The Art of Being 'Whelmed'

In this conversation, Heather and Dolly discuss the complexities of life transitions, focusing on the concept of being 'whelmed' and the importance of wringing out ‘our sponge’. They explore the challenges of balancing caregiving roles, personal aspirations, and the need for pauses to manage overwhelm. The conversation emphasizes the value of curiosity and self-awareness in navigating life's pressures – especially during midlife.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions shared in this episode belong solely to the guest and do not necessarily reflect those of their employer or affiliated organizations.

Host: Heather Gates, MPH, Owner & Strategy Partner, Human-Centered Strategy, LLC
Guest: Dolly Pressley Byrd, CNM, PhD, Department of OB/GYN Chair, OB/GYN Specialists, MAHEC

Takeaways
•Midlife is a unique time of transition.
•Being 'whelmed' is a state of constant re-balancing.
•Curiosity helps in understanding personal needs.
•Pausing can help manage overwhelm.
•Life transitions sometimes require letting go.
•Decision fatigue can lead to overstimulation.
•Active listening fosters better relationships.
•Leadership involves empowering others.

Chapters
•00:00 Introduction to Life Transitions
•18:25 Balancing Caregiving and Personal Goals
•30:47 The Importance of Pausing
•55:33 Curiosity and Self-Awareness
•57:58 Leadership and Empowerment
•1:02:23 The Concept of Being “Whelmed” 

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Transcript

Heather
Welcome back to the podcast y'all. This is Heather Gates and I'm joined today by one of the incredible members of my humaning in a body care team. Dolly Pressley Byrd. Dolly welcome. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm so excited to have you here. Before we get started, I do want to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself in whatever way feels good to you. Okay.

Dolly 
Thank you. Yeah. So I appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation with you. Thank you. It's always fun when we get to spend some time together. I am Dolly Pressley Bird. I happen to be a Northwestern North Carolina native born and raised, have lived in other places across the southeast and northeast, and have been back here for 20 years. Working this next month is my 20 year anniversary. I am a certified nurse midwife and I work at MAHEC Mountain Area Health Education Center. So I have had the privilege of taking care of many incredible patients, pregnant women, parenting women, patients for both their prenatal and their gynecologic needs. So that is my story.

And who I am. Also a mother, I should say a mother of two incredible boys who are 19 and 20. They're both in college and have an incredibly supportive spouse whom you also know and have worked with. I did not realize you had been, like you were back 20 years. That was, I just didn't, cause I've been here about 18 years.

So how kind of new you were when our paths must have crossed. Yeah, exactly. So we actually lived 20 years ago. We lived in New Orleans. My husband was in graduate school at Tulane when Hurricane Katrina hit. And we evacuated here to my parents, where I grew up, for what we thought was going to be a couple of days. And then very quickly realized the devastation that Hurricane Katrina had left.

Heather
and relocated here. My job in MAHEC was open and I applied and I have been here ever since. And we're right on the anniversary of Helene. Yes. Just this weekend. that I felt, you know, just thinking about that time. I can't believe it's been 20 years and I'm sure anybody listening who's in Western North Carolina knows our story is very aware and maybe ways that, you know, I grew up in the Gulf Coast. So think you're aware of what hurricane damage can be.

and we're newly oriented to that up here in the mountains. So yeah, you mentioned you're a certified nurse midwife and I mentioned you on my humaning in a body care team. So that was our first, when our paths crossed as you were there. Yeah, I came here actually and was quickly on bed rest. So that was an interesting journey and to be in as a new.

as a new mom. So I've appreciated for that amount of time. You've been in my life ever since then. So just the steady calm. Yeah. And wisdom, just what you've been and the support you've been for me. Well, I can't tell. appreciate it. Well, thank you. And I can't tell you what a full circle moment it was for me to listen to your first podcast interviewing Nash. I don't know, there's been a couple of times over the past year where he's been on, I think like Blue Ridge Public Radio or

And I always feel like some small, like I had some small part in his success. I helped him come into the world, literally. my gosh, it's amazing how time flies and just the transitions and all that has happened since then. So your boys are a little older. Yes, they're my kiddos. Yeah, they're, my oldest one is a junior at Western Carolina. He just started nursing school.

And then my youngest one is in his second year at NC State. two college kiddos. Yeah. Yeah, we are in the college application phase. And then Harper's still sophomore, which still feels crazy to me, but I can't. I mean, maybe we'll talk about it, but my heart kind of does weird blocking of reality, I think, to imagine that.

Heather 
there will be a time where they're not in the house. So I'm not there yet and you are. And before we get, I think we're gonna talk a little bit more about some of that. Before we do, I'm curious, we are recording this after we've both been at work all day. So let's just honor the and that we're showing up in. What kind of and as you sit here today, yeah, what?

And how are you? What energy are you showing up with? How are you feeling about doing this? 

Dolly 
I'm excited and nervous leaning in, know, leaning into it. have not done a podcast before, so I'm happy always. I'm just a few ahead. Well, and we always have good, rich conversations. I'm looking forward to that. Just trying to pretend that we are not sitting here with microphones and headphones on. This is just a rich conversation. I'm showing up, I guess, my and today.

So I do practice clinically as a nurse midwife and I'm also a chair of the department of OB-GYN. And so my day to day was not clinical. was an administrative leadership. Well, I take that back. started out the morning at the hospital, rounding on postpartum patients. And then I've interviewed a couple of prospective providers and had some meetings and talked to logistics, met with our attorney. So what a range. complexity. Yeah, a lot of different things

Heather
that I started showing up in the and. Yeah, in the and even just with that to imagine the range. know, often laugh is a small business, the range of things that we find ourselves doing in a day when there's only two of us. But I don't think I've thought before about the range when you're in clinical leadership, the range from patient care to all this sort of standard business and leadership things that you find yourself in in a day. would be, yeah, I would think would be kind of interesting and exciting and a lot of, you know, kind of mental and emotional shifting. 

Dolly
A lot of whiplash. lot of, yeah, mental whiplash. I, as you know, like people that are good problem solvers, like I guess I'm a pretty good problem solver, can find solutions. And so when you're good at solving problems, people bring you more problems. So you end up with a lot of problems to solve. I, know, it just so happens that the past week or two I've had, I've put out a lot of fires. And that the and that you stand in, like you're really good at being a problem solver or solution seeker. And also you don't have as much time or energy, what you want to do that is strategic or generative or, you know, sort of fills your cup or features soul are necessary for continued growth and development, whether me as an individual, us as a department or organization. A lot of things. 

Heather
I see that a lot in teams, just kind of at scale even. You're just in the work. And so something you said about just having time to be strategic often as a strategy partner, so much of... what I feel like the value of my involvement is just that we're gonna block time. Like, Heather's coming, we now have half of a day. And it may just be if y'all just had half a day to be and think together, but blocking time is such a big piece of it. I'll do my and, will and stand here too. How am I today? I'm curious, I'm curious where this conversation is gonna go. I feel...

