Overwhelm is Optional
- This is the podcast for big-hearted, highly driven professionals who want their life back.
- Each week, we explore ways to gently rebel against the idea that overwhelm and exhaustion are just the price you pay for success. You don’t have to push through—it’s time to work with ease, reclaim your energy, and create the life you want.
- 💡 Meet Heidi Marke
I’m Heidi, a Coach, Teacher, Podcaster, and Author. Having painfully burned out—losing my career, confidence, health, and financial stability—I discovered a better way. Now, I quietly lead The Gentle Rebellion, helping you to:- Stop pushing through overwhelm.
- Redefine success on your own terms.
- Reclaim your time, energy, and life.
Thank you to purpleplanet.com for the music.
Overwhelm is Optional
Feeling Stuck? You’re Not—The Truth About Lasting Change & Transformation
The journey from overwhelm to joy isn’t a straight line—it’s a spiral. In this episode, I explore the reality of personal transformation, why it takes vulnerability, courage and commitment, and the importance of recognizing the shifts you’re already making.
- Reflections from my recent trip to Canterbury
- Why the Gentle Rebel path isn’t linear (and why that’s a good thing)
- The power of noticing your own progress (even when it feels like you’re stuck)
- Why vulnerability is essential to lasting change
- How courage and commitment unlock real transformation
- Breaking free from the overwhelm-to-exhaustion cycle for good
📅 Want to accelerate your transformation? Book a Curiosity Call today.
Want the fastest most effective way to turn your overwhelm into the joy, satisfaction and ease you're working so hard for? Book a Curiosity Call and discover what it's like to be coached by me. I look forward to meeting you.
🎙️ Welcome to Overwhelm is Optional
This podcast was created to help big-hearted, driven professionals break free from overwhelm and experience more clarity, ease, and joy.
But here’s the exciting news… I’ve moved beyond overwhelm.
If you’ve been listening and resonating with this message, you’ll love what comes next.
I’ve created a new podcast: Deep Heartfelt Success—because success should feel as good on the inside as it looks on the outside.
🎙 Join me there → Search "Deep Heartfelt Success" on your favourite podcast platform and subscribe.
💡 Experience Deep Heartfelt Success for Yourself
Book a complimentary Deep Heartfelt Success Session—a no-pressure, transformative conversation designed to help you step into your next level of success with ease.
📅 Book here
📚 The Gently Rebellious One-Minute Journal
A simple, powerful way to stay focused on what matters most.
👉 Buy here
🌍 Website:
Explore practical tools, resources, and ways to work with me.
👉 Visit here www.heidimarke.co.uk
🎧 Free Audio: The One Minute Marke
Start prac...
Welcome to Overwhelm is Optional. The podcast for big hearted, highly driven professionals who are ready to turn overwhelm into clarity, ease and joy. I'm Heidi Mark, the Gentle Rebel Coach, and in each episode I share insights, stories and practical tools to help you gently rebel against the pressure to push on through, because you matter. How you are in the world matters. Hello, hello, hello. How are you doing? Lovely to have you here. Bit of a croak in my throat there, I heard.
Speaker 1:I had a lovely weekend in Canterbury, in Kent, which is the southeast of England, and I went to the coast. It was so cold. I think that's why I've got a croaky voice. I'm feeling a little bit under the weather, literally under the weather. I'm feeling a little bit under the weather, literally under the weather. It's a real thing, right, definitely a real thing. Anyway, it was really cold, but it was a magical, magical weekend. I had such a good idea, such a good time. The main reason for going there apart from I haven't been, I haven't really explored Kent, so I was excited but the main reason to go there was to pick up our credentials, our pilgrim credential, because we're going to be walking the Via Francigena. I think I've said that right I've been practicing, which is the Italian Camino, so I'm super excited about.
Speaker 1:I've noticed that the way I'm feeling about it is so different to this time last year when I was preparing to walk the Camino de Santiago, the Portuguese one. I just don't have all that anxiety and it's really nice to be able to look at what I was going through this time last year when I was doing my whole. Maybe I'm not fit enough, maybe I'm not good enough to walk that far. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe I need to be better in a million ways. Why is there a pain in my toe? What, if this happens? All the things and the convincing myself that that was okay, that can walk alongside me, that fear can come with me, but it's not going to stop me, and then having the most magical time walking the Camino to Santiago in a gently, rebellious way, without pain, without pushing myself, without bursting into tears because I'd not had enough sleep or food or was just feeling rough. I didn't make it into hell, I made it into heaven.
Speaker 1:And right now I'm starting to type up my diary notes because I want to write it into a book. And what's really interesting to me is that I practiced one of my techniques, which is to draw attention to everything good and just not deny that there's other stuff going on, but just to draw my attention, to do something about the cognitive bias in my mind. So my diary is just the highlights of the day, which is really, really interesting Because at the same time I have memories of the real. Is it real, which is real? I do have a memory overview that there were things that happened. For example, I got blisters, we couldn't find any food, we didn't get much sleep, what else. You know the normal, the normal Santiago stuff that happens.
