Episode 15 - 8 Things to Consider When Life Gets Overwhelming

How do you spend your time on an average day? When was the last time you paused and appreciated the beauty of each moment in front of you?

Sometimes we believe that we need to stay busy to be productive. That having a lot on our plate will help us feel valued, in-demand, and on top of our game. 

But it's not always the case. 

Having too many obligations and responsibilities could have the opposite effect and might even harm our productivity, well-being, and relationships. 

So, if you have been focused on achieving your goals and being successful in business despite the mental breakdowns, pressure, and physical fatigue we feel, it's time for you to start asking yourself one key question. 

How am I? 

Remember, self-care is not being selfish. It’s necessary. It helps us maintain a sense of balance, peace, and sanity in an otherwise crazy-hectic world. 

You need to give yourself space, check how you feel, and stop feeling guilty about giving yourself this essential time to breathe. Track your period, learn about your cycle and use this information to develop an effective self-care plan that allows you to honour your body and optimise what you can offer the world. 

In this week’s episode of the podcast, we’ll be focusing on this stage of overwhelm and listening to Eleshia share her own experience with self-care. She’ll be sharing the eight things you need to check with yourself when you feel that life is getting on top of you so you can feel empowered once again. 

And, as I mentioned in this episode, I'm doing a summer programme to help you prioritise, get organised, and implement what you've been putting off in your business. Join the E-Lifestyle Implementation Summer School and be with a community of like-minded women moving towards their goals. Limited spaces are available. I hope to see you in the programme!

Eleshia’s Essentials:

• Sometimes life doesn't go the way you want it to.
• When feeling overwhelmed, remember the three R’s: Rest, Review, and Restore.
• Tracking your cycle can give you a quick reset and help you understand why you’re feeling a certain way.
• Don't deprive yourself of things that make you happy, but try to have them in moderation.
• You need to take a step away and give yourself permission to process your feelings even if you use social media for your business. Remember- you need to be okay within yourself.
• If you're not showing up as you, you’re going to feel a little bit disjointed. So enjoy the process, take a step back, and rest when you need it.
• Start delegating sooner rather than later. That way, you’ll have more time to do the things that you need to do to ensure that you're looking after yourself and enjoying your life.

Connect with Eleshia:

• Website
• Facebook
• Instagram

About the Show:

The Eleshia Show is an exciting new podcast that helps empower female business owners to put their well-being first whilst building their businesses. Tune in every Wednesday as my inspiring guests and I discuss strategies, share stories and experiences and dive into how you can build your business whilst trying to navigate real life. The host, Eleshia Harris is here and ready to share her decades of project management and wellness experience to help you start saying ‘Yes!’ to your business and life. 

Show Transcript:

Intro: Hi, I'm Eleshia Harris and I am your host of The Eleisha Show. I am also the founder of eleshialifestyle.com, and I'm so excited that you're here with me and I am here with you. I'm also really appreciative. Each week, I'll be sharing strategies and stories, and insights to help you enhance your wellbeing and to build your business while still navigating life. 

Because sometimes we often try and separate the two, and let's face it, if you are not well, you have no business. So let's try and work with these two things combined because we can, enhance your lifestyle. Again, I'm really excited to have you here. I have wanted to put together a podcast for over two years, and so here I am ready to share. Let's get into this week's episode.

Eleshia Harris: Hello, and welcome back to The Eleshia Show. This week, it's just you and me.  And I want to just reflect on some of the takeaways and the information that you have listened to over the past 14 episodes. I am so excited that I am able to say that. Thank you so much for continuing to support me and to listen.

Also, thank you so much for sharing all of your feedback and just sharing back with me.  I've been getting articles about information that I've been sharing. I've been getting links and I've also been getting tagged in a few things. So thank you, thank you so much.  

This podcast is so important to me because, as I've previously said, I think I said it to Mairi in our last episode. All of my guests are intentional. I have learned a lot from the people that I've bought on to share their stories and their expertise. I really just want to continue to be able to share what they do and how it has been beneficial to my life, and also how it can be beneficial to yours.  

So I really hope that you have listened to as many episodes as you can, and that is really helping you on your journey to living your thriving life. I know for myself, as a business owner, a mother, a sister, a wife, everything that we do day-to-day can really make you feel overwhelmed sometimes.

