Ep. 174: Sprint Recap Day 1: You're Not Broken—You're Overloaded

Ever feel like you're just crashing out over and over again?

You push through the day, white-knuckling your way from one demand to the next. You collapse at night, scroll your phone for twenty minutes, and then wake up tomorrow to do it all again. And somewhere in that cycle, you start to wonder: "What's wrong with me? Why can't I get it together?"

Well, I'll tell you something I shared with the women inside the 3-Day Survival Mode Rescue Sprint today: It's not you. You're not broken. You're overloaded.

I'm Jennifer Roskamp, and Day 1 of the Sprint just wrapped up—and the relief in that room was palpable. Women finally saw their lives clearly for the first time in years. And what they discovered was life-changing.

Get some powerful mantras to inspire, encourage, and life you up when you need as little something intentional to focus on.

We have a beautiful pdf download of the 6 Mantras For Intentional Moms you can keep or print. Request them right HERE.

Visit The Intentional Mom

Follow us on Instagram HERE

Visit our YouTube Channel HERE

Rate & Review The Intentional Mom Podcast on Apple . We'd love to hear your thoughts on the podcast. If you listen on Spotify, you can rate & review us there, too.

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Survival Mode
• 5:28 The Crash Out Cycle

Transcript

Well, hey there, welcome to the Intentional Midlife Mom podcast today. I'm your host, Jennifer Roskamp, and I'm excited to share some of the key points that I shared with people today in the first day of the Survival Mode Rescue Sprint today. And really the overall arching theme of today was how we learned that being in survival mode, doesn't mean that you're broken. It means that you're overloaded.

Day one wrapped up today, and the relief in the room, in the virtual room, I could feel it. Women finally saw their lives clearly, their season, the season they're in clearly for the first time in years. what they discovered really, it's begun to change their lives already. So here's what we uncovered together today. Most of us are stuck in what I call the crash out cycle. And once you see it, it's one of those things that you can't unsee, right? So it goes like this. Carrie, white knuckle,

crash, tiny reset, repeat. That's the cycle. Carry, white knuckle, crash, tiny reset, repeat. So essentially what this means is you start by carrying too much. You've got tasks, mental load, emotional responsibility for yourself and everyone around you. And you tell yourself you can handle it because what choice do you have? You then white knuckle your way through the chaos and you push harder and harder, try to do it better, be more efficient.

Do it in less time, get more done. Until one day you crash and you collapse on the couch. You snap at the people you love or you find yourself hiding in your car just to breathe. And then you feel guilty about the crash. So you do a tiny reset. Maybe you meal prep on a Sunday or you organize the pantry better and then you dive right back in. And here you are again. You're carrying too much. You're white knuckling. You're crashing. You're doing the tiny reset. Repeat.

And it just repeats and repeats and repeats. Let me give you an example from my own life. A few years ago, I was managing our household of five, while this was several years ago now, while my husband was in nursing school. I was running my business, trying to get a business started up, and I was keeping track of everyone's schedules. I was managing the emotional temperature of the house. And somehow, I was convincing myself that this should be easy, especially because this is what you signed up for. Well, one day, everything fell apart.

The washing machine broke, two kids were sick, and if you've ever had sick laundry, let me tell you, that is not the time for the washer to break. I had a doctor visit I couldn't reschedule, and we were out of basically everything for dinner. And by 6 p.m., I was sitting in my pantry, crying over a can of beans, wondering why I couldn't handle what felt like basic adult responsibilities.

That was my crash moment. And like so many of us, I blamed myself. I thought, other moms can handle this. What's wrong with me? But here's what I now know that I didn't know then. I wasn't crashing because I was weak. I was crashing because I was carrying more than realistically one person should carry alone. This isn't weakness. It's simply math. You've been carrying more than one person should.

And that's exactly what the women in the sprint discovered today when we did the master load audit. This was the exercise that finally brings the invisible and makes it visible. So today in the sprint, I walked everyone through the first step of relief. This is when you're writing down every single thing you're carrying, not just the obvious stuff like work deadlines and doctor's appointments, but all the invisible stuff.

