When Life Feels Too Much: Finding Peace in the Chaos | Pillay Place EP 25

Ever broken down over something small — a missing notebook, a messy house — and thought, why am I crying over this? You're not losing it. You're human. And you're not alone.

In this honest, unfiltered episode of the Pillay Place Podcast, Rahul and Van get real about what it actually feels like to be overwhelmed — as parents, as partners, and as people trying to hold it all together. Van shares a vulnerable moment from that very morning, and together they unpack why overwhelm hijacks your mind, your body, and your spirit — and what to do when you're running on empty.

They break down the neuroscience of fight-or-flight in plain language, explore the difference between perfectionism driven by fear and excellence driven by joy, and draw a powerful distinction between feeling calm and experiencing true peace — because those are not the same thing.

One standout moment: the image of Jesus walking through crowds, healing people, never rushing — fully at peace in the middle of chaos. That's the model. That's the invitation.

Whether you're a first-time parent, a burned-out professional, or just someone whose list never seems to end — this episode will give you perspective, tools, and a reminder that you were never designed to just survive.

"We are not designed to be list-doers. We are designed to be human beings."

Subscribe for more faith-filled conversations that help you grow in your purpose and peace. 🙏

Find us on Spotify @pillayplacepodcast

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I was talking to my husband here this morning. Um, I don't know if I can do this. Sometimes it feels impossible to get it all right and get it all done. On Friday, guys, I broke down over a stupid missing notebook. I was like, why am I crying over this? It's just a missing notebook. When we go into flight or fight mode, then we have a harder time accessing our logic, our reason, all the tools that you know your therapists give you.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Maybe you can meditate for five minutes and feel calm. Let's not confuse being calm with getting peace. But reality is maintaining peace, like true peace, is a different concept altogether.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Hi guys, welcome back to the Palay Place where we talk about family, faith, and finance. Um, you know, if you are feeling overwhelmed lately, you're not alone. Um, if you're feeling easily irritable lately, you're not alone. Um, in fact, that's what we're gonna be talking about today. Um it is hard. You know, last month we were filming and we talked about becoming parents and how amazing it is. Well, well, you know, to be real with you, it's also hard. And that's what we're talking about today the feeling hard and overwhelmed with with parenting. So if you're a first-time mom, I get you. If you're a second, third time mom, I get you.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

And if you have more than three, oh my god, let me do it. Yes. More grace may have bound to you. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Um, I was talking to my husband here today or this morning on how I don't know if if I don't know if I can do this sometimes. You know, sometimes it just feels, I don't know, like I'm it feels extra hard. It feels impossible to get it all right and get it all done. Which brings me to um what my notes here is it got me thinking about high expectations and having really high standards for ourselves as parents, as a mom, or as a dad. Um we have this sometimes unrealistic expectation that the house needs to be done, laundry be done, food ready by six o'clock while working, managing your businesses or your job. And then, I mean, we homeschool the kids, and then they're extra, I can go on on all the things that we need to do. But the point being here is that I think sometimes we make it bigger in our head than it is really. Just on Friday, guys, I broke down over a stupid missing notebook. Like, I couldn't, I was like, why am I crying over this? Why is this so overwhelming? It's just a missing notebook and that's okay. Things go missing, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Well, apparently it wasn't okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Apparently. And and I want to get to where like knowing that our nervous system can sometimes take over, and we're in this constant flight, fight mode to survive. When that happens, our body is in this constant alert to stay safe. And it's hard to access our prefrontal cortex or neocortex, which helps us respond as parents or respond just as normal people, really, than to react.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Sorry, can I pause you for a second there?

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Cause because um you've explained to me what the prefrontal cortex is and the neuro and all these other things. Can you explain to me as if I didn't know what those things are like? What are you really saying? Yeah. When I am overwhelmed, what happens to my mind? And then why do I need to access the front? Like, what are you saying?