I've just come out of that state myself where I felt a little bit overwhelmed with everything that's going on in the world.  I've just finished my menses and that came early due to stress. Sometimes life doesn't go the way you want it to go.

I had all of these plans and actions that I wanted to get done last week, and realistically, I just needed to stop, rest, review, and restore, and now I feel so much better about it. This morning, before I sat down to record this episode for you. I ensured that I got my exercise in, my movement in, and it just really helped me focus and clear my mind as to what  I was going to discuss with you today. It all ties in.

Today, I wanted to go through some of the things that I check in within myself when I am in that state of overwhelming because this is the subject where I know a lot of us are going through because of the pace of life. The world's opened up, so we're now getting back into that do, do, do, do phase.  Sometimes we forget that we need to continue to look after ourselves to be able to go at a pace that we want to go at.  

So I just wanted to do an episode to really just talk about the things that I do when I'm feeling overwhelmed and when I need to just really regroup myself. We have gone through a lot of information over the past 14 weeks, especially in the last six weeks where we've looked at the female cycle in phases, and then we talked about Mairi's menopause story.  Because I'm at that age where I am in perimenopause, shit can get real sometimes.

I think that's the only way that I can put it. So, for me, as I said last week was one of those weeks where I was like I've got so much to do. I have been tracking my cycle. I knew what was coming up, but I thought I had a couple more days, and then boom, it turned off, and I had to just reset my mind.  

So when I can start to feel myself getting into that, oh gosh, I've got to get all of these things done and I'm in that emotional state of messiness, is what I like to call it. The first thing I do is check where I am in my cycle, and sometimes we can forget but again if we are tracking it via app or just simply putting it into our diaries then it's quite easy to see where we are.

That for me gives me a quick reset in the mind to think that actually, this is the reason why you're feeling this way.  This is why you're not going to be so productive at the moment because of where you are in your cycle. If you want to know more about that, we've just spent four weeks going through all of the things that you can put into place to help you thrive when you're in your cycle.

So I checked my cycle and then I really think about what needs to be done for me to fill my optimum self.  Sometimes that may just be resting like last week, I had to just rest because I just didn't have the energy, and I didn't want to go into my next phase feeling depleted and feeling like I  hadn't taken care of myself.

I've done lots of just slow walking, lots of nourishing my body, and not so much resting, but let's be real, sometimes that can't happen.  But I am really focusing on doing more rest and restoring next week as well.  

I go through my non-negotiable. So my non-negotiables are movement, nutrition, and hydration. Those are the three things that usually when I'm feeling overwhelmed can sometimes be impacted. So I look at, have I moved today? And that doesn't mean have I actually done a full-on exercise class. It could be just, have I taken a walk? Have I just had some type of movement in my body that can be just running around or dancing with my daughter? Or just ensuring that I have moved for the day because a lot of the time, especially in the world that we're in at the moment, we're doing a lot more sitting than we did previously.

I saw a really funny video the other day when a lady was saying, I used to do at least 17,000 steps and now all I do is 300. Most of that is me going back and forth from my fridge to see what else I can eat.  So that really put it into perspective for me because we were doing a lot more moving 18 months ago, and now we're not.

So yes, I make sure that  I move every single day just to ensure that everything is functioning as well as that I am hydrated. I know when I am dehydrated. I can feel it in my skin.  I can feel it within, and my brain function doesn't work as much. I try and make sure that I get in at least two liters, more if I am moving and sometimes that slips.

The things that you can do to make it really easy, and I think I've mentioned this before, have different water bottles spread around the house so that you can just grab the water,  make sure that you're getting some electrolytes in as well so a little sprinkle of sea salt and lemon will really help with hydration.  Coconut water is amazing. Just make sure that you're hydrating especially when it's getting warmer. At the moment, it's July here in the UK, so we're thankful we've got some lovely weather. Again, that's going to make a difference.  

And then nutrition, I know I talk about this a lot but just trying to make sure that you're getting in as much healthy food as you can. And yes, there's going to be times of the month where you're not gonna want to have that green juice, or you're not going to want to have that salad. You're going to want to have something naughty, and that's okay.

Don't deprive yourself of things that make you happy, but let's try and have them with moderation because it will take a strain on the body.  And for me, I know 100% that if I'm not eating well if I'm not drinking and if I'm not moving, my three non-negotiables then I don't feel great.

