allmomdoes Podcast #130: Renae Fieck – Breaking the Overwhelm Cycle

We are thrilled to welcome Renae Fieck to the podcast today. Today we dig into what burn out looks like, how we keep going when we want to just throw it all to the wind, and how we can learn to love the life we are living again. Mom life is hard and don’t miss this incredible episode full of encouragement for the journey you are walking.

Listen to “allmomdoes Podcast #130: Renae Fieck – Breaking the Overwhelm Cycle” on Spreaker.

On This Episode:

• Renae Fieck – Rising Moms – Follow Renae on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest
• Clean in 15

Transcription:

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:00:00] Today on the allmomdoes podcast. Are you feeling a sense of overwhelm at all the things that are going on? All the things that need to be done, all the places in your life, where it just feels like there are so many open loops. That is me. That is a portrait of me right now. And that’s why I’m so glad to have Renae Fieck on of Rising Moms.

She is going to talk us through with some really tangible ideas about how. Now to break out of the overwhelm cycle. Renee. Thanks so much for being with me today.

Renae Fieck: [00:00:34] Of course, thank you so much for having me on I’m excited to be here.

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:00:37] So give us some background on you where you live, the kids, all that jazz.

Yes. So I am in San Diego. I have three kids ages, almost nine. She’ll be nine this month. Um, nine, six and four. And I work part time as an occupational therapist. And then the other part of my time is helping moms who are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and frustrated with all of the stuff and the things and the, to do list and all of that.

So that is. And I feel like once we moved here to San Diego, I don’t know if I could ever leave. So we love it here in San Diego.

Yeah. What a terrible part of the world you poor thing. So how, how did you get interested in helping women with the, all the variety of things that we have going on? You know, just so much crazy, so much that has to be done so much that’s on women. What inspired you to get into this space to see where you could serve.

Renae Fieck: [00:01:29] Yeah. So it’s the kind of the story started it probably about five years ago when I, I had just found out I was pregnant with my little one and at the right around the same month or two, I got a new job. And then my husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

So we had like a lot of things come at us at that one point in time. And so that next year was such a, it was such a hard year. Cause he ended up going undergoing surgery and then developed seizures. And then we had our little one. And so there was just so much I felt like. And then. On top of that, I had to go back to work earlier than I anticipated.

And so I was working, I was driving my husband back and forth to work cause he couldn’t drive at the time. I had three little kids, which is hard enough. And by August of that next year. So it was like almost a full year. My daughter was about six months old. I remember we were in Hawaii on our 10 year anniversary trip and being like, I can’t do this.

I can not do this. I cannot feel this, lost it all the time. I can not feel this frustrated. I don’t want to, like people get saying like, Oh, it’s just a season. Oh, it’s just, you know, whatever. And I reached out to some of my mom friends and they’re like, that’s just motherhood. Like, cause I thought at the time I was like, maybe this is postpartum depression.

And they’re like, no, that’s not postpartum depression. You just. This is just mom life. Mom, life is really hard. I was like, I don’t want to be like this. Like, this is miserable. I don’t enjoy any of this. And I can remember feeling like I just wanted to walk away and start over. And be like, all the kids are fine with my husband.

They’ll be happy. Like, they’ll be good if they go back to California and I’ll stay in Hawaii. And so it was kind of that defining moment that made me realize, like, I can’t keep going this way. What I’m doing right now is not working. So I’ve got to figure something else out. And so when I came back, that’s when I started actually doing the physical decluttering.

Like getting rid of the stuff that was in my house so that I was spending less time doing all of the laundry dishes, cleaning sorts of stuff so that I could actually spend more time doing the things I want to do instead of just managing my house all the time. So that was kind of the start. And then after that slowly evolved into just creating these systems in other areas of my life so that I could gain that time back because I think that’s what so many moms are feeling like they lack is time, but I think a lot of it is that we’re just not really intentional with our time and where our time is being spent. Like you look at various different women or moms or whatever, and we all have the same 24 hours in the day, but yet some people get so much more done or steam so much more happy. Whereas others feel like they’re floundering and flailing.

