If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately, you’re not alone. In this episode, we talk about what it’s like when what’s happening in the world takes up more of our bandwidth than we realize—and how that can show up as low energy, stress, and doomscrolling.

We remind ourselves that even when we’re not personally in immediate danger, it still takes real energy to be in the world right now. So we explore a good-enough approach: set kind-but-firm boundaries around news and social media, calm your nervous system first, and then choose one small action you can actually sustain.

What We Talk About

1. 00:45 - Feeling overwhelmed and “maxed out,” and naming the nervous system impact
2. 01:10 - Remembering to factor in what’s happening in the world (on top of personal stressors)
3. 02:43 - How external stress compresses our capacity and bandwidth—even if we’re not directly threatened
4. 03:51 - The push-pull of wanting to stay informed without getting pulled into constant news consumption
5. 05:34 - Creating a container for the news: skim headlines, read one article, or set a 15-minute timer
6. 06:57 - Choosing your inputs on purpose: unfollowing/unfriending and skipping online arguments that won’t lead to real dialogue
7. 10:37 - Taking action to feel less helpless: donating, writing postcards, protesting, and focusing your energy where it can matter
8. 12:53 - Not letting perfectionism hijack activism: it’s not all-or-nothing, and “doing a little” still counts
9. 14:26 - Connection over consumption: reaching out to friends and checking in instead of scrolling
10. 16:23 - “Oxygen mask first”: calming your nervous system makes it easier to take meaningful action and help others

Key Takeaways

1. External stress is real stress: Even if nothing in your personal life changed, what’s happening in the world can shrink your capacity.
2. Set boundaries so you can stay informed (without spiraling): A small “container”—headlines only, one article, or a timer—helps you avoid doomscrolling.
3. Curate your inputs like it’s self-care: Unfollowing, unfriending, and choosing what you engage with can protect your nervous system.
4. Small actions beat perfectionism: Donating, writing postcards, protesting, or helping in your community doesn’t have to be perfect to matter.
5. Calm first, then act: When you feel steadier, it’s easier to take meaningful action.

The Bottom Line

When everything feels like too much, it makes sense that your energy is lower and your brain wants to scroll, worry, or shut down. In this episode, we remind ourselves that we can care and protect our nervous systems: set a boundary around what you take in, then choose one small action that helps you feel less helpless—without letting perfectionism turn it into a moral test.

Listener Action: This week, pick one boundary (like a 15-minute news timer or “one article only”) and one small action (text a friend to check in, donate a few dollars, write one postcard, etc.). Good enough counts.

• Watch the episode on YouTube - You can watch us have this conversation on YouTube, if you'd like.
• Ben Sheehan, host of Civics Made Easy, on Instagram: Calling members of Congress WORKS. With such thin majorities for the GOP you’d only need to convince a handful of members to vote across the aisle — and we’ve already seen that happen this year. Don’t let anyone tell you that pressure doesn’t work - we’ve already seen proof that it does. And if you’re concerned about ICE, you might wanna call your Democratic members of the Senate and tell them to force changes to the agency in exchange for their vote — or even withhold their vote to temporarily shut down ICE.
• Find Your Members in the U.S. Congress

Connect With Us

If you try a good-enough boundary or a small action this week, we’d love to hear what you chose.

Leave us a voicemail at 413-424-GTGE (4843) or find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube @gettingtogoodenough. If you enjoyed the episode, please consider sharing the podcast with a friend, and rating or reviewing us on your favorite podcast platform. It really helps others discover the show and means so much to us!

Want More Like This? (Related Episodes)

1. Episode 107: Balancing Discomfort — This episode is from a moment when there was a lot happening in the world, and we talk about how to hold the discomfort and keep moving forward. We share what helped us stay grounded, and how taking one small step can be more sustainable than trying to do everything at once.
2. Episode 108: Ready to Vote? — If voting has ever felt oddly stressful—like you need to do it perfectly or you’ll mess it up—this episode will feel familiar. We get practical about making a simple plan, shrinking the dread, and following through.
3. Episode 264: How to Enjoy Social Media Again — This is the social media episode we mention in today’s conversation. We dig into comparisonitis, doomscrolling, and some very doable ways to curate your feed and set boundaries so you can stay connected without feeling consumed.

Yeah, I admire people who do a ton and it's great to do a little as well.

If most people did a little, that would be amazing. Even if you just feel like you're making a difference in one person's life, I think that matters. Hey there. Welcome to getting to Good Enough.

I'm Shannon Wilkinson.

And I'm Janine Adams. We're here for practical and fun conversations about living with more ease and way less stress.

Yep. We're all about embracing progress over perfection. So grab a tasty beverage and let's get started. Hey, Janine.

Hey, Shannon. How you doing?

I'm doing pretty well. How about you?

Heck yeah. I'm doing as well as can be expected. Sort of how it feels right now.

Yeah, yeah, same. I mean it. Things feel a little overwhelming.