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Okay, so we have our brainstem, okay, and our brainstem helps us do all the things that we don't really think about, breathing, moving, um, like our heartbeat, like we don't think about those things. Those are pretty automatic.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Right. When we are our body is constantly trying to stay safe. Okay. Um, and when we perceive a situation as threatening, then we go into flight or fight mode. When we go into flight or fight mode, then we don't it's like the the brainstem, like it, the foundation of it gets shaken, and then we have a harder time accessing our neocortex, which is how we our our logic, our reason, all the tools that you know your therapists give you, and that you're supposed to access and have, but then you can't get it because you're in this fight or flight mode. So in other words, you're trying to survive and you can't access that. In other words, so you have to calm your body down.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

You have to feel safe in your own body, yeah. And then be able. Caveman ring, yes. And then you'd be able to um access our like your your neocortex.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

In other words, which is all the executive functioning is at.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Yeah, in other words, being if you are overwhelmed, more than likely the thing, like you are, and you continue being overwhelmed, it's not like you're gonna get out of it by doing the same thing. No, you kind of have to maintain peace, and I love what you said, you have to calm your body down. There is physical things, there are physical things you can do to calm your body down. I agree with that. But reality is maintaining peace, like true peace, is a different concept altogether, right? You can't you can't just get peace from externally. You can't do you maybe you can meditate for five minutes and feel calm. Let's not confuse being calm with getting peace.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Right? What do I like? Let me just be very clear what peace means. Peace, spiritually, peace is, and and and this is physically too. Peace comes from the Prince of Peace, God Himself. He is the author of peace, he is peace. So, in order to achieve true peace, we need him, we need to maintain it. We can't create it, we didn't create it, we weren't the author of it. We just need to get it, but it's not necessarily something that we get from calmness. You can calm your body down, but you can't get your body to peace. It's something that he gives to you.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

I agree. Well, I think it's interesting that you brought in the spiritual peace because when we are feeling overwhelmed, it's the flesh. The body feels the overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

The soul, our mind, responds to the flesh.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

But if we are to be able to kind of find a kind of no the physical response, the fleshly respond to feeling overwhelmed or the frustration, right? We know that's the flesh. Our soul is responding to the flesh by feeling irritated, annoyed, frustrated. If you're like me, I would like broke down over a stupid notebook. And then, but then if we were to get our source from the spirit, then you can maintain that peace in your soul so that your flesh feels calm.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Can you can I pause you for a second? Yeah. You took it to spiritual signs, is what you could call it. But long story short, what Vienn is really saying is we as a human being have three parts to ourselves. One is our spirit. A spirit lasts forever. It was designed to last forever. And reality is when we are, when we when we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, it's our spirit that finds a home. Okay. And then we have a soul. The soul is what the Bible describes as our mind, our intellect, our emotions, the feelings, the thoughts, all those things that you can't physically find in your body, but it is a part of you. And then your body, which Van described it very eloquently as flesh. So what is this flesh? Flesh and blood. But that's literally what it is. It's our bodies, it's our human body parts that actually function based on what our mind, which our soul is telling us. So hope hope that is clear enough. But that is very helpful to understand those three parts because reality is when you're overwhelmed, it's very difficult to access all your spiritual self. It really is stuck in the mind, the emotions, and your body. And majority of the time, when I'm overwhelmed, this is what not to do. What not to do is what I do when I get overwhelmed, which is I try to do more tasks faster, which is the worst thing ever, because literally now I'm sacrificing quality. I'm still overwhelmed. It's not like I'm no longer overwhelmed because the list will always keep going on more and more. And more importantly, I've never like truly resolved anything inside of me, inside of me that chaos still exists.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah. The the the chaos definitely still does exist. The the piece I wanna that I think could be helpful and is differentiating between when you're feeling overwhelmed, is it coming out of perfectionism versus or is it coming from excellence?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Because if you're trying to run the day perfectly, that doesn't exist because perfection perfectionism doesn't exist, right? And so perfectionism is driven by fear of failure rather than excellence is driven by enthusiasm and finding the process fun and exciting.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Hold on, hold on, pause right there, because what you said is very powerful. Are you stating that if I'm trying to get a project done an hour earlier than it's due, all buttoned up with a bow on it, and I want to add additional expectations to it, that could be perfectionism? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yeah, it is because it's driven by fear. You fear of it being late, fear of failure.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Fear of failure is a big one.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah, fear of failure. But you know, Alyssa Liu, the new the figure skater that just won gold medal, right? She said something that really struck me was that she goes, I enjoy the struggle. Right? That's that's resilience, but that's also she's enjoying the process of not necessarily the prize. Not about the prize, not about the gold medal.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

