When Your Crankiness Takes Over

It’s no secret: You’re just NOT your best self when you're stressed and overstimulated. 

In this episode, I divulge the many things making me cranky these days, how I’m handling my emotions, and six overarching reminders to put things back in perspective.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:

•  Why it’s essential to keep tabs on your cumulative stress and how it’s inevitably higher at certain times of the year than others
• The vicious trap of “keeping score” with your husband and convincing yourself you’re doing so much more than he is
• Why the psychological concept of “unconditional positive regard” is non-negotiable (for your benefit, not anyone else’s!)
• All kinds of times you should expect to have lower capacity and thus not handle stress well
• How even certified life coaches who’ve spent years doing the hard inner work to heal still get triggered more than you might think

FOR SO MUCH MORE:

Sign up for my FREE masterclass: “Transitions Without Turmoil: A 4-Step Framework to Graceful Change” happening August 15, 2025 at 12pm Eastern. (Replay included.) 

Listen to this prior episode on “The Importance of Seasonal Living” for more on why certain times of the year are inevitably more stressful than others.

Ready to take radical responsibility for your own happiness so your kids see you living your best life and know that’s possible for them, too? The Happy Mom ProtocolTM will fundamentally change your perspective on prioritizing your happiness above all else and equips you with six simple “Happiness Habits” that are scientifically PROVEN to help you be significantly happier in just seven days!

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HOMEWORK:

Your homework for this episode is to email me or DM me on Instagram @solutionsforsimplicity to share something driving YOU crazy these days. Solidarity, sweet friends! 

COMING UP NEXT:

