How To Overcome Your Overwhelm
Imagine this: Last week, you felt like you were on top of the world & finally getting your sh** together! At work, you felt accomplished as you ticked off your to do list & communicated well. At home, you felt productive & content. You crushed your workouts, texted your friends back, & felt connected to your partner… This week, you feel completely overwhelmed! You can’t seem to feel like you’re actually getting anything done, even though your schedule is packed & you haven’t seemed to stop moving. Your focus & motivation are suffering, your partner just doesn’t seem to be able to understand why you’re so upset…. & even worse, now you’re questioning yourself. Does this sound familiar? If you feel like I just described a monthly occurrence for you, then welcome to the club… You’re in the good company of many other ambitious women who despite being very high-functioning, suffer from overwhelm, irritability, & changes in mood, focus, & energy due to hormonal fluctuations in their menstrual cycle. Here are 2 critical components to overcoming your overwhelm & reclaiming your life:
1) Stop Hormonally Gaslighting Yourself: Brushing yourself off as “just hormonal” isn’t going to serve you. Your brain chemistry is going through changes that are very real.
As the phases in your cycle change, your sex hormones change… & as your sex hormones change, your neurotransmitters change. This means that you show up differently in different parts of your cycle, because you're feelings & way of thinking is different!
After Ovulation, you enter the Luteal Phase. During this time, estrogen lowers, & so do your serotonin & dopamine levels. This can cause you to feel low motivation, lack of focus, more irritable, & more easily overwhelmed.
If you’re noticing that the same issues keep upsetting you every month, it could be time to dig deeper into what's bothering you.... Recurring mood struggles about the same issue means that something in your environment, relationships, or work is contributing to your inner-tension. The week after your period & around ovulation, estrogen’s effect on the brain often makes stress easier to deal with & issues roll off your back– but that doesn’t mean they’re always healthy or aligned with you in the long term or that feelings associated with PMS aren’t valid.
2) Own Your Priorities:
“Priority” is a word that means “the condition of being more important than.” This means that not everything can be a priority… One of my favorite quotes, which was said by Jim Collins, is “if you have more than 3 priorities, you actually have none.” Take a moment & list your top 3 priorities– what are the 3 parts of your life that are most important to you? Now, list out the 3 areas of life that you spend the most energy, the most time, & the most money on. Did you list the same 3 things? If these lists are identical, then congratulations! You are in a rare category of people whose lives are truly aligned with their values. If these lists are different, then you have a challenge to face head on: you need to own your true priorities. We invest our energy & resources in the areas that are most important to us… so if there is a gap in between where you are now & where you want to be, can you give yourself the honesty to look at what is out of alignment? Most importantly, can you take ownership of what you have the power to control? Overwhelm & irritability are created when you have desires that you’re not fulfilling or boundaries you’re not upholding. The same way nutrition & exercise are part of health, it is equally important to take care of how you feel, communicate, & live.
Are you ready to reignite your energy & create true progress in your life? It all starts within & your hormones control how you feel!
For personalized guidance & support on hormonal health, energy, mood, & more, book a Discovery Call to learn about the best method for reaching your goals!