So it’s kind of this like where what’s the difference. And that’s what I was kind of determined to figure out, like, why do these people seem like they have it figured out? Like, what are they doing? That’s different than I have. So that’s kind of the journey that I went on. And so as I started doing that, I just was organically starting to share it with other people.

And that’s kind of brought me to where I am today.

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:04:20] That’s amazing. And I do know exactly what you mean. I seem to always have women in my world that don’t seem to break a sweat and things just seem to flow. And one of those is one of my really dearest best friends. She lives three doors down from me and.

I’m telling you Renee on any given, say Tuesday, you would walk into my house and it looks like there’s a complete circus going on and you would walk down to Jessica’s house and it would look like she was ready for a cocktail party with a really high end client. Like I don’t, I cannot figure out how she and I have this.

Same amount of time in the day. And yet she seems to get so much more done. Now you had a very specific moment of burnout where it was like, Oh wow, like I’m just ready to ship off the husband and kids back to the contiguous States and stay here on this side. But what are some signs of burnout? I think sometimes we can know when we’re in the middle of an absolute meltdown that, that, okay.

I’m probably getting burned out, but are there some more subtle things that we should be looking for? That overwhelm is nipping at our heels and maybe we’re not paying attention.

Renae Fieck: [00:05:22] Yeah. Well, I think overall, it’s kind of just that ongoing feeling of not feeling like anything is enjoyable and not feeling like you have any time to do anything that you want to do.

Like, I know that’s a lot of the things I hear so many moms say, like I never get any me time. And the thing is is that I find that like me time doesn’t have to be an hour long something or other. It could literally be like a two minutes sort of window. And so if you’re feeling that space, like you never have any time for yourself, you’re never giving yourself anything that fills your cup or makes you excited.

You feel like every day you go to bed feeling like it wasn’t good enough, or that you had a laundry list of things to do. And you felt like you were going all day long, but you feel like you never got any of it actually accomplished and you feel unsatisfied each and every single day. I think those are really big key indicators.

But that’s where it’s headed towards that place of feeling like you’re just burnt out on all of it. And I think for me, it was that at the time I remember saying like, I just have to put my head to the grind and like, get it done because there’s no where else, like, there’s nobody else that can do it.

Like. I’m the only one that can do this. So I just have to put my head to the grind and just get it done. And I think in retrospect, looking back on that, I think that’s part of what led me to that place of burnout, because I do know now, like I have a ton of community that would have been happy to step in, or that would, and even in the moment, like I had amazing community like show up with boxes of crayons on my front door or whatever, and like just relying more on them. But I think that mentality of, I just have to get through the season. I have to just get my head down to the ground. I just, it may feel overwhelming and exhausting, but I’m just going to keep going because that’s the only option I have.

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:07:03] I think those are really big signs that that’s where it’s headed. Talk to me about this notion that we do take on as women that we feel like we’ve got to do it all, but I do find too that. There are times that, and I know we can, we’re going to unpack some of this in, in some of the four steps that you have for us and breaking the overwhelm cycle.

But in that place, how often do you think a perfectionistic view plays a role that no one can do it the way I can do it. Err, go. I have to be the one doing all of it. I mean, obviously your husband with his medical crisis and you having three small kids, there were things that were going to land in your lap because you were the, you were the healthy party at the moment, medically, and you know, you were the person who’s going to do some things, but there are a lot of times we take on more.

So what does this perfectionistic role, this Pinterest perfect worthy kind of expectation do to us as women when it comes to tasks and the idea of who’s supposed to be doing what.

Renae Fieck: [00:08:01] Yeah, it’s funny. It’s like this perfectionism comes up because I feel like this is something that’s been coming up for me as well, in the sense that I never really looked at myself as being perfectionist.

Cause well, my husband and I’ll put something up on the wall and if we’re hanging a picture, he’s like, man measuring it from the top and the bottom and the side and like, yeah, making sure that it’s exactly perfect on the wall, where all sit there and take like. 10 different nail holes to try to figure out like where I want it to be.

And so when I look at perfectionism, I’m like, no, I’m more of a creative, I’m more with a go with the flow person. But as I’ve been doing more personal development, like looking at myself, I’ve realized how much perfectionism is kind of sneaky in the, in the back burner, like it’s there all the time and it’s sort of dictating whether or not I take action or do something because I’m worried whether or not it’s going to be exactly how I want it or whatnot.

But I think as moms it off that oftentimes rose its head. And I think it’s subtle sometimes. Like we would never necessarily say that we’re being perfectionistic or, you know, that that’s the reason why we don’t pass things along. But I think sometimes if you take a really good school, there’s a couple of really great podcasts.

I’m trying to think of one off the top of my head, but if you Google and search like about perfectionism. There’s a couple of really great leaders out there talking all about perfectionism in ways that I was like, mind blowing. Oh my gosh, maybe I am a perfectionist. I do all of those things, but I’d never thought I was a perfectionist, but I do think I have a mentor of mine and it talks about that. If you pass things on. They’re never going to do it like you would, they’re never going to do it. Yeah, exactly how you are. If even if going to only do it like 80% of what you, how you would do it or whatnot, think about that time that you’re going to get back or that energy you’re going to get back.

Or, you know, I talked about yesterday to a friend about that cost that paying. That our time, like, we, we don’t always see our time, time is being, having this like cost analysis, but time is, are like, highest commodity that we have. It’s the most valuable thing that we have because once it’s gone, it’s gone, you know, you can never get time back.

And so looking at time as having that really high value. And looking at how you’re trading that, what you’re trading it for. Is it worthwhile to push some of those things on to somebody else or like, let go of them to somebody else, you get some of that time back and seeing that, not just as that, like, Oh, they’re not going to do it exactly perfectly, but what is that getting back for you and starting to look at those benefits rather than.

Oh, it’s not quite the same as I would do it can be huge for sure. Like, even with, particularly with our kids, like when you look at like having them help you with cleaning or helping them with whatever I have. So many of my clients are like, when I give them a task to do it, doesn’t ever really get done.

Right. Like if you give the kids, the bathroom was soapy water. It’s not going to look the same as if you went in and did it, but were you able to get some time back to do something else during that time? And maybe it was good enough? Like, can we be okay with good enough? Okay. If it’s giving you that time back.

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:10:56] Right. Right. Good enough. I think is a real, really important phrase for all of us to consider because we have so many surrounding us today. And we talked about before that, when I started my mothering journey and building a home journey, you know, I would get better homes and gardens once a month, you know, Southern living once a month, I had once a month that something would come in that would make me feel very less than and inspired and less than.

You can go it’s everywhere. I mean, just these gorgeous, gorgeous homes, or these really elaborate kids’ birthday parties or whatever. Anytime you’re on social media, anytime you jump on Pinterest for an idea, there’s this constant comparison going on. And so I’m going to be curious in a few years as sociologists and psychologists, look back on this time to take a look for women and say, wow, did we start setting standards that kind of set back.

The cause of women for awhile, because we were creating a standard that was even more heightened than what women had been dealing with in previous decades. So I’m ready. I want you to talk me through, help me Renee, get through the overwhelm cycle. And, you know, we talked about is before we started to roll today that.

We are still in the pandemic. And I think people are feeling that sense of overwhelm even more strongly. So I think this is such a timely time to really discuss how we begin to break the loop. So you talk about that. Well, the first step is really knowing yourself and your priorities. Unpack that for me.

Renae Fieck: [00:12:24] Okay. Yeah. So I think so many times we, as moms, like particularly when we’re like freshly moms, we get this new bundle of joy and then we’re just going about, and then like day to day living. And then time goes by and you’re like, wow, where did all that time? So I was so busy doing laundry and dishes. I was so busy just managing, you know, basketball practice.

Yes. And whatever. And that we look back and realize that there was really no intention to where we were spending our time or what we were doing in it. And so I think knowing what those priorities are, Front is really key to being able to determine where you’re going to be spending your time. So going back to that time is like your number one commodity that you have.

How are you spending that? Where are you spending it on? Like, what are you investing that time in? And so knowing those priorities is super key. And I know a lot of times when I meet with clients initially, there’ll be like, well, it’s like God and family and work. And like, these big, what I call them like broad categories of what I want people to do is have those priorities or core values that are, you know, things like making memories, going on adventures, being creative, like laughing together or whatever those things are because when you look at what those priorities are, those will help shape where you’re spending your more time. That I don’t know what I’ve just found is that those bigger, broader ones they’re intangible, I guess. Right? I think that’s part of it. So when you no, what those priorities are, you can determine, are you going to buy this new item?

Are you going to go on a vacation? Are you going to move your house? Are you get or move into a different house? Are you going to buy this car? Are you going to say yes to the PTA president meeting? Are you going to say yes to. Whatever. And because you can match it up to what those priorities are, is this giving me time for those things that matter the most to me.

And I think so many times we, as women are just living day to day to day, like reacting to everything coming at us rather than being proactive and yeah, really intentional. So I think that that’s the first place you have to start is know what, if you were to choose, what would you choose those things to be?

And how can you make those, your guiding light each and every single day?

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:14:25] I think that’s really critical. What you’ve just unpacked is making sure that we are not just throwing out those broad categories because you’re right. I mean, you can say, I want family to be a priority, but until you get really intentional about exactly what that means, what making family a priority means, then.

Yeah, there’s no way you can make progress because it’s still too unclear. I love that. So narrowing down those broad categories is a really important takeaway from knowing yourself and your priorities. Really great. Okay. Now this next one, you know, Oh girl. I mean, I’ve read the books and I feel like I have just, I have to Goodwill in business for awhile now, but, but I’m still struggling to make purchase on this in terms of really getting a place where I feel like I’m getting on top of it.

Talk to us about the second thing that you want people to engage in in terms of kind of overcoming the overwhelm cycle, which is simplifying and decluttering.  Give me some good news.

Renae Fieck: [00:15:25] I think a lot of this number. Yeah. There’s lots of different ways that we can do this, right? Like we can look at just your physical home and just your physical space and say like, what can we do in that area?

And, you know, there’s tons of statistics that talk about people that have cluttered space as being more stressed out and not getting more accomplished, like not being as productive and things like that. So if you’re already feeling like you’re swamped with not getting things done, Like decluttering, some of that may boost your productivity significantly and just make you feel better inside your house and in your home taking less of that time on cleaning and organizing and all that.

So like the space itself has so many benefits, but sometimes even looking at like our calendars and what we’re like, how packed and how busy are we putting on our calendars? Like, can we simplify that? Can you simplify your. Like the digital clutter, you know, like now that we have, you know, watches and phones and email, like we have stuff coming at us at any given point in time.

And so many times, like I work in a facility where I tuck my phone away and so I can’t use my phone. I don’t use my phone the whole time I’m there. And so in that eight hour stretch, it’s like amazing what tha well, how many notifications and how many alerts and how many things come when I come back after an eight hour day and look at my phone.

And so when you look at that, like we’re getting that mental overwhelm all day long. You have social media, you have right now, even like a million different opinions and it is different voices and different whatever. And just looking at that, like how can you actually declutter and simplify all of that kind of stuff.

That’s, that’s making you feel like decision fatigue is a huge one, too, right? Like. So looking at all of those pieces together, how can we focus in you using those guiding priorities at the beginning and figure out like what we need to keep. And so oftentimes it’s really hard, I think for families or women to start and to get to, like you said, jump on board with that.

And I think for me, it was a slow process and where I started, you know, five, four years ago is not where I’m at today in terms of getting rid of stuff. And so I think giving yourself grace to take those small steps and let the process grow and not having this like massive overhaul, I asked if thing. And so I actually, I know we talked about it, but I have my “Clean in 15 Course”, which I’d be happy to gift to your listeners.

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:17:41] We can put that in the show notes.

Renae Fieck: [00:17:43] Yeah. That is basically like me showing you and telling you how you can take just 15 minutes a day. It doesn’t have to be a spring cleaning where you go through your entire house and get rid of everything. And even actually, when we do that, oftentimes what happens is like six months down the road, it all piles back up.

Right. What we need is that like daily intention of slowing, like simplifying things out and decluttering things out. So that 15 minutes a day, whether it be focused on stuff in your house, whether it be your calendar, whether it be your email, like, Oh my gosh, do you know how many emails most people get?

Like when I have clients come to me and they’ve got like 25,000 emails in their inbox that are unread, I’m like, Oh, my gosh, the overwhelm, every time you open up your email inbox, that that number is just telling you, you haven’t done this yet. You haven’t got this done yet. And just that feeling of, I haven’t done this, but it’s on my list.

I need to get this done. Even if you’re not somebody that normally would empty out your inbox, just that feeling that it’s doing to you, nobody is huge. So, um, Yeah, decluttering, I guess in like so many different areas of your life, determining we’re using those core priorities to figure out what can you stop putting on your calendar right now?

And that, like you said, and this season I’ve been with the pandemic, I think it’s been really great to determine like, gosh, I did totally fine living without boy scout. I did totally fine without whatever. Do I really need to put those things back on my calendar as time goes on? Or can I really stay true?

Like even me the other day, I was like, gosh, now that things are opening back up. Maybe we should consider, you know, surfing lessons or we should do this or whatever. And I was like, no, I kind of think I don’t want to do anything this summer. And just looking at that too, is that you have that freedom and we’ve had somewhat of a little taste of that, but yeah, I will tell you that this season has been very different.

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:19:34] Yeah, I we’ve experienced the same thing here to Renee because we are one of those families that have a million extracurricular activities going on and the kids have been in so many different things. And when you come to them hot like this, it really is a gift to reevaluate. Why are we doing all the things and what is it costing us in terms of energy and time, and is the exchange rate on that really what I need to continue forward.

And it’s had us really reevaluate. All the variety of things. And are there good things in there? Absolutely. Are there things that are a lot of fun? Sure. But are they really necessary at the end of the day, based on the things that we say are most important to us, maybe not. So I do think it’s one of the great gifts that we carry forward during this time.

And I love the idea so often my brain immediately goes, when we talk about simplifying and decluttering immediately goes to the possessions. I mean, that is just with a garage that stacked to the ceiling on and on, you know, that’s where my brain automatic. He goes, but I love that you include in this, all of the inputs and things coming in, that just are the things that also weigh us down.

I made a decision a couple of years ago where I turned off my email alerts on my phone. I’m always going in to check my email. Anyway. It’s if somebody has an emergency, that’s probably not the way they’re going to contact me. I cannot begin to tell you the difference it made when I didn’t have my phone chirping constantly for email.

Yeah, because when the is chirping anyway for text messages, and then you’ve got email on top of it. So that was a huge moment for me. I’m going to just say, okay. I did declutter a little bit in a way that has maintained email notification. So yeah. Now the third thing you want people to really consider in breaking out of this overwhelm cycle is delegating and.

Teamwork. What does that mean to you? Because for a lot of people they’re like, well, I can’t hire somebody to come in and do this, that and the other. And that’s where their mind goes when it comes to delegating, what are you proposing people do when it comes to this? So there’s multiple different ways that you can implement.

Renae Fieck: [00:21:38] So I think automate and delegate are the two kind of key components of this section. So what things I think right now, especially with the way people have been stuck at home. So many more people have been ordering groceries, having things delivered and, you know, having things come online, like all of those sorts of things, like what are those things that maybe you could automate.

And take off of your plate so that you’re not spending. I know when I went to the grocery store, it would take me, you know, 20 minutes to get there and to unload, to get in the store. And then if I was doing it with two or three kids, all of them in line, and then it’s stressful. Cause you’re like, stop touching that.

No, we’re not getting gummy beans today. Like, no, we’re not getting that. Like, you know, whatever. And so like just that, and of that, that like even just the whole process of like getting to the store, getting the groceries and getting home could be like an hour and a half to two hour long process. Right.

And so by just being able to order those groceries online and take 15, 20 minutes, and then they’re delivered to your door, like that’s giving you that time back. So looking at some of those other areas in your life, like what can you automate and delegate, whether it be your bills, can you automate some bills so that you’re not having to sit there and process through them each month and deal with them each month?

And I know some people are very against that, but if you haven’t even. I thought of that. Like, that’s an option there too. And then delegating. I think that that’s where I remember posted on Instagram. I don’t know, five or six months ago, my son and got into the fridge and he got out the peanut butter and jelly.