The gold medal, not about that, not even about the perfectionism. She's just there to literally show the world what she can do.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

It's actually more excellence-driven, right? It is. Because the reality is I know that there are projects that I have a lot of care about and I want to deliver well. I am two weeks behind on, but I still don't deliver it. Like I could finish it in a few hours. I still don't finish in a few hours because it's it's not producing how I think it should produce. It's not resilient enough. It's like there's certain things that it's not meeting up, and I feel like I just don't have it. Like excellence is trying to drive forward this thing and make it better versus oh, I'm gonna meet a certain level of expectations. Most of it that is set by your own mind.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

It is. That's the high expectation of yourself that I'm trying to refer to. Like I have this goal or this fantasy of I'm I am gonna do amazing in my job when I walk out of my office, and all my clients are gonna be healed, and then my kids are gonna be so perfectly like cleaned and dressed and getting along. Yes, you know, and the house will be clean before I get out. And then the house will no, well, for me, it's I want the house to be neat and somewhat together before you get out. Yes, right, because I get out of work before you sometimes. Yeah, but I want you to get out and have a like, okay, this feels good. Not I don't want you walking out and happy, yes, great kids, yeah, and a happy wife, you know, and and the thing is those are my expectations, correct? But I think the reality, the the realness of this is that I can't do that, at least not all the time. Yes, and having and then enjoying the process of you know the there's Legos all over the floor, and gosh, one day there will be no Legos on the floor. Yeah, and that would be so sad. Yeah, you know, I've there's loads of laundry, and I just go, maybe one day it's just my clothes and yours, and they're gonna be out of the house, and that's just gonna be so sad.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Yeah. And and so And then diapers.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Yeah, we stopped buying diapers a year ago, and that just means they're growing up, yeah. You know, and so, anyways, instead of looking at it as this is too much, we're just looking as this this is supposed to be like this. It is supposed to be a little chaotic, yeah, and I don't need to control it. The word that came to me was to surrender, yeah. Like not surrender to the mess, it's actually just surrendering to the process, the journey.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

That's a that's a very good point. That's right, and that's a really good point because one one thing, let's put chaos in perspective. Chaos will never disappear in a fallen world. The moment that sin entered into the world, this is one of our episodes talks about how did sin come into the world, and we'll post it in our comments. But when sin entered into the world, we were disconnected from peace himself. God is the Prince of Peace, He is peace. So when we got disconnected from peace, chaos entered. Chaos in our minds, chaos in the world, chaos between us and peace himself. So if there's all this chaos that exists, you can't all of a sudden make it disappear through your tasks. It will always exist.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

It's really But the thing is like when you see the when you see that task through the lens of excellence, or like that this is this is the this is the best I can do, right? Or this is how it's supposed to be, you're kind of pulling, because at the end of the day, it really does it really matter.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Because what I'm saying, what I'm thinking is, oh my gosh, there's this missing notebook that's literally causing me to cry, right? At the end of the day, I think in that moment, even when I don't in that moment when I'm thinking there's this missing piece of notebook, it says so much about me. It says that I'm I don't have my things together. It says that I don't have all my ducks lined up. It says that I'm a failure as a mom because I can't even keep a notebook.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

But does it really it doesn't?