Yeah, I feel like my nervous system is maxed out or something when I'm just looking at what's going on around the world and so forth.

Yeah. It's funny because I haven't been factoring that in with, with some of the things I've been dealing with.

And I've sort of been blaming low energy, you know, a feeling of overwhelm and stuff on this ongoing four month saga that I've been dealing with shoulder surgery and, you know, sort of ongoing pain and sleep issues and stuff. And I think it would be wise for me to recognize that, that, that what's happening in the world around me, around us, is certainly a factor.

Right. Yeah, I feel same. The same.

Like I've got this work stuff going on that's fine, but just sort of stress inducing and so I'm having trouble living my word of the year and joy. But yeah, layering on top of that is this ongoing stress. This.

That's omnipresent, has been for a while, but has just really gotten bad in the last couple of weeks. For me, anyway. No, I think just objectively. And so, yeah, I want to cut myself a lot of slack.

I want to, as you say, sort of factor that in and thinking about how I'm doing and how I can, I don't know, be kinder to myself or regulate my expectations for myself, my what I can accomplish and so forth. There's a lot of. I feel like there's a lot of tentacles to this.

Yeah, yeah, there. There really are.

And I feel like it's good to remember that, you know, while you normally have a certain amount of capacity or bandwidth to get things done to, you know, sort of go about your life, that all of this external stuff can compress that or take part of your capacity or bandwidth. Like it takes some energy. Like I'm not living in.

I don't think you're living in a situation right now where you are actively threatened or, you know, feeling threatened by the political environment or anything. And yet there's a certain amount of energy. It takes just being in the world today.

Right? Yeah. I feel like we're all being threatened and people in certain cities are being physically threatened as well.

Yes.

Yeah. And you're right. It just takes up. Takes up energy. I, you know, sometimes I think, oh, I'm just not going to think about it.

But it's hard not to think about it. A and B, I feel like as a citizen I need to be informed and there's so much happening every single day that I have to at least drop in on the news.

I'm trying to figure out a way to not get too caught up in it and still be an informed citizen. Right. And I don't have conversations with people about it much.

I mean, thankfully, like most people I talk to agree with my viewpoints and so I'm not arguing with anybody. But also, we don't rag on it because we know it stresses us out.

Right.

But sometimes those conversational boundaries could be really important.

Yeah, I think so. I totally agree.

I, I think boundaries is really the key, you know, sort of being boundaries and following them, setting them and following them for yourself in all these different ways, you know, that I might be like, okay, I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the news. I want to be an informed citizen.

I feel like I need to check in on what's going on and then that's a rabbit hole that just, you know, I can be in for forever thanks to algorithms and the way apps and things work. It's not like you just have the newspaper and you're limited.

Right.

But I feel like that creating some sort of boundaries for yourself, whether that is, you know, skimming the headlines and reading one article or setting a timer for 15 minutes or something, but that somehow creating a container for the amount of news that you take in would be really helpful.

Yeah, it's so easy to just doom scroll and so easy to consume the things that are bombarding, being bombarded by it just, I feel like as someone with a certain amount of discipline and self discipline, I still just get sort of sucked into it. And I also, I like the enjoyable aspects of social media.

So I don't want to say, okay, I'm not going on Facebook today, but I can say, okay, I'm just going to look at my groups that I, you know, see what my friends who wear wool are doing.

Yeah.

Or my YNAB fans. Right. I like reading those groups, but yeah. Setting those boundaries, I think, I think that's an important. Yeah, I need to think.

We talked about that.

I know, in our social media episode sometime in the last couple of months, but I think I need to revisit that, make sure I'm protecting myself that way.

Yeah. I don't spend a lot of time on social media these days, but I did pop into Facebook recently to respond to some comments we got for the podcast.

And there was my feed and there was someone posting something that I was so vehemently opposed to and I was getting all ready to respond and then I thought, will this make a difference or is this like, will it make me feel better in the moment but not do anything and then I'll just perseverate, you know, like, will this actually make a difference?

And then I decided this person who I went to high school with, who I have not seen since high school, is not an actual friend of mine and I can unfriend them and not have to have this in my feed.

Yeah. Oh, that's good. That was good. That was good self care. And you're not a great. Wouldn't have been a great use of your time to get into a. An argument.

Online argument with this person who isn't your friend.

Yeah. And I saw there were like 15 comments that were like 100% so right. Da da da da. And I was like, oh, this would just be a big pile on. And, and there's.

There's no way to actually have a dialogue about this.

Yeah. Yeah, that's smart. I mean, I never argue with people on social media. It's not in my nature.

Yeah.

I did see somebody post something the other day that was. It wasn't inflammatory, but it was not in a part of my worldview and I quickly scrolled away from that.

But mostly my, my, my thing on Facebook is just people posting or just learning that the news just same and of course. And then nowadays you don't even know. You know, you see AI.

I feel like I'm decent at picking out AI generated images and stuff but so much of it is just. Yeah, maybe I do need to fast a Facebook fast. But the.

