Overwhelm with ADHD often shows up in different ways — before, during, and after — an event, plan, situation - it can be endless with ADHD.

Renee helps you identify what is causing your overwhelm which can help you manage, deal with, and push past it. She also explains how to process the overwhelm after the fact when you may think it's over, but it's likely still affecting you.

Learn simple ways to support yourself with ADHD.

Find Renee at https://www.renee-allen.com/

Hello, welcome to Inspiring Women with adhd.

I'm Renee Allen, the host this podcast.

I'm laughing at myself.

I just had a little trial run here because I was talking and I hadn't pushed record, so.

So I got some practice, which is probably a good thing, and we'll see how the second run goes.

But I want to talk to you about some things that I discovered over the weekend because I often think of the overwhelm that comes with ADHD or that is often associated with ADHD is the overwhelm that prevents us from doing something that, like, oh, that's so overwhelming, therefore, I can't do this.

Like, that's like, it's a frightening thing or an anxiety thing or just something that causes you to overthink it or.

Or, you know, you get into that frozen state, whether you're actually feeling anxious or you're just doing something else instead, you're just killing time doing who knows what, because you.

That whatever that task is is either too daunting, too dreadful.

You're just not in a mode of going and doing and, you know, having the dopamine necessary to.

Or the clarity of thought or the calmness to do that.

Back to the wedding, I didn't have very many times that I did my usual overwhelm that happens at home where, oh, no, I have to be somewhere at this time tonight.

Can I be ready?

Or I should pack.

I mean, that did happen before the trip.

I should pack.

But then you're just kind of thinking, but that's going to take so much time.

Do I have enough time?

Or I don't feel like doing it right now, or I don't have the energy to do it right now, or I think I'll just sit for a minute and order something, some groceries to pick up, and then you do another thing or 20 other things for, you know, an hour and never even do the grocery pickup.

And whatever it is that's.

That's stopping you, there's some kind of overwhelm that is preventing you from getting from point A to point B.

And that's.

And that's the.

Before that what might prevent you from doing it.

And that did happen with my packing, like, to a greater degree than usual, because you think, like, if you're going to go on a trip and you're going to go to an event or two, and, and you might care about what you're gonna wear if you have enough things.

But there were a lot of details I needed to have for this wedding, and I was literally throwing Clothes into my suitcase as my mom and my husband and my son and my granddaughter were in the car.

But I had, like, so many other things that I did pack for a couple days and think through, like, all those, you know, like my medicine or I was doing flowers.

I'd bring flower things or things for other people.

But clothing was a last thing anyway.

So there's that kind of overwhelm that I'll just call it the before overwhelm, and then there's the during overwhelm.

And maybe that's the kind of overwhelm that we often notice, too.

We're in the middle of something or we started doing something, and it is a lot.

The word over means over the top, right?

It's too much.

It's.

It's beyond what could feel normal and nice to just be able to go through life like, oh, yeah, this is fine.

But the overwhelm is.

This is too much.

And there are some different kinds of that kind of overwhelm, the present overwhelm.

And it can happen with, you're doing something, but you're panicking in a way because, you know, you don't have a lot of time, and it causes you to get more anxious, and then maybe you don't function as well.

I used to watch that baking company show, the British Baking.

I never remember the name of it, and I watched it a lot, but they would always have that timer, and they'd have to be hurrying and hurrying and proofing their bread in the oven.

And then I messed up, and this slid off the little decoration on the side, or my crust isn't turning out like I want, and they're doing all these things that they know how to do, but because they're in a competition and because someone's saying 10 more seconds, and they're trying to run their little dish up to the front or finish up the last few touches, they're more stressed out, and then we're more stressed out watching it.

You know, I guess it's making it more engaging.

But when they're in that kind of situation, they're not going to perform as well.

And that might happen to you where, whether it's like, I'm trying to get ready, I need to take a shower.

And you might actually have a good idea of how much time it takes, but you don't have enough time.

And time blindness, often you don't know how much time it takes, and you take longer than you need to, or you put more things into that time slot than you need to.

But there Is a stress when you're at.

Actually are very aware if I take a shower, my hair is going to get wet.

I need to fix my hair versus I don't shower.

I just use dry shampoo or I use a flat iron or do I just put on a hat?

You know, whatever the occasion is, you can gauge what things.

What amount of time things take and know if you have enough time.

But if it's something important and you don't have enough time, that can be overwhelming.

And for me, with this wedding, I was doing a lot of the flower arrangements.

Well, I did all of them except for when they showed up.

They had someone.

They paid someone to put some flowers on a vase.

And I actually would have.

I thought I was going to do that, and it's okay that I didn't.

But, you know, there's that control thing and that perfectionism.

And I didn't feel quite so bad because the mother of the groom, she was saying that as she left, she goes, I'm too much of a perfectionist.

Like, she was having a hard time walking away because she wanted to make sure something was done the same way.

And I was finding the same way.

Like, she took all the.

All the leaves off of the roses.

And when I was a florist, I learned that you take off the leaves that go in the water because that'll make the water all gunky.

And.

And then you take off the other ones that are making the arrangement too full.

But if it's just a single rose in a vase, you might want to have like the top little leaf trio on there or.

Or do.

Or whatever it is, because it would look a little better.

She took it all off.

She took it all up.

Maybe my daughter wanted that way, but I don't think so.

She never told me that.

But anyway, so there were.

There were things that I needed to do with the flowers that were a lot more extensive than that.

Make giant floral arrangements.

The bridal bouquet.

And I started out with a plan.

Two days before.

Or was it the day before?

Yeah, the day before.

Working on the bridal bouquet, the boutonnieres.

And there was a time frame there.

We had a lot of time until we didn't, because they were going to use our Airbnb for the bachelorette party and they needed to decorate that room.

So I kept going with making the bridal bouquet while the bride maids and my two daughters that were the maid and matron of honor were decorating and everything and having a good time playing music.

Mamma Mia.

Too.

And everything Singing along.

But then it makes a huge mess for a lot of people.

Some people are very orderly about creating things, their crafts, but not me.

It's just like everything just goes out.

Like this giant fan, whatever I've been using just keeps getting spit out until it's this big pile of mess around me and I need to throw it away.

And when I worked at a flower shop in high school, that was the method.

You just stitch on the table and there was literally, literally a 32 gallon trash can at the corner, each corner of the table and we just put everything in there.

Not quite as simple at the Airbnb.

And I was working on the ping pong table as my table.

But it got to a point where they were saying, mom, are you almost done?

We need to clean this up because she's going to come in, we're going to start opening gifts and stuff and I was going to skedaddle out.

And so I quit, cleaned up and wasn't quite happy with how the Brad bouquet was going.

I didn't have time to play around with it.

Some of the flowers, I don't know if you know this about flowers, but some have a stiffer, more sturdy stem and other ones are very flimsy, like a succulent or what do they call it, like a bulb, like a tulip or a daffodil.

And these were ranunculus that are like a peony.

But peonies and white weren't in season.

Well, the ranunculus weren't very hardy, they weren't very big, they were pretty, but they for a day before making of a bouquet, yeah, they were having a hard time, but so anyway, I'm trying to shape without breaking a flower and every once in a while when breaks and I finally get it to almost what I want, but I'm feeling some overwhelm.

Not to the point of I gotta stop, I gotta, I gotta keep going.

And I need to deal with the emotions of this isn't as good as it's I'd like it to be.

And then the rejection sensitivity comes in.

Not a single person, not a single bridesmaid said, oh, that looks really great.

The bride, the bouquet, which maybe they didn't notice, maybe they didn't need to say anything, but I needed some, some validation because I was trying to second guess myself and it wasn't turning out like I wanted it to.

And so then I, you know, kind of started emotionally spiraling, which didn't help with the overwhelm.

And so I actually took it.

It was Pretty much okay.

But I wanted to work on it some more.

So I took it and put it in another room so my daughter wouldn't see it when she got there.

And after they left to go do karaoke and stuff like that, I brought it out and worked on it again, which was great.

And I had enough time.

And I learned that without a time crunch, without someone saying, come on, you gotta hurry.

I had grandchildren watching a movie.

They watch Cool Runnings from a long time ago.

I love it when I suggest an old movie and they actually agree to watch it.

So that was fun.

So I was just in the background making the bouquet.

All went well.

So I made it past that overwhelm.

But it made it not as fun, it wasn't as relaxing, it wasn't as playful as just singing along to the movie when it got to that time crunch.

And sometimes you might have.

Have, have a situation where you would do fine if you were alone, if no one was saying anything or if people were saying things, giving you validation or if you had all the time in the world, which we never do.

But you might also get emotional overwhelm in the moment of this is just too much.

And I was starting to think that, like, why did I agree to do this?

I was glad I agreed to do the bridal bouquet, but I knew there were a lot more flowers to do that I was hoping to get done that night and I wasn't going to get done.

So the giant bouquets that went on the, what they called sweetheart table where the bride and groom sat, one was high, one was low.

I just save those for the next day, clean that up and that saves some overwhelm for the next day.

