When you think about your life right now, what words come to mind?
Overwhelmed. Out of control. Burned out. On the edge. How do I find balance? I feel like I'm doing it all and I'm still drowning.
If that's you, I want you to know you're not alone. Overwhelm was one of the biggest themes in the messages, DMs, and emails so many of you have sent me over the years. Women told me they were running on empty, checking every box, and still not feeling alive.
I know that feeling because I'm in a season like that right now. We have a newborn in foster care, three other young kids about to start school, a marriage that needs my attention, a ministry launching at our church, and a new round of the Made Whole Academy starting. I love every single one of those things. And if I'm not careful, I will get swept into all of it and end up on my kitchen floor with my face on the tile.
Here is What Keeps Me Off the Floor. Take What Helps and Leave the Rest.
1. Find Tiny Moments of Rest
My days are full, and yours probably are too. Decluttering your schedule matters (more on that below), but even when you're living intentionally, the responsibilities don't disappear. So we need small pockets of rest woven into the day.
On our 10 year anniversary trip to Sicily, our driver told us about la dolce vita, the sweet life. He described it as sipping a coffee, looking at the scenery, and letting yourself feel filled up for a minute. I think we need those moments all throughout our days, not just on a vacation once a year.
It can be five minutes with a cup of coffee. A deep breath after you put the kids down for a nap, hit submit on a project, or pull into the driveway. Look at a tree. Close your eyes. Thank God for your day.
One honest warning: when we get a pause, most of us grab our phones. Scrolling usually leaves us feeling more behind and more inadequate. Emails and texts have their time, but protect a few pauses with no screen in front of your face.
2. Remember It Won't Always Be This Way
As Christians, we never retire from living on mission. But the intensity of a season does shift.
Pastor Holly Wagner once described seasons of stretching like a rubber band. God stretches us, it feels like it might snap, and then it slowly settles back into a place that's a little bigger than before. Your capacity grows. Your territory expands.
Before our newborn arrived, I caught myself at the sink one day realizing I could actually get more done because the kids were more independent. A lighter season had snuck in. Then things got intense again. That's how it goes. If you're living with God and listening to the Holy Spirit, this season won't last forever.
3. Let Some Things Go
In a stretching season, something has to give. For us it's usually the house. I love a clean home, but right now there is a mountain of laundry that is not where I want it to be. I've been trying to catch up on sleep instead of staying up to fold it, and that's the right call for now.
For you it might be shorter workouts, simpler meals (scrambled eggs, toast, and avocado count), or a monthly date night instead of a weekly one. Your main priorities, like your marriage and your kids, still matter. They may just look different for a while. You are not a failure if everything isn't living up to full expectations. Know which areas can bend without everything crumbling.
4. Build Simple Systems
Instead of reinventing the wheel every day, create rhythms for the things that matter. My husband and I have what I call sacred time, once a week, face to face, usually Saturdays during nap time. We don't have to figure out when it's happening every week because it's already built in.
I do the same with connecting with my kids at bedtime, with groceries, meals, cleaning, and my quiet time with God. (If systems are your struggle, Chelsea Joe's podcast Systemize Your Life is a great place to start. I'm still learning too.)
5. Care for Yourself Every Day
This isn't a once-a-year vacation or a once-a-month manicure. It's the small daily things: enough sleep, enough water, real food, moving your body, time with God, and tending to your emotions. If you skip these, you won't make it through the seasons God has called you to as well as you could.
6. Say No to the Right Things (and Yes to the Right Things)
Boundaries start with saying no to what doesn't line up with your values or your current season. But I'll be honest, I think we sometimes say no to the wrong things. "I'm too tired for church" is one I hear a lot. Whatever is making you too tired for church is probably what needs to go.
God designed us for community, and we need to be planted somewhere people know our names and our stories. There's grace here, always. I'm just calling us higher, because this will make your life better.
7. Let the People in Your Home Help
If you have kids, this one is huge. It's easy to feel like we have to entertain them and meet every need, but a child-centered home puts kids in a spot they weren't meant to hold. God is the center of the home, then marriage, then the kids.