Yeah, I mean that might not be a bad thing to do for a little while and just get my news from my usual news sources like Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Myers. But one thing I was Thinking about, too, is taking action. Like what, you know, what can I do to feel better and feel like I'm helping the situation.

Right. And, you know, that includes figuring out where I want to donate money and, you know, writing postcards to voters.

And today, actually, in a couple hours, I'm going to be knitting in protest with a bunch of other people who are knitting in protest hats. So that would be nice. I haven't decided if I'm just. If I'm going to actually go on the zoom or if I'm just going to knit alone.

But, you know, part of the collective conscience of just knitting. But that'll feel good. And I'll have a hat to wear in protest. Yeah, that'll be fun.

Yeah, it'll be enjoyable.

Yeah. I can, if in the show notes I can put a link to the pattern for the hat. It's called melt the ice hat.

Oh, I've not seen that.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, I think that is so key, though, to find what it is you can do. And I think I come from a Portland, Oregon, where our elected officials are as aligned with my political values and personal values as they can be.

So it doesn't do a lot for me to make calls and send letters or emails or anything like that, but I think it will make a big difference to get out the vote in November for the midterm elections. And so that's definitely somewhere I can put my energy.

You know what popped in my head when you said that? I wonder. I don't know the answer to this, but I feel the same. I understand what you're saying, because my US Representative is also.

We're from a very blue city.

But I wonder if people from other parts of the state, if you're talking about US Senators that represent you, if other people are writing with the opposite viewpoint that for their tally sheets, getting calls from your viewpoint might be good. Might be helpful.

Oh, yeah, I hadn't thought about that. But that Oregon is a divided state, but the, the red portion of the state, the population does not surpass the blue portion of the state. And.

But those people are a lot more vocal with the, with our senators.

Yeah. So. So, yeah. Yeah, perhaps. Yeah. I, I mean, and I'm the. I, my senators are conservative and I do write them and I get so infuriated by the responses.

I should just stop reading the responses the other day. But I agree. And to me, getting on the vote is huge, so I love participating in that effort. Yeah. I mean, there's lots of things that could be Done.

And I think too, like you said, you know, if you have money to donate, where can you donate it? That makes a big, the biggest impact for whatever you have to donate. If you have time to donate, where can you do that?

You know, if you are willing to protest, where can you protest?

But to really think about it in a purposeful way so that it's not perfectionism, doesn't get involved and it's not like, oh, I should be doing more, I need to be doing this or I'm not being, I'm not doing this.

The right way or if I can't do it all, I'm not going to do anything. It's not an all or nothing proposition. Any little bits, little actions can make a difference. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah.

I admire people who do a ton and it's great to do a little as well.

Yeah. I mean if most people did a little, that would be amazing. And you know, not everyone can do very much or anything and.

But I think we can all do a little bit. And I think there are ways to sort of feel. Even if you just feel like you're making a difference in one person's life, I think that matters.

Yeah. And showing, caring for those around you because we. Like I just said, I.

Most of my friends are aligned with me, which means most of my friends are upset as well. And reaching out and seeing how people are doing rather than scrolling on Facebook might be a better use of my time. That connected.

That feeling connected. Yeah. I was just making a list of people I needed to reach out to while I was taking a shower and so I couldn't write the list.

You're making a list in your head?

In my head. So I couldn't write it down at that moment. So now I have to put it in some format where it's readable.

Yeah.

But it does feel important to sort of recognize that, that there is this level of stress that is impacting how we feel emotionally energy wise, you know, sort of our capacity. And you know, in some very real ways it is eating up time because you know, we're doom scrolling.

We're getting sucked into things or even just sitting around perseverating. And that one way to deal with that is to create these boundaries. And another way is to figure out one small action that you can take.

Right. Yeah.

And then I think I'd like to hope that by doing those things we're taking away some of that vibration or that tension that I'm feeling all the time and if can relieve that tension, I can be happier and more productive and enjoy life more.

Yeah. Well, and also, it's easier to take action when you, you're feeling calm, when you're feeling okay, when you're feeling safe.

It's easier to help other people. You know, it's a little bit of that. Put your oxygen mask on first.

Yeah.

And so doing that, calming your nervous system down allows you to take action, which can make a difference for other people.

Yeah. Yeah, I like that.

Yeah. So we would love to hear from you, our listeners.

Portland, Oregon, and Janine Adams in St. Louis, Missouri.

And we hope that good enough is getting easier for you. Thanks for joining us on getting to good enough. We hope you heard something that makes your life just a little bit easier.

If you did, leave us a review or share this with someone who's looking for their own version of good enough.

Thanks for listening. See you soon.

Yeah, I just remembered, and you probably remember this, years ago, I used to have a whiteboard in my shower. Do you remember that? Oh, my God. I completely forgot about that.

Wow. I get the inclination of that, but I.

So extra.

Yeah, that's exactly the word. I was about to say some extra. That's funny.