The Overwhelm Paradigm: Stop Solving Problems That Don't Exist Yet

Spring is a season of change, and change can be completely overwhelming. This week Jojo opens up about her own spiral as she prepares for a major life move, and introduces the Overwhelm Paradigm, a mindset shift that helps you zoom back into the present, tackle things step by step, and trust that the seeds you are planting now are already growing. Short, grounding, and straight to the MES of it.

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Transcript

Jojo (00:07.374)
Welcome to the Inside Out Podcast. I'm your host JoJo and this is where we will navigate the mess together. That means mental, emotional and spiritual. Let's get messy!

Jojo (00:27.151)
Hi everyone, happy Wednesday and welcome back. If you're new, thank you so much for joining. And if you are an avid listener and diehard mess maker, thanks for coming back. Okay, so you guys, spring is upon us, almost, like basically. And there's so much change, there's so much happening and I don't know about you, but I feel...

the overwhelm and the pressure of how much is changing and all these new things that are happening. And we talked last week about the seven M's and I asked you to focus on one of them. And the one that I focused on was the mind because the mind shapes our reality. And I've noticed how much in my head I've been and how that has really been

not helping my current reality whatsoever. So it's almost like this complete overwhelm that I've been in. And some of you know this, if you don't know this, I'm moving. I'm moving out of New York, I'm leaving, and there's so much that's coming with that and what like is on my plate that I have to do in order to make this move and this big life shift happen. And

There's a lot of mental gymnastics and I've just been quite literally so stressed and just completely overwhelmed. So focusing on that this week kind of went out the window. That was what I wanted to do. I wanted to focus on my mind. I wanted to really ground and be very cognizant and clear on what I was thinking, how I was perceiving things and be way more intentional with how I was going about my days and

every moment. However, I got a big reality check yesterday when I had a conversation with someone who basically called me out for not being present. And they said, you're so much in the future. You're worrying about all these things that are going to happen. What about what's happening right now? Can't you find the joy in those little moments of right here, right now? Why are you like future tripping about everything that might go wrong that could go wrong? What

Jojo (02:49.933)
you have to do in order to make certain things happen. What can you do right here, right now, in this moment, rather than like zooming in on every little fine detail that you have to achieve immediately? Because that's not ever gonna be achieved. And I know we know this, like when we take a beat, when we sit back and we're like, okay, what are the little achievable things that I can do step by step, moment by moment?

that I can achieve this bigger thing. Now you guys, you're not all moving. Some of you might be, but maybe there's this thing on the horizon, whether that's a work project or a big event or an obligation that you have coming up and there's so much that you have to do. Maybe you're planning a wedding. I mean, I feel like weddings are like the biggest thing that people stress out over or really planning anything of that caliber. But when you look at it as a whole, have, there's so much that you have to do, right? But if you,

zoom out and you're just like, okay, what is the color palette that I want? Like what are the tiny little steps that you can take right here right now to make this huge insurmountable project a little bit more doable? And today was the first day that I really got real with myself and started to tackle things one by one. Instead of just looking at everything freaking out and then imploding, which I tend to do, I was like, all right,

These are the goals. This is what I want to achieve. So in order to get there, what are the little steps? What are the moment by moment, email by email, phone call by phone call, box by box, things that I can do right here right now so that when this move happens, which is in the next few weeks, I'm not gonna be hit in the face with a complete.

Fireball of stress. I want to call this the overwhelm paradigm because there's a paradigm shift that can happen if you really look at what is in front of you and you're like, wait a second, this isn't actually all that overwhelming because I'm looking at it as a mess. And if I just pick it apart, it's pretty simple. All you need to do is really just look at the logistics, name it, normalize it. And then you can start to tackle it. When that person said, hey,

Jojo (05:15.468)
You're too far in the future right now. Like bring it back. I started getting annoyed at situations that haven't even occurred yet. I started getting annoyed at people, at circumstances that probably won't even play out that way. But I'm like, well, you're not going to be doing X, Y, and Z. So therefore I'm upset. Why am I projecting what might happen next month onto right now and getting annoyed about that? And I think we

We don't just stay in the right here right now. We don't say, on, let me look around. Where are my feet? Where are my hands? What can I smell? What can I touch? What can I taste? Because when I shoot out into the future, I lose track of all of the things that are right here, tangibly next to me. And I don't know about you, but that overwhelm clouds me. And I get completely exhausted immediately.

