The Overwhelmed Brain

Do you form authentic relationships by being the real you, or do you only show people what you believe they want to see? What are the risks of showing up as the real you? It may be worth taking a risk to find that out.

If you make the right decisions ahead of time, you can prevent overwhelm from being a normal part of life. It's a matter of making decisions that are in alignment with who you are at the deepest level. When you don't, anything goes.

You can be around people that mistreat you, call you names, and are just downright nasty, and you could still be responsible for your own suffering because of how they show up in your life. It's vital you know the role you play and if you have a choice other than the one you're making in certain situations otherwise you could find yourself in a whirlwind of hurt that might be completely avoidable.

We bring our insecurities with us everywhere we go. To work, to appointments, to our relationship, and everywhere else that might bring a sense of fear into our lives. It's important to address what you are insecure about so it doesn't become a challenge that you have to repeat over and over again. It's not required that you overcome your insecurities, but it sure makes life easier.

Some people might say you overreact and sometimes you agree with them but can't figure out how to stop doing it. If you find yourself reacting as if you were in fight or flight, it's time to get a grip on your emotional triggers and change the patterns that create those reactions in the first place.

Empowerment means having choices and some level of control over the results you get in your life. Disempowerment, as you know, is quite the opposite. In my book, The Overwhelmed Brain: Personal Growth for Critical Thinkers, I take you along the path from disempowered to empowered. In this episode, I summarize the path so that you can get a good start.

Are arguments ever productive? You may not like to do it (I know I don't) but if done right, you can release a lot of negative energy and you might even get to some core issues that need to be addressed. Addressing the core issues is so much healthier than carrying around negativity that drip feeds into the relationship in destructive ways.

What if you could tell someone something that was bothering you but present it in a way that didn't seem confrontational? If you have a fear of confrontation, perhaps this is the episode you need to make a shift that takes you out of the fear and into empowerment.

Every important memory has an emotion attached to it. The negative ones almost always stand out more than the positive ones, so it's important to determine which emotions are useful and which aren't. Knowing the difference can make the difference in how happy you are.

Some people walk around with an underlayer of negativity that doesn't necessarily affect their lives but does affect their level of comfort and happiness. If you find that you talk down to yourself and just can't seem to get past the negative feeling you're carrying around, this episode will help you ask the right questions so that you can start, and maybe even finish, some healing you need to go...

If you make bad decisions or keep getting results you don't want, it's time to tackle that problem once and for all. If you aren't making decisions based on what's most important to you at the deepest level, you may drive off the cliff one too many times.

Some people are just difficult to be around. They display toxic or hurtful behaviors and they never seem to want to change even when they know you're bothered. You have a choice in how you respond to others. And the choice you make will have an effect on what behavior you get in the future. That's an important choice! And it's also a great topic to talk about today.

Negative events from the past get encoded into our brain so that when we recall them, we can usually remember about when they happened. Because of that, we can actually use time to our advantage to help feel better about those memories, and maybe even get rid of the residual emotional triggers altogether.

There are mental tools you should have in your toolbelt when dealing with snarky or hurtful people. Their goal might be to make you feel bad or guilty, so you may need to find a way to disarm them so that when they try to hurt you with their words, they become confused when you don't react the way you used to. This episode will provide some tools to make communication with toxic people a bit easie...

Your mental health is too important to let those in denial ignore your suffering and invalidate your experience. The solution to someone's ignorance could be to put the harsh truth in their face. Or it could be to just accept that some people will always be blissfully unaware or in full denial. Acceptance that you can't get through to everyone might be the one reality you can rely on.

There are a lot of unknowns in life. Some unknowns have answers, some don't. Some do, but the person who knows the answers won't share them with you. This episode is about those people and how to deal with the limbo state you might get in when you want the answers but can't get them, and may never get them. You can't walk around in frustration, confusion, and limbo all the time. There has to be a...

Carrying around emotional baggage weighs you down. It's no way to live. Yet millions of people do live this way. Carrying this kind of weight around with you all your life can keep you from happiness, at least to the extent that it could be experienced if you were able to process and release that old baggage. In this episode, I talk about some of the concepts of self-care and personal growth to he...

Some loved ones really want to help you through your challenges. There are those that listen and support you and meet you where you are. Then there are those that have good intentions but fail miserably. It's not that their incompetent, but it could be that they simply have no clue what they're talking about. For more episodes, visit https://theoverwhelmedbrain.com

The level of happiness and fulfillment you feel on a day to day basis can change based on many factors. One of those factors has to do with the ability to make hard decisions that may involve big changes that you're not ready to face. The fear and pain associated with change can often prevent us from doing what we need to do to increase our quality of life. However, sometimes the lesson is that in...

You don't want to take the blame but it sure seems like you take it more often than you should. Perhaps there's something a bit more covert going on that you need to know about. In this episode, learn how some people have mastered the art of painting you into a corner. And learn how to counter it too. Visit https://theoverwhelmedbrain.com/ for more episodes.

Have you ever really learned who you are at a deeper level? Sometimes we walk around doing the things we're supposed to do, but rarely stop to figure out who is doing those things. In this episode, I read an email from a woman who never got a chance to learn who she is because of narcissistic parents telling her who she is all her life. Now that she's a wife and mom, she feels lost. If you're lost...

Are you more judgmental toward those you love? Today I talk about how your judgments can dissolve the love in your relationship and what to do to heal from being judgmental. The road to healing from judging others can be challenging, but the rewards are too rich to pass up. For more episodes, visit https://theoverwhelmedbrain.com/

Some people have a strange way of balancing their lives. Some folks will pick up a hobby or hang out with friends. But others may take a darker route. They'll betray their partner or become addicted to drugs or alcohol. You may not see that as balance, but for some people, that's how they get it. There are of course healthier ways to balance your life & your relationships, but in this episode, we'...

Sometimes honoring yourself around others feels confrontational. The reason is because you may not have honored yourself in front of certain people, so they may not have ever seen you show such self-respect and self-compassion before. If that's the case, you might have to ease others into this new you so that they have an opportunity to adapt. Sometimes this works, other times, you get to find out...

If you're on a road that you believe is never going to end and never going to get better, what do you do? Should you just accept that's your lot in life and you should just accept it? Or do you take a leap of faith in a direction that leads to the unknown in hopes that life will get better? There is always hope, but sometimes it has to be pursued. Visit https://theoverwhelmedbrain.com/ for more ep...