It is helpful. think I'm a little less nervous each time, but I still get a little sweaty. So I'm a little sweaty. I'm curious. I was a little crunchy, just to tell the real truth. I was a little crunchy this afternoon. I don't really know where that's coming from. Maybe we'll figure it out. Maybe it's related to our topic today. And what do you mean by crunchy?

salty? It's a little salty. I don't know what is, I love that that's the answer. Like you're going to operationalize the definition of crunchy with saying salty. Well, what does salty mean? I don't know, like a little prickly or a little salty, prickly, frustrated, kind of grumpy. Yeah, grumpy. That's a good word. A little grumpety, probably a little short.

Heather 
So that, choose your own, all of those the same. And there is something about just acknowledging it and calling all of those funny words that makes it feel a little bit lighter, or at least just acknowledging it. I think half the battle, there are a lot of years in my life that I would have just felt that way and rained it down upon everyone for the next two days. I do feel like I'm at least at a place now where I kind of outside looking, like I notice it.

Like, oh, what's, what is happening with you right now? Maybe you need to walk around the building to get underneath that. Um, so I think it's just interesting to see how that awareness changes over time. All right. Let's get into it. So, um, do you want to T us up the and that we want to talk about today?

Dolly 
Um, sure. I mean, you ask where I am. And I really feel like a lot of where I am, where I'm standing in the and, as mentioned, I'm an empty nester. I have two children who are college age, and that is so bittersweet. Like I really leaned in. I was all in in parenting, you know, supporting those boys any way that I needed to, emotionally.

physically getting them where they needed to be. I attended every ball game, every band concert, all of the things. And you are preparing them to leave the nest, to soar. And then they do. And it is like, holy cow, is what I, this is the success. This is what I prepared for. And then you're like, Yuck. Yeah.

It took us a little while to transition and I am sure probably my sweet spouse, my person's gonna listen to this podcast. So I'll try not to out him too much, but I will tell you, he struggled. Like everybody would ask me like, oh, when my first one left for college, how do you feel? Yeah, how you feel? My husband's a professor at Western Carolina. My oldest son is a student at Western Carolina.

Dolly 
And my husband, hit him so hard and I laughed about it and I would poke fun a little bit at him because there were days that I would look at my, I find my iPhone and they were half a mile apart on campus. But yet the struggle was real with here this kid is out on his own, you know, even though they had such close proximity during the day. He's not that far away. Yeah. Yeah. do think of it more as like they're like, they're going far away. So if it would feel different for him to

Yeah. What do you think? And I don't even, I don't know that I have the emotional bandwidth to ask this question, but I'm going to try. What do you think the bittersweet, what's the feeling? What do need to prepare myself for? Well, that's a good question. The emptiness of the house. Well, I will tell you, there is some beauty. So the sweet part, like Nash is going to leave and then you have time with your daughter. Right.

My children were so closely spaced. They're only 14 months apart. So they have been a duo, a dynamic duo since my oldest was 14 months old. So I had a whole year with my younger son that he had never had before, just one-on-one parenting. So that was the sweet part of that. And then when he left, yeah, it's the quiet.

And my husband and I, will say, and this would be my recommendation for you, we practiced a lot. Like we really got into a good habit. the year or so before they left, we were trying to be really intentional about date night with regularity. so we used to say, we're practicing, we're practicing for empty nest. We don't want to look at each other after the boys are gone and be like, who are you? Yeah. What happened? You know, we're totally separate interests.

And so that, I mean, we have always been close. I think we've grown even closer since the kids have been gone. And so there's the sweetness in that too. It was several weeks of adjustment and it was hard. now- Just sad. 

Heather 
Does it just feel sad that they're not there? It feels like I'm imagining, and not to dress rehearsal hard feelings, but sometimes it does help me. Like there is a grief. There is a, cause I feel it already.

Let me say, already feel the looking back, I mean, even just to looking back when they were kids or these cherished times that I just want to freeze time and bottle. So I know that they'll just be this. It's a transition. I wish I could remember the author, but I read a book one time that said transition is an interesting or a unique type of change where the first step involves a letting go.

So not all changes that way, right? So, it's different, but in transition and it resonates with me. Like when I think I'm in something transition, that stage one honoring that there is a letting go. And it's to me, it's not just like the letting, they're going and we're excited about that. And it marks like I'm letting go of. Yeah.

mothering and just closeness and that day to day being in presence and joy in life. I mean, they can always come back, I think right. There is something about that marker to me that I imagine is going to feel a little bit like grief. 

Dolly 
I, yes, of course, I think it will, but that's interesting. You say that because when you say that, what I hear or what I think about what resonates with me usually When we're in the transition, we don't know we're in the transition. Like that could be the beauty of this empty nest is you know what marks it. You can prepare for it. Because oftentimes I think we're in transition and we realize halfway through like, this is different. This is like, there's something, it's not typically as discreet or time bound or you know exactly to anticipate or what's coming until you're in it and.

you're looking back on it in retrospect, right? So it is, I will say it is, you can prepare. This is the one transition you are aware that is coming. You can try, I mean, I don't know if you can 100% prepare yourself, but you can look forward to that. I will tell you, the sweet, sweet part of it too is my relationship with both of my children has changed and it is even more glorious to have these adult children who call not their mama, but they're calling. I mean, they call both my husband and I to tell us about their day, to tell us like, is a different, it is not like they so much need us anymore. They're calling us because they want to communicate and engage and be in relationship with us. 

Heather 
Okay. So we'll...exclamation point some of the sweet on the bitter and it is interesting to think about how this talk about a transition that has some more markers like some time stamps I mean and immediately again maybe because of our history I think of pregnancy and child right pregnancy and childbirth like you sort not exactly certainly my timeline was not what we thought it was going to be but that when you know more but then yeah what are some other what's a

What are other types of transition? Maybe it's like I think about, yeah. 

Dolly 
Well, think about, I will say with parenthood, you you never know the last time you're gonna pick your child up or sometimes maybe like the last time you're gonna nurse. Like that, you you're looking at it in retrospect and you're like, or you're so in it, like you're so into weaning.

that you're not realizing until after the fact. So there's a lot of things that I think in retrospect you're like, I didn't know that was gonna be the last time we did this. That was the last time I would pick you up. Or that was the last But we know with this, like this is the day you go to college. This is the last family dinner in this model. I mean, yeah, while we're precision. Yeah, talking about health and.

Heather & Dolly 
life cycles and transitions too. Like we talk about it, know, perimenopause, menopause, you know, that sort of transition. It's the great mystery in my life right now. Have not, I don't know what there is to figure out, but yeah. Yeah. mean, speaking of just no clarity. Yeah. Yeah. No straightforward. No clarity.

exacerbated mental fog. Perfect. clarity at a time where clarity is really hard to find. exactly. 