And I have no motivation whatsoever to continue moving forward. And then today, when I made that list and tackled one obstacle at a time in order to get to the bigger project, I've had so much more energy today. I've been nonstop doing stuff since I woke up this morning. And that has been like nine hours of just go, go, go and phone call after email, after, et cetera.

just figuring out the logistics and how to put all my ducks in a row. But I've had way more energy today than I had in previous days because I'm not letting this stress completely consume me. So when you zoom out and you're like, okay, what is actually happening right now in this moment? Not next week, not worst case scenario right now. You can divert that fear that might be underneath it.

the future spinning, the what if this goes wrong, what if that goes wrong, and kind of pull apart what you're actually scared of. And maybe you're just scared of it not getting done. Well, it's not gonna get done if you don't just chill, literally chill. And then when you do that, you can put yourself back in the present. Now this might sound so simple, and I don't mean to oversimplify it.

Jojo (07:35.73)
But I think as a basic concept, when we are so overwhelmed and spinning out about whatever it is, we lose track of really what we can control. And the reality is we can control 99 % of stuff, especially if you have a task and things that you need to do and moves you need to make in order to achieve the task, you have control over those tasks. But if you let your body...

your mind, your whole mental state just spin out of control, there's no way that you're gonna get to those tests that you need to get to. There's no way that you're going to actually achieve what you need to achieve. So let's get messy with this mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Mentally, where in your life right now are you solving a problem that literally doesn't exist yet? And what if you just stopped? Just for today. Just stopped trying to solve a problem that may or may not be happening later on.

Gosh, that's so freeing. The fact that I just am not annoyed anymore at something that has even happened yet, it just took like 10 pounds off my shoulders.

Emotionally, what emotion is underneath this overwhelm? Is it fear? Is it uncertainty? Maybe there's grief, but can you let yourself tap into what that emotion is and actually feel it instead of trying to outrun it? Mine is all fear. It's all uncertainty. It's all, well, I don't know and okay. Well, what I do have certainty over is the little things that I can do day by day.

in order to achieve clarity and certainty and to know what I'm going to be dealing with when the time comes.

Jojo (09:25.298)
Spiritually this kind of goes against everything I just said Because it's actually asking you to let go of control so bear with me on this if you trusted that everything right now is unfolding for the best possible version and Outcome That you could even imagine that you even had no control over you know that saying like you plan God laughs. That's what I mean

Maybe every obstacle or roadblock or reroute is actually protecting you. Maybe there's certain things that you're not able to do right now because you're actually not supposed to and they're literally protecting you from a bigger disaster down the road. Can you trust that? Can you let go of the control of trying to need to get around those roadblocks? Can you stop rushing towards control? And can you just know that the effort that you're putting in now

will pay off because you know the universe has you. You know that if you take a step, the universe steps with you. You've seen it. That terrible heartbreak that you went through that you thought was the worst moment of your life, you look back and you're like, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. That's the obstacle. That's the roadblock. That's the detour, the rerouting that we don't realize is actually the best thing for us, but it turns out to be the best thing for us. So can you trust that if you're hitting any of those roadblocks,

that maybe they're meant to be there instead of like trying to push and push and push and like stress yourself out even further. I love the analogy of spring because when you plant a flower in the ground, you don't see it growing. And then finally you see a shoot come up through the ground and then a flower starts to blossom and you know, spring comes, but at first it's in the dark. There's a lot of things before a manifestation that's happening in the dark. You can't see all of the results immediately.

Because you're not supposed to. Because if there was just a flower, it would die. Because it doesn't have roots. It doesn't have where it came from. It doesn't have its essence. There needs to be more. And right now, that overwhelm, that stress, that whatever that you're pushing towards, can you leave that behind and just take step by step, moment by moment, day by day, and trust that the things that you are doing now

Jojo (11:49.638)
the seeds that you are planting, the path that you are forging is actually gonna be something that is in line, that is what you want and probably even better than you ever imagined. I get it, overwhelm is intense, it's exhausting, it's stressful, there's a million things on our plates, maybe at all times, but how can we shift? How can we develop better skills?

better self-compassion, a more grounded approach so that we're not in a constant tailspin. I wanted this to be a short episode this week because there is so much happening, there is so much going on, and I want to really ground it. So if this landed for you, you know someone that's going through a rough time, or you just need to share this with your social media following or whomever you think, please do so. That really helps me.

that helps Inside Out grow, helps other people. And you know where to find me at underscore insideout.podcast. Subscribe on Substack. You get weekly emails from me about what's coming up, reminders for episodes and little nuggets of information here and there. And with that, have a great week guys. Get out of that spiral and I'll talk to you soon. Bye.