Beating Overwhelm: Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time

Heather Chauvin [00:00:03]: I think self care is self respect. I think balance is alignment. Meaning, like, how does that feel to you? Do you want to do that thing? Are you doing it to please other people? Is it aligned? Does it feel good? But when you're used to feeling like crap, when you're used to feeling chronically overwhelmed, when you're used to chaos, joy, ease, presence those are foreign concepts to your physical body.

Penny Williams [00:00:30]: Welcome to the Beautifully Complex podcast, where I share insights and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids straight from the trenches. I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author, and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey of raising your atypical kid. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Beautifully complex Podcast. I am excited to have Heather Chavez back with us. It's been a while, but I always enjoy our conversations, and I'm really excited to be talking about how we're going to beat overwhelm by managing our energy and not just our time, because I think it's so important that we're thinking about the impact that things are having on us, not just the amount of time we're spending. And Heather and I were talking before we started recording about the fact that our families often live in chaos, and it's really hard for us to slow down enough to make intention and to parent with intention and move with intention. And focusing on energy, I think, really helps us to focus in there. So we're going to talk all about that and neurodivergence and parenting and so many more things, I'm sure, but I want to start. Heather, will you just let everyone know who you are and what you do?

Heather Chauvin [00:01:52]: Yes. All right, Penny, I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. I am a mother of three boys. They're currently 1813 and ten, author of the book Dying to be a Good Mother podcast host of Emotionally Uncomfortable. But beyond all of that, I'm a human being. I'm a soul having the human experience, and I have all the challenges like any normal human does. Of course, we all have different human experiences, but I'm just in it with everyone else. I'm also wildly passionate about helping my journey started, helping women see and understand their children's behavior and seeing it as a language and helping them feel alive and energized. And that feels very counterintuitive for modern parenting in general, and then sprinkle a few little extra added bonuses with your children or how their brain works. It can feel very overwhelming and chaotic. But I am determined as an individual and as a mother myself, to feel good. And so my focus is all about how good can I get? How good can I feel regardless of personal life challenges? And because I kind of have that as my North Star, I help people who are like, not this, not this, and they really want to live their most abundant life while helping their kids do the same.

Penny Williams [00:03:25]: Yeah, I love that. I love it. And there's so much intention there, and that's what we really struggle with. Let's first start talking about overwhelm, because I think that many of our families who are listening live there. We certainly have some who've been on this journey for a while and maybe like me, have been able to sort of settle in and find some peace, but many of our listeners are still just struggling to keep their head above water. So how do you sort of take control of that in a way that's helpful for everyone?

Heather Chauvin [00:03:59]: It's a journey, and it's a commitment. But I will tell you that overwhelm, to me, is a symptom. It is not a lifestyle. So I'm going to say that again. Overwhelm is a symptom. It is not a lifestyle. And you see it out there in the world. The second you engage with someone, they're trying to create connection with you, typically through shared experiences. Right? And so I said this to you before we hit record, that it was a long time ago when I decided as a mother, as a parent, that I could no longer suffer. Like, suffering was not life enhancing for me in the sense of I had to opt out of the toxic culture of motherhood, and then, let's just sprinkle some three different boys with three different brains. I had to opt out of those circles. I had to opt out of that culture, and I felt incredibly alone because humans desire connection, and oftentimes we're connecting through our chaos. We're connecting through our overwhelm. And I'm all about, like, I want a solution to this. I don't just want to keep reiterating, be like, you overwhelmed. Okay? Yeah, me too. I don't want to get pats on the back for my overwhelm. I don't want to get awards for my overwhelm. And so when I started viewing overwhelm as an actual symptom and not my identity or my lifestyle, now when I feel it, I'm like, how did I get here, and what do I need to do to get out of it?

Penny Williams [00:05:38]: I love that. Yeah. And we have a culture of thriving on the hustle, right? I hate hustle culture because there's more to life than just the grind. Right. How do you enjoy life if all you're doing is stressing about getting better and better and better? Like, enjoy right now, and we don't have that culture to do that. And so I love thinking about overwhelm as a symptom, the same as we talk about thinking about behavior, right. In our kids. It's a symptom. They're telling us something. What are they signaling? And, like, you're saying overwhelm, what is it signaling for us?

Heather Chauvin [00:06:22]: Yeah. You know, what's interesting is I think we're just starting to look at children's behavior as symptoms. We're still trying to, like, how do I get my child to do this? And how do I fix my children? And so I think the conversation is slowly shifting that way. I come from this interesting perspective, so a little background on me is I come from a social work background, and I used to work with families, helping them see and understand their children's behavior, but that's not why they came to me. These were children at risk, families at risk. And I saw labels being put on children. I saw judgments being projected about these children and parents looking at the professionals like, help me. I'm drowning. Help me. I'm drowning. And the professionals saying, Here you go. Here's the label. And the parent going, this doesn't actually create or solve the problem. And so I started asking myself, like, oh, my gosh, I got into this profession to help, and I'm actually just perpetuating a cycle. I'm perpetuating generational trauma. How can I make an impact? So I started having these conversations, and then when you become a parent, your children trigger the crap out of you and teach you how to heal and grow. If you do choose to do the inner work and become the type of person you want your children to be, then fast forward. For those who are not aware, the title of my book, Dying to Be a Good Mother, is because ten years ago, while I'm doing these things in parenting, my body started to scream at me, and I was diagnosed with a stage four cancer. That's a whole other conversation. But I'm thriving today. I'm healthier than ever. But again, symptoms, right? Physical symptoms. Everything is symptomatic, behaviors, emotions, the weather. It's like, what's the root cause? Why did we get here? If you look beyond the first layer, there's evidence years, decades before. So the dying part was not that I was physically dying. It was that I was physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually neglecting myself to be good for my children, to be good for everybody else. And so I come from this space of like, yeah, take care of yourself. The two words that trigger me in the personal development space in parenting is self care and balance. I think self care is self respect. I think balance is alignment. Meaning, like, how does that feel to you? Do you want to do that thing, or are you doing it to please other people? Is it aligned? Does it feel good? Right?

Penny Williams [00:09:05]: Yeah.

Heather Chauvin [00:09:06]: But when you're used to feeling like crap, when you're used to feeling chronically overwhelmed, when you're used to chaos, joy, ease, presence those are foreign concepts to your physical body. So when you actually do get to a place of peace or joy or you have a moment of it, it scares you, and you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm not used to this. And then your brain runs back to your comfort zone, which is overwhelming chaos. And so this is about you going, how do I want to feel in my parenting? How do I want to feel in my life? Do you actually feel proud of yourself when you're screaming and yelling to try to get your kids attention? Do you want to feel connected and aligned? But understand that how you want to feel in your parenting. There's requirements and intention on your behalf as an individual. But also understand that your children are having their own human experience as well. They're having their own internal challenges that are not just a reflection of how you show up. Like they're a human being having their own fears, their own anxieties, their own overwhelm and they need to learn how to manage that as well. Even if emotional regulation is not their strength, they're going to grow up to be adults and they can be introduced to these skills. They may not be able to master them, but they can be introduced to these skills. So it's like my child needs to learn the skill, I need to learn the skill and then we come together. They deserve to know what lack of overwhelm is as well. They deserve to know what being calm in the chaos feels like. But they cannot do that if the people who are role modeling for them are addicted to chaos, are addicted to overwhelm.

Penny Williams [00:10:52]: I love that you brought up modeling because it is so vitally important. And again, we get so caught up in the chaos that we don't recognize that we are actually teaching our kids how to manage overwhelm, how to manage chaos. And if we're not managing it well and often we're not even aware of how we're managing it. We're sinking into our phones, we're scrolling social media, we're sort of checking out. Right. And that is not helpful. It's avoidance really. Right. It's avoidance of what is going on and how painful it is and maybe how traumatic it is. This parenting of neurodivergent kids is stressful. It's not easy. It's very, very hard. It's very hard to even navigate emotionally, much less everything else. And so we have to be aware of what we're doing to be sure that our kids are learning healthy coping strategies. Because locking yourself away or escaping into your phone or things like that are not what we want for our kids. Right?

Heather Chauvin [00:12:06]: And it's not I just want to give everyone permission right now that it's not, quote unquote, bad.

Penny Williams [00:12:11]: Right.

Heather Chauvin [00:12:12]: Life is messy and I often find myself it's been fascinating actually to come out of I'm going to call it the COVID bubble of behaviors. To watch and just observe myself and my children where I can catch myself now that my children are older. Maybe don't need me physically for bedtime routine as they used to, but emotionally, oh my goodness. It's been like the next level and just a different organization. I actually believed that once my children got older, I would feel like I had more time, like I had more energy. And what I'm realizing that time and energy have nothing to do with the age or the proximity of your children. Meaning, like, your children can physically not be home, but you're still mentally worried about them.

Penny Williams [00:13:05]: Totally.

Heather Chauvin [00:13:06]: They're still sucking mental energy, right? Or they're struggling, or they're challenged, or you're like, did they find a friend at school today? Are they scared? Are they overwhelmed? And when you begin to understand and manage your own emotions, this is a game changer. You're buying back your time and your energy. But I've been watching and observing myself where I'm, like, mentally checking out, but I can call myself out. But again, it's like that self compassion of, like, interesting that you're doing that. How do you want to feel? Okay, come back. What actions, what specific actions do you need to take right now to take ownership for how you want to feel and then beginning to reverse engineer that in your everyday life? And when I'm working with families who are incredibly challenged around their children's behavior or just overwhelm in their everyday life and chaos, and they're learning what I call ETM energetic time management. Managing the energy, not the time. They're like, I feel like I have more time. I feel like I have more energy, but my plate still has the same amount of things on it. I'm just managing it differently. And I think that is so key. And a lot of times, people will send me messages of, like, I feel hopeful where before they're like, I am seeking support, but nobody's giving me the actual step by step or the answers of how to do this. But there has to be a way. And so when you're in this energy of despair and lack and fear, you've kind of just accepted that this is what it is. And I'm just here to say it doesn't have to be that way. Although there is some acceptance of, like, my plate is always going to be this full, but I can rearrange and manage it differently to allow it to feel lighter.

Penny Williams [00:15:03]: I can imagine so many parents listening right now going, I don't even have the energy to pivot. Like, I don't even know how to sort of dig out of this, how to make a right turn.

Heather Chauvin [00:15:16]: Okay, this is my favorite part. So I'm going to go into a little bit of a teachable. I'll also give, like what am I trying to say at the end? I'll give, like, a direct URL where people can download a workbook and stuff, but I'm going to give it to you now.

Penny Williams [00:15:31]: Awesome.

Heather Chauvin [00:15:32]: So pen and paper, pull over the side of the road. Listen to this later. Number one, you said, I don't even have the energy. That's a belief in a story, right? If your child needed you, would you have the energy? The answer is yes. There's definitely more in the tank. When I kept telling myself, I don't have the time. I don't have the time. I can't figure out what's going on with my health. It was like the universe said, oh, you don't think you have time? Great. I'm going to show you what it looks like when you keep telling yourself you don't have time. Until I had to stare my biggest fear in the face and be like, oh, crap. If I actually don't bypass this belief and story of I don't have time, my physical body is done. Like, I had to figure this out. So I'm telling you from personal experience what I'm about to share that if you implement it, it will work. But your stories of, I don't have time, I'm not worthy, the guilt, all of it will come up to stop you. Okay? I'm just warning you. Now, it may feel a little heavier before it gets lighter.

Penny Williams [00:16:40]: Got you.

Heather Chauvin [00:16:41]: Number one is you get a pen, you write down this question or this statement, this journal prompt. Wouldn't it be nice if wouldn't it be nice if I want you to turn on the timer on your phone five minutes, you are going to write down everything that comes to mind. Wouldn't it be nice if I could have a glass of water? Wouldn't it be nice if my children were XYZ? Wouldn't it be nice if we could travel? Wouldn't it be like, I want everything on that paper. I have done this in specific communities. And I had a colleague, friend, I was talking to a circle of women, all who had children with down syndrome. And she's like, I can't even go there, Heather. Like, the grief that came up of like, I cannot even do that because that is not my life. And I said, Listen, I understand that this journal prompt may be more difficult for some people than others, but everything on that list that you write down is a breadcrumb, but it is also a desire of yours. So sometimes we are busying ourselves too much because we are avoiding the grief, the sadness, the overwhelm, everything that's kind of piling itself on top of our desires. But if we're committed to getting into the desire, that's where the fulfillment happens. That's where we can have more connection with our children and yell less. That's where we can accept our children. That's where we can take action, still advocate, do all the things, but we're doing it with more empathy and compassion and less anger and resentment and frustration and fatigue. So I get it. If it's very emotionally charged for you, it's okay. Just make it 1 minute maybe, and you have to do it over and over again.

Penny Williams [00:18:38]: Okay?

Heather Chauvin [00:18:39]: Step two. Once you have your wouldn't it be nice list, whether it's one item, ten items, 50 items, you are going to go line by line just for, like, the first five, and we're going to identify what the feeling is that you're actually after. So you might start noticing trends. Wouldn't it be nice if I felt light, free, ease, patience, whatever you're going to notice trends. It's never going to say, wouldn't it be nice if I felt like crap? Wouldn't it be nice, like, whatever an example of this is? Wouldn't it be nice if my house was decluttered? Right? Somebody came in and just decluttered my whole house. What is the feeling that you're after? Right? You might be like, then I'm going to feel spacious. I'm going to feel clean. It's going to feel like, what is that feeling? Okay.

Penny Williams [00:19:27]: Got it.

Heather Chauvin [00:19:28]: So now you have this feeling. What would that be for you, Penny? What's the first word that comes to mind?

Penny Williams [00:19:33]: Travel.

Heather Chauvin [00:19:34]: Okay. And what is travel? Like, what is the feeling?

Penny Williams [00:19:37]: Something new, some adventure, something exciting, right? Something you haven't done before.

Heather Chauvin [00:19:43]: So it's like adventure, and maybe even in that word, you're like, what is it I'm actually after? Right? If you know the feeling behind it, you'll actually create different experiences. It's not just about a vacation or travel specifically. You're like, but what is going to make this feel like an adventure? I love adventures. So when I'm going on a trip, I'm very different than my husband and definitely my children. So I'm like, how can I make this feel like an adventure? How can I make this feel like a cultural experience rather than going to sit on a beach at a resort and being bored out of my mind? Because that's just not my vibe. I like culture. I love connection. I love learning about people. So you're just digging deeper. You're being intentional. So once you have the desire, now you have the feeling, okay, adventure. Great.

Penny Williams [00:20:31]: Got it.

Heather Chauvin [00:20:31]: You're not on a trip right now. You're at home. And so how do we create that feeling today? How do we create that feeling right now? Not six months from now, not when I do this, then I will feel this way. We need to learn to feel the way we want to feel every single day or try to. Right?

Penny Williams [00:20:54]: Right.

Heather Chauvin [00:20:55]: So now I'm like, how can I get adventure into my everyday life? Well, you know what? Maybe I'm not going to be able to do it today. Maybe I can make something feel a little adventurous, but maybe I'm going to look at an app. It might be an all trails app, like hiking app or look at a park. And I'm going to drive to somewhere that I'm not used to. I'm going to make it an adventure, like something as simple as once a week or once a month. I had a little cafe tour where I was like, not just going to go to the same coffee shop and work the Friday for a few hours. I'm going to drive downtown to a random spot that is outside my comfort zone a little bit. There's so much opportunity right in our own hometowns, but we're so in our routine that we're like, I got to fly across the world to get adventure. We can get that every day. So how can we start to create these little moments? And then at the end of this, I asked myself, okay, what is something I can do? This is the important part. This is what I call the ten minute habit. So I married this idea of like, soul cravings, soul desires. How do I want to feel? Right? The emotional aspect of it with the atomic habits, like James Clear atomic habits, he has a two minute rule. He's like to develop a habit, you have to break everything down into two minutes. So I thought, I'm going to spice it up a little bit. I'll make it ten minutes, and we're going to do this kind of like how you want to feel. So ten minutes a day. If I want to feel adventurous, what can I do for ten minutes a day? Right? You may have an answer, you may not have an answer, but let me think. Maybe ten minutes a day. I'm literally researching new cafes. Maybe one day I'm having a conversation with somebody about a trip they went on. Maybe like, whatever it is, or I tell people all the time, how do you want to feel? They're like strong and energized. Maybe you're like, I am so incredibly overwhelmed and so far removed from feeling strong and energized, and I can't do this all or nothing. So I'm just committing to 110 minutes walk a day. That's it. Ten minute walk a day. The consistency, what you're actually doing is starting to train your brain of like, how do I want to feel? But you have to be more committed to a bigger why with this, it's not just you want to feel good. You're doing this for your children. You're doing this for their mental health. You're doing this for their future. Whatever your bigger, why is that's what you have to focus on when you're doing these things? I don't want to go to the gym. Why do I go to the gym? Because I want to make a big impact. And when I want to make a big impact, that requires me to almost double down on how I take care of myself so that I have the capacity to then serve more people, children, clients, all of that.

Penny Williams [00:23:52]: We have such a culture of motherhood equals sacrifice, right? And we must give everything up