Speaker 1:But I didn't write it down, I didn't dwell on it, I deliberately focused on the joy and the freedom of just being able to walk, because it was a choice, it's a holiday, right, it's time out. It's amazing and I just find it really interesting that I've got this whole diary, which just points out the highlights. I have knowledge of the fact that there were other things going on, but my overall memory in my body, my feeling is of joy, of ease, of delight, of expansion, of yes, I can do difficult things in a gently, rebellious way. So I find that really interesting, I'm really curious and that's, I guess, is it. The main reason for writing the book it's definitely a big part for me of writing is not just to provide something for you. Utterly, utterly out of love. I intend to always be providing stuff that lifts you up, makes you see things differently, so you can find your gently rebellious route to freedom.
Speaker 1:But there's something very important for me about the process of writing about a trip that felt life-changing in many ways, or life not enhancing, what's the thing like that? It was a validation of my decisions, my decisions to take the difficult decision to leave a career career where I was very successful but it felt like it was killing me. But you know, I could have stayed, I could have forced myself to I don don't know, somehow stop being so angry. And again, you know I was battling the system, I was furious with the system and a lot of that would have added to my overwhelming exhaustion. Meaning to burnout. To me, burnout's not a definite I can't go in, it's a I am unwilling to continue. It's a bottom line thing. It's like I'm done. The sacrifice isn't worth it.
Speaker 1:Yes, within that I was flawed. I mean, I was really struggling health-wise, but I'm good at rallying and forcing myself because I'd done it time and time again for years. So I kind of think could I have kept going? Maybe Was I willing to? Absolutely not. Did I feel I had the resources to? No, I was done. I wanted more for myself. I couldn't see it at the time. At the time it felt I had no choice. But looking back I can see there were other routes, maybe easier routes. I could have gone off sick, I could have, I don't know. Anyway, I didn't, and that's not the point.
Speaker 1:The point is writing up my notes into a book in a way that communicates the value of choosing yourself and gently rebelling against the old paradigm of pushing yourself through overwhelm into exhaustion, disconnecting from your heart and your body, just overloading your mind in order to have the successful life you want. Gently rebelling against that into finding your way to have what you want. Writing that into a book and communicating that for me personally is a really good thing to do, because it validates what I'm up to. It gives me clarity about what I'm up to, which gives me more confidence to talk about it, and that matters because it's bubbling up inside me and I desperately want to share it and say, hey, you don't have to do that anymore. Come over here, come and join us over here. We're finding a different way of doing things and there's so much joy, so much ease, so much self-validation. Yes, I was right, this isn't the way to do things.
Speaker 1:Anyway, driving three hours in the middle of February on a Friday and then three hours back on a Sunday to go all the way to Canterbury to pick up a pilgrim credential that I could also have picked up in Siena Cathedral was worth it, because it's got me thinking about this time last year and how much I've grown, how much easier it is to do this this time. And if there's one thing, there's not one thing, there's loads of things. If there's one important thing I know to be true on this gentle rebel path is that if we don't pay attention to just how far we've come, just how more skilled we are at living, how much more joy and ease we've allowed ourselves to experience in our life, we can easily get tricked by the mind into thinking we're stuck, we're going backwards, we're being pulled back into the overwhelming to exhaustion cycle, when it's just not true. Does that mean we never get overwhelmed? No, does it mean we never push ourselves too hard and get completely exhausted? Of course that's going to happen. That's part. It's a spiral.
Speaker 1:So this time last week last week's podcast I was delving into can I map out the transformational process that I went through and my clients go through so that you can see a way forward for yourself? To give you clarity to the thing is, it's really. It takes a lot of courage to say yes to yourself. It takes a huge amount of trust in what I'm offering you. It takes faith. It takes self-belief yes, I can do this differently. It's not easy. It takes courage. And then it takes commitment, and so if I can map out a path for you to see more clearly, then that's helpful.
Speaker 1:So that last week I tried to do that and I split it into three steps. So step one is just notice your struggle, notice your struggle, admit your struggle, look it in the eye, look the overwhelm in the eye and say enough, I can see the damage it's causing me. This way is not for me anymore. Commit to yourself, gently, rebel. As soon as you do that and you get curious and genuine about it, you're immediately into step two, and step two is where the magic happens. Step two is the hero's journey. Two is the hero's journey. It's where you start looking at the overwhelm and turning it into the ease, the security, the satisfaction, the joy that you are pushing yourself so hard through the overwhelm to get. But it's not on the other side of the overwhelm. It's on the other side of the overwhelm when you turn the overwhelm into it, when you use it as useful information, but it's not on the other side when you push and force yourage of our ability to experience the very things we're working so hard for.