Dolly 
So yeah, I think too, I, parents are aging. My dad, last year had quintuple bypass. He's never had a cardiac history. came out of nowhere and, has had some increasingly, his health journey since then has been on a decline. He's had some increasing frailty. And so.

I'm also in this transition about the sandwich generation. You know, I've taken care of my children and I'm not quite completely there yet. My mom is still very active and involved and takes my dad to his appointments and that sort of thing. But I'm starting to help navigate some of their healthcare needs, services, that sort of thing. Which feels like a new role. Yes. That is back in the camp of not clear and defined.

Heather 
one of those transitions that you don't really know you're in until you're in the thick of it. So we're, I mean, you say sandwich generation. So we're sandwiched between kids are off and we're still involved at some level and we're paying attention to parent wellbeing in a different way. That's a, yeah, a significant. somehow gradual yet feels sometimes sudden, this shift of roles. I mean, actually across both of those. And I wonder, I mean, if it's roles, if it's identity, when you think about what is changing.

Heather 
Cause with our kids, I mean, I'm still your mom, but what that means is different now. And with aging parents, I'm still your daughter and what that means looks different now. So it's this really interesting uncertainty and kind of rebuilding. And I keep coming by, I I felt the same way becoming a mom for the first time is like, you're, I'm a mom now.

What does that mean? What does that look like? We did not send you home with an instruction book, right? Well, not even, I mean, probably a good one about how to care for myself and baby, but this sort of how do I integrate this reality into the broader stained glass window that is me.

Especially when it's like, well, that's going to take up like half the glass is this new thing. I really like the metaphor of stained glass because I feel like life sometimes like shatters it and we're like, how do I put it back together again? And what pieces do I leave behind? And which ones am I going to keep? Or what does it all look like now? So it just strikes me that both of these things that you're navigating, I don't even know what to call them, if they're transitions or just realities of kind of the age that we are.

are this sort of re self-reintegration because they're not they're not like this is true for a day. Right. This is a these are chapters. And so it what calls to me is not just like, how do I navigate these things that are true in my life? But it starts to tap into me of who am I in this?

Dolly 
That's an incredible point. I will tell you where my default lies, and this is not a good thing. No judgment. I am one of those people that is aspirational and have a goal, and I can easily become consumed with achieving or reaching that end goal and not relishing or enjoying or being intentional and thoughtful in the journey along the way.

Like I'm spending so much time. I laugh with my husband. It was, I laugh sometimes. like, my gosh, I was so consumed with planning the wedding that I don't know if I thought about what the marriage would be. Well, sure. I think that's just how we do it for whatever reason. Yeah. And I think there's other times in my life, whether it be a career change or...

change in role or leadership, like that, okay, here's the goal or here's the aspiration, what can I do to achieve that? And then spending all that time toward that goal and then have I missed things along the way, you know, those are valuable lessons that I could have learned if I'd been more intentional in the moment. I'm curious what it feels like. And we'll just take this, we're gonna take the bread of the sandwich and think about kids who are out of the house now.

and parents. We say who are aging, which we're all aging, but we understand what we mean there. And then you say you have a goal and aspiration. In this context, is this like you have a goal and an aspiration for your kiddos and for your parents? Like how does that, I'm somebody who has a goal and aspirate. When I think about what is, how do we sort of integrate our identity in this? If you are identifying as I am somebody with a goal, how does that?

How does that show up in the sandwich? 

Dolly 
That's a good question, Heather. I know I'd have to think about that. I would say, I mean, my overwhelming, my primary response to that would be, feel pretty self-actualized. I feel like there's not much more I need to do or accomplish. My biggest thing right now is I want to be present in the moment and make sure that, I don't know, I'm looking forward to the days where I can slow down and be still. Be still and listen maybe, where I can be in the garden or. you know, taking a fiber arts or a pottery class or, know, doing all the things that can support myself and my wholeness and wellbeing, as well as both my parents and my children. 

Heather 
And as far as where you are now in it, you know, we brought this kind of sandwich as part of the and that you're standing in often in the and there's squeeze and tension. Does it feel squeezy and tension? We've talked about kids leaving is feeling bittersweet. Like that's an and of its own that we talked about. Just the holding of, I don't even know what we're holding, the holding of, I don't know what we're holding. Are we holding tasks? Are we holding care? Like from an energy perspective? What's the squeeze in the and do you think if there is one there? 

Dolly 
Yeah, there's definitely a squeeze. There's tension and I don't know if I can articulate it, but I can give you an example. Yeah, sure. So a few weeks ago, I actually Labor Day weekend. My parents have a lake house and they had gone to the lake for the long Labor Day weekend and I, my family, we were going to join them. I was going out first, then my husband, my kids were coming out. We were

They had like a little compound we were going to be there. And on the Saturday, my parents were already there and it was sort of a big deal. They, the last time they were there, they had been at the house. My dad had a fall and it ended up in the emergency room. And it was a pretty significant fall. And so this was their second trip back. I think they had a little bit of anxiety about being back out there. They were there by themselves.

I was hurrying, trying to get out the door. I was going to go meet them. I was trying to get the dog loaded into the car. I was going to stop by my mom's and water her plants. Like I had this to do list. all the lists. Yeah, the list, the task list. I remember I was pulling the car out of the garage. My 100 pound wine mariner jumps into the front seat and of course she doesn't have a seatbelt on. So the car starts ding, ding, you know, the seatbelt alarm. I feel hyper stimulated.

Dolly 
And at that time, my mother calls and she's got a quandary. And it was something simple. It was something easy, but she couldn't make a decision. And this is a woman who had worked in business, made quick decisions like her executive functioning has always been high. But as she's become my dad's primary caregiver, the stress, I think in the strain, she depends on me more.

And so I'm doing all these things. I have all these tasks. The car's dinging. I'm hyper stimulated. And I remember sort of being short with her and saying, I'm like backing out of the garage trying to look into traffic. And I say to her, okay, we are not gonna solve this quandary in the next three minutes. Let me hang up. I'm gonna call you back. Let me get myself situated. Let me get the dog back in the back seat. Let me call you in just a minute.

And I sort of took that time to decompress, did a couple of things, checked a couple of things off my list before I went out of town. And before I called my mom back, I called my husband and I was like sort of lamenting because I realized I was short with her. I was feeling the squeeze. It was the stretch. In my regular role, everyday work, I have to make hundreds of split decisions.

I have to solve other people's problems. have to have all the answers. And I think, I mean, I didn't realize it, but I was just annoyed. Like, this is just one more thing on a Saturday morning that I have to do. And then I felt guilty. Of course, you know, I thought that then I felt guilty. you know, I talked it through with my husband was like, this is just where I am. This is where they are. And I've got to be supportive of them. And that's my goal. I want to be able to do that.