For me, it's really important that I use the time that I have really effectively so if I am not moving if I'm not drinking enough fluids, and if I'm not eating well,  then that is not helping my focus, my clarity, my productivity, and I need to be as focused and clear as I can be because my time is limited and I need to get as much done as I can in the time that I have.

Sleep is something that I sometimes struggle with because I have a toddler. I am a really light sleeper, and my brain goes a mile a minute. Sometimes, so it's really important for me to switch off at certain times so I can let my body and my brain just stop before I pop my head down on my pillow.

For me, if I'm not hydrated then my sleep isn't good. I try not to be working right up into the time that I'm ready to go to sleep, but sometimes that's just the way it works.  However, if I get to bed at a reasonable time and I'm able to get seven to eight hours of sleep, I know that I am going to be more productive the next day. So that is where I want to be.  

That is what I'm chasing, but sometimes it doesn't always happen that way. If you can get 90 naps in the daytime, I would definitely recommend it even if it's just for 15-20 minutes just to let the body reset, it's going to work one day.

The next thing I check is have I been taking my supplements? This is another thing that I struggle with sometimes because I hide my supplements because I have little toddler hands in my house. If they're not always where I can see them, I forget them so I pop a reminder on my phone. In fact, spoiler alert. I have a lot of reminders on my phone because we've always got our phone with us. We're always picking up our phones to look at something, be it Instagram, text messages, phone calls, so forth so why not use your phone to help you stay healthy?

So I've got reminders in my phone to ensure that I've taken enough water in for the day, have I moved? Have I taken my supplements, and I also have quotes in there and affirmations. All of the things that I know are going to help my day on a day-to-day basis, it goes into my phone.

Because that's like my little mini laptop. I also have internal check-in and think, have I spoken to any of my friends this week? Have I spoken to family members this week? I need to feel that sense of community, and referring back to one of my previous episodes with Mairi, we've lost that. We've lost that feeling of the community over the last 18 months. 

Checking in with my friends, virtually checking in, having virtual lunch dates, virtually working out with my Tuesday and Thursday crew, those are all of the things that light me up. Those are the things that keep me saying throughout my working week. If you're not getting to talk to the people that you love and you appreciate, pop a reminder on your phone just to check-in. And then I think about social media. 

Have I been scrolling too much?  You have to think about these things because we don't realize how much social media impacts us. I've just come off a week's hiatus from social media. I've gone in as when I've needed to, however, I have really taken a step back because I've been triggered a lot over the last week about some of the things that I've been seeing on my timeline.  And for me, being on my periods, I knew I had to take that step back because I was already in that emotional state.  I was already feeling overwhelmed because I couldn't get everything that I wanted to get done.

I can't let other people's feelings and thought processes and so forth impact how I'm feeling, so I need to take a step away. Give yourself permission to do that even if you use social media for your business. Remember, you need to be okay within yourself. If you're not showing up as you, it's going to feel a little bit disjointed. You're going to be a little bit resentful.  You're not going to enjoy the process, so take a step back when you need it. 

And then I asked myself, am I being really true to myself? Have I given myself space this week?  Have I given myself time to reflect and really restore? Or have I been half-ass in it because everybody else needs a bit of Eleshia? Sometimes, depending on your circumstances, sometimes it's not easy to take a step away. However, give yourself some space even if that space means taking a walk in nature and listening to a podcast. Hopefully mine. 

But taking yourself out for half an hour and just walking and just clearing your mind,  or even just in silence, just processing all of your thoughts, but taking that time to breathe, taking that time to actually relax. There is so much to be said for spending some time on your own where you're always in the mix of things.

Even if you do spend time on your own, a lot of the time you are working or you were distracted, so spending a little bit of time on your own, ideally, every day would be great. If that seems overwhelming to you as well, maybe make it 10 minutes.  Make it five, but do something for yourself every day.

That was one of the things that really changed my mindset. Just taking five minutes for myself every day, and then increasing the time over time really has helped with my mental health and wellbeing.

And then last but not least, have I spent enough quality time with my family? Have I been present for my family or have I been distracted by social media or by a business or by the long list that I've got of things that need to be done? Have I actually spent time one-on-one with my husband? Have I spent time one-on-one with my daughter? Have I spent time one-on-one with my brother? 