 Join me back next episode to continue

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Transcript

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Last episode, I tried to be ahead of the curve and we talked all about navigating big emotions around transitions like back to school season. But even all of those reminders didn't prevent me from losing it this past week. I have really just been so stressed and frustrated about so many things that I will delve into in this episode. But I just want you to know that if you are feeling super stressed and cranky and on edge right now, it's okay. There are very real, understandable reasons why that is probably the case. In this episode, I especially want to give you six crucial reminders of how to put things back into perspective. Welcome to More Time for Mom, where overwhelmed moms get science-backed strategies to overcome the hidden sources of stress stealing your time and joy. I'm your host, Dr. Amber Curtis. Ready to make more time for you? Let's dive in. I started this podcast to give you helpful, science-backed advice on how to make your life better. But I'm all about keeping it real, and one thing that maybe no one has ever told you is that no matter how far you've come, no matter how much inner work you've done, no matter how transformed your life is compared to how it used to be, you will still have moments that you come undone and lose it. That's completely normal. Hopefully, you catch yourself getting triggered and change your default response in the moment. But even if not, being aware of why you got triggered is so key for coming back and repairing things with other people later on, as well as for having grace with yourself. It pains me to say this, but we are not perfect. We will never be perfect. Cognitively, we know that, but emotionally, it's what so many of us are still always striving for. And I too am so guilty of using all of this life advice as a way of trying to attain perfection, thinking that if I just find the right tools and do enough of this deep work, then I will reach that place where I don't get triggered, or I never mess up, and I never get frustrated, and I never lose my cool. But that's not reality. And to underscore that, I want to take you behind the scenes on how crazy I have been going the last couple days. I have spent well over a decade researching what is scientifically shown to help you improve your life. I have gotten years of coaching and gone through very intensive life coach certification training myself. I have worked with one-on-one clients for years. And yet, you should know that I still lose it. It's really hard to admit that and put this out there for everyone to hear, but I just want to normalize the stress that we moms are under, especially in certain times of the year where a lot of things are piling up at once, there are big events or occurrences, and things that are out of the normal that no matter how much you try and prepare for ahead of time, it is just a lot to get through. I have been Miss Cranky Pants the last few days. I have so much on my mind, like getting all the right school clothes for my four different kids, which, as you know, means knowing the four different sizes of shirts, four different sizes of pants, four different sizes of socks, four different sizes of shoes that everybody needs. And then, of course, wanting to make sure that what I buy is good enough quality, it will hold up for a while, but isn't outrageously expensive because they're just gonna grow out of it before long. Two of my boys are in soccer, so practices have started up and we are coordinating carpool. I'm trying to make sure they have the right color socks to wear for home game versus away games, entering the game schedule on the calendar, and then ran into a crazy tech situation where the email calendar my husband and I share isn't syncing with our phones, so then my husband doesn't know what's going on. It seems like there should be a simple fix, but I have tried so many things and it's just not working. And then my brain spirals into feeling like a Luddite or, you know, like I just don't have a handle on all this fast-moving technology of our day and age. We've been going through incredible daycare drama with our three-year-old because his old daycare unexpectedly shut down. I was trying to find a little interim solution before he will then get to start at my older kid's school in just a couple of days. But with my husband and my work schedule, we have needed him to still be in part-time care. When we take him to this other daycare right now, He is just sobbing the whole drive there. He even hides behind the couch because he doesn't want to leave in the morning. And then he has such terrible separation anxiety when we drop him off that my mom guilt is just through the roof. I am feeling so terrible about all of that. And yet I need some help, right? I need a village and we don't have any family or anyone else that can swoop in and take the kids and take care of him. I really do rely on these wonderful daycares, but it's just a lot of emotion there. I have been so busy trying to coordinate school supplies for four kids and make sure that everything is just the right brand as requested by the teacher and then that I double check that what we bought actually gets into the right box for the right kid to take with them to school. We've got back to school events coming up. That, of course, reminds me that while we have really relaxed on our sleep schedule this summer, we're going to need to leave the house by a certain time to get the kids to school on time, which means getting up earlier. We therefore need to start readjusting our nighttime routine back so that everybody can still get good sleep. But then we're having sleep battles at night. Going back to school means packing lunches again. My head is crammed with trying to remember which kids will or won't eat which foods and how to balance that with my desire to feed them good, wholesome, organic stuff. Then of course, the different foods that we buy can't all be found at the same store. So I'm trying to remember what I need at each different place. And then that makes me think of the household supplies we're running low on that I need to stock up at Costco. And then Costco's really out of the way, so I'm trying to consolidate going there with taking the boys to their sports physical appointment at the doctor's office, which is nearby. Which then makes me anticipate all of my kids' emotions about going back to school and their excitement, but also anxiety. Some of their friends have moved on and aren't coming back this year. They all obviously have new teachers. And especially for my three-year-old, it's going to be a big transition moving up to this 4K class. As you well know, you, the mother, feel your kids' emotions in your body, even anticipatory emotions. I can just feel all of that myself. I am definitely that deeply feeling person who is extra sensitive and hyper aware of how other people are doing. So I just I feel so much right now. My office is a mess and that room has become the catch all for trying to stage all of the organization of school