I've got to check myself. I need you to check me too when you realize like, I'm responding in a way that, you know, if I'm hyper stimulated, I'm, you know, quick or crunchy, is that what you say? Crunchy, if I'm crunchy with them. And so then I was able to call my mom and we talked through it and how I helped her with her decision making, you know, but it was, it was...

Dolly 
It had to be a sort of a pause. had to the pause. Yeah. Get that pause button out. then I, I don't know. I just, was a sort of an aha moment for me. Someone I have another, I have a peer who has aging parents also, and they gave me a good piece of advice and it resonated with me that day. They said they were caregivers for their parents and they realized when they were becoming increasingly short with their parents.

Typically what that indicated, it was a signal light for a heightened level of need for either additional care for their parents or maybe they need to go to the next level or sort of like the hazard light, the red indicator, like, okay, this is different and this is signaling a transition to a higher level of acuity or care or something that's needed.

Heather 
And sometimes, I mean, as I hear you, think it probably, everybody listening can relate to this feeling of I'm trying to load the car and I'm trying to do this and then the cat runs away and then UPS, like the things that just feel overwhelming in the moment. The way you described it as that phone call that kind of tipped it for you, I wrote down decision fatigue. Like at a certain point, I think of it like a dirty sponge on the bottom of the sink, like cannot.

hold anything else. It's saturated. So saturated, cannot compute. So the thoughtfulness that you had to pause it and, you when I say like, ring the sponge out. And that was, you know, a sort of real time acute, how do we manage it when it happens? When there's just too many things. To be aware of like, yeah, I mean, and that sort of how to manage

I don't know if that's, if it's overwhelmed because I really, as somebody who's very sensory sensitive, I appreciate two of your description there that I think is just important to put a pin in of I was overstimulated. I think so often when I end up being crunchy or short or something else, like it is from a place where I am just a saturated sponge of stimulation. And it can be from a number of things.

Heather 
I get overstimulated from noise and if I have an itchy shirt, it's like my shirt was itchy and I just like that filled the cup up and I didn't have a lot left. But then you layer the decisions. I think we can get overstimulated by layers of things or...

Yeah, just the stimulation maybe that comes from making countless decisions on a daily basis. And then somebody says, what do you want for dinner? And you lose your mind. Like you lose your mind. Like I cannot make one more damn decision about anything. And then I'm mad at you for even asking me and why am I the one that you're asking? So I mean, kudos for having the mindfulness to know you needed to pause in the moment. Cause sometimes certainly that doesn't happen.

Yeah, and just, I mean, I guess this place of, as our parents, as we're brought into that, it's another bucket of decisions that you realize, I'm now going to be part of decision making here. It's not only, right? That's what feels like it's the sandwich. And maybe part of what we're holding in this sort of midlife sandwich is a real range of decisions. Because kids are out and probably still engaging.

Right. Then there's the whole, am I doing in the day? And even maybe decisions about who am I now? Is now the time to sign up for this pottery class? And you're like, well, I thought so, but now I have all these other decisions to make. So it's just, it's a lot of, and that mainly sounds like mental energy to me, but I also appreciated the way you were like, I did this and then I felt guilty. Right. So often there's the initial.

thought or feeling, and then we add feelings to, we have feelings about our feelings. And so that just to me adds to the oversight. can get very overwhelmed from there, right? Not even about, maybe it's like the original set of things, but then when I stack it, with when Nash was little, I called this adding suck to the suck sandwich. Like you have the original thing and then you're just piling on additional things when you add.

Heather 
all those emotions and feelings. Something came up for you though there. Well, it was funny you said that because yeah, you have the feelings and I am not the person or the type that can let it go. Like I'm not the person that's like, I'm gonna grovel in and feel bad that I had the feelings, right? You know what I mean? I'm gonna, even if it's not justified, I'm gonna have feelings about my feelings and

Dolly 
the decision fatigue for me, a lot of times shows up, I guess it shows up almost as physical. I mean, I think it's emotional exhaustion, but sometimes physical exhaustion. And so there are times where I need to like turn off all things, know, TV or anything otherwise, or there's sometimes where I want to do something where I feel like, I'm just so tired. Maybe if I could do something sort of mindless as a distractor.

And if the TV, we turn the TV on and it's the news, sometimes that's even worse. Like I have to turn that off. You know, that I can't engage in that. Just all the things that are happening in the world today. And well, I mean, I think it's this question of whether it's over, however we talk about overstimulated or decision fatigue, this notion of saturated sponge. And then the tool there being, what do I need?

Heather 
So if we can get past the place of judgment, because I think if we feel like a saturated sponge and then we're shooting on ourselves about how we should, should fail or I'm a terrible, you know, shame creeps in. I'm a terrible person for feeling this way and whatever else. If we can just sit with, I am a saturated sponge. What do I know that I need to ring that out? I think you just mentioned it's true for me too. That usually means I need nothingness like no people.

If that's, need to lay on the ground under a weighted blanket. If that's, need to go for a walk. Sometimes it's physical for me and sometimes it's not, but it's definitely not more inputs. And what's hard about that is cause I can get kind of over stimulated in one context and then move to another one where they haven't seen me all day. Right. And we're ready to have a whole experience. And I'm like, I got to wring the sponge out from this before I can fully engage in this. Right. Yeah. And so you mentioned back early.

Heather 
earlier on is just, you're talking about it with work, but this sort of finding the time. If we're in problem solving all the time, which gets us to decision fatigue, which gets us into the sponge of saturated, where do we wring the sponge out? Like it's a different kind of pause. But I think it's such an important part. And a lot of this kind of falls in, I think language these days around like self care and whatever else.

I guess what matters the most to me as I think about it is that it really is something that feels helpful. And if I'm ringing the sponge out, it needs to be something that actually is ringing it out in the moment and may still feel that way tomorrow. Yes. Versus things where you're like, you know what, we'll fix this sponge. Some Chardonnay. And a couple hours of Instagram. Right. Or some emotional eating. Right. But to be like...

maybe that distracts me from it, but in my experience, it doesn't ring a sponge out. So I'm not saying that any of those things, you know, aren't supportive in some way, but what I've learned and what I've learned about me is I need to make sure that I'm doing those, those resets. sometimes, I mean, truly for me, we're talking about your example was again, like an acute, I'm in the car right now. I have found this same

saturated sponge feeling kind of about in bigger ways that require bigger ringing out. Like, and so now proactively, I mean, I go on silent retreat by myself a couple of times a year. That's amazing. And part of it, I think, is this sort of, need to get real quiet in a deeper way to sort of zoom out and ask questions about the whole thing and what's working and what is right. Not that you just can't do that in the day to day. So I think it's

To me, the ring out of the sponge, as far as my toolkit right now, is both almost daily practice or weekly practice of what do I need, and it has some longer term sort of preventive, can I get a few days, and then some more days. And it's tricky, because you said guilt a minute ago.

