I’ll never forget it.
16 years ago. An ordinary work day with clients.
After work, I was cleaning the house and packing for a trip to NYC but something was off. I just didn’t feel right.
I was 32 weeks pregnant with our first child. It had been an easy breezy pregnancy to this point. And then, out of blue that ordinary day, it started coming in waves.
Contractions.
Every 5 minutes.
A late night ER trip confirmed contractions. They gave me medicine to try to slow down/stop contractions and sent me home.
Maybe I was just nervous to fly to NYC at 32 weeks pregnant, I thought, so I cancelled my trip, hoping that would solve it.
It did not.
3 ER trips...
6 days in labor...
Contracting steadily every 5 minutes...
A 30-minute ambulance ride to a different hospital...
Our little guy was born 7 weeks early.
He spent 22 days at DeVos Children’s NICU before being discharged on Independence Day, how fitting.
When he was born:
I had a full load of clients on my schedule.
I was spearheading legislation with state reps to protect the freedom to choose where we seek nutritional expertise.
We hadn’t set up the nursery. It was still my office, full of books, files, a desk, a large bookshelf.
I hadn’t had a baby shower yet, so we had nothing for a baby. No diapers, wipes, clothes, burp clothes, baby gear…zero, zilch, nada.
We were in the middle of a backyard project and our new fence and shed still needed to get finished and stained.
I was scheduled to be in NYC the day he was born, celebrating a graduation for several students I had been mentoring for the year.
This doesn’t include a hundred unnamed things, including responding to emails and calls and messages and all the things it takes to run a household.
After he was born…I was sleep deprived, exhausted, hormonal…and doing this very new and awkward thing of pumping breast milk every 2 ½ hours. I took another trip to the ER 3 days post-delivery because they thought I had a blood clot.
There I am, a few days post-partum, in an ER treatment room at midnight, emotionally unraveled, physically exhausted, crying…and topless holding two breast pumps in place (staying on my pumping schedule!) and wouldn’t you know it, a 19-year old kid I used to babysit walks in the room unannounced as our hospital tech.
I was mortified…and also laughed a good one. I gave him quite a show!
Can you say overwhelm?
Definition of overwhelm: overpowered by thought or feeling; buried beneath a huge mass; defeated completely.
Here is what I know now...
That season of overwhelm became my very best teacher.
Of all the things I can say about that season of life – lonely, scary, isolating, uncertain, challenging, not the way I wanted to welcome my first child (or any child) into the world – I also had a deep conviction knowing what I valued, what my purpose was in that moment.
My son.
To give him the best care.
To help him thrive.
To hold him and nurture him.
And to take care of myself with good food, rest…and a haircut. Because hello, I was just in labor for an entire week and I was basically living out of a bag at a hospital. I needed some good feels.
Overwhelm began to set in when I thought about all the things on my plate against the reality of a sudden thrust into motherhood mid-trimester.
My overwhelm made it clear to me that life was beginning to deliver more than I could handle. More than I had been asking for.
My overwhelm helped me see that I was reaching the edge of all I was willing to hold at once.
I had “pushed through” overwhelm a thousands times before this point.
But what I am grateful for, in that season, was that I finally gave myself permission to stop pushing.
Stop spinning all the plates.
Stop holding it all together.
It was a season to figure out what I valued most in the moment and let other things go...
And also let unnecessary mental swirling go.
Overwhelm can happen when you're spending time on things and thoughts incongruent with what you truly value.
It can happen when there is zero margin in your life.
It can happen when your unchecked thoughts overtake you and create a state of rush and reactivity and worry.
It can also happen when we react to situations without pausing to figure out how to respond from a place driven by your priorities.
And so…
...when you look at your overwhelm, what is it communicating to you?
Your overwhelm is most likely not coming from delivering a child 7 weeks early...but what is it for you?
Could your experience of overwhelm be an invitation to see if your thoughts and actions and habits and behaviors are congruent with what you most value in your life?
How you want to spend your mental and emotional energy?
To gently or not-so-gently let you know that life is delivering more than you want to "handle."
To help you see that you are reaching the edge of what you’re willing to hold all at once?
How is your overwhelm trying to speak to you? What is it asking you to see?
This seems to be the theme of the much of the work I do lately with my private clients. And I get to be front row to celebrate these women creating massive shifts in their lives as it relates to their overwhelm. Their lives are changing from the inside out; one thought, one action at a time.
And this can happen for you too.
Would you like to rewrite your story with overwhelm and create new beliefs and habits and thoughts and practices so you are not living in constant in reaction to whatever life hands you?
It's possible and I'd love to show you how.
The doors to Overcoming Overwhelm open next Monday (October 17th).
For now, answer these questions: How might overwhelm be my very best teacher right now? What is it asking me to see?