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah, right? But it's hard to access that when your body is in constant like alert.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

And that's the point, is that you it's where you are in the midst of all that chaos. It's you maintaining your peace in the midst of that chaos. It's it's you keeping that relationship with God Himself, who is peace, who puts things in perspective, right? And and the right perspective is this that your list will never, ever, ever disappear as long as you're on earth. You can make lists every 15 15 minutes if you wanted to, right? But you but we are not designed to be listdoers, we're designed to be human beings. Right? So, how do you enjoy what you called the process?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Well, I think of Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

I think of Jesus because I have never heard or seen or been told or read like in the Bible, where Jesus goes, hurry up, guys, we gotta go heal somebody. Oh my gosh, we're gonna be late.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Yeah, hurry up. We gotta go save somebody real fast.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

No, we're gonna miss it. Yeah, no, like he just has so much peace walking through the chaos.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Well, he is peace, so I hope he's at peace.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Yes. But right when I have that image of him like traveling on traveling and it's just just have so much peace with him. Yeah, I can draw from that.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

And and and that's surrendering. That's like I'm not worried about stupid notebook.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Life does, I I shouldn't say life looks like that. In hindsight, there are many more many more moments of peace with him than there is um chaos. Uh I'm not saying it's perfect because I lost it this morning. We all lose it, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:33

After you gave me solutions.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

I got after I gave you a lot of solutions about how to maintain peace, I went and lost it. So it it happens to the best of us and to the worst. But the point is maintain peace.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Well, it sorry, I'm now I'm really into it because I think of my favorite story in the Bible is when um oh my gosh, is it Peter is the one that walked on water?

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Correct, yes, right.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

It's like in the he saw Jesus and he has his eyes on Jesus, and he freaking walked on water. Yes, okay, like that's how much peace, that's how he was able to have and truth and like on Jesus himself, yes, that he's the only human that I know of that actually walked on water.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

That's right, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:33

And then and then the second chaos, as in the thunder, the lightning, or the waves, or whatever it is, his eyes got off. Yeah, and it focused on the chaos, and he sunk.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

And I mean, that spoke to me. I should just go back to that story and find healing in that.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Can you um can you can you let me let me say one thing um and then we'll recap, uh, or my wife will recap. Um but um the we have mentioned God and Jesus in most of our episodes. And the last one was was very helpful to me because it reminded me that without the source, without being connected to the source, we can't really accomplish all these things that we're saying. And um so so the point that I'm making is in our comments, we will put a prayer of receiving God. If you have not received God Himself, the truth, Jesus Christ, as your Lord, we'll put a simple prayer that you can pray, and we will believe with you that once you pray that prayer, God will enter your life and reveal Himself in a big way to you. His everlasting love will enter you and rock your boat in a very awesome way that you've never experienced before, and your life will change forever. And please share that. With us once you do that, so that we know and we can sh celebrate this with you. Um, and sorry, that was just my side segue. But let me go back to what are the three points or four points or whatever points we made about maintaining peace.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Or not being overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Well, yeah, I think if you're feeling overwhelmed, you're not alone. It is absolutely normal to feel overwhelmed. And it is because it is a crazy world, and our flesh does get in in the way, and we have our own expectations. But if we are to just focus back to the source of peace and draw from that peace, then we we can feel calm and we can go through the day without feeling irritable and annoyed and frustrated with life. Because if you draw from that source, you'll you'll get it.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

And how do you draw from the source? Just surrender whatever you're thinking and ask the Lord for this powerful prayer. Help.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

That's it. Surrender means letting go.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Let go.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Like let go of your expectations, let go of your perfectionism, and let it go and let God come in.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Just ask him for help. H-E-L-P. Thanks for joining the P Let Place podcast. Uh hit please hit the subscribe button, thumbs up, comment, let us know anything that you would like to know, like for us to get feedback on about these uh episodes. And thanks for joining us.