Heather & Dolly 
especially if you recharge by yourself, I think we feel guilty for not paying attention to the range of people who we want to care for. Right. Who need us or we want to need us. Yeah. Yeah. I love your silent retreat. Do you do, is that facilitated by someone? Like, is it a formal or do you? No, it's me. And do you go in it with like prompts or questions that you want to consider? Sometime, usually I have some loose...

sense of what I want to ponder. Like, I mean, sometimes I'm doing work, you know, even taking work stuff of like, let's think about our strategy priorities for next year. Or let me think about, I have three new ideas. Do we actually want to do any of them? Sometimes I'm, I know I want a book that I want to read. So it has some loose intentions or sometimes it's, I write on retreat.

But the most probably consistent and rewarding thing is that I just do what I want when I want. I mean, it's bizarre things of like eating when I want to go into sleep and waking up when I want to that sort of just kind of letting myself surrender to the non schedule. Yes. Cause so much of what feel, mean, I don't know if it's decision fatigue, but just the pace of life right now of at

715 this happens at 730 this happens and like the constant time ticker of it all. I just have to get away from. 

Dolly 
I saw a social media meme probably on Instagram, probably doom scrolling. But it talks about women of our generation and their mothers. I know your mother so highly productive. Yep.

and how we have a hard time. Like we feel guilt. downtime. Even our downtime has to be productive or multitasking. I had a conversation with my mom just this weekend and I was asking, okay, what are you doing today? What are you? And she said, well, we were watching a ball game and like a college football game, but she couldn't just watch the college football games. So she also needed to be working a puzzle.

Dolly 
she had a whole bunch of busy work that she was doing, because it wasn't enough that she could sit there and watch that game. same for me, I'm not the person that goes on vacation and sits at the beach. We're somebody that we're going to a national park and we're going to do an eight mile hike. Because we do. Yes, we do. Because you feel like you're telling yourself a story about what just...

Because it feels different if you're like, don't want to just sit there because that feels boring to me, feels different than I really, what my deepest desire is, is just to sit with my feet in the sand for five hours. I don't feel that way ever. But I don't know, is it just so ingrained? We are active. We're getting ready, my husband and I, this is our 25th wedding anniversary.

and we were trying to figure out what kind of trip we were gonna take, how are we gonna celebrate? And it was not, let's go to Bali and chill. Yeah, and have spa days. It's like, let's go hike Chinkaterra. You know, it's that active, like. We recommend it. well, that's what we're gonna do. It's exciting. Yeah, I feel like. But is that so ingrained in my psyche? Well, let's tease that apart, because I think this is helpful.

I think.

Let's see, maybe I want to zoom out and say, where do we get energy? Because that's what we're really managing. It's not time we're managing our energy. I connection for me personally, like it is personal connection, whether it be with my kids, spouse, like those that I am the closest. So sometimes this sort of how do we feel rejuvenated?

Heather & Dolly 
from I'm overwhelmed might be that I need to wring my sponge out and I need nothingness. And sometimes it's I need connect, right? So part is, you know, maybe we're tangling different things together. But I think it's worth interrogating this or even just ask it, figuring out, because I don't struggle with this as much as I used to. This sort of, you know, guilt about sitting on the couch if I wanted to.

And my challenge is more, there's just a lot of stuff I want to do. I actually want to be tinkering in the garage about something or painting something. So it's not about, I should be busy. It's a legitimate desire to be creative and play. And I think it, I mean, it takes, you know, just kind of that self journey to figure out. Because I too, I think culturally come from a like,

What are you doing this week? Right? It's a doing. Right. What'd you do today? What are you doing this weekend? When I mean, life is so much about being, but how do you ask about that? guess. so yeah, I mean, certainly rest. mean, there's great work out there right now and rest almost like rest is resistance. Yes. You know, as birthright, we don't have to earn rest. Yeah. Right. So

And so, and I feel the same way about play and joy. And so to me, that's when I think about vacations. I think it just depends on what you need. The question for us all is, what do I want? What do I want? And sometimes I can't tell and I say, if no one would be disappointed or judge you, what do you want?

Heather
And it gets me to a different place. Yeah, that's a good question. a... what do I want to Sometimes if I can't make a decision or, you what are we going to do? What do I actually want? Like if no one would be disappointed and no one would judge me. If I can kind of connect to... If I can liberate those voices and then like, what do I want? And sometimes like, I really just want to be home this weekend in my house and not do a single other thing.

And I don't want to be anywhere at a certain time, even if it's for something lovely. I want to be liberated from the calendar for 24 hours. And I want everyone to eat whatever they want from the pantry and not ask me about it. So, you know, maybe in all of this, when we think about the tension in this sandwich, where there are a lot of needs, there are a lot of problems that can be solved.

There are a lot of decisions to make. It's like, how do we keep on the list somewhere? What do I want? That's a good question. And I'm not, I'm struggling with it. I'm not doing a very good job with that. You know, it's, I think we have to keep mental inventory. Yeah. Lots of self check-in, right? Being thoughtful and intentional and really thinking about what I want.

Dolly 
How can I achieve? And I think that's a great prompt. Like if nobody was gonna be disappointed or if there was no implication or no stake. Well, cause it helps take that layer. Whatever our particular flavor of stuff is, the people pleasing or perfectionism or.

identity around caregiving and these things. think our own wants and needs can get so lost in that. And I'm such an advocate for, I think especially, I work in an industry kind of across helping professions. And so often people that help people are just helpers everywhere. We are caregivers, period.

Heather
and probably don't do as good a job helping themselves, right? Is that a common thing you see? Well, I'm just, as I'm saying, like so much in any session I'm in anymore when I'm facilitating the beginning is we are humans, not robots. And so I started by reminding us that just because we help people for a living doesn't mean we opt out on peopling. We are humans too. And so what does that mean? What does that look like? How do we honor that?

And it's just, think it's such an important piece because we can get, and I don't even want to, so often I think when we enter this conversation about we are part of the ecosystem, it's more the, I gotta put my oxygen mask on before I help you, which we know is true and it's still hard to figure out. What I wanna add to that is like,

you get to do you because you are also having a whole human experience and a whole life. Even if you laying in the grass for an afternoon doesn't make you any better or different so you can go help somebody else. It just brings you joy and you get to feel joy because you're a person on the planet right now who deserves joy like everybody else. It's like just because not because in service to everybody else, but just because.

So that's my, I mean, my curiosity for as we, as you're reminding us about the various caregiving roles that we have is, part of the overwhelm and all of that is how we're, how it shifts when we're tending to us also. And it's hard, because sometimes I can get in the place where I'm like, tending to me feels like one more damn thing on the list. Right?