When kids are part of the team, you get help and they learn to be people who help instead of just take. My seven-year-old can do the dishes (not perfectly, but he can). They can clean out the car and heat up leftovers and help their siblings. I still tend to do it all myself, so this is an area where I'm growing too.
8. Ask for Help
This one is a boundary too, because we stop assuming we have to do it all alone.
My first week alone with all four kids, my mother-in-law texted, "Let me know if you need any help." Normally I'd say thank you and carry on. This time I asked her to take the kids for two hours. It was the best two hours of my week. I got on top of things and felt less behind for days.
Picture carrying a boulder that's bigger than you while people along the path say, "Can I help with that?" And we answer, "No, I'm good! Look at my Sunday smile!" while we're about to fall on our faces. Those people want to help. God made us for community. Asking for help doesn't say something bad about you. It says you're not living by pride.
9. Set Mental Boundaries
This one has changed my life. I have a lot of buckets: marriage, kids, house, work, ministry, friendships. If I look at all of them at once, I can't breathe.
So I stay in the bucket I'm in. When I'm with my kids, I'm not thinking about email. When I'm working, I'm not thinking about the laundry. When I'm in bed at night, I'm not mentally running through tomorrow. My job at that moment is to settle my body, mind, and spirit and go to sleep. Being in two places at once just makes me worse at both.
The flip side is that you have to give each bucket its time. If you don't have time for the kids bucket, that's a different problem to fix. But once those times are set, you can trust they're coming and be fully present where your feet are planted.
10. Don't Worry About Tomorrow
Prepare for tomorrow, but don't carry it. What do I need to do today? One day at a time, one minute at a time. If you've been stewarding your life well and obeying God, He gives you the capacity and the time for what He's called you to. This week I kept running down my checklist: Am I called to this? Did God confirm it? Yes, yes, yes. So I trust He'll sustain me through it.
11. Pray in the Moment
When overwhelm hits, what do you do? Scream? Curl up? Numb out? Try turning it into a prayer right then: God, I'm really struggling and I need your help. Prayer moves mountains, and it also reminds us that this isn't ours to carry or control. We still do the work, but not alone and not in our own strength.
12. Talk About It
When I'm overwhelmed, my pattern is to hold it all in, go quiet, and try to control it by myself. That leaves me alone in the middle of everything, and usually a little rude to the people I love.
So I tell my husband, "I'm really overwhelmed right now, so if I'm not as talkative, that's why." Without me even asking, he started washing bottles. Tell your friends the truth, too, instead of the highlight reel. Ask them to pray for you. And if you have kids, a simple "I'm sorry I haven't been as present this week, you're so much more important than all of this" helps them know it isn't about them.
The One That Holds All the Others Together
In a season with a lot on your plate, the goal is to stay in a place of peace instead of pain. When we're in our pain cycle, we slide into people pleasing, perfectionism, anxiety, numbing, and isolating, all the things we don't want to do.
That's why I keep coming back to Restoration Theory, a framework developed by Dr. Terry Hargrave. It's the most practical framework I've ever come across. You build your pain cycle (the core wounds and the coping patterns they create) and your peace cycle (the truth that counters the lies, and new responses that line up with who you want to be). Then you use the four steps out loud, in real time:
Say what you feel.
Say what you would normally do.
Say the truth.
Say what you will do instead.
This week has been one of the fullest I've had in a long time. I'm exhausted, and I've also had so much joy, because I've been present for it. I used to lose my cool and live with constant anxiety, even in lighter seasons. That has changed. What we talk about here works.
If you're on the floor today, you don't have to stay there. God doesn't intend for you to live with your face pressed to the ground, feeling like there's no way to breathe. There's a way through the stretching seasons that is still full of life and hope.
If something in this resonated, you don't have to stop here.
If you're not sure what's actually keeping you stuck, the free quiz is a good place to start. It takes just a few minutes and will point you toward exactly where to begin.
If you're ready to go further, the Unstuck Workshop walks you through the pain cycle, the peace cycle, and the four steps in a few hours — and it will change the way you see yourself.
Either way, you don't have to keep figuring this out alone. Made Whole is here, and your next step is closer than you think.