He was probably only four or five at the time. He got it. Um, he’s fixed now. So maybe he was fine. He got out like the peanut butter and jelly and the bread and whatever. And he made him, which is for him and his sisters for school that day. And he put together like their sandwiches, he put little grapes or whatever.

It was like, he put together the whole lot. Right. And I posted about it online and saying like how I think it’s so amazing that. You know, I’ve, I’ve taught them to be independent in a lot of ways and I’ve taught them that I can’t do it all on my own. And so the them helping, it’s not only just great for them, but it’s great for me too.

It’s like, we’re all in this, on a team. And I posted about it on Instagram and I had no much flack really. Yeah, moms are supposed to do it all for their kids like that kids are. And I even had friends that I locally talked to about it and they said that, and maybe it was generationally too. Cause most of those people were a little bit older, but that they believed that moms are supposed to take care of all of those things for kids because kids is priority is education and learning and growing.

And while I agree to that is to some extent, yeah. Maybe put too much pressure on a lot of our kids. I also think as an occupational therapist, our kids need those things. Our kids need that sense of independence. They need that sense of accomplishment. They need those skills to grow. Like there’s so many advantages to making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the processing and the cognitive learning that they’re going through in that whole process is amazing. So transforming it from the belief that I’m making my kids do things or I’m offloading my chores or my responsibilities on our kids, looking at it as an opportunity for them to grow, to get educated, like to get more independent, that’s the word I was looking for, to be able to figure out like multi-step sequences, like how do you actually.

You know, complete a task on your own, like all of those sorts of things. So I, after that was like, for me, a huge pivotal moment of realizing like so many moms think they have to do this all. Like they think that they have to do everything in their home rather than my four year old helps me with the laundry.

Like she Love’s dragging it from the bedrooms and putting it in the washer and yeah, I show her where to measure it on the cup and like put it in there. And this goes back to that same thing. When you talked about in the beginning of. It’s in like people aren’t going to do it the same way. And the perfection is a, you are like my four year old is definitely not going to do the laundry perfectly all by herself. Right. That doesn’t mean that I can’t have her along with me. Yes. It’s taking me a little bit more time right now. But when she’s 14, she’s probably going to be able to do all of her laundry all on her own. And so looking at those places, like where can we offload some of those things, even inside our home and yes, hiring somebody. I remember hiring my gardener thinking I don’t have an extra hundred dollars a month. Like, I really don’t, like, where am I going to come up with that? But there was a season where I was like, I just can’t do it. Like I just, my lawn is probably two feet high.

Like this is not working. It’s just taking, I just need somebody to help me out. And now I look at the way. They look at that as an investment in my time. Right? So that hundred dollars a month is giving me back my Saturdays. And what I do with those Saturdays is up to me, whether I choose to pick up a shift at work, or if we go do something with the kids or whatever, like that hundred dollars isn’t worth it.

And then on even going deeper than that, I look at. The Carlos, who’s my gardener. I look at what that hundred dollars is doing for him, instead of just seeing it as something that’s going out my door, even in the beginning, I was like, I’m just going to imagine he has a family and that this hundred dollars is helping support his family.

So something that’s giving me a little bit of time back that maybe feels a little tight on my budget. I get it is also contributing to somebody else having food on their table at the end of the day. And so I just started to imagine that, like, you know what, it’s not just about me in this a hundred dollars.

It’s about me making an impact, like me spending money impacts on other people’s lives. And so I did, and then that Christmas, we got a picture like card in our mailbox from him and his wife and his like six month old daughter. And I was like, see, yeah. Yeah. When you look at spending money as the bigger ripple effect of what does that money spent doing, it makes a huge difference too.

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:27:24] I love that. I love that such a unique perspective in a great way, thinking about how we help grow our economy. When we do go ahead and delegate some things and allow people who are great at what they do to come in and more efficiently do it than it would take for us. So I think that’s a great way of looking at that.

And then finally, in overcoming this overwhelm cycle, you want people to learn how to live with rhythm. What does that mean?