And now I gotta go for a walk and now I'm gonna put on my weighted vest so that I have strong joints and menopause or whatever it is. So back to the things of like not the shoulds. Like what do I actually really need? And it's to me and people, I think we can add a lot of story to that of, that's selfish or that's whatever. like, it's just.

Heather
I don't even know. To me, it's just living and you get to do that too. I've forgotten about this, but I used to all the time say, you are the CEO of your life and there's only one candidate for the job. How are you? How's it going? Like what's your strategic plan looking like? Right? Yeah. For all the roles that we have that we different sometimes.

are just ours and sometimes we share, but there is only one CEO of my life experience. How do I make sure I'm tending to that leadership responsibility? 

Dolly 
Right, right, right. Yeah, and it is a thoughtful pursuit of where we are, maybe where we've been, what served us well, how we show up for ourselves and for other people.

And where does that matter and where does it not? And Dolly, as I hear us talking about this, like, could see where it feels overwhelming to even investigate our lives at this level. That's where I'm like, carve out an hour to just sit down and ask you. mean, cause that's part of it. I you just listed it. It takes some real thoughtfulness. And when the to-do list is holding approximately 4,000 billion things, it's hard to go.

I'm gonna sit here and ponder how this is working for me. And I don't know how we do it without that pause. Because it just like, feeds the momentum of it feeds itself. And I think sometimes we, like it feels beyond our reach to pause it.

Dolly 
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. you know, sometimes like the work email, like you go, you know, I've been at meetings all day. I go check my inbox and there are now 200 emails that have accumulated in my box. And some of them I can easily, you know, clear out, you know, without too much energy or thought, you know, it's just that clutter in your inbox.

And then there are some things that I'm kind of a slow processor. I know I need some time to think and it, hit the pause before I respond. You know, there's some, there's some emails that demand a response right then and there, but right. And then there's some that I'm like, I have to be super thoughtful about it. And you know what happens often while in the process, it sorts itself.

And I'm having increasing realization that that happens more if I could just let it and not be driven by my own internal tempo. You know what I mean? That feels really important, what you just said. Because what it says to me is whatever it was in the email didn't have to be mine. Exactly. Yeah.

Heather
So that I just feel like that's an interesting curiosity across the lists is when are we making all the things ours and they don't actually need to be. Right? If the action I'm going to take is not taking action and to see if in a couple days that sorts itself out versus this, I'm a problem solver, a hammer and a nail. I'm in a hammer.

What if we just put the hammer back in there? It's an interesting, yeah, like that pause button in real time. And that's not how you intended it. You didn't say I'm gonna pause and see if this sorts itself out. It's like, I'm gonna pause and think about it. Just in the meantime, it sorted itself out and it just feels like it reveals something interesting. So another place I think to get curious so much of what we talk about on this podcast is staying curious.

because I think in the and, in all this complexity, it's just such an important sort of meta tool is curiosity. And when I think about kind of themes across the conversation that we've had, this curiosity around what is really rejuvenating for me. Where can I find, what curiosity around what do I really want? What do I need?

Heather
what problems really need me for real, not just cause I need a problem to solve cause I'm a problem solver. Yeah. Well, and I've learned in my leadership role, like it only behooves me and my team. I could solve the problem, but it only behooves me to engage others to, to, work through it together. know, like you have these investing harder than it sounds like it should be to step back.

and let things play out. Yeah. Well, I think when you're dealing with any relationship, but coworkers, you know, especially when you're in a field that assert a field that serves a field of helpers and, but it is essential, you know, to have a team who's invested and engaged with you and feels like we are serving the common purpose.

Right? That we have a shared mental model or a shared... We have some shared goals and vision, you know, at work with our organization for sure. Right? We all bring our own strengths. We aren't the same. Right? And so for me, it's always checking and being like, how am I showing up? What can I do to build or elevate others? Especially I'm in a field that is predominantly women. Right? So what can I do to elevate...

my colleagues, my female colleagues especially. So yeah, I am curious, I'm constantly curious and this role, I've been in this leadership role about 18 months and I'm still leaning in. I think it's an always, like the journey of humaning, think leadership is always sort of...

place. Something you just said. And then we got to wrap this up. An hour goes by so fast. So we're talking about leaning into like building a team. What can other people do? It just like struck. Maybe I needed to hear this today. When I feel saturated, like overwhelmed, there's too much.

Heather
Instead of doing the pause step back, let others, my default is grab it, grab hold of the task. I get, I won't say micromanage, but I'm tempted to like get in there as if I'm going to try to solve it faster. You said something a minute ago, the pace, my pay in overwhelm this. I think some.

script software and my body thinks, if we just dial the pace up on this, we can get a handle on it. Right? I'm overwhelmed. There's too many things on the list. If we just get it, get at it faster. Then get it done. Then I can crank.

through it and that's fine if it's me cranking through my list but I can find myself wanting to like get into things. Everybody else's list? Micromanaging other people's list? Correct. Yes. And then it just adds to it because then they probably don't want me in their list and then it gets frustrating and then I'm just feeling frustrated instead of like, I'm overwhelmed, let me go ring my sponge out.

Dolly 
I'm like, I'm overwhelmed. Let me get up in everybody else's business. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, do you feel like for me, like I'm in a profession, you probably are too. I mean, not, and I don't mean so much clinically, but in my leadership administrative role, the list is always growing. Like the list is never clear. Like it's never, you know, it's, it's, it's not like you're going to get everything done. So, or it's not like you're

It's not like I leave my work at six o'clock and I've turned my brain off. You know, I am having all of those. I'm either ruminating or I'm having a light bulb moment either at 4 a.m. when I'm wide awake with my perimenopausal hormones or in the shower, you know, I'm having a brilliant idea. And that's hard to like you're at a state of maybe not hyper.

Heather 
but your brain is always in constant motion. Yes, so the question was like, is there always a list? And I do think there is this tendency of, if we can just do more, we're going to get the list checked off. So I think there's an acute and a chronic version of this. Chronic version is there's always something to do. Right, really, are you going to leave and be like, I have done all the things possible to do when it comes to helping humans flourish today.

But even when it's like, we have a few things that really need to get like client deadlines, stuff that needs to happen tomorrow. Yeah, my, I guess what it is, and I think I might've talked about this on the podcast, maybe with Ashley before, is I think I'm so eager to resolve the energy in me.

And I think getting this stuff done is gonna resolve it. So I'm just ready to get it done instead of, which sometimes isn't me. It's not my stuff to do sometimes. So I need to give space for it to get done and trust that we will get there. I think my push in overwhelm is cause I'm trying to resolve my own energy. And what this conversation is reminding me is pause, ring your sponge out.

and then come back at it. Because that can result, it's about, there's too much in me. This, I'm over, let's go with overstimulated, that feels true. I'm overstimulated either by the concern we're not gonna get it done or there's too many things on the list and I'm with all of that instead of pushing hard into it.

