S2E17: Overwhelmed? You're Not—Here's What to Do Instead

Hey friends, Coach Chef Kim here! 👋 In today’s episode, we’re diving into the truth about overwhelm—and why you’re probably just stressed out instead. I’ll break down the difference between stress and true overwhelm, explain the science of the amygdala hijack, and share practical steps to regain your sense of control and mental wellness.

💡 Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
1️⃣ Why "overwhelm" is often misused and what it really means.
2️⃣ How to physically reset your brain and body when stress takes over.
3️⃣ The power of a "Wellness Brain Dump" to declutter your mind and prioritize effectively.
4️⃣ How to identify what needs to get done, what’s nice to do, and what’s not yours to handle.
5️⃣ Science-backed tips for setting boundaries without guilt.

✨ BONUS: I’ve created a downloadable Wellness Brain Dump worksheet to help you take action immediately. Use it daily to build a practice of mental clarity and emotional balance. 🧘‍♀️

📥 Download the worksheet inside the SHIFT here: DOWNLOAD

Remember, you are not alone, and mental wellness is a daily choice. 💖 Hit play, and let’s tackle stress together!

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, like, and share this episode with someone who needs it. Your mental health matters, and you deserve to thrive!

#MindsetMatters #MentalWellness #PositiveMindset #StressRelief #Overwhelm #CoachChefKim #ThePositiveVoicePodcast

Join our creative and supportive community as we laugh, learn, and grow together on this life-changing journey. Subscribe to The Positive Voice and let's spread the joy, one conversation at a time!

Subscribe to Our 2025 YouTube channel for bonus content
Follow the Podcast: Positive Voice Insta

Chapters

• 0:51 Understanding Overwhelm vs. Stress
• 1:23 Amygdala Hijack Explained
• 2:23 Steps to Handle Overwhelm
• 3:29 The Wellness Brain Dump
• 4:43 Categorizing Your Tasks
• 6:29 The Importance of Boundaries
• 8:54 Conclusion and Final Tips

Transcript

  Hey friends, Coach Chef Kim here. So I just very quickly put together a new document for you guys inside of the membership. Here's how you're going to use this. You know how sometimes we're like, I feel really overwhelmed. Um, if you know me, you know that I hate the word overwhelm because you're not. If you can say the word overwhelm, you're not overwhelmed.

You are stressed out.  You don't have the capacity to deal with things, um, but you're not overwhelmed. Overwhelm has been watered down into mainstream usage, and it's incorrectly being used. Whenever you say you are overwhelmed, you are implying that you are literally in the middle of an amygdala hijack. 

An amygdala hijack is what happens when your brain is in fight or flight mode, and you don't know what to do, and your brain is trying to protect your body. So don't use the word overwhelm. Incorrectly. Also, if you actually are overwhelmed, you won't be able to say you're overwhelmed.  The way I like to explain this is, think about a toddler.

If the toddler can fall out on the floor,  And no matter what you do, it's not working. And sometimes we literally have to pick them up and move them to a different environment to calm them down. That's an amygdala hijack.  If your toddler falls out in the middle of the floor and you tell them to get up and go push the wall and they can get up and go push the wall.

That's not an amygdala hijack. That's your child needing attention. Well, the same thing happens when we, as adults say, I'm overwhelmed.  Are you overwhelmed to the point where you need outside intervention to come pick you up and move you to a new space, or is this a cry for attention?  Nine times out of 10, it's a cry for attention.

So how do you handle these feelings inside of your body that you don't know what to do? Number one, you cannot think this away.  Get out of your head. You cannot think of ways to make it stop. That's why you feel so out of control. It's chaotic in your brain. The reason it's chaotic in your brain is because you have built up energy inside of your body.

So I need you to number one, realize. That's your only amygdala hijack for 90 seconds. Anything after 90 seconds is a choice.  That's number one. Number two,  I need you to physically get up and move your body.  If you feel the energy in your body and it's becoming chaotic and it's becoming frantic and you don't know what to do, I need you to move your body.

So go for a walk, go for a run. Do some yoga, do some stretching, go jump up and down, turn on your favorite song and dance. Like give yourself a two minute dance break, whatever it is you need to do to get out of your mind and into your body. I need you to physically exert energy. Okay, then after you do that, you are going to use a document that I provided and you're going to do a wellness brain dump.

In your wellness brain dump, you are brain dumping into three categories. Number one, what needs to get done. This is things that nobody else can do for you. So if you're a single parent and you have children, that means you need to feed your kids. Okay,  need to get done. I need to feed my children.  Um, I need to go wash my body.

If I haven't done that in a couple of days, go wash your body. There are certain things you absolutely need to do, right? If your car is on E, you need to put gas in it. So I need you to look at the things on your list that you need to do. Everything is not a need to do. This is going to be the shortest  in your brain dump.