Renae Fieck: [00:27:49] So this one’s the one that’s a little bit unique, but a lot of it, a lot of it is establishing routine in our life because as an occupational therapist, again, like we are so ingrained in routine, like, you know, you’ve driven somewhere, not even realize that you were driving until you show up in the driveway.

And you’re like, Oh my gosh, I don’t remember driving here at all. Like our brains are like, so hardwired to be as efficient as possible. So when things are routine. You didn’t make it so much easier for us to do it. So that’s one part of it is like, how can we establish a lot of this as so routine that, that your brain doesn’t have to spend so much more energy to think about it.

But the other part of the rhythm part is that as women, we have menstrual cycles, right? Our hormones are changing throughout the month, day to day in the month. Our hormones are not the same. And so when you can look at that and, and dive in a little bit deeper, which would be a whole podcast episode in and of itself, as learning what types of activities to do each of those different phases of the month, that there are certain times of day, the month when you’re more prone to being really productive and getting things done.

Those checklists, the, to do list the car oil change, the, the, you know, the, all of the paperwork for school, like there’s times of the month when your body is more ready to do all of those sorts of things. There’s times of the month when your body is way more social, like it’s more outgoing doing a podcast interview or a Facebook live, or any of those sorts of things are going at a happy hour with your friends.

Like those would be more inclined, you know, like those times I get, like, I just really don’t feel like leaving my house. That’s not that time.

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:29:27] Right.

Renae Fieck: [00:29:27] So at the time, and then there’s times of the month when it is more of that, like inner turned, when, you know, most people would describe it as PMSing, but it’s not necessarily PMSing.

It’s just like, your emotions are so high. And so things, those are the types times of the month when you feel super triggered, you know, the kids like a week ago may have been. Doing the exact same thing and it was totally fine. You had no issue, but now all of a sudden you’re like, stop it. I can’t handle this.

That’s why. And so understanding what those rhythms are, can make it so that it’s easier for you to be really intentional about what items you place, where, and then also giving yourself the grace. Like I had my best friend, I was talking to her about it and she was like, gosh, I didn’t realize, you know, I was getting so frustrated and I was mad and I was feeling super triggered.

And then I realized that I was just in that interface. And so instead of feeling super triggered the whole time, I made sure that I was giving myself some extra me time and I was giving myself some extra space. And I made sure that I was communicating to my partner and saying like, Hey, I just need an extra 10 minutes today or I need, or whatever it is.

And so that, that you can ride through that without having such massive extremes and then feeling guilty. I think that’s so many times like moms, we feel guilty. We’re like, gosh, I was so snappy with my kids last week. And I felt like this week I’m failing or whatever, when you. Whereas last week I felt like I had it all together.

And then now I feel like I just am floundering. And so it gives them like awareness to that so that it doesn’t, you know, like, okay, in just a couple of days, I’ll be out of this and we’ll be in something else, you know? So I think it’s really powerful.

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:30:59] I think that is incredibly powerful. I’ve always said there is no energy pill, no caffeine in the world like that pre period cleaning urge that I get. I mean, that’s when I feel like I am flying when it comes to keeping my house together and all that kind of thing. And in that moment, I will think I’ve done it. I have finally arrived at the person who can handle all of the things and get all the things done for my house because essentially I’m sort of nesting.

Right. And then on the flip side, it’s like, I don’t, I don’t care. Like I don’t care. Like sit on the laundry pile. It doesn’t, I don’t, I don’t care. And so you’re right. There is very much this ideology of rhythm, which is a great thing, picking a pace of life that makes sense. But there is also honoring those bylines logical rhythms that are placed within us by God.

There’s nothing wrong with those rhythms being in place and honoring that. I think that’s fantastic. And to really use it intentionally. Yeah. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Renae. I can’t thank you enough for being on today and thanks so much for the hope and just the absolute practical, tactical ideas about how to work through the overwhelm.

That so often we as women feel today so much.

Renae Fieck: [00:32:07] Yeah. Thank you.

Julie Lyles Carr: [00:32:08] Be sure. And check out the show notes that our content coordinator, Rebecca puts together each and every week of big shout out to Donna. She is our producer and helps make sure that the audio quality and all the things are the way they need to be so that you can get the episodes.

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