Can I wring my sponge out and support myself and kind of honor that and do some things before I spread that, shake my sponge out on the people around me? I feel like I did it today. Yeah. Did you shook your sponge out like you sprinkled? Yeah, on other people. good. Okay. And then felt frustrated about it. So I talked to you, I'll bring it up here now, my college student who's in nursing school.

Heather & Dolly 
I asked him a few weeks ago, I was like, are you overwhelmed all the things? And he was like, no, I'm just in a constant state of whelm. And so I have adopted that. I'll give him credit where credit is due. I'm in a constant state of whelm. But I will tell you how I have, what has happened for me the past few weeks. Not necessarily work related, but in life, like just some personal circumstances. My father-in-law,

got acutely ill and passed away within a, had a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and passed away within a month. And my youngest son was involved in a traumatic accident, whitewater kayaking and a lot of things. people would look at me and ask, you know, just like we do, we do to people, how are you? And normally I would choke a smile and you know, I'm fine.

Everything's fine. We're fine. Everything's fine. Yeah. And then I, for the past few weeks, I was like, I found myself being quick to be like, well, since you asked, these are the things, you know, and it has been a little bit cathartic. I wish we could. And it takes two minutes more to really answer the question, but even if it's the and, like here's the and I'm standing in to go, I'm okay. And

It's been a really hard time. Like that's why I push us every time. don't whatever the answer to how are you, that's not fine or good. Like for real. And you can tell who's really curious about that. And who's basically finding new words to say good morning. Being polite. Yes. Yeah. Or just like, it's just, kind of get in a habit of, Hey, how are you doing? And it's more like saying hello, but for the people you've been one of those people for me, you remember that day. I'm sure.

Or I came in your office for a regular visit and you're like, how are you? And I just started bursting out crying, I think, cause I could tell that you really cared. And I wasn't okay for all the reasons that we've talked about. was a fully saturated sponge and did not feel like I had, I could ring it out. Right. You know, I think, especially when kids are little, you're like, it's an intense time with the always of it. You know, I think about that even with teenagers, I'm like,

Heather & Dolly 
How did we do it? When they're real little like that, right? You gotta feed them. They can't drive. They hung on you like a barcicle. Yes. So when I think about overwhelm now, I think maybe we're just so tired that it doesn't, that memories of the early days don't compute. So anybody out there with like little littles, whoo, high five to you. And it does shift. You do get some breath.

because it's just so much harder when there's that level of my gosh, it so much better. Or caregiving, right? Some folks who are really doing intense caregiving. You know, and their supports. I mean, I hope, like even in those situations, whatever you can do to partner with a friend or find respite care services somewhere to help you take a breath. Because it's so hard to navigate. all the things when you feel like you're.

I guess whelmed for me, I'm gonna think is like head above water. Like I'm in it, but I'm, You're sustained afloat, you're afloat. may, you know, a good wave. Yeah, and it feels a little scary, right? It feels a little scary because it feels fragile. So yeah, maybe it's like, what's the life jacket that you can put on in overwhelm to at least lift us. Be buoyant.

Dolly 
Yeah, some buoyancy. Yeah. Well, I think probably the biggest thing is the self-awareness to know where you are, because I think some people don't even have that. And that's where they find themselves either having a breakdown or having a break or, you know, maybe unhealthy behaviors like alcohol or substance or, you know. Yeah. And I guess, I I just having been

Heather 
I feel like I'm back in that plastic chair, crying in your office. Where, yeah, just the supportive person that can tell that I needed that question. So I think we can be that for each other too. So as much as we're talking about sort of self, there's a communal answer to this too. There's a, right? Like what can we do in our workplaces and our friend groups and our families?

It's okay to be okay and it's okay not to be okay. How do I say that? How do I say, you know what, I know it's my night to cook dinner and I'm barely teetering, with whelmed and I really just need us to do peanut butter and jelly and call it a day. So this, how do we build honesty about what we're experiencing and then find supportive people. So you're certainly supportive person, I don't see you.

often. You know, I think that encounter led me to my first therapy appointment, then to coaching and therapy again, like it's very helpful for me to have somebody that I can talk to about these things. My current therapist is a somatic therapist, so it brings the body into it too. We don't have to do this alone. Right. You know, I think so much of my wish for this podcast is that people feel seen in the experience.

So often I think we think it's us and we're broken or effing it up in some way to be like, we're not alone. Humaning is messy, especially when we're kind of of a caregiving heart. How do we tend to ourselves? And there are people that want to support you in that. There are guided retreats, other things, and sometimes it's a quick fix and sometimes it's a rearrangement of the structure. 

Dolly 
I wonder too if practicing active listening and modeling that behavior for others could also foster or hone that skill for yourself. Like if you have a person or if you are intentional about active listening, asking people how they are, like you really mean it and have the emotional intelligence to sort of pick up when, ugh.


Like you, you were great at it. You know, you were, you can see by the look on my face or something I say when I'm like, Ooh, that, meant something for you. Not everybody has that gift for sure. But I think if we practice that sort of, I wonder if we practice that in a way that we received that reward also. As in if I practice doing it for others, can I then have the tools to do it for myself? Can I sit down quietly with myself and say, Heather, how are you?

Or, yes, that and also if you have a person, if you did it for Ashley, like do you foster that behavior? Like, do you both benefit from it? see. Like the reciprocity of it. Yeah, I think. I think it's both and. As it always is. It's always and y'all. I want it not to be, but so often.

Heather
both the challenge and the solution has an and element. I think we've talked about, I'm reminded today in this conversation as we wrap up about the importance of the pause in all of this. gosh, just the permission, like I wanna pass out those pauses. If I could afford it, I would just give everybody on the planet one and be like, for real. Yeah.

have permission to pause. And it's so often does not feel that way. But in my experience, the one of the things that we haven't debriefed this, but you and I were actually supposed to have this podcast some time ago. And I was feeling overwhelmed. I think it was even the day of recording or maybe the day before. Yeah, I think so. And I said, listen, I just have too many things and I need to

Heather
press the pause button on this and let's find another day if that's okay, if we can reschedule it. Every time I step one on notice, step two is I cancel something. It doesn't matter what it is. It could be I move a client, you know, a one-on-one client meeting I move. It could be I'm not doing this family obligation. One thing usually shifts the momentum.

for me to say I do have some agency over this. Okay. So you don't even have to clear your own calendar. It could be you're shifting one thing. little thing helps me because what what sends me into overwhelm often is there are too many things. Right. I look at my calendar and I'm like, thank you, prior version of myself who thought a lot of me and I there's no way. And I think what it means is there's no way with the sponge that I'm holding.

