S10.03 | Taming Overwhelm: Balancing Mental Health, Faith, and Daily Responsibilities
Today Carla is diving deep into a topic many of us are all too familiar with—overwhelm. Have you ever felt paralyzed by a pile of dishes or the sheer thought of facing the day ahead? You're not alone. In this episode, Carla shares her personal experiences with overwhelm, particularly those stemming from living with bipolar and borderline personality disorder.
She explores why trauma survivors and individuals with mental illnesses often battle overwhelm, and provides you with practical, faith-centric strategies for managing it.
From regulating your nervous system to setting boundaries and leaning into support systems, this episode offers valuable insights and biblical wisdom to help you regain control. Plus, there is exciting news about an upcoming group coaching and retreat program designed to foster community and healing. Let's journey together from overwhelm to peace, rooting our identity in Christ and learning to trust in His provision. Tune in and be encouraged!
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Key Takeaways
Understanding Overwhelm:
Carla discusses how overwhelm is a common issue, especially for those with trauma backgrounds or mental illnesses. She shares personal anecdotes, such as the challenge simple tasks like dishwashing present, to illustrate the depth of this struggle.
Practical Techniques for Nervous System Regulation:
To tackle overwhelm, Carla suggests practical techniques like deep breathing, tapping, and ice on the face to regulate the nervous system and switch from the fight-or-flight response to a more rational, calm state.
Surrendering Control to God:
Overcoming overwhelm also involves surrendering the need for control. Trusting that God’s grace is sufficient, as mentioned in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, allows us to embrace our weaknesses as spaces for God’s strength to manifest.
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Resources:
5 Steps to Building Resiliency
Affirming Truths Facebook Community
5 Tips for Overcoming a Negative Body Image
Who You Say I Am Biblical Affirmation Cards
TRANSCRIPT
Carla Arges [00:00:08]:
Hey, friends. Welcome to Affirming Truths. I'm your friend and host, Carla Arges. This show is a safe place to share our struggles, grow in faith, and root our identity in Christ. My hope is that you will leave each episode feeling encouraged in your journey. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
Carla Arges [00:00:27]:
And it would mean the world to.
Carla Arges [00:00:28]:
Me if you would leave a review. I am so glad you're here.
Carla Arges [00:00:32]:
Let's get started. Hey, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Affirming Truth. I'm so glad you're here. Tell me, have you ever, like, looked at a pile of dishes in the sink and just felt frozen? Or have woken up in the morning and the thought of everything facing the day has just been so, so overwhelming. You feel like you can't get out of bed. I don't know about you, but overwhelm is something that I used to battle constantly and still occasionally peeks its head into my life. But overwhelm is a common experience, but especially for those with trauma or mental illness, it is very common.
Carla Arges [00:01:22]:
I remember once reading about bipolar. So if you don't know, I have bipolar and borderline personality disorder. And one of the things that they had mentioned that was common with people with bipolar is being overwhelmed by dishes. And I was like, oh my goodness, this makes so much sense. Like, I could not get my act together with doing dishes. Like, even to this day, dishes make me freeze. It. It's this weirdest phenomenon.
Carla Arges [00:01:53]:
It makes me feel overwhelmed, you know, taking a shower. I share this often on Instagram in my stories, and I think I've shared it here before. It takes a lot of me talking myself up and working myself up into taking a shower. The thought of taking a shower is actually so overwhelming for me. And so why is this. Why is it that overwhelm seems to be a characteristic of trauma survivors and people that suffer from mental illness? And a big part of it is that we have learned to become hyper vigilant. We have learned to become hyper vigilant, looking out for perfection, trying to create safety, wanting to earn our worth. Like, we have this hyper vigilance that everything has to to be so in order to be safe.
Carla Arges [00:02:51]:
And it's so much. It overwhelms us. And at the same time, where we have these big needs and unrealistic needs for safety stemming from trauma, which was very real, we actually have less capacity than the average person, which makes tasks feel unmanageable. So we have this double whammy. We have this hyper vigilance of this great need for safety and acceptance, which comes with this whole list of people pleasing and perfectionism and over productivity and burnout, along with less capacity. Our capacity, you know, I relate it to a plate where some people may have a full dinner size plate to work with. I have a dessert size place plate to work with. Maybe you've heard of the spoons, right? Similar.