The need to do is there's literally not another person on the face of this earth that can do it for you. If you can pick up the phone and call a friend and you can text a friend and say, Hey, can you drop off dinner over here tonight? Because I don't have the capacity to do it. You don't need to do it.

You, you don't. Okay. So anything that you absolutely need to do means nobody else other than you can do it. So those are the things going in the need to do column. Your second column is going to be nice to do. So this is what our typical to do list looks like, right, where you write out all the things that you need to do.

You don't need to do them. It would be nice to do it. So this could be setting a doctor's appointment, taking a kid to a practice, um, you know, things of the sort, right? So write down things that would be nice to do. Things that if you were mentally well in this moment, you would be able to do no problem.

Those are the things on the nice to do. And then this is the most important column of all, what things don't belong to you. So what is taking up space in your brain that doesn't even belong to you, right? If you have teenage kids, your teenage children should be able to do certain things for themselves.

So if you're writing down something like wash and fold my child's clothes, that doesn't belong to you. Give that to them.  Right? What things are you doing to rescue other people that they never asked you to rescue them from?  Are you trying to work  inconveniences out caused by other people in your life?

That, that goes on that column, right? So if you have a spouse who can't seem to do anything for themselves now that you're married,  you put this on the not mine column.  It's not my job to iron your clothes. It's not my job to fix your food all the time. It's not my job. Like you're an adult, you can do these things.

So I need you to go through this brain dump,  everything that's circling in your mind, everything that you need to get done for you is going in the first column.  Things that it would be nice to do if you were in full mental wellness goes in the middle column. And then that last column, what doesn't belong to you, love, give that thing back to somebody else. 

If you're not to the point where you can set the boundary to say this doesn't belong to me, I still need you to do the cognitive work of writing down the things that don't belong to you so that you can begin to work on giving that back to somebody else.  So, for instance,  you may not be in a situation where you can say,  I don't want to do this anymore.

Right.  And this could be. Church,  fraternity, sororities, mom groups, PTA stuff, bands, like it doesn't matter. Things that like an outside person expects you to do, but it really does inconvenience you in your life, put that down. Put it down in the not mine list.  The more you write it down in the not mine list, I want to tell you what's going to happen scientifically so you understand why you're doing this.

The more you write  Your brain is going to register what your eyes are doing.  All right. So the way your brain is working, it's looking at, what do I see on this paper on this paper? It says not mine. Your hand is making the physical action of writing out what is not yours. So in your brain, you are now creating new neurotransmitters  that are like, yo, this is not ours.

This is not ours. This is not ours. The more you do that over and over, the more your brain is going to go. This is not ours.  So when your brain is like, this is not ours, it's easier for you to set the boundary without being a jerk about it because you'll go, okay, so listen,  I have all these other things in these two columns that I need to do.

And this thing right here, y'all don't have the capacity to do that anymore. I would really like for you to do this for me.  That is a no conflict way  of giving people. Responsibility for the things they should be responsible for so that you can begin to improve your mental wellness. So please download this little worksheet download as many of them as you need to. 

And fill it out.  If you need to put it in a neutral place in the house, like on the kitchen counter or something, it needs to be somewhere you're going to see it every day. Mine is inside of the closet, because it's somewhere I go every day. Right? So put it somewhere that you're going to see it every single day.

And you're only going to work through the things when you are in a space where you feel overwhelmed and you're not. Um, you can just say, I don't have the capacity for this right now. Use the language that is appropriate. Overwhelm throws you into fight or flight mode. Your brain literally goes into protection mode.

You don't need it though, because you're not overwhelmed. You're not, you're stressed out. You've been trying to rescue people who didn't ask you to rescue them. You have taken on the responsibility of doing the work that you should have delegated  to other people. You're not overwhelmed.  You no longer have the capacity for all the things that you volunteered yourself to do that now you regret doing. 

So as you begin to work through this, understand you have to do this multiple times. It is a daily choice to have mental wellness. And this is one of those steps is understanding I'm not overwhelmed.  At some points you might get overwhelmed. It looks like a panic attack. It looks like you literally can't do anything for yourself and somebody else needs to come and rescue you.

That's overwhelmed.  Okay. That is overwhelmed.  But if you can type on a computer and say I'm overwhelmed and you can write a whole rant,  you're not overwhelmed. You're, you're just stressed out. Okay. So I need you to name it what it is. I need you to not judge it. I need you to go for a walk. I need you to jump up and down.

I need you to have a dance party. Do one of those things to get you out of your head and into your body and then do your mental wellness brained up. And from there, you now have a plan on how you can move forward. Talk to you soon.