Right? I booked all that stuff. had a different sponge today. I'm saturated at this level and I feel, I get panicky because I feel like there is no way I can get all this done. that right. Q, disappoint, Q, whatever. But I try to pause all the feelings about the thing and recognizing that I feel that way, changing one thing. And I usually, I change one thing and I'll reach out to one person.

like reach out to one person in a coach, a therapist, somebody to say, I'm in a place where I need some support. Okay. By doing those two things, I think that I'm giving myself the reins to say, I am in control. I am in, I am at choice. I am at choice. And that just shifts the energy for all of it. Because I think the story in my head is you have a lot of things and it is, it is in charge of you. The calendar is the boss of you. Right.

You are not your own CEO. Correct. The calendar is the CEO of your life. You are just the administrative assistant. Maybe. I mean, it's just like you're just on the hamster wheel. So gaining control of my calendar in one small way, usually something optional that I've added. I don't move client stuff unless I really have to. That's more extreme, but something optional with pretty quick within the next day or two makes me feel like

Okay, even if it's that one hour where there used to be something, you have a breath coming. Yes. There is a one hour breath coming where you can sit with yourself and get curious about this. And then there's another breath coming because you're going to talk to somebody who in the past has been supportive. And those two things usually will help me get my head above the water. So yeah, you were on the receiving end of my pause button and you didn't even know it last time. So thank you for being gracious because I think that's something we can give each other too.

Heather & Dolly 
is once you find the place to tell the truth. I appreciated it. I was relieved. It gave me time to pause also. Well, and that's what I find too. Like, nobody on your calendar is going to be like, you know what? I really wanted one more meeting today, actually, especially this at the end of the day to drive to your town. So there's some grace in there, know, grace to ourselves. think the quicker we can not add should.

to like, you should be able to handle all this. You invited her, you should be able to do it. You said this is a priority, you should be able to figure it out. Quicker we can let go of that and just be with what's true. Because like, you can't, I don't find that from overwhelm you can solve the problem. You have to get at least to whelm. You're like, have to find a life jacket to get to whelm.

Because my tendency is to want to solve the problem, solve why the problem happened, rearrange the whole system and the structure because I'm in charge here. And I just add list to list. What I really need is pause. So those two things, because sometimes I think people hear me talk about this and they're like, I'm not going to go spend four days in the woods by myself. Heather, thank you. glad that you... I mean, and it's a place of privilege that I can do those things. And what I will say is...

As far as the routine practice of managing overwhelm, those two little tools. Yeah. Two little tools. Even if it's just the tool of shifting one thing on your calendar. And I could talk about calendar all day. Yeah. We don't have time for that, but there are a lot of things I think that are contributing to our overwhelm that are calendar related. sure. That we could like, how are people protecting time? What are we?

doing there, what's on the calendar that doesn't need to be, all kinds of stuff. When we remember that we're, especially, know, Dolly, when I think about like, we're in leadership. So if we feel like we don't have control over the calendar, who feels like they do? Otherwise staff certainly sometimes don't feel that way. is this me? And I'm getting a phone call. That's fun. Sorry, friends.

Heather & Dolly 
That is a chime from the universe to tell us we have talked way too long and we're have to edit some of this content out. I'm so grateful for you and this conversation. I appreciate you. The warm invitation and always the conversation that time again spent together. Yeah, I'm gonna... What one thing are you kind of leaving with new curiosity about today? What are you gonna ponder? I'm gonna ponder a lot of things. More than one.

What is going to take what wringing my sponge looks out looks like. Like what is the one tool I could do? I'm going to give myself the permission to move at least one thing off my calendar per week. we're going to scale it. I really am. Yeah. Yeah. and you, like protect it for something else. Yeah. Yeah. Me maybe. Yeah. I, you know, for me, big place where it shows up is talking about getting overwhelmed and not healthy behaviors or,

I need more exercise and activity. And if I don't do it first thing in the morning, it is never gonna happen. It is not gonna get done. I'm gonna be overwhelmed. I'm gonna be too fatigued. There's too many other things I've got to do. I have to carve that time out. And I go in fits and spurts. And then you feel, I feel so much physically and mentally better once you've done it.

And that in and of itself is a little bit of ringing of the sponge because you've now started your day with a less saturated. That sponge feels so true to me. I am a different person if I'm not moving my body. Right. Again, like as somebody who's just really sensory sensitive, I have a lot of thoughts. I have a lot of feelings. Moving my body helps me settle my snow globe. It gives me time. Sometimes I use that walking time to think about something.

It's such an important piece of it. I'm gonna think about, I'm gonna think about ringing my sponge out too. And especially, actually.

Heather
I I know to do it when I feel overstimulated from a sensory perspective. Like there are some versions of it that I know. I want to think about it when I feel frustrated. As almost a marker for like, I wonder if that means you're involved in too many things that aren't like, or I'm pushing too hard to try to resolve something and instead.

Like I've never, I've not, like I had spongering and kind of in a separate toolkit, have not connected it to this. So I want to think about, I want to think about. You know, when we started the conversation, you asked where's the squeeze and the squeeze was in a more pinch point friction sort of space. But now we need to.

conflate or associate the squeeze with the positive, like where are we feeling the squeeze and how can we use that to squeeze out our saturated sponge? interesting. I just felt that in my body. Yeah. I feel squeezed. So we started out with the, we felt where's the squeeze and sort of a negative connotation, right? But maybe when we're feeling the squeeze that that's like an engine indicator. Yeah. That we need to squeeze our sponge. What a great sort of in like

Yeah, indicator light. Yeah. Yeah. All right, y'all. Well, go forth. I hope y'all let us know what your tools are for how you wring your sponge out. If that metaphor even lands for anybody else. We're into it. We're totally into it. I'm going to think a lot about it. And yeah, thanks everybody for hanging in. Let's see what would Ashley want me to say to y'all.

I don't know that we've referenced anything that needs to be noted in the show notes, but you can go to the show notes to find out how to find us on Instagram. Please send us if y'all have ideas of other things you want to hear us talk about, you can reach out at connect at standintheand.com. Yeah, and otherwise just keep being curious about the squeeze. Yeah. And...

Heather & Dolly
what the tools might be that help support you in it. Don't forget that you are not alone in this and reach out and get some support. But we will look forward. Thank you again for being here, darling. Oh my gosh. Thank you. We could talk for three hours. We could. We could do a part two at some point. Yeah, for sure. Well, we might have to break this one. We've talked long enough. This might be two episodes already. Send them big love to your family. Oh, thank

Yeah, we have patch here. So, we'll bet we're together and that is, yeah. And right. The hard and the together. Yeah. I'm going to see all of them this weekend and it's going to feel like up squeeze my sponge. Awesome. Yeah. Thank you. See y'all next time.