Speaker 1:And step three, I put as where I feel myself to be now, which is realizing that overwhelm is genuinely optional, that I don't have to push through it anymore. I can see it, I see it coming, and that's just a different. It's just a different point of view. It's when you've it's like climbing to the top of the mountain and just being able to see. It's just from traveling that spiral path of the overwhelm to joy. Phase. Phase two, which is the gender rebellion, just until you've come across it enough times to recognize it. It's a level of skill I can see more clearly now, I can sort myself out more quickly, and if I can't sort myself out, then I'm going to ask for help, whereas I found it really hard to ask for help before.
Speaker 1:So, for example, yesterday, yeah, I had a bit of a funky day, not the whole day, the morning I was fine. In the morning I did my one minute morning practice. I connected to my word of the year. I felt really good, I was on it, I was excited about the day and then something happened. I think I was tired from the weekend and I just flunked and then I was. Then I did my normal right, I'm going to fight it. Then I did my facing it. Then I did my what's wrong with me? I shouldn't be feeling this. And I did the normal funky stuff, but but not for as long. So something that might've taken me I don't know weeks, months ages to figure out. It just doesn't exist anymore for me in that way because I walk my talk. So it's a commitment, it's courage. It takes courage, commitment and practice to reach a stage where you can say, yeah, I will never push myself like that again. I have too much respect for myself now and I know how to do it differently.
Speaker 1:I have the evidence which is related back to the beginning of the podcast about reflecting on how differently I'm approaching the Italian Camino to the Portuguese Camino. That's evidence, and deliberately looking for that evidence is one of the most helpful things you can do, because the truth is, although I tried to make a linear path last week actually it's funny if you watched my YouTube video series on step one and you also listened to the podcast, you would notice I made a beautiful error, which is a gift. So in my attempt to make it into a step-by-step path, I messed up the way I, because I'm going to right, because it's not a path. There is a path. It's not a linear path. So go and watch those. Spot the error Really funny, doesn't make any difference. It doesn't make any difference to the quality and the gift in both those pieces of content for you. But it showed me, heidi, you can't pin it down. So I'm trying to pin it down so that I'm shining a light on it and going, yeah, look, because it's true, it works.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, let's be really clear no transformational path is instant or linear, they're all spiral. Life is a spiral and the beauty of a spiral is, first of all, it's easier, because you're not like, oh, I fought the dragon, I won and now end of adventure. No, it's a spiral path, so you keep coming back to this what you think you're stuck, but you're not. You think you're repeating, but you're not, because you can't actually identically repeat. You can get what feels like you're stuck in a loop, but if you pay close attention, what you're actually doing is you're a little bit above the situation. So you're doing this beautiful spiral upwards and each time it feels like you're repeating yourself.
Speaker 1:If you notice that you're not, you're just yourself. If you notice that you're not, you're just slightly above and you've got a bird's eye view, that's your gains. And sometimes these are huge leaps and bounds and other times it just feels like it's so slow. What's wrong with me? Why can I not do this? Something's not working and just know. That's why neutral noticing works, because then you notice what's going on quicker.
Speaker 1:As soon as you notice, things shift, because the noticing is key. The noticing creates the spiral. It creates the being slightly above, because you're getting a bird's eye view as soon as you separate yourself from that. So if you've got stuff like I'm stuck, I'm useless at this, I'm no good at gently rebelling, I'm slipping back, I'm back in the overwhelm to exhaustion cycle, if you notice that immediately you're, you're not, because you can notice oh, I feel like I am and I'm beating myself up. Aha, now you found out what you're up to. So then you can look at your thoughts and say well, that's not true, I'm not a terrible person and you can be on your own side.
Speaker 1:As soon as you switch that, you rebel against your own thoughts about how rubbish you are and how you ought to be better, be on your own side. That takes courage and commitment over and over again, but it's worth it, because each time you recommit, you're spiraling upwards again. You catch it, you recommit, and the faster you do it and with more courage and commitment, the easier it is, the faster you make progress on your own hero's journey, which is why coaching is so amazing, because it shines a light for you, it holds a mirror for you and in a well-held space, you will transform into what you're trying to do. It will all happen more easily, more delightfully, more joyfully and much more effectively and faster, because that's what coaching's for, that's what I do, that's what a good coach does. So, for example, at the moment I'm having coaching.