So.

So the emotional overwhelm with questioning yourself or just worry of is this everything that she wants, all those kinds of things.

You might have some emotional overwhelm that comes because you're reacting without even thinking about it.

It's those emotions just come up and.

Or your thoughts bring you to that point.

Your thoughts of negativity or self doubt, whatever that may be.

Decision overwhelm.

Making the choice, should I start over?

Should I just call it good?

Well, at the end of that night, I took the bridal bouquet and thought, this is much better.

I made it a little more loose.

It wasn't as wrapped up at the top.

You know how they have ribbon to hold on to.

I had to tape it to get the ribbon stay there.

And I loosened up the tape at the top and, and thought, I'm going to put this in the fridge.

I could leave it out, but it'll probably do better in the fridge.

Although a floral fridge has different humidity than a fridge fridge.

We are in the Airbnb.

They did have a fridge fridge, but it only had one tall shelf and we had a gallon of milk.

And the door in the fridge wasn't big enough for a gallon of milk.

So I thought I'm going to clear everything else out of the top of the fridge and, and push this back, but not to where it touches the back wall.

I'll be wise enough about that.

And then put the milk in where no one will push it back against it.

No one would bump it in.

So I thought I was being cautious and I was, but I didn't read what was at the back of the fridge.

I, I saw a sign there, but you know, it was a sticker, whatever.

And the next morning, and I was proud of the bridal bouquet at that point.

You know, like my daughter comes home and she sees it, great.

You know, we're in the morning, great.

In the morning.

She said, mom, I can take it if you want me to take the bridal bouquet and you can work on the other arrangements.

Because she was going earlier than I was.

I said, okay, I pull it out.

Was horrified.

Five or six roses at the back were all brown.

They were kind of a peachy brown, but they froze.

The flowers at the back froze because I had pushed it not all the way to the back, but a tiny bit at the top.

And this is what the sticker said.

Do not block the airflow or the OR items will freeze.

And just the top of the bouquet blocked the bottom of the airflow.

There was still plenty of airflow, but apparently not enough.

And it froze a lot of the flowers.

And I didn't want her to get overwhelmed.

I was doing a protective overwhelm situation of it's fine, I'll take care of it.

I have a lot more flowers.

I can redo this.

And thankfully I did have the same flowers.

Not anymore, the ranunculus, but you could kind of hide those in there because they weren't doing well anyway.

And they more of these just amazing, amazing white roses that had a slight tinge of peach.

And the way they opened, I can't remember what they were called that.

The groom's mother or her now mother in law found these and she said these might be good for the bouquet.

She bought all these flowers wholesale.

So that's what I did next.

Took it apart again.

Told myself, it's okay, this is what you're going to do.

And again, a little timeframe there.

My timeframe was shifted to, now you're going to do these floor arrangements that I'd hoped to do the night before and that I'd done the boutonnieres.

And there were all these other vases that I kind of directed.

You know, here's these flowers.

This is what you do.

My niece had worked at a flower shop, and I said, make a sample one.

She did, and everyone copied.

She was one of the bridesmaid bridesmaids, and those turned out amazing.

But we are short two vases.

And so the next day, I was responsible for that.

So I was aware of that.

I was aware of the two giant bouquets I hadn't made yet.

The boutonnieres were doing fine.

My daughter took those.

The bouquet I had to take apart.

So while other people were showering, eating breakfast, my mom had ordered groceries, made a full breakfast.

You want some eggs and bacon, Renee?

No, I can't stop to eat.

I can't.

There's no way.

I can't.

Like, I can put something in my mouth, but that's it.

And so I put a protein bar in my mouth, but.

But so then I'm figuring out, how much time do I give to the bouquet?

Well, for me, that was priority.

I did the bouquet.

I think it looked best out of the three times, even before the freezing.

So I was happy with that.

I don't know if anybody still told me it was beautiful, but I'm gonna have to live without that.

I have to take my.

My version of rsd, the rejection sensitivity, and tell myself it's okay if I don't get validation sometimes.

It did look beautiful.

And my daughter kept saying, you know, however you make, it'll be good, but that maybe someday someone will say that.

Maybe.

My mom said it again.

She probably did.

You know how you don't notice your mom's compliment as much, But I'm pretty sure she said, renee, that's beautiful.

But to the next day.

So I make the giant bouquet.

I felt pretty confident with that.

And things went well.

I tested out.

I had to buy these long, kind of ovalish pot to put the foam in to make these really big bouquets.

And I couldn't find that size pot.

I didn't want to call it a base, but it really wasn't.