We talk about all that invisible stuff so that we don't miss anything. It's things like the mental load of remembering everyone's preferences. Who likes what? Tracking the family dynamics, out the family fires, right? It's keeping the household running. It's managing the emotions. It's planning ahead and anticipating needs before anyone even asks. Just dumping it out so it's all visible, it feels so life-changing.

becomes something measurable instead of something that's immeasurable. And the response from the women in the sprint was immediate. Women were saying things like, my gosh, no wonder I'm exhausted. I had no idea there was so much. Then there were others who said things like, I'm not crazy. This is actually kind of a lot. Because when you see the truth on paper, you realize you're not broken. There's just a lot there.

And so we went much deeper on this together inside the sprint, but you can try this right now. Grab a piece of paper and for five minutes just brain dump everything you're carrying, everything you're responsible for, everything you're worried about, everything you're managing in some way. And don't edit it, don't try to organize it, just get it all out of your head and down onto paper. And notice what happens in your body when you begin to see it all becoming written down.

So now that was just the surface of what we covered today inside the sprint. We went much deeper. We talked about why this cycle feels so normal. Because when you're a high capacity, high functioning woman, people start depending on your ability to carry everything. Your family, they get used to you being the one who remembers, the one who manages, the one who maintains. You become the default for everything and everyone. And so we explored how the invisible load is often three times heavier.

than the visible load. Everyone can see that you're doing laundry, but they can't see that you're also tracking what each family member needs. They can't see that you're planning ahead for the week, noticing when supplies are running low and managing the emotional temperature of the house while you fold that laundry. We talked about why the crash, it's not failing. It's your nervous system protecting you. Your body and brain are saying, hang on, this is too much. We need to simplify. We need to conserve energy. We need to focus on just getting through for the right now.

And we started to reframe what survival mode actually means. It's not evidence that you're failing in any way. It's evidence that you're succeeding at carrying an enormously heavy load. But here's what's even more powerful. It was watching women that they realized that they weren't alone today, that even capable women who can do a lot of things, they all recognized that same cycle.

They all realized that this isn't a personal failing, it's a predictable response to what it means when you're carrying too much. So today really was about awareness. Tomorrow in the sprint, we're moving into action. Because once you can see the cycle clearly, the next question becomes, how do you interrupt it? How do you stop the spin before the crash? And that's what we're covering on day two. You can stop the spin even in chaos.

And we're gonna talk about the pause and park strategy. We're gonna talk about how to create breathing room, even when everything feels urgent. How to set micro boundaries that protect your capacity without guilt. And how to say not now without feeling selfish. Because here's the thing, you don't have to absorb everything in the moment it hits you. You don't have to carry it all at once. And you definitely don't have to crash to get relief. So if what I've shared today hit home,

If you're recognizing yourself in the crash out cycle, it's not too late to join us. Day two is tomorrow. And when you sign up, you'll get access to the replay we had for 24 hours. Each replay is available for 24 hours. And so you can catch up on everything we covered yesterday. Well, yeah, yesterday. No, today, today. Sorry, my days are all messed up. You can see what we covered today. Well, depending on when you listen to it, right? From the moment I teach,

Each day you have 24 hours to watch the replay. There we go. Or you can upgrade to VIP and get lifetime access if you'd rather. But then tomorrow you'll be with us when we do this master load audit and you'll do it right there with us. And you'll be ready for tomorrow's powerful session. We're just getting started. And trust me, you do not want to miss what's coming next. The women who joined us today, they're already feeling relief. Not because their circumstances changed overnight.

but because they finally understand what they're dealing with. They're realizing they're not broken and they're not failing. There's just a lot. And now they have a path forward. Here's what Meredith shared with me today after today's session. She said, for the first time in years, I don't feel crazy. I see exactly why I've been struggling. And it's not because I can't manage it. It's because I'm strong enough to carry what I have been carrying. And that shift, changes everything.

That's really the power of awareness. That's what happens when you finally see the truth clearly. So head to survivalmoderescuesprint.com and sign up to join us and watch the first replay if it's still available. Don't add this to your mental to-do list. Do it now because that list is already too long. You know that if you put something else on that mental checklist, you might as well not even put it there at all. So...

Tomorrow, again, we're gonna step into how to interrupt this crash cycle in real time, how to stop the spin before the crash and how to create space even in the chaos of everything that's going on. Because in reality, you deserve to feel relief. You deserve to see your strength clearly and you deserve support.