supplies and then throw all the stuff that we can't have the three-year-old getting into. So now I feel like I don't have a clear space to work or do my workouts. I have some really exciting big business opportunities that just came up, but I haven't had any time or space to think deeply, let alone prepare yet. And yet is the operative word because I really just have at the time of this recording. Two days, right? Just two days left to go. But I have so reached my tipping point of having the kids home all summer. This was the first summer ever that we didn't put them in full-time summer camp. And I was so excited. So much of it has been wonderful. But I just realized that I do so much better when I have a little bit Just a little bit of time and space and separation, right? We all do. Then this weekend, when I did try and make some time for work and asked my husband to split up Saturday, I got frustrated feeling like no one was upholding the daily schedule that I've made up in my head or you know, that he doesn't know the things I normally do when I'm quote unquote on duty. Then I spiraled into frustration over feeling like I'm always the default parent and I can't ever take a break or if I do, then the whole system falls apart, which is totally a lie because my husband is amazing and he does so, so much. I will come back to that in just a second. But again, these are the thoughts that have just been dominating my thinking lately. And I really have spiraled into frustration that I am the only female in a house of all guys. I will just never get over how different guys and girls are. And I realize now that everything I thought parenting would be like came from my experience as a super quiet, obedient, responsible little girl, which is just so opposite my real life now with four boys. The icing on the cake was that our water heater went out midday Friday of all times, right? Right before the weekend. There was no way we could get a service call until Monday. It shouldn't be that big of a deal, but it really has hit home for me how spoiled I am, what a luxury warm showers are, and how much I have used nice warm showers and baths as a way of decompressing and relieving my stress. Cold showers are no fun. Being in that cold water was making me feel so miserable and put out. Thanks for letting me vent. I could go on and on. There are even more things, but I don't want to bore you, and I don't mean to be a source of negativity. I really do want to be that positive influence in your life, reminding you that no matter how hard and stressful things are, There's always something you can do to make them better. Our thoughts and feelings are entirely in our control. So I want to share with you a lot of the reminders that I've been giving myself to self-coach myself through this hard time. The first thing is a reminder that your brain is literally like a pie chart. The more things on your mind, the more divided your pie is. And more slices of pie mean an infinitely more complicated life, which makes you less able to focus on any one thing, any one slice of pie. This time of year, with school starting back, and I'm soon to start back at my university as well, The number of slices in my pie just quadrupled or quintupled overnight. I'm feeling the stress of so many different things I didn't have to deal with all summer that are now coming back around. And as I underscored on the episode of seasonal living, which I will link again for you in the show notes, there are times of the year that are just inevitably more stressful. They will always have more slices of pie, more things going on for you to deal with. The more we can anticipate that, the better, but it still doesn't make getting through those moments necessarily any easier. Okay, that's the big takeaway. We just have to get through it and then things will lighten up again. Some seasons of life are like getting squeezed and pressed down harder and harder until you think you can't take it anymore, but then it releases and you can suddenly breathe again. You have more space and everything opens up until the next time. It's just the cycle of life. The second thing to remember is that we have to stop keeping score. One of the most devious ways that I know the devil messes with my mind is in this constant scorekeeping between what I am doing versus what I perceive my husband is doing. It can feel like you are doing everything, but don't believe that lie. My husband is doing so much too, and there is so much that he takes care of that I don't even know about, let alone appreciate. But he, for example, takes care of everything to do with our cars, all the buying and changing of filters from the water filter on the fridge to the house filters to I don't even know what. He takes care of all the yard stuff. He does all the finances, the bills, the mail. He is so amazing. I don't give him enough credit because I don't even know all the things he does because he doesn't even bother me with knowing about them, right? Whereas here I am venting and complaining about the many, many, many things I feel like I'm doing. He's doing so much too. And he's not oblivious. He knows when I get stressed and he really does want to help. Like he wants to know how to help make it better. Last night as we were about to go to sleep, he said, I know you have so much on your mind. Just tell me how I can help. And that simple comment meant the world to me because it just helps to know your scene, right? Sometimes no one else can take these things off your plate and delegating, even if possible, can feel like so much more work because you know a lot of things that you would have to convey and that takes time and energy. So It is still simpler to do a lot of the things yourself, even if it's a lot to do. What I find really helps me feel better is just feeling seen and appreciated for how much you're doing. I hope you have that too. We don't need it. We need to be able to see and appreciate ourselves first and foremost. But if you're not feeling appreciated, then be sure and express that to your husband. He wants you to be happy. He wants to help. But I think a lot of times we repel them away with our negativity and our nagging and all the things that we do when we are stressed. It's a really, really vicious cycle. Believe me, I get it. Third thing to keep in mind is that even if things are unbalanced and you are legitimately doing so much more, it is essential to maintain this sense of unconditional positive regard. That's a really fancy psychological term. Unconditional positive regard. It's just the idea that you always give people the benefit of the doubt. You always trust, not assume, you trust that they are coming from a good place, that they mean well, that they are really doing the best they can under the circumstances. They are in no way intentionally trying to upset you or make your life harder. And the reason that you want to hold unconditional positive regard is not for the other person. It's for your benefit because it helps you feel better in your body to think that they mean well, that they want what's best for you versus the opposite. Oh, they're doing this intentionally to make me mad