Have we done things as a whole together? And that's again important because it can sometimes feel disjointed, especially if your partner when you are both working and you're trying to ensure that your family is taken care of at the same time. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to pour into your family and their needs, and then you forget about what each of you needs as a unit.  I know sometimes it's difficult because I do too long days, on a Tuesday and a Thursday. We share childcare in between. 

It's really important that you get to spend quality time with your family and your loved one on a one-to-one basis. So how do I make sure that all of these things happen, and you know what I'm going to say it but I'm going to say anyway? I have to have a plan and I have to have a schedule because I am at the age that not everything sticks. Especially as I just said, if I haven't been taking care of myself, then my brain is not functioning well.  

With that, and being perimenopausal and being a mom and a business owner and a wife and a sister, I can't remember everything. So I need to have a plan. I need to have a schedule.  Do I stick to those things 100%? No.  However, I have a flexible plan. I have a plan, and I have a schedule with lots of white space in it for those times when shit goes left. That way, I don't feel guilty about it.

I know a lot of people who like to work organically. However, for me and for a lot of business owners and some of my clients, we need to have that structure in place because it means that you have a plan that you can stick to if it needs to be.

Again, as I said, sometimes you don't stick to that plan and that's okay. There's always another day for you to get stuff done.  However, at least you know where you're going because that's one of the key things that can really overwhelm, is when you've got this big plan and you know you need to get it done, however, you don't know how to get it done. 

You don't know how to break it down. You don't know what needs to be done first. So for me, my first step would be is do a brain dump. Do a brain dump of everything that needs to be done then start to work it into a plan of action. And if I don't do that, then I don't feel fulfilled on my working days, and I can move forward because of how, in my mind that I didn't get the things that I needed to get done. 

And then I start to feel really bad about myself because then I'm like, I didn't get the things that I needed to get done this week, and now I'm going to have to wait until next Tuesday.  How am I going to ensure that my business is growing, and all of that overwhelm floods into my family life? So for me, a plan is so important just to make sure that I have all of the things that I want to get done on paper, and then I start to work on that plan.

If you're like, oh my gosh Eleshia, I don't even know where to start. I'm here. That's what I do. I am here and over the summer,  I am doing a four-week program where we are going to take those big plans, break them up into smaller tasks to be completed, and then take action and implement them.  

We're going to start with a reflection and the planning session, and then we're going to have implementation sessions.  We are going to get these things done because I know it can be overwhelming, and it can be really difficult when you don't know how, but I'm going to show you how. I'm really, really excited to show you a little bit more of how I plan my hours and the thought process into what goes into me, making sure that I have successful weeks because we are in business to enjoy our lives.

For me, I am building my business around my baby girl because I want to spend as much time as I can with her while she's little,  but as she grows up also.  That is my big "Why?"  My big "why" is to ensure that I can grow, I can still be Eleshia because ultimately I was Eleshia before I had my daughter. I loved what I did,  but I want to be able to do it in a way that works for my family and works for me.

To do that, I need to make sure that I've got a handle on what's coming up, what needs to be done, and how I'm going to get that done. So if this feels like something that you need to do as well, then  I'm going to leave the information in the show notes for you, and come join me. We're going to have a blast.  Try not to make this difficult for yourself. Think about the things that you can delegate to somebody else. 

I know sometimes it feels like you are the only one that can do those certain jobs, but believe me, sometimes we are being the enablers. I know this very well. I've done it a lot throughout my life, and now I'm saying to you to learn from my lessons. Start delegating sooner rather than later, so that way you will also have some more time to be able to do the things that you need to do to ensure that you're looking after yourself, and enjoy your life.

If this is the first time you're here, please go back and listen to the last 14 episodes because they all interlink. They are all that to layer on to help you live your best life. As I like to say, that if you have any questions,  please contact me.  My details are in the show notes. I would love to hear from you.  I would love to help you in any way that I can, and until then I will see you next week. Take care.

Outro: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the Aleisha show. If you know somebody who needs to hear the conversations that we're having, please share it, take a screenshot and send it to them. Also, I would really love for you to rate and review the podcast as this reading helps. And I'd love to read your comments, lastly.

Remember, you need to invest in yourself first because you aren't important and amazing take care until the next time. Bye-bye.