Speaker 1:I don't have coaching all the time. I don't believe that, I don't believe anybody needs a coach and I don't like the idea of. I know some people say, oh yeah, I have a coach for this and a coach for that and a coach okay, fine, if that's what you want, if that works for you. For me personally, my whole philosophy is that you have the answers inside of you and to have a break from coaching. To do coaching in a sporadic manner is really good, because it gives you time to go out there on your own adventure, on your own, without having anyone to fall back on and then to admit yeah, actually, now I want this and I'm going to choose the most effective way, which is working with a coach, a good coach. You get the right coach at the right time. Absolute, magical transformation can happen because it takes courage and commitment.
Speaker 1:So yesterday, when I found myself in a funk, I then this was interesting for me. I caught myself. I listened to my thoughts and what I caught was I need to sort myself out before my coaching session. I shouldn't show up to a coaching session feeling lost, confused, down on myself, lacking confidence, lacking. I should, I should show up as this like shiny version of myself. And I didn't, I chose and then I remembered no, heidi, you show up as you are, because, with my clients, I usually my clients will apologize if they are, I don't know, hungry, tired, not on, not not like super happy or something you know, not like they think they ought to show up, whereas for me, the point is that coaching provides the space to show up exactly how you are in the moment and to work with that, because that's what's true for you in that moment, that's what's showing up, that's your useful information.
Speaker 1:And if we bypass that useful information and lack the vulnerability to show up with it, which takes courage because we feel like we're going to be judged, a good coach is never going to judge you. My coach certainly didn't. My coach did the opposite. He said something like thank you for such a beautiful start to the coaching, because I just said, this is how I'm feeling and it's a powerful thing to do, which he reflected back to me.
Speaker 1:The ability as a coach, to be coachable, to be vulnerable, makes me a better coach. It makes it easier for my clients and future clients to come to me and say coach, it makes it easier for my clients and future clients to come to me and say well, I'm feeling like this today. I feel like it's all gone wrong. I feel like I'm not doing this right. I feel like I need to be better at doing this. I feel like I don't do the things I said I would do.
Speaker 1:Turning up as you are is courageous because it requires you to be vulnerable. It requires us to accept the risk of being judged, but you know what? We're judging ourselves and that's what I was doing. So when I let go of that and showed up for my coaching session feeling vulnerable, feeling a little bit off, not really knowing what I wanted apart from to feel better and once again, I had the most incredible, powerful session with my coach, and I'm so grateful to have that coach in my life. So grateful, and it reflects back to me the power of coaching. So cool, so exciting. I'm so grateful that I blew up my previous career and created this one for myself, or finally said yes to this one properly for myself. So grateful. So I know there's an advert for my coaching services that I've somehow magically got Buzzsprout, my podcast host, to plonk in the middle of episodes. I don't know when it comes. Do you know what? I'm not going to apologize for it.
Speaker 1:I'm confidently saying to you if you would like some help on your journey towards freedom from the overwhelm to exhaustion cycle. Wherever you feel you are in the overwhelm to joy cycle, whatever's going on for you, book a curiosity call, let's talk about it. There's never any pressure. It's the most joyful thing to do to just have somebody listen to you. The worst that will happen is I will reflect back to you what's going on for you and you will gain huge clarity and insight. And that is powerful. So receive it as a gift. And also, I'd love to meet you. Gives me joy. I love doing curiosity calls, but I recognize the act of courage it takes and I'm telling you I get that. I feel it too. I feel vulnerable when I ask for coaching. I feel vulnerable. It's exactly the same. It's part of the commitment to yourself and whether you choose to do this alone, with another coach, whatever you decide for yourself, committing to yourself first is where everything starts to change.
Speaker 1:Deciding you're done with the old overwhelming to exhaustion cycle and you're ready for ease, joy, satisfaction, security Ah, the relief of having a life that works for you. Do it, commit to yourself, do it Gently rebel. Three steps Decide, big step, hero's journey. Look at your overwhelm Neutrally, notice it, work out how you can turn it into joy. I'm going to be talking more about this.
Speaker 1:It's pretty much where all my podcast episodes are. They're in the overwhelm to joy cycle, because that's the process and it fascinates me From whether we can use chat, gpt to reduce our overwhelm take the load off our mind to how can we increase the body-mind connection to support the body sorry, to support the mind how can we use the guidance from our heart and so many other things. There's always a new aspect coming up for me that I'm excited to share with you. So thank you so much for being here. Please send this podcast to somebody today as a gift. I'd be really grateful. Thank you so much and I'll see you next week. Have a great week.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening and for being part of the Overwhelmers Optional podcast. If you want to continue the conversation, please do connect with me on LinkedIn, instagram or YouTube. Let me know your thoughts. I love hearing from you and if you found this helpful, taking a moment to share, subscribe and leave a review would be much appreciated. It helps other people find the podcast. If you're ready to turn overwhelm into joy, you'll find my books, resources and ways to work with me on my website, heidimarkcouk, and on Amazon. All the links are in the show notes. Until next time, keep gently rebelling and making overwhelm optional for you.