or to make life harder for me. That thought feels terrible in your body, so we really have to work to control our mind to take our thoughts captive, as the Bible says, and really just believe. Choose to believe in unconditional positive regard towards everyone. Husband, kids, strangers at the grocery store, or in traffic, everybody. Crucial reminder number four is a big one, and that is that you have to keep in mind your cumulative stress. In another podcast episode, I will break down different kinds of stress, but the point is that the more stressors you are dealing with, the less capacity you have, the less well you are able to handle any one of them. Any one stressful thing on its own probably wouldn't tip the scale and you could handle it fairly well, but when lots and lots of things add up, Of course you lose it because your ability to handle all of those things has been so diminished. Similarly, point number five is that you have to expect to not handle things well. When you have lower capacity, there are so many times where we can just know in advance. We are not very likely to be at our best. For instance, when the weather has been gray for several days in a row. All this past week here in South Carolina, where I live, it has been really nice and cool, but very dark and gray and rainy. I haven't been officially diagnosed, but I'm sure I have seasonal affective disorder because my personality is so tied to sunshine. I guess I'm more of a Goldilocks where I complain about the hot, humid summers, but then I really don't like the dark gray winters and everything needs to be just right for me to feel happy. But given the gray rainy days we've had, it would make sense that I am tolerating all of my stress less well than normal. Another time you could expect not to handle things as well would be when you are approaching that time of the month. Interestingly, although TMI, that is not my situation. I am not at a time in my cycle where I would be more likely to be moody. So my moodiness is catching me and my family that much more off guard. A more likely explanation has to do with perimenopause, where as your body is going through all of these big changes, your hormones are all over the place. Your baseline cortisol, the stress hormone, is way higher to begin with. That is definitely something that I have been dealing with. It's really important to keep that in mind because if you didn't already know, perimenopause can start mid-30s and go through mid-50s or later. There's such a wide window where women's bodies are changing and a lot of these big perimenopausal symptoms aren't recognized as such. Thankfully, there's more attention being devoted to all of this now, and I will dedicate future podcast episodes to exploring it, but just know, if you are in your mid to late 30s, 40s, 50s, there's a good chance that perimenopause is partly, if not fully to blame for what you are feeling. We don't handle things well when we haven't slept great. which can, again, tie back into your monthly cycle or relate to perimenopause symptoms. But in my case, our family has played musical bedrooms most of the summer with kids sleeping all over the place and changing who's sleeping with whom. The last couple of nights, our little three-year-old wanted to sleep with his oldest brother, which was so sweet and wonderful and went great for a couple of nights and then totally backfired on the third night. I just was super cranky and exhausted from that yesterday. You don't handle things as well when you haven't had any real time for yourself in a while. It's amazing how just a little bit of separation, a little bit of time and space all by yourself, doing what you want and what brings you joy, it really does help you recharge. Similarly, if you haven't been taking care of yourself. I know this is a big part of it for me. Between traveling in July and then getting sick when I got home and things being thrown off with my three-year-old's daycare unexpectedly shutting down, I missed three weeks of my workouts And we've been on the go a lot more with soccer practice. So we ate out at some fast food restaurants. I've had a bunch of sugar. And I just, I know I don't feel well when I don't take care of myself. Your body literally doesn't function well. When you're emotional and distraught or anxious and upset, you turn to the sugar or the junk food or the scrolling instead of working out. And all of it just compounds. Last but not least, we definitely need to expect that we won't handle things well when we are overstimulated. Your nervous system is like a bucket of water. As the bucket gets filled up with more and more stimulation, more stressful things, more loud noises, more sensations, more other people and their emotions or their needs, all of it just pours into that bucket. As the bucket overflows, you snap, you yell, you blame, you nag, you hopefully don't act out physically but you might feel the rage boil up in your veins. I will be the first one to admit that this is part of what's going on for me as I've had the kids home and talking to me all at once, nonstop, looking around and seeing all of the socks strewn about or the dishes piling up in the sink and then getting frustrated with needing to remind the kids to do their chores and then they don't listen. Compound all of that with me feeling dirty from not being able to wash my hair and wanting to take a shower but don't have hot water. It's just a lot of overstimulation. So of course you don't handle things as your best self in those moments. The skill really is to find ways of re-regulating your nervous system first, which I'm trying to do, but still always a work in progress. The sixth reminder is just that in these high stress moments, when things are what they are, you have to wait and they're going to get better at some point, but there's no real immediate fix in sight, it is crucial to find something you can laugh about. Laughter is truly the best therapy and it takes your mind off of everything, it lightens the mood, and it really just gives you that chemical and hormonal release of serotonin and dopamine and all kinds of other good feelings in your body. I highly recommend that you find some good comedy routines or some funny memes or other things that can help you laugh even though your life feels so stressful right now. Your homework for this week is to reach out to me through the email link in the description or by DMing me on Instagram at Solutions for Simplicity and share something that is driving you crazy these days. I am all about solidarity. Remember, you are never alone. And getting stress off of your chest by sharing it with trusted others is one of the best ways to feel better. So thank you for letting me do that by sharing all of my drama in this episode. Join me back next Tuesday for another episode where we continue to unpack the root causes of stress that are keeping you stuck and overwhelmed so you can overcome them and be better equipped to deal with them in a more healthy, productive way the next time they arise. Until then, remember nothing you do, and not even how cranky you get, changes how wonderful and worthy you are. Have a great day.