Carla Arges [00:03:43]:
Like how many spoons do you have in a day? And how many spoons does each task take? My capacity is limited. It is less than some other people. And so the. The propensity for overwhelm is greater. And a lot of this also comes with, and I hate to break it to you, control. A lot of overwhelm comes from wanting to have control but feeling a sense of lack of control. And then we're overwhelmed. We're overwhelmed.
Carla Arges [00:04:22]:
But you know what it says in Isaiah 26:3? It says, you keep in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts you. I have learned that as I have healed my trauma and learned to trust God more for his grace to see me through each thing, that my overwhelm has decreased. I no longer tie my worth and my value on getting a whole bunch of things done. Now, like I said, I still struggle with overwhelm in some areas. In taking a shower and doing a dishes. For some reason, the thought of putting laundry away is overwhelming. Some of this has to do with my executive dysfunction. I have executive dysfunction.
Carla Arges [00:05:14]:
Maybe if you have adhd, this relates to you too, that seemingly simple tasks can feel so overwhelming. One of my tricks for that, especially putting away laundry, is body doubling. I don't know if you guys have ever, ever heard of that, but that's really getting someone in the same room as you. They don't have to be doing the same thing. I'll ask Terry to come sit in the room, read his book why Put Laundry Away? And just his presence is an anchoring presence that helps me get over my overwhelm. And so we'll talk a little bit further about, you know, leaning into our support systems. But overwhelm really has this sense of control. Like I can't control what's going on.
Carla Arges [00:06:00]:
I can't control my emotions. There's so much to do. There's not enough me to do it. I don't know how to break down this big task. And we get overwhelmed. And when we're overwhelmed, you know what happens? We impact our relationships because one of two things happen in a state of overwhelm. We get snappy, right? We yell at our kids, we yell at our Husbands, we get short, we get angry, we get snappy, or we withdraw completely, we get frozen and disassociate. And so we really cut off connection with the people around us that we love.
Carla Arges [00:06:43]:
Neither one of those is healthy in relationship. Neither one of those is healthy in long term growth. Neither one of those are good examples for our children in how to react. So what do we do when we're feeling so overwhelmed? What do we do? I have five things. Get your paper and pencil. I have five things I want you to look at in terms of dealing with this overwhelm. Number one is in the moment, you need to regulate your nervous system. When we get to overwhelm, we are outside our window of tolerance.
Carla Arges [00:07:26]:
We are in fight or flight, or we are in freeze. Like I said, we get snippety and all that, or we shut down. We have to regulate our nervous system. And there are so many different impactful tools on how to do that. Deep breathing is a good one. Tapping One of my favorites is ice on my face. So temperature and regulation, doing a bout of exercise, like getting your heart rate up, especially if you're in the frozen state, to activate yourself and get yourself moving, you got to regulate your nervous system. Because until your nervous system is regulated, you're not going to have the mental capacity to rationally tackle what's in front of you.
Carla Arges [00:08:14]:
You see, when we are dysregulated in our nervous system, we are not in our thinking, rational brain. We are in our limbic system, our what sometimes they call the reptile brain in the emotional brain. Actually, the emotional brain, where we're all driven by emotions and rational thought, is shut down. Because in hypervigilance and in our fight or flight, our prefrontal cortex goes offline, so to speak. And so until we can regulate our nervous system and get out of our sympathetic nervous system and into our parasympathetic nervous system, we. We can't think rationally, we can't behave rationally. So step number one is to regulate your nervous system. Step number two is about addressing how to avoid this in the first place and feeling overwhelmed.
Carla Arges [00:09:11]:
So, one in the moment, regulate your nervous system and then start planning on how you can feel less overwhelmed. And number two is about setting boundaries and priorities. Everything is not an emergency. Everything does not have to get done. You don't have to say yes to everyone. You can set boundaries, you can say no. Now, this has a lot. You're really going to have to do the work on your core beliefs to do this.
Carla Arges [00:09:39]:
And I have episodes on core beliefs, but setting your boundaries, knowing that you don't have to earn your worth from people that you can say no. Setting priorities in your own sort of to do list. Not everything is actually a priority, although it may feel like it. Get real with yourself. Ask God for wisdom. What do you need to say no to? What do you need to take off your plate? Number three is to lean into your support systems. Kind of like what I do with body doubling and also what I've done with my husband is when it comes to the dishes. We just discovered early on in our marriage that the dishes are really, really hard for me.
