42: The ONE Thing You Need To Survive Midlife (Conquering Overwhelm)

Feeling overwhelmed by conflicting advice, new symptoms, and the constant juggle of midlife? You are absolutely not alone. This week, we're diving deep into the ONE essential tool you need not just to survive, but to thrive in midlife and beyond.

In this episode I share that while we often seek external solutions like new diets, workouts, or supplements, the true key lies in something much closer to home: managing your thoughts and feelings. Get ready to look "under the hood" of your own brain and discover how to take back control, even when everything feels like too much.

In this episode, we unpack your brain's secret strategy:

📍The Overwhelm Trap: Discover how overwhelm often masks deeper feelings like overthinking, perfectionism, or confusion, and how your brain uses it as a "safety mechanism" to avoid perceived pain or wasted effort.
📍The Cycle of Frustration: Hear clear examples of how thoughts like "nothing I try works" lead to feelings of frustration and overwhelm, resulting in behaviors like quitting or giving up on your goals.
📍Breaking the Pattern: Learn to notice the direct correlation between your thoughts, feelings, and the behaviors you choose. This awareness is your first step to making different choices and getting the results you truly desire.

This episode is a powerful invitation to shift your perspective and embrace the incredible control you have over your midlife journey. It's about getting "your brain right" so all those other tools and strategies can finally work for you!

More support just for YOU

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⭐️ Feel less overwhelmed with a meal plan (here) that acutally works for you AND your family 

Transcript

Hello there, my friend. You have tuned into the Family Fork today because you saw that I am going to tell you the one thing that you need to survive midlife. Are you ready for it? Because if you are a mom or a woman in midlife, you're struggling. You are struggling to balance your career and your family and getting older and feeling all of those effects of getting older. Like maybe you're gaining weight and you're feeling

way more tired more often. You're probably having some health issues that you never had before like sore joints and you're probably not sleeping well. So the good news is that today I am going to give you the one thing, the one tool that you need in order to survive midlife and ultimately to thrive in midlife and beyond. But before we get into that, we have got to take some time to kind of look under the hood

and really understand what is going on. Yes, of course, we know like you are having a change in your hormones as you enter perimenopause and menopause and life is just feeling different as the needs of your family change. You know, maybe you're becoming an empty nester or maybe you're crazy like me and you still have a six year old at home, even though you're 50 years old, whatever it is, I know your life is changing and

When we have change as humans, we often begin to feel overwhelmed. We start to get overwhelmed when we look out on social media and the news, know, like newspapers and on news stations. And, you know, all of the experts are saying, do this to manage your perimenopause or here's what you can do to manage aging. But it's challenging when often their advice could be conflicting.

One person might say, ⁓ you should do intermittent fasting. And another person says, no, intermittent fasting, it's not good for you. You probably hear lots of conversations and honestly, even here on this podcast, know, how much protein should you eat in midlife? What kind of workouts are best? And should I be doing cardio or should I workout fasted? Should I not be doing cardio? Should I just be walking? And maybe you even hear lots of information around like supplements. ⁓ take this supplement. It is the best.

but wait, no, no, no. Now that supplement's not very good for you anymore. You should probably take this one instead.

Honestly, it is no wonder at all that you just naturally feel like you're struggling in life and you feel maybe a little bit out of control of your life. Then you start to get inundated with these messages in the media and on social media. Honestly, it's no wonder that you feel completely overwhelmed. I want you to keep that word in mind, overwhelm. So what are you supposed to do? You know, the reality

is that there is something deeper going on than just the overwhelm. And that is exactly what we're going to dig into today. Because if you can master this one thing, you are going to have such a good chance of feeling great through midlife, through perimenopause, through menopause as you get older. You're not only going to survive, but you are going to learn how to thrive.

But first we have to master what is going on in our brain before we can get there.

So I really want you to stick with me in this episode because you're going to have to change your traditional way of thinking. So right now, today, you're leaning into that overwhelm. But I'm going to give you some tools that you can use when you start to feel overwhelmed so that you can actually take control of what's happening in your life, even if it feels super challenging.

Okay, so you can probably relate to a lot of what I'm talking about, those examples of feeling overwhelmed and what is happening to your body and your life in midlife. But I wanna give you some more examples of where you might be feeling really overwhelmed. So supplements, I want you to think about how many supplements do you have sitting in a cabinet somewhere that either you haven't used

Or maybe you like tried them a couple of times and decided, no, this just doesn't work. I know I personally have a huge cabinet filled with supplements. I should probably just throw them away, but I've tried so many different things in an effort to help heal my gut health and have more energy and to sleep better. So there's a lot of supplements and it can feel overwhelming or

Think back to like how many free meal plans do you have or free recipes that you have like downloaded or can we talk about how many recipes you have on your Pinterest board? Like you surely you have a lot, right? You've probably even saved my free meal plan that I've given you.

And you likely have other meal plans and recipes from other experts in the field, but how many of you really tried? Just to be honest with yourself, how many of you really tried?

You probably even have meal plans and recipes from other experts in the field. And I know you just have a ton of recipes waiting for you, but honestly, how many of them have you tried? And no doubt you have attended some of those like online virtual webinars, know, one hour session where somebody says, ⁓ you know what? Here is exactly how you can lose 10 pounds in a month in the middle of perimenopause. Or you've watched YouTube videos.

You know, here's the one workout that you need to sleep better and have more energy in midlife. All of this feels incredibly overwhelming to your brain and your nervous system. And I want to be just like super transparent and honest here. I'm going to give you a little peek behind a coach's curtain because me, know, myself, experts,

we are giving you all of these tools, the meal plans, the workouts, the solutions, because we know that these are the things that you believe that you need in order to feel the way that you want or to see the results that you are looking for.

You believe that you need a meal plan that will work for you and your family. You believe that you need some healthier recipes that are really just going to taste good. You think you need a different workout because the one that you're doing right now just isn't helping you to lose weight. So as experts, we want to give you these tools that you believe that you need because it helps you to trust us. You can say,

Ashley gave me this meal plan that is designed to work for my family. She totally understands that balancing my health with my family's nutrition, those are just two different things and it's challenging, but she has a solution for me. So personally, as a coach, I want to give you those tools so that you can start on that journey toward being successful.

but I'm gonna pull the curtain back a little bit further. And what I'm gonna tell you is that without a shadow of a doubt, what you actually need is an approach to be able to manage your thoughts and your feelings. Because if you can do this, literally everything else will fall into place. If you can understand how to manage the way that you think, the way you feel, and how you behave,

based on those thoughts and feelings, all of the meal plans will fall into place. The supplements will work better. The workouts won't feel so challenging and they'll just start to become habit. The only way that any of those tools that I give you, that the experts give you, the only way that they will work for you is if you can learn to manage your thoughts and your feelings.

So might be skeptical on this, but I want you to stick with me because I'm going to explain how this happens.

So because overwhelm is at the heart of a lot of this, like confusion and uncertainty, really feeling challenged in midlife, I wanna take a much deeper look at overwhelm as a feeling and talk about actually what it is. And then we're gonna dig into what we can actually do about it so that you can truly survive and go on to thrive in midlife.

Now, I don't know exactly where I heard this, but somebody once said that overwhelm is the avoidance of feelings. Let me say it again. Overwhelm is the avoidance of feelings. I love this definition because if you think about it, when you are overwhelmed, what do you do? When you say, ⁓ my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed and you like claim that as a feeling, it actually makes you feel better about quitting.

or not doing something because you're overwhelmed, right? You know, I'm overwhelmed, I can't do this anymore. I can't stick to that diet. I can't get motivated to work out. I can't make that decision because I am so overwhelmed. But if overwhelmed is this avoidance of feelings, what are those feelings that you're actually covering up?

If you've listened to the Family Fork podcast for a little while, you will know that your brain only has three different jobs. That's it. Seek pleasure, you know, find those things that help you to feel good, to avoid pain, stay away from those things that are going to make you feel bad, and to conserve energy. So when we fall into overwhelm, it's our brain, our nervous system's way of finding safety.

When we say we're overwhelmed because things aren't going to feel good or because the journey in front of us might take some effort, it means that we're not conserving energy.

So your brain, when it falls into overwhelm, it's sort of masking a couple of different feelings. It's definitely masking the feeling of overthinking. If you look back to where you've been, you can say, yeah, I probably have spent a lot of time researching and trying to find supplements that will work for me in midlife or to help me sleep better in perimenopause.

You've definitely spent a lot of time overthinking about what is going to work or not work. And really you just get stuck in overthinking. When you're leaning into overwhelm, you're also leaning into a feeling of perfectionism. This looks like, you know, if I don't pick the right approach, you know, to my workouts or the right approach to my nutrition, it's, it's just not going to work. So what do you do when you feel like it's not going to work? You keep

looking for the quote unquote right approach. You want it to be perfect because your brain in order to stay safe and calm, your brain it does not want to waste the energy that it would actually take to try something that doesn't work because then you're like wait I've totally wasted my time. So instead you lean into this perfectionism of I have to have the right approach or I can't move forward.

When you lean into overwhelm, you also lean into this feeling of confusion. Now again, think about what you do when you're confused. You do nothing. This is your brain's way of keeping you safe. This is your brain's way of keeping you safe. If I'm confused, should I listen to this expert or should I listen to that expert?

and you just don't know what to do. You're confused because maybe their advice is conflicting. So what do you do? You say, I'm confused and you don't move forward.

I really do see overwhelm everywhere, but I truly see it in the women that I work with, my students and my private clients. Unfortunately, it's the thing that guides them almost every single day. And to be fair, I'm not immune to it either. You know, in this current stage of life, I'm struggling and I feel really overwhelmed. So if you've listened to the podcast for the past few episodes, you'll know that I have breast cancer. My daughter is also on summer vacation.

My dad was admitted to the hospital this past weekend and just today I put him on hospice and there's a lot for me to do in his caregiving. So I am also leaning into overwhelm and I really have to catch myself not to do that because when we lean into overwhelm, we do not get the result that we want ever. It just doesn't come.

If you spend a lot of time researching supplements, but you get really overwhelmed at which one is right for you and which one would work and which one wouldn't work based on your symptoms or your condition. The result is that you probably never decide on one or like me, you try lots of them and none of them really ever work. If you're leaning into overwhelm, maybe you're considering like, I don't know, gosh, I should probably try an anti-inflammatory diet or keto.

intermittent fasting but that overwhelm takes over and you just quit. You never give one single approach the right amount of time to actually work to see if it works for you. You just get overwhelmed and you quit.

Or maybe you're the person who likes to grab all of the free recipes and pinning things on Pinterest and grabbing those meal plans. But at the end of the day, you feel overwhelmed at the number of resources you have sitting in front of you. And you actually don't have a clear path forward or a clear direction. So what do you do? You do nothing, right? I really hope this is resonating with you.

When we lean into overwhelm in an effort to feel safe and calm in our body and our brain, our nervous system, it just quits. And to be fair, this is not your fault. Okay. I want you to feel really confident knowing this is not your fault. Your brain is designed to do this. It's honestly how we have survived as humans as long as we have.

your brain is wired to survive. So when that overwhelm sets in your brain, it actually feels threatened. It's uncertain about which path to take for safety. Feels like the things ahead of you are going to take a lot of effort or energy and some of them they might not feel great. They might be hard. So in order to help your body survive, which is what you are hard wired to do as a human, you just quit.

Now, like I said, none of this is your fault. The reality is that there are approaches out there that will help you to feel better in perimenopause and menopause, but honestly, you will never know if they're going to work unless you give them your full effort.

If you sort of go in and try intermittent fasting, for example, but you only give it this half-assed effort, it won't work for you. You can only know if something is going to work when you give your nervous system and your body an opportunity to feel safe in just trying. Safe to try, but still fail and know that you'll be okay.

If your body feels safe to try, but you know that you still might be confused and that's not a bad thing, that's gonna work for you. When your body feels safe to try, but you still recognize that you might have to try again, as long as your body and your brain feel safe to keep trying, even though it may or may not.

When your body feels safe to try, but you still recognize that you might have to try again. As long as your body and your brain feels safe to keep trying, your approach may or may not work, but it's okay because you'll be able to move forward and actually see some results. So at the end of the day, even though you are hardwired to create safety for your body and your nervous system for your mental health, overwhelm is actually

choice. You make a conscious choice to lean into the feelings of overwhelm, that overthinking, the perfectionism, the confusion, because that's what your brain is hardwired to do. But it is a choice because you can actually choose to do something different.

So that's good news, right? You can make a different choice. But what can you actually do to choose not to lean into overwhelm? Like, what is your solution?

So this my friend is the ticket to surviving and thriving in midlife. And here's what I need you to do. It sounds simple, but it's gonna take some work. I need you to start noticing the correlation between your thoughts, your feelings and your behavior. Once you begin to recognize how your thoughts and your feelings dictate the behaviors that you do,

you will start to understand why you have the results that you either want or don't want.

So let's look at a couple of different examples because this can be a little bit abstract, but I want to make it very concrete for you. Let's just say that you step on this scale tomorrow morning and realize that you have gained six pounds in the last month. What kind of thoughts come to mind? Just think about that for a minute. Remember, we're noticing our thoughts, our feelings and our behavior. So let's start with those thoughts. You probably think something like, my gosh.

Seriously, nothing I ever try is gonna help me to lose weight. I got all those recipes on Pinterest and I downloaded that really cool meal plan that Ashley had. It was totally anti-inflammatory. But here I am a month later and I am still gaining weight.

So think about it, when you have those thoughts, what kind of feelings come up for you? Tune into your body and just think about that and really notice how your body feels. Of course, one of the biggest feelings we feel is overwhelm. You're doing all of these things and it's not working. You probably feel frustrated. You're so frustrated that you're putting in all of this effort and it's not working.

And you're probably confused because I know you, you are smart. You're listening to this podcast because you're trying to figure out why isn't it working? If you've been trying the recipes and you've downloaded that meal plan and you're trying to lose weight, you're confused. Nothing is working. So when you think that nothing I ever try is helping me to lose weight, you feel overwhelmed and frustrated and confused.

The next step is to think about what you do when you feel overwhelmed. Think about it. When you're super overwhelmed and you're having all of these feelings, the result is that you probably quit, right? You just give up. Maybe you even actually eat more because you're like, you know what? Nothing ever works. Who cares? What is the point? I'm just going to eat whatever I want. But the result is the same. You don't lose the weight.

When you realize that you've gained that six pounds, it's going to lead you in this cyclical path where you have these thoughts that nothing helps, that you're overwhelmed and frustrated. And then you say, I might as well just give up. But at the end of the day, you're still not losing weight. So it's like this self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let's run through another example. This is a situation that I hear from women all the time. You're overwhelmed with expert advice. You hear it everywhere. How to feel better, what kind of supplement to take, how to work out, what kind of food to eat. And then when you start thinking about all of this information that you are inundated with, there are way too many options about how to just essentially feel better in perimenopause.

You don't know who to listen to or who to believe. And it's really hard when some of that information is conflicting.

So when you have that thought, like there's too many options, I don't know who to listen to. What's the first thing that comes to mind? Overwhelm. You're probably also feeling really confused or frustrated, like, ⁓ there's too much information here. I don't know what to do with it or where to land or what to even start with.

And like we talked about earlier, you probably lean into overthinking because, and like we talked about earlier, you probably lean into overthinking because that feels safer for your body and your nervous system to just say, well, I'm just going to keep thinking about it. I don't actually have to make a decision on which supplement I'm going to try or which expert I'm going to listen to. And as a result of these thoughts and feelings, maybe you decide to

give a particular supplement a try, but it's kind of a half-hearted effort. Maybe you just try it for like two or three days or like in the last example, maybe you just give up altogether. I hear this phrase a lot, what's the point anyway? Have you ever said that? What's the point? I'm trying all of these things. I'm listening to the experts. I can't figure out who to listen to or who's right or wrong.

What is the point?

And as a result of the overwhelm, you just keep feeling tired and sluggish and overweight and battling brain fog. And this is how you end up spending your 40s and your 50s because you're so overwhelmed.

So remember, what I said here is that overwhelm is a choice. The opposite of choosing overwhelm is to do what we want. The opposite of choosing overwhelm is to do what we just went through, to start noticing this correlation between your thoughts, your feelings, and the behaviors that you choose. Because that particular framework, that pattern of identifying your thoughts and feelings,

and then noticing what behaviors you choose because of how you think and feel, that is what is going to get you different results. And that right there, my sweet friend, is the magic sauce to feeling better in midlife, no matter what comes your way. There's this direct correlation between your thoughts and your feelings and the behaviors, the things that you choose to do.

that are going to give you the results that you either want or don't want.

Overwhelm is a choice. It's your brain's natural way, your nervous system's hardwired attempt to keep you safe. But if you can truly learn to master this skill of managing your thoughts and your feelings and noticing how it impacts your behaviors, you are absolutely going to survive midlife through Mary...

But if you can truly learn to master this skill of managing your thoughts and your feelings and noticing how it impacts your behaviors, you will absolutely survive midlife through perimenopause all the way through menopause and even into later life. And believe it or not, you will actually move from just surviving to thriving, which is the goal. So the skill is to notice that thoughts and feelings

You have to recognize how your thoughts and your feelings cause you to do certain things or not do certain things. And then understand that this framework, this pattern is how you are going to get the results that you either want or don't want.

So as a super quick exercise, I want you to check in with yourself right now before we close this episode. And I want you to notice, are you feeling overwhelmed with this way of thinking in midlife? You know, we often look to a supplement or an expert or a meal plan or a diet because we want an easy fix. It's way easier than this, having to learn how to notice what kind of thoughts and feelings we're having.

I promise you, I said at the beginning, it's an easy concept, but it is hard when you have to put it in practice.

You know, that supplement or that pill or injection, all of that is way easier than figuring out, huh, how do I change my thoughts and my feelings so that I can actually get a different outcome? We are going to continue to talk about this in future episodes so that you really understand how you can intentionally choose thoughts and feelings that are way different than overwhelm. But for today, your homework is to start recognizing and becoming aware.

Here's what I'm thinking, here's how I'm feeling, and these are the behaviors that I am choosing. Again, once you master the skill of being able to manage that thought process, you are going to find that you choose thoughts and feelings that actually give you the outcome that you're looking for.

I really would love to know what you think of this framework as a way of managing your overwhelm in midlife. Just reach out to me via email. I've put a link in the show notes or on Instagram at the Ashley Malek. I want to know, are you feeling overwhelmed after listening to this episode? What kind of thoughts and feelings are you noticing that come up when you start to feel that overwhelmed flood in?

when you're listening to things in the media or on social media or in the news.

And most of all, I really wanna know if some of this is starting to make sense or click for you, that we actually have more control over the outcomes than we think we do, but we have to get our brain right first. We have to get our mind thinking the right way in order to feel like we can have some control over what our lives look like. So I'm really glad that you stuck around and dug into this with me today.

I really hope that you are starting to see that you do have some control, some agency over the results that you get in midlife. ⁓ Seriously, this is such good stuff because doing this work is what is going to help you to take control and to really, truly transform your life. I absolutely love doing this work with you. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really want to hear from you. Reach out to me.

at email or on Instagram. Tell me how you love this episode and I will see you back here next week.