It wasn't really a pot or whatever container.

That's what it is.

And went on every single aisle of Hobby Lobby and found these galvanized.

Galvanized steel containers.

Tested them out with water in Them didn't see that they leaked.

And I thought if they do, I can put some, you know, plastic under them.

They didn't leak because I'm going to have to get all this foam wet, put that in it.

And since they were steel and she didn't have silver in any of her coloring, I bought this gold netting and put it around it.

It was as, as wide as the vase and used double stick tape and it looked really good.

So I'm making the bouquet.

My husband comes in.

You know, I'm working on the, on the ping pong table.

This is a life in the, in the world of an ADHD person because, you know, when you think things like I should test out if there's water, you think of something, but do you think of it long enough?

Anyway, he said that they were leaking, so they were watertight for 10 minutes, but they weren't watertight for an hour and they were leaking.

And I thought, well, I don't want that on the sweetheart table.

So I had to, you know, come up with new solutions.

But that is the benefit of having ADHD is being very resourceful, being able to come up with a lot of ideas.

And I feel like in a panic mode, you know, like the decision, decision making somehow that at least for me is a little smoother.

So I didn't get overwhelmed with that, which was fantastic.

And I just took, I said, do you have trash bags?

And you know, just the white ones and just said, let's just put them up and around it for right now and we'll get them there.

And then when I get there, I'll ask the venue.

And they had a kind of a cake plate.

It was a round cake plate.

And miraculously, it, it looked cute and it went up just a little bit around the vase.

You didn't even see it.

It was, it was flying up on the table and it dripped so little that it didn't make a difference.

And on the bottom, I just hit the trash bag.

I took the orange part.

You know the orange thing that you pull the, the drawstring.

Is it a string?

Kind of.

And I just yanked that out and tucked it under.

And you didn't see the trash bag and it didn't ruin the floor or anything.

But little mishaps in life or not taking the time to really like, let's test out the water now or let's line it anyway just in case.

That was another little bit of overwhelm for a bit of a sec second.

But really the, the biggest overwhelm I Think I got all weekend in the during part because there's still an after to come.

But in the during part was the.

I don't know if I call it decision making.

It's the answering questions.

It's being able to think of something, know all the steps, which usually you do.

Like if somebody's asking you a question, you know the answer.

Let's, let's say it's something that you know the answer to.

You know the answer, you know the steps and you know how to say the steps.

And sometimes it's really hard to say the steps in a way that the other person understands.

So if they say, and I've probably brought this up before, if they say, where can I find my hat?

And you say, it's in the closet.

It's in the closet in the living room to the right and up on the shelf.

And you're describing all this stuff because you can see it, but you getting the words out and them understanding it isn't always a perfect picture.

Plus they have to be able to take what you say and process it and find it.

And it's always a thousand times easier just to get up out of your chair and go hand it to them because they usually come back and ask you to describe it again, or you just do it anyway.

And then you go in there and they go, oh, how come I didn't see that?

So the whole weekend was that kind of thing.

Because in the planning for the wedding a lot of people would ask, you know, oh, you've probably been doing so much planning.

And for my other daughters I probably did, but my youngest daughter got married a little older than they did.

She had every single detail planned out.

Her mother in law was in Miami and really had the time and really had the desire to do that.

And for me, honestly, when I would ask her, okay, how many vases are you going to have on the table, you know, for the roses and what's going to be in them?

Every time she'd tell me, I wouldn't remember.

Like I would have had to have a written form of everything to know, you know, like in the planning.

A lot of things that she shared with me I didn't remember anyway, but.

And she did ask me for help with things, but really I just thought all I'm going to do is show up and do the flowers.

But then I started thinking about it and I thought, I've been the detail planner of the traveling, of all of all the mechanics, the machinery and how it all works in order for our family to get their show up and have everything work out.

Which it shouldn't sound like a big thing, but it is, because I have six kids and she's one of them.

And some of them have kids, and it's not like they can't do their own thing.

But just coordinating who's coming in, when, what cars.

You have one daughter's car.

She hit a deer.

My car, my new car that I bought, which isn't super new to replace the other one broke down.

We had to rent cars, all these things.

But who's riding with who?

Who gets off work at this time?

And then when we got down there, it was, how are all these flowers getting from here to the venue?

And I could figure that stuff out.

I could explain it to my daughter before we left, but multiple times.

You know, I'd be working on these flowers, trying to do all this, not getting overwhelmed, figuring out the time I have to do it.

And someone comes in and says.

While somebody else is asking me a question, says, how are we getting all these flowers in there?

And after answering stuff like that, you'd think I'd get better at it.

But I found myself completely overwhelmed saying, I can't even form a sentence till I finish this conversation with this person.

Or I. I want to answer you, but I can't.

But it.

I. I found myself being very direct, which isn't normal for me.

But my brain couldn't work in all those directions.

My brain was like the space movie.

The old space movie where they say, danger, Will Robertson can't compute.

Can't compute.

Or something like that.

There's.

It's a space.

They made a movie of it, and it wasn't nearly as good.

Okay, let me think.

I gotta look this up.

Of course.

Danger, Will Robinson.

Robot Lost in Space.

Yeah, the old one.

That's how old I am.

I used to watch that when I was little.

And it was just a little robot.

Went like this.

And when his robot mechanics no longer worked and it was.

He'd just flop his little robot arms and say, danger, Will Robinson.

He probably said that when there's danger, too.

But he'd also just kind of maxed out in his robot way of, I can't compute all this stuff.

And that's what was happening for me.

So I was finding my.

My.

Oh, this is going to be easy.

I'm going to go down there and do flowers.

And I did all the planning before, but once I get down there, like all the.

Are we getting down there?

Where's everyone staying?

How far is it from the venue, I made up a whole Google Doc that said, you know, where everyone's staying.

Here's a link.

So as we go from place to place, what time things are.

Because then when I get four texts from people saying, where do we go?

Where's the hot.

I say, look at the Google Doc.

You know, I already did the work once, and it's a lot.

The in the middle of it overwhelm is a lot.

And if you experience that at work, if you experience that at home, at home, you might experience that with little kids, especially if you have kids with adhd and any kids, really, I have kids with, without.

Every child has its challenges.

Managing life has its challenges.

Managing finances has its challenges.

Dealing with incompetent service people, challenges.

The car that I just bought, we were supposed to get.

We had a temporary license plate.

We bought it used.

We were supposed to get the real license plate within 30 days.

It's been six weeks.

And I called her today, and she said, I mailed it last Wednesday.

I said, can you get the tracking number?

And she said, this is just an hour before this podcast.

And she said, oh, it'll be there tomorrow or the day after.

And I said, but it's already past the 30 days.

We can't drive the car legally.

Well, I texted your husband a picture of the license plate.

You can just print it out if you get pulled over and show it to the police officer that's in a, like, in.

He's in a.

He or she is in a great mood.

You know, it's like, legally, it's illegal for us to be driving this.

Like that sounds like a happy situation, but that's the best outcome thing.

And she gave me the tracking number.

It said that the post office received it today, said it was entered in today, which means she either brought it today or she brought it yesterday, not last Wednesday.

But it is frustrating when people are incompetent and you can't drive your car legally.

And I don't want to drive it illegally either.

But okay, so, yeah, so that can be overwhelming too.

But as far as, like, your brain actually not functioning even to the point of its normal dysfunction, you know, if you have an executive dysfunction and you have a hard time answering a question either for letting things process, letting things register or coming up up with the answer or remembering or repeating or whatever, if you're really overwhelmed because information's shooting at your, demands are being shot at you, and a lot of jobs are like that.

A lot of lives are like that.

This was just A weekend for me.

And I learned some things that it can be really hard and that clearly explaining.

Even when I got home, my son asked me a question and I just.

I kind of went like I was trying to get words.

I said words aren't coming from my mouth, even though the thoughts are in my head.

Because I'd just driven an eight hour drive.

But you know, stopping for gas from the Keys.

From the Florida Keys, which was an amazing way to finish.

After the wedding, we went to the Keys for a couple days.

And I'd never been there before.

I don't know if I ever would have.

I'd only heard of it from beach boy songs like Kokomo.

So we played it on our way out.

But the overwhelm from the whole experience, I realized that overwhelm can stay with you after it can fry your brain.

There's probably.

I should ask my son, the one who majored in neuroscience, the one who asked me the question, actually, I should ask him if there is actually an explanation for your brain being fried and not working.

Because I know there's brain fog and I think this is different.

Brain fog is more like.

I don't know, I can't think of that.

But it's more like it's just like a super delay.

It's a super delay.

It's there, but it's just like you're physically exhausted or something.

But yeah, it's a lot.

So Lost in Space.

If you haven't seen it before, just look it up.

It's kind of fun.

It's kind of cute.

The women who played the mom, it'd be helpful if I knew their names.

She was a famous actress.

Of course she was.

I feel like I'm telling you things that are like, so not specific.

Okay, let me look this up so I can tell you.

Because the girl in it was one of the girls in the Sound of Music.

She was so pretty.

The one with the brown hair and the really dark eyes.

And I mostly watched the reruns of it and stuff, but the mom was just so pretty to me to see her name, June Lockhart.

I don't know if she was in anything else, but she was kind of like the I Dream a genie actress.

She was just absolutely magical looking.

Oh, she was in Lassie.

I did not know that.

I used to watch Lassie too.

And then.

Was the girl that was in the Sound of Music.

Is that her?

Yeah, she was Brigitta.

I'm Brigitta.

Brigitta or Brigitte Penny Robinson.

Yeah.

I always thought she was so beautiful.

Okay, little side note there.

If you haven't ever seen it, maybe you don't want to, but I love, I love old TV shows.

Old, old shows.

So what about overwhelm?

Have I overwhelmed with my sidebar?

Hopefully not.

It's a fun way to live.

Ticket to go back and forth, right.

Kind of ping ponging our ideas around.

But and then like with relationship overwhelm, sometimes when people are factored in, then you factor in while this is going on, is this upsetting to them?

It's not always a people pleasing thing.

It can be a caring thing or you know, am I being rude?

Am I, I don't know.

You don't want to affect relationships in a negative way.

But the post overwhelm, okay.

And some of this I'm looking up just in the different ways that overwhelm can affect us.

But the before, during and after, it's all from my own brain.

Not that you haven't thought of it before, but.

And, and just to give you an idea of my overwhelm, I wasn't even going to be on, on video today.

I thought, you know, I'm just going to record this with, with audio because you know, it's the same hair I've had since yesterday, but I got a cold sore.

And that's a good, that's a good indication that there was a lot of stress.

Is driving to the Keys the day after the wedding, I thought, do I have a cut on my nose?

No, just a full blown cold sore, which is stress induced for sure.

But you know, that's life, right?

And if that's the worst thing that happened, then that's, that is okay.

But what about the after overwhelm?

And do you ever feel it in your body?

Well, has your body been through something?

Does it have a stress response?

Like some people have stomach problems, gastrointestinal problems, can't eat or you know, eating too much, I think is different than your stomach causing problems, more stress or just processing the stress.

That's how I usually do it, you know, eating ice cream or something.

But then also just your body being weaker and you get sick, your immune system getting lower.

For me, you know, this virus flares up in my nose every once in a while.

Well, yeehaw.

Huh.

Some people get them in their mouth, their nose, their eyes.

I've had it in my eye.

Thankfully not this time.

So that's what I was telling myself.

This time, at least it's not in my eye.

I love to be the at least queen of not feeling bad about something, of having a cold sore while I'm at the beach or whatever.

And another thing, like I mentioned, with the water, I should have really tested how airtight it was for longer than I did.

Well, just as I was packing and throwing everything in my bag, I was trying to be thorough, trying not to forget anything, and went to grab my toothpaste and toothbrush.

And I have some Abreva.

It's a tiny, tiny, tiny tube for cold sores.

And I thought, you should grab that.

What if you need it?

And I thought, you're not going to need it.

It's been a long time since you've had a cold sore.

Maybe last January, who knows?

Did not grab it.

Had to run to Walgreens the next day and buy some.

So now I have three tubes.

But, yeah, so there's that overwhelm.

But sometimes you just feel it because you're extra tired.

You might sleep longer, or you might have a hard time falling asleep because you're rethinking all the things.

It's like all of a sudden it hits you.

I've just experienced this whole thing now.

I'm going to process it mentally, emotionally.

And if you've ever had a time that you've been through something and let's say something just really short, so something happens and something is scary, and you do the scared response.

So this is just like a super kind of parable form of what I want to say.

The greater form is.

But the parable form is something happens.

You're startled, like somebody runs out in front of you, and you stop the car and you almost hit him.

And you're like, I can't believe I almost hit that person.

Is everybody okay?

Is that person okay?

Everyone's okay, car's not hurt, person's not hurt, all that.

And you're just so relieved.

And you're.

You're just taking it in, but you're not really taking it in.

And then as you drive away or you tell somebody about it, this actually happened years ago.

It was kind of rainy, and I didn't see.

And a man was crossing a road with an umbrella.

And I went to turn left at a light.

Should he have been crossing the road?

I don't know, but I didn't see him.

I did have, like, the ability.

I was.

I could legally turn left.

And.

And then I got close and I Almost hit him and I, you know, and everything.

And then he was just fine.

And I was just so glad, but it was close.

And then from there I went to the next light and turned right and went to go pick up my son from his little friend's house.

When I got there and saw my friend, the mom, Yvonne, I told her what happened.

And all that had just been taken inside and held in there so I could manage that situation came out and I started crying while I told her I almost hit this man and I started crying.

So the emotions came in, they were held, and then they came out.

And that was kind of the quick parable form.

But that can happen in something that happens in a whole week or a whole trip.

And you come back and you realize this all happened.

I processed all of it.

And this, this, I first experienced this at the wedding breakfast the next morning that the breakfast was over.

My daughter and son in law weren't there.

They had.

They're not going to go on their honeymoon until December, but they did a night in Miami.

And then they had to go to school and work and stuff today or Monday.

They came back before we did actually, but I didn't think they were going to show up.

So I was kind of there.

It was kind of the after party that the mother in law was hosting and we had breakfast and everything, visited with people.

And then I finished eating.

I put my plate away.

So it was a state of completion.

And I stepped out on the back patio, nobody was out there.

And I just got this well of emotions, like I'm going to cry.

And I started to cry, but then my son called me and it disrupted my emotional outburst.

But I knew in that moment it, like, oh, like I've just gone through something.

Wonderful things, super happy things, super wonderful things.

But right now I am overwhelmed.

I am processing all the emotions that came with that.

I'm overwhelmed.

I'm.

I'm taking in mint.

It was like I was taking in mentally the impact of everything.

And now I can finally have a response like physically, mentally, in a safe space outside where nobody is.

But then my son called and I talked to him and then I forgot about my body, moved on.

And that can happen a lot of times.

You can feel like crying and then someone comes around a corner and it stops your ability to process that.

But that processing is important because there is this welling of emotions, this welling, this overabundance of emotions, thoughts, experiences, they're all stored in here in your body.

And crying expels that.

If you haven't looked into that, look into, into the value of crying or breathing to process grief, anxiety.

The Body Keeps the Score is a really good book that, that explains what our body absorbs.

It can be things that are stressful, that are difficult, challenging, sad.

It can also be things that are happy, happy, happy, happy.

And I bypassed that because my son called and I talked to him.

Then somebody else walked out and then I talked to somebody else about Survivor and you know, just went on and on.

And then we went to the Keys and had my mom, my son and my husband with me the whole time and we met up with my daughter and husband and their children and almost always had people around me except we did have a little place that we stayed on the off season.

If you traveled to Florida during hurricane season, it was way cheaper.

It was cheaper than a hotel and it was, it was a resort but it was an old, you know, like four story kind of apartment y kind of hotel.

Outdoor, overlooked, I guess.

It's the Caribbean Sea on the Keys near Marathon Key.

It was so beautiful.

We had beach access, we had two swimming pools.

I floated, I swam, I swam laps.

I went in the water a little bit.

It was warm.

I didn't really swim in that water because it was kind of murky, but I just sat on a lawn chair and you know, like took the kind of picture with your foot in it like people do for social media.

But I haven't posted anything but I did try to process a little bit.

Listen to the ocean, went out, saw the sunrise, the sun hit the moon from the, the bottom.

Pretty amazing.

So all these wonderful things.

And then we drove home and then we got home and I put things away and I could just feel it, I could feel that welling again of your body has been overwhelmed, you have been overwhelmed with good things, with hard things.

You just drove eight hours, you had traffic, you know, all these things.

But more so the emotional piece of, I think that's what I felt too at that wedding breakfast is she's not coming home anymore.

I'm not going to wake up in the morning when she's going to work and see her in the morning.

And she ended up coming to the breakfast and I mentioned that to her and she said, well, he's going on a boys trip, I don't know for a week or something and she might come stay at our house.

So I mean, I know I'll see her again but you know, it's a chapter, it's a life changing chapter and the emotions can come with that, right?

So I knew I'm about to feel this.

I don't want anybody to come in and stop my processing this crying.

So I thought I'd run some bath water.

Well, I got sunburned, so hot bath was out of the question.

So I did lukewarm bath, kind of cool water.

I'm only burnt in my lower, below the bra to waist, side in the back.

Because I thought I was down there.

I thought I didn't need sunscreen there.

And I put sunscreen in my face and my neck, my places that I thought I needed it and maybe I should.

You know, I.

You're probably supposed to put it everywhere, but I didn't.

Lesson learned.

I'm fried.

I'm completely fried.

And.

But I went in there and baths are really great ways to cry because you can just sit and the water's loud.

So if you're afraid anyone in your house is going to hear you, you can just cry.

You can just cry.

You can pray out loud.

You can say things that you want to say.

I'm upset.

You know, whatever you want to say, say it.

You know, it's like those places where you can throw things and break things.

Don't throw things or break things in your house, but you can yell things.

Nobody will hear you.

But it's really good to process your emotions because if you think of when you're pouring water in a bowl, at some point it's going to overflow.

Even if it's tiny drips, if it's.

If it's pouring in like a hard bore, it's going to go over.

And the overwhelm to me is something that just at some point it goes over.

It's too much.

And so it impacts your ability to think, your ability, ability to talk, your ability to function.

And whether it's just, I can't do this because of your own thoughts, your own lack of dopamine, or too much coming at you or taking in emotions, taking them in, taking them in, taking you in, experiences.

This dance is so fun.

This wedding's so amazing.

Why did that person just do that to me?

And then you're like having a negative experience.

You know, there's good and bad along the way.

There's always trauma.

Right?

But it's all part of our life experience and our bodies are equipped or they're set up to experience these things.

Some handle it easier than others.

Some of us do really well in some situations and have a hard time in others and talking yourself through it when it is hard.

But yeah, even on the Drive home.

I was getting overwhelmed because I was using the gps, and then I was getting some backseat driving, which can be helpful if you're going the wrong way or something.

But it wasn't helpful because I couldn't take in what they were saying and see what to do.

And the questions I was asking to be able to see what to do was, yeah, finally I just told them, just let me do it.

And I get to listen to a podcast, and I put an earbud.

So I got on the.

I got on the road, right?

I. Yeah, I turned around and it worked out.

But I told him, you're welcome.

You're welcome to look up a map on your own phone and figure out where this road is leading, but not ask me.

So that they were trying to do things on my phone and on the screen.

And I thought, don't do that.

Like, I need to keep driving, and you guys figure it out there, and then you can talk to me about it.

But, yeah, it's not easy.

It's not easy coordinating your own brain with other people's brains when yours don't work the same.

And theirs might work differently for different reasons, but.

But I hope this is making sense.

I hope it helps you in some way, because we all go through life experiences and we have to function.

Not only.

It seems like a lot of times I'm talking more about kind of functioning in your own situation, your own surrounding.

Yes, with other people, but not in a collaborative way.

More like you're trying to get things done and not get distracted too much and work on something and not get distracted too much, and then involve other people when you need to.

But when it's super collaborative, it can be really hard, especially when your brain isn't absorbing it correctly.

So I'm so excited because even though this wasn't the longest podcast, and it doesn't have to be the longest, I didn't have a lot of time because I do have class in a half hour, and I really need to leave, like, in two minutes.

But I'm ready.

We'll see how it goes.

I'm sunburned.

I already taught a class this morning.

I was going to teach hot yoga tomorrow because I usually do, but I thought, you know what?

Maybe that's not going to feel too good with a sunburn back.

And I read that as long as your burn is still red, you shouldn't do hot yoga because your skin has to be cool to heal, and heating it up is not cooling.

It makes sense.

Huh?

So I got a sub which is nice because then I get a little more downtime.

Less money, but more downtime or more time to get ready for another little trip we're doing this weekend.

So anyway, that's it for now.

Thank you so much for being here.

I appreciate it.

Yeah.

I never know what to say at the end, even though I'm supposed to say something ground and wonderful.

I did say, like, what, two weeks ago that I was going to start having us breathe, like, take a few slow breaths at the end.

Should we do that?

Let's do it.

Okay.

Just.

Just a few slow breaths, just to kind of get a sense of how you're feeling.

So just kind of sit tall or lay.

If you're laying down, that's fine too.

But just relax in your shoulders.

Close your mouth if you can.

Or just relax in your mouth and breathe in, widening your throat.

And then as you exhale, exhale like you're pushing from the base of your throat like you're saying ah, like ha.

That'd be more like a huh.

And then inhale like an eh, like an in H. Widening at the throat and exhale that ha.

Inhale, widening, expansive.360 expanse in the upper body and exhale that hot breath.

Breath.

It's just a real thorough, cleansing breath.

And breathe however you want.

Tell yourself you did great.

But just stopping to breathe like that is.

That is mindfulness at its core.

Because you're just noticing something as small as a part of a second as one breath or a half a breath or one quarter of a breath, because there's four parts to the breath, according to yogis in India.

They have four words for it in Sanskrit.

But anyway, that's it for now.

I will be back.

And thank you for being here.

Bye.

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I butter my toast spread on some grape jelly I don't mean to fuss But I'm a chef and a good wine My grandma can't hear me that breakfast is done Getting colder ever older.

Open windows, broken shadow Frozen dreams are left for tomorrow.

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