Carla Arges [00:10:23]:
So how we've chosen to divide the labor in the house. Excuse me, how we have chosen to divide the labor in the house is that he does most of the dishes, not all of them 100% of the time, but that's one of his tasks. And then I take on tasks that are not as easy or as enjoyable for him to do. Right. I lean into my support system. Support system isn't just people. I used to write everything down on paper in my calendar, but looking and pulling out my paper calendar and pulling out my agenda and writing things down and then having to remember to carry it with me and look at it was always overwhelming. And I was always missing appointments or forgetting something that made me feel this sense of urgency, made me always feel like I was behind.
Carla Arges [00:11:19]:
So one of my support systems was learning how to effectively use Google Calendar. And that has made me feel so much better. You know, another system is a brain dump system. Before you go to bed at night, brain dump everything that's in your head, prioritize it the night before, get it out of your brain so you're not tossing and turning at night with anxiety. You definitely have to lean into support systems, whether it's people, whether it's technology, whether it's routines that you set up for yourself. The fourth thing that you need to do when battling, overwhelm. And this is more important. And then, then just overwhelm.
Carla Arges [00:12:03]:
This is important in any aspect of your life. You have to root your identity in Christ. I have so many podcast episodes on this, on how you actually do this. But you have to root your identity in Christ. You have to look at those core beliefs that are telling you that you're not lovable, that you're not. That you're not enough, that you're not worthy, that you have to earn stuff and root your identity in Christ. Who says that in him you are more than enough to accomplish that which he gives you because he will equip you. You are loved by him.
Carla Arges [00:12:39]:
You are never forsaken. You are never alone. You don't have to earn God's love. In fact, you couldn't. It's a free, free gift. And the fifth thing in battling overwhelm, and this is a tough one for me, is learning to surrender your need for control. This is really hard with a trauma background, right when you had to be so hyper vigilant about other people's moods and emotions and what you did and what you didn't say. And you felt like you had to control everything to be safe.
Carla Arges [00:13:16]:
But you're safe in the hands of God and you can release that control and that pressure and that burden that was never meant to be yours to hold. You can release that to him. In Second Corinthians 12, 9, 10, it says, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. God didn't design you to control everything. God didn't design you to be limitless. God didn't design you to be more than enough in and of yourself. Your weakness is a gift. You don't need to be overwhelmed thinking you have to do it all.
Carla Arges [00:13:59]:
You can lay it before your father and say, I can't do it all. Your weakness is a gift because that is when his strength can be made manifest and his glory can shine. Overwhelm's going to happen. Regulate your nervous system. Have boundaries and priorities in place. Lean into your support systems. Root your identity in Christ and surrender your need for control. I'm actually going to be talking a lot more about this in depth in this new program I'm excited to tell you guys about.
Carla Arges [00:14:37]:
I am doing a first ever group program in retreat. It is six weeks of group coaching. So we come together in community because there's so much healing that can happen in community. And we wrap it up with a two night retreat where we're really going to dig deep. And I've prayed about this. I've seen God's hand on it. I know that there is going to be tremendous breakthrough for the women that raise their hands and say, yes, I want to be a part of this. I'm maxing out at 10 spots.
Carla Arges [00:15:10]:
There's only 10 spots and some of them are already spoken for. So there's only six spots left. We, we don't start until April with the retreat happening in May. But now's the time to sign up for it. It gives you a longer payment plan. It allows you to plan in advance and just really start to prepare your heart and your mind for this. You can find all the details on my website. I'll also put the link in the show notes but coming together in community to heal, to have breakthroughs in rooting your identity in Christ, in coming dealing with overwhelm, in learning how to do boundaries, in looking at what is surrender and how can we heal and grow.
Carla Arges [00:15:59]:
We are going to be tackling all of that and more and it's going to be powerful. The affirming truth I'm leaving with you today is I can trust God to equip me to face each moment and I can rest in his presence. And we're going to Psalm 61:20 when it says my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. When we are overwhelmed, when we are trying to do it on our own, let us refocus our eyes on Christ the rock, our salvation, our hope, our future, our portion, our daily bread, our living water. Everything that we need is in him, and in him he gives us everything we need to face the day. Be blessed, friend. I'll talk to you next time.
Carla Arges [00:17:01]:
Thanks for joining me today. I hope we're already friends on social media, but if we're not, come find me on Instagram, arlaarges or firmingtruth. Can't wait to see you back here next week. Bye friends.