama about how there's no point in recording an episode just to tell everyone that you didn't have time for your normal, well researched, longer episodes. And the truth is, I did have time, or at least I could have made it, but it would have come at the sacrifice of something else, either more time on other work tasks that feel more pressing, time being present with my kids, or sleep. Sleep is usually what I sacrificed first, and I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to continue to be self sacrificing to the point of depletion. 

And so instead of giving more than I wanted to give, I have decided to simply share this with you so often our clients, or clients who seek us out for their healing journey, come to us with an already full plate. Healing adds load to your nervous system. Behavior change, stepping into more regulated living. It takes some measure of support and capacity, and so often the first thing we have to work through with our new clients. Is okay, what's going to give? Where can you do less so that you can give a little more to your healing, and I want to offer you listening, maybe a similar moment to pause, and maybe if you need that permission that you can do less, you can give less, and you likely have to, if you want to make room in your life for healing, and if your whole mind, body and soul is just screaming, like, how, like, I do want to do less, but how, how do I do or give less right now I need to work my kids, my sick parents, my demanding boss, my personal health and And and and and and. 

And I also know, because we have these clients too, you might very well be in a season of a lot. You might be in a season of undeniably too much. And in those seasons, maybe what you work on is having less of the self judgment, less shoulds or shame about the places that you're falling shorter than you want to, because we see in even this, in our seasons of a lot, even if it's good a lot, when we would look at that and say, I feel spread really thin, you are giving less to Some areas of your life than others, maybe not by choice, but just circumstance. And what does it look like to soften into that reality and to be more intentional about where you are putting your focus? 

And one of the things that I think we do really well is to help our clients tangibly see all of the things contributing to their stress load, and then we support them in strategically, sorting through and getting clear on what matters most, on what burden parts we can support to lighten the overall load, on how they can engage in more habits that support and create capacity versus habits that deplete. And this is something we've talked about a lot here on the podcast as the stress bucket, this is one of the most powerful exercises, because usually we're too busy to ever stop and say what's making me busy? Usually we're too busy being busy to reflect and be intentional about if we want to even be that busy and without fail, every single time we sit down and work through this process of assessing the stress bucket, getting clear on their core values, looking at just the reality of their life, there has yet to be a single client where we haven't been able to find at least one place to lighten the low. Load to do something differently, to do a little bit less. 

And I promise you that if your load is heavy, there are things that you can do to lighten it, and you will have to to make room for that healing. So this week, my doing less is recording a considerably shorter, less scripted podcast, I am delegating things to my team, and I am simply looking around my room, looking around my house, and I'm leaving things undone. And this isn't necessarily going to make my load feel light this week, because there is just a lot, a lot of really good things, but there's a lot, but I have to choose, and I refuse to run myself ragged for the sake of doing more. I am clear on what matters most, my health, my family. Other things can wait. Other things can get less. The strict and arbitrary timelines that we set out for our own to do lists can wait my internal dialog of how people are going to be disappointed, or people don't want to listen to your podcast anymore, or how I should be able to do more than I'm doing, all of those old stories are softening and no longer running the show. They still are there. I still hear those thoughts, but I'm able to reconnect with that authentic self and say, Okay, if somebody's gonna stop listening to your podcast because of a few shorter, less scripted episodes, like that's okay. That's okay. There are other people who are gonna connect with this realness. There are other people who are absolutely in a place where they need to be reminded that they can do less, that likely they need to do less, that these patterns of more, more more, more is what's keeping them stuck in chronic survival mode. 

This is the reminder that I lovingly needed so many times in my life and didn't get instead, I got praised for how much I could do, and because I was the person who always said Yes, I got asked to do more what I really needed. When I went to the doctor and said, Hey, I'm suffering. I'm struggling. Can you help me figure out what's going on? Or when I sat with the therapist, or later the psychiatrist, and I said, Hey, I'm having trouble focusing. My moods seem really intense. Help me figure this out. What I desperately needed was any one of those people to ask me about what goes on in the average 24 hours of your life. Tell me about these multiple jobs that you're working, how many classes you're taking, what are the responsibilities you have? I needed somebody to look me in the eye and say, of course, you're suffering. This isn't a disorder. This isn't a problem. The load's too heavy. This is unsustainable. Do less to which my system would have immediately been like, I can't do less. What do you mean? I can't do less? My self worth is dependent, and I couldn't have articulated that way, but I was like, I have to do more. And my story was always like, I'm fine. I'm fine. Look, I'm fine. I get it all done, and I'm really praised for this, and I needed somebody to lovingly and tenderly sit me down and say you need to do less, you will not heal if you don't do less, you will not feel better unless you learn to do less. 

And I know that there is somebody else on the other end of this microphone that I'm talking into who needs that reminder you're listening to a podcast like this, likely because you have less to give. Do less. It's okay if you want more room for rest, for play, for healing, anxiety and depression, what will you give less to? And if you aren't sure where to start this strategic approach to navigating and managing stress load on our nervous system. This is what we support clients in every single day, and this is exactly the process that we work our clients through inside restore, which is our 16 week one on one anxiety and depression coaching program I want to share with you just briefly words from two of our members who've gone through that program and see if it resonates for you, because their experience in this program tends to be distinctly different than what they've experienced in traditional talk therapy or with other practitioners they've worked with. And I think it in part, has to do with the structure of the program, as well as our methodology, our approach, the way that we help you radically redefine how you understand and work with anxiety and depression away from these stories of brokenness, and I just have to manage it the rest of my life, to truly and authentically seeing from this lens. Compassion and curiosity that your symptoms make sense. When you sit down with your coach and assess your stress bucket, you look at your load, past, present, internal, external, there is this moment of oh my gosh, no wonder I'm so activated or No wonder I'm overwhelmed to the point of shutdown. No wonder I feel stuck. This load is crushing. It's unsustainable, and then it comes that strategic. 

But now what one of our recent clients shared "before this program, life was a roller coaster. I was having regular panic attacks and fell out of control. The tools and deep work I did with my coach gave me my life back. The structure practices and coaching calls made such a difference. The way that every piece of this program was personalized to me was incredible. I truly thought I had tried everything, but this, this was it for me." 

Our clients have an average symptom reduction of 38% in the 16 week program, because for the first time ever, they're not just sitting and treating symptoms or talking about their symptoms, but they're actually learning to understand what's going on inside this mind body system. They're learning to understand that system enough to work with it. 

Another recent client shared "I've done talk therapy. I have been on meds. Both felt helpful, but this program is what gave me my life back. My biggest takeaway is that I have been given a toolbox and a new narrative. I no longer look at my dark days as a forever state. Sometimes it's okay to be unwell. I just needed to know that I had the tools to get myself out. I now have the capacity to feel feelings instead of burying them. I came into this program hopeful, but skeptical. I'm not skeptical anymore, and I tell everybody about this." 

and I wanted to share this with you today, in case any of you are craving a new way of healing something that is a little bit more tangible and strategic. If any of you listened to this episode and said, I know, I know I need to do less, or I know I need to do different, but I don't know where to start. I've been listening to your podcast for so long, and I'm struggling to put it into action. In my life, I'm struggling to take action. I know there are those of you who are listening to this podcast who have taken action on these episodes. You write me and you tell me what a difference it has made learning and applying what you hear hear in your life. And I also know, because there are a number of you who've become clients in our practice, who have come diligently, week after week after week, and you're still feeling stuck. And it makes sense, because when our nervous system is dysregulated, it is hard to step into something new, because something new, something different, a new way of thinking, a new way of acting, feels threatening to our nervous system. So I just want you to know that if you're feeling stuck, if you're in a place where you feel like you know better, but you are having a hard time doing better, or if you're sitting here like I just, I don't know where to start. I would love, love, love to connect with you, not just hear me speaking into a microphone and at some point in your week, you listening to it through your headphones, but I offer completely free discovery or consultation calls, because what we're doing is different than what you've experienced. And if you are going to invest in a program like this, you've probably got some questions. And so if you find yourself looking or craving a new way of healing, then I would love to hop on a discovery call with you. 

So what these are is these are 20 to 30 minute calls with me personally, where you get to learn more about what this program looks like. You get all your questions answered. It's a safe space to share how you're currently feeling stuck in healing anxiety or depression. And my promise to you is always that this is a pressure free call, and anybody who's booked one of these calls with me can attest I am not asking for you to commit on the call. I am offering you some support. I'm answering your questions. I'm holding that space for you to find hope in healing again, and I will drop a link in the show notes for those of you who want to book that. And the way that those calls end is either, hey, I need some more time to think about it. Awesome. This is a yes. What are the next steps? It's a good fit and we move forward, or it's not the right fit. And what I promise to do is to help you leave that call with what else might be you are? Never going to leave this call empty handed. 

All right, that's it today. Three takeaways. 

Number one, it's okay to do less. Maybe this week, you walk through your day through this lens of what would less look like? What would less look like in how much guilt or shame or negative thinking I'm experiencing. What would less look like in the expectations I have for the cleanliness of my home? What would less look like in terms of how many things I'm putting on my calendar? You don't actually have to do less, but maybe just start to open your system up to Hmm, what might that look like? 

Takeaway number two, the reality that you will have to do less of something anyways to make room for healing, for regulation. 

TAKEAWAY NUMBER THREE is a final invitation that if you are feeling stuck in your healing, we would love to support you, and that link to buck a completely pressure, free discovery call with me is in the show notes. 

All right, friends, thanks for being here. I'll see you next week. 

Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside rise my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space, or apply for our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program, restore, I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes. Again, thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you next time you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai