Listen to This if You are Completely Overwhelmed | Ep. 427

If you’re feeling mentally, emotionally, or physically overwhelmed, this episode offers compassionate, science-based strategies to help you reset your nervous system and gently take back control.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why pushing through overwhelm doesn’t work—and what to do instead
  
• How to spot when you’ve taken on too much and how to set gentle limits
  
• A powerful worksheet exercise to separate what’s in your control from what’s not
  
• The surprising role self-compassion plays in calming your body and mind
  
• Why pleasure and rest are essential—not indulgent—during stressful times
  
• The one mindset shift that can instantly ease anxiety around perfectionism and productivity

Feeling Overwhelmed? Here’s How to Gently Take Back Control

When life feels like too much—when your mind is racing, your body is tense, and it feels like you’re barely holding it together—it’s not because you’re broken. It’s because your nervous system is maxed out. And it’s not your fault.

In this episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit, we’re slowing everything down. Together, we’ll walk through three powerful mindset shifts and skills to help you move out of overwhelm and into a more grounded, calm space—with science, self-compassion, and zero shame.

First, Take a Breath (Really)

Before we dive in, let’s pause. Just for a second. Take a deep breath. Let your shoulders drop.

Overwhelm is real. Whether it’s the state of the world, work, relationships, or your to-do list, it’s a lot. The instinct might be to push through—but what you really need is compassion and a solid strategy.

Skill #1: Ask Yourself—Is It Just Too Much?

Sometimes overwhelm is a sign that you’re simply trying to do too much. Here’s how to check in:

• Audit your to-do list. What are you doing just for the sake of doing? What’s unnecessary?
  
• Adjust your schedule. Are there tasks you can move to tomorrow? Can anything be let go completely?
  
• Prioritize rest and joy. Sleep, nutritious meals, and hobbies are not optional—they’re essential. Don’t let them be the first things to go when stress shows up.
  
• Pick your top 3. Choose the three most important things you need to get done today, and give yourself permission to let the rest wait.
  

Overwhelm isn’t just mental—it’s physical and emotional too. If your body feels wired and tired, it’s a signal to slow down, not speed up.

Skill #2: Choose Self-Compassion Over Self-Criticism

When we’re overwhelmed, the internal dialogue often turns harsh: “Why can’t I handle this?” “What’s wrong with me?”

Let’s flip that script.

• Your body’s reaction is valid. Racing heart, brain fog, sensory overload—these are normal signs of stress.
  
• Be your own ally. If you catch yourself using harsh labels (like “lazy” or “stupid”), pause and gently redirect.
  
• Speak kindly to yourself. Talk to yourself like you would to a dear friend who’s struggling.
  

Adding judgment to an already overwhelmed system only increases suffering. Compassion is a powerful tool for resilience.

Skill #3: Know What’s In Your Control—and What’s Not

This is the heart of today’s episode. When we try to control everything—especially things that aren’t ours to control—we burn out fast.

Here’s a simple but transformative exercise.

Try the “Control Inventory” Worksheet

Grab a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle.
On the left, write: What I Can Control
On the right, write: What I Can’t Control

Start filling it in.

Examples of what you can control:

• Your schedule (and choosing what can wait)
  
• How kind you are to yourself
  
• Where you place your attention
  
• How you respond to intrusive thoughts
  

Examples of what you can’t control:

• Other people’s opinions
  
• Intrusive thoughts themselves
  
• Your body’s stress response
  
• The news or world events

Seeing it on paper helps your brain let go of the things that are out of your hands and focus on what is doable.

Real Talk: This Takes Practice

Overwhelm doesn’t vanish in one deep breath or one worksheet. But when you practice letting go of what’s not yours to fix, responding with kindness, and focusing only on what’s in your control, you begin to shift out of panic and into presence.

It’s not about perfection—it’s about intention. As one listener beautifully shared, they’re working on bringing a kind, compassionate tone into their inner dialogue, even when perfectionism creeps in.

Looking for More Support?

If overwhelm, anxiety, and panic are showing up regularly in your life, check out the brand new Anxiety & Panic Toolkit from CBT School. It’s a self-paced course filled with skills on:

• Self-compassion and mindset shifts
  
• Daily scheduling for balance
  
• Managing panic attacks
  
• Facing fears and responding to intrusive thoughts
  

Learn more at cbtschool.com/overcominganxiety

This course was created with deep care to help you feel supported—not just in the big scary moments, but in your everyday life too.

Be Gentle With Yourself

We’re living through intense times. The news alone can send your nervous system into overdrive. It’s okay to take breaks. To set boundaries around what conversations you’re willing to have. To focus on connection instead of consumption.

You are doing the hard thing, and you are not alone.

As always, it’s a beautiful day to do hard things.

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Transcription: Listen to This if You are Completely Overwhelmed

If you’re completely overwhelmed mentally, emotionally or physically, and you’re barely holding it together, please listen up because today at your anxiety toolkit, we’re going to talk about how your nervous system is maxed out and it’s not your fault. In this episode, I’m going to give you couple, mainly three powerful mindset shifts and skills that you can use to help you get out of this overwhelm and get you back into your body with science, self-compassion, and zero shame. You do not need to push through. You need compassion, and you need a good strategy. So let’s slow it down together and do this in the most kindest way. Welcome back everybody to your anxiety toolkit. I am so happy you’re here.

Before we get started, let’s all just take a breath together and acknowledge that overwhelm and stress are probably at their highest right now. I know at least for me, it is incredibly high with all that’s going on in the world, all the changes, all of the conflict, the anxiety, the massive amount of work we’ve all got to do. It’s really a lot. And I was thinking today on what specifically I need to do, and I thought, Hey, you know what? Let’s do this together. I’m going to work you through exactly how I manage overwhelm, and hopefully you leave with the exact same skills and you, number one, feel some ease and calm in your body. But number two, you feel like you have a strategy for when you have overwhelm as well. So again, I think the first step is just to take a breath.

We have to slow down. My instinct when I am overwhelmed is to speed up, to push through, to try and get rid of it, to get everything checked off on my list so I can remove the overwhelm. But the problem is with that is I’m working with a sense of overwhelm when I could slow down and actually reduce my stress and my suffering and work at a better, more effective rate. So first of all, we want to first address is your overwhelm a response or the result of putting too much on your plate or having too much on your plate. The first thing I need to do when I feel overwhelmed is to go, wait, what here am I doing just for the sake of doing? And what here is unnecessary? The next piece is look at your schedule and see if there is anything you can do to make this more doable.

We want to prioritize your sleep getting nutritious foods. We want to prioritize making sure you are doing something lovely in your body every day, right? Something that is a hobby, because often when we’re anxious or stressed, that is the first thing to leave, but we have to keep engaging in pleasurable activities. And then we want to identify what are the three things that are the highest priority for today? And it might mean that you have to not get some things done, but do those top priorities really well. So that’s just very simple, basic skills in terms of are you overwhelmed because you’re trying to do too much? The next piece here is you must offer yourself some compassion and kindness in the presence of overwhelm. Often when we’re overwhelmed, we feel like our body is racing, our heart is racing, our head hurts. We can’t think straight.

Maybe you’ve got some brain fog or you’re starting to feel the panic buildup because you can’t concentrate. I am so prone to overwhelm when I’m anxious. I feel like sounds are very jarring to me. Lights are very jarring to me. I get overwhelmed with too many people in the room. But the problem with that is number one, of course that’s normal, but the problem with that is if our response is, oh, you idiot, you should be able to handle that. There’s something wrong with you, well then we’re just adding to the suffering. So what we want to do is we want to offer ourselves as much kindness and compassion as we can and be aware of anywhere where we’re adding to suffering with self-criticism, self-judgment, labeling terms like idiot, stupid, wrong and so forth. And then the last piece that I really want to do with you today, because this is what I need to do, is to take a look at, and this is the core skill when we’re overwhelmed, the core skill is to determine what is in your control and what is out of your control.

So anytime I’m overwhelmed and I have a lot to do, and if I look at my schedule today, I am back to back with podcast recordings, clients meetings, picking up children, going to school meetings, coming back, seeing clients. It is nonstop. So all I’m going to do is I’m going to sit down. I’ve got the little workbook here. It’s simply just a piece of print paper. And what I do, for those of you who are listening, I’m going to talk you through this, but for those of you who are on YouTube watching, we can do this together, is I draw a line down the center of the piece of paper. It could be a napkin if you want it to be. And on the left, you write what I can control. And on the right you write what I can’t control. Now, I know what you’re thinking here is like, oh, well, I can do that in my head.

Please, please, please do this on paper. It will be so much more effective if you do it this way. And so what we want to do here is when we are in overwhelm, it is often because we either have too much on our plate, which we’ve already discussed, or we’re being unkind to ourselves, which we’ve already discussed. Or the third thing is we are trying to control things we actually don’t have control over. We are trying to make everything easy and not stressful in the presence of things that actually are stressful. And so we have to then when we are in the presence of daily stress, because when it comes to let’s say, generalized anxiety, so much of generalized anxiety is actually tolerating and working through real life daily stresses, like I said, school work, relationships, finances, health conditions, or just your health in general, your general wellbeing.

These are daily stresses that we have that we can get very stressed about when we try to control the things that aren’t controllable. So let’s do this together. So for today, on the left hand, I’m going to first look at the things I can control. So the things I can control are my schedule, meaning I know what it is. I know I can get rid of the things I don’t need to do that I can do tomorrow that are unnecessary. So if I looked at my schedule today and I was like, oh, I really need to return those Amazon returns, I might say, okay, today’s not the day. It’s just there’s no time today. It is too much and I need to just focus on the things I need to so I can control my schedule. The next thing I can control is, well, let’s actually, I immediately had an automatic thought.

So let me show you my process. So my automatic thought was that is, yeah, but my schedule is stressful. So on the right hand side right here, what I can’t control is my physical response, meaning I’m writing this out. My physical response is the fact that that creates some anxiety for me. That creates an increase in heart rate and increases some increase of thoughts. I can’t control that. Once I’ve identified that, I’m like, okay, so I can’t control the physical discomfort. What can I control? I can control my response, right? I can control my letting there be anxiety. I can control me how I also, again, the next one would be how kind I am to myself while I feel this discomfort. So the next piece is like, okay, what can’t I control? I can’t control other people’s opinion. I can’t control that. I could spend all day trying to get them to agree with me and trying to get them to like me, but that’s going to cause me a lot of overwhelm.

So I can’t control other people’s opinion. That leads me to what I can control. I can control my opinion. Now, let’s say if you said, no, I can’t, I have all these automatic thoughts about how bad I am. So then let’s say on the right hand side, I’m following through. Let’s say I have the thought, I can’t control intrusive thoughts, I can’t control intrusive thoughts. Let’s go back to what can I control them? I can control whether I make them mean anything. So we’re kind of getting deeper here. Now, again, this is how we manage overwhelm. So let’s say I leave it at that. So this is going to help me move into my day. Okay? We could do this for a while. We don’t want to get too deep into the weeds, but from here, my job is to go, okay, what do I need to let go of?

I need to let go of controlling my thoughts. I need to let go of controlling other people’s opinions. I need to let go of controlling whether I’m anxious or not and what can I control whether I’m kind my opinion of myself, my schedule, what I put my attention on, and not making my thoughts mean anything. That is what I’m going to focus on today. And if I can condense that into two to four things, I will write them out on a piece of paper just like this. I’ll put it right next to my computer, and I’m going to use that throughout the day. Every time I go into habitual reaction mode, I’m going to have this here to remind me of what I have control over and what I don’t have control over, and that is the work for today. So this is a skill we can use with overwhelm.

Again, at the end of the day, it might be that we’re overwhelmed of what we’re managing, whether it be an anxiety disorder and so forth. But given that we can still look at, okay, even though I’ve got this thing happening and I’ve got too much happening, I can still double down, triple down on really looking at and being disciplined, and I’m going to say the word again, disciplined about only controlling what we can and letting go of what we can’t, and being skilled at knowing the difference between the two. That is going to be key. Now, if you are somebody who struggles with generalized anxiety, you feel overwhelmed a lot. You feel like you are constantly worrying about the daily stresses, I’m going to strongly encourage you to sign up for your anxiety and panic toolkit. It is an on demand course that we have through CBT School.

It’s brand new, I rerecorded the whole thing, and it is going to go into specific skills that you’re going to need to practice really to do with how you manage the day-to-day your behaviors and your thoughts in the everyday process. So if you’re interested, go over to cbt score.com/overcoming anxiety. It is something I have poured my heart into. We talk about self-compassion skills. We talk about scheduling. We talk about cognitions, we talk about healthy behaviors. We talk about how to face your fears. We have a whole module on panic and what to do when you are having a panic attack. There are so many amazing, amazing bonuses that go with this course that I have just added because I kind of thought as I was creating this course, how can I make it so that we cover all the areas that you might be struggling with?

Head over to cbt school.com/overcoming anxiety, or you can click the link in the bio or the notes right here. That is how we can overcome anxiety. The main thing I want to finish with here is please, please be gentle. We are in a season of life where the news in and of itself will put me into a sense of overwhelm. The news around the world, the way in which the news is shown to us, and that it’s invasive all around, even with friendships. I can’t even go out to dinner with a friend without somebody bringing up the news. We are in an incredibly stressful, overwhelming time. So I hope that you are being gentle with yourself. Maybe one of the things you wrote here is you can’t control the news, so maybe what you can control is turning the news off, telling friends you don’t want to talk about politics or national events right now and that you’re taking care of yourself and you actually want to hear about them more, about their family, what they’re interested in, how they’re going with their work and their hobby in their schools.

Get connected and do be as gentle as you can. Thank you so much for listening. I cannot wait to talk with you Next week. This will conclude a month of talking about generalized anxiety. Next month we’re going to talk about social anxiety, and I cannot wait to get into it with you, but before we finish up, let’s do quickly the review of the week. Let’s see what we have here. This one is from Beckers 1, 2, 3, and they’ve said, I’ve been a fan for a while. This is such a great podcast. I’ve listened throughout my journey of becoming a licensed marriage and family therapist, but I truly feel like I listen as a human being with anxiety, and it’s so helpful. That makes me so happy. They went on to say her voice is so soothing to me, and it feels like such a safe and kind place to be.

That is exactly what I’m looking for here on your anxiety toolkit. Of course, we do also want to highlight, and I did a hard thing that somebody has submitted. This is from Tiggy David, and they said, I’ve been working intentionally. I love that word on incorporating a kind and compassionate tone of voice in myself talk and self-compassion practice. Recently, I’ve been struggling a lot with perfectionism around college work, which my OCD has been taking advantage of. Doing homework and going to classes have been far more difficult because of this anxiety and perfectionism, but I’ve been doing well at reducing procrastination and maintaining a balance between self-care and productivity. Love your show. Thank you so much, Tiggy. David, 1, 3, 4. You are doing the hard thing. You are all doing the hard thing, and I am just so grateful that we’re here together, walking the walk together, holding hands as we go, putting that intention. I love the word intention on kindness every single step of the way. Let’s keep going. As always, it’s a beautiful day to do hard things, and I’ll see you next week.

Please note that this podcast or any other resources from cbt school.com should not replace professional mental health care. If you feel you would benefit, please reach out to a provider in your area. Have a wonderful day, and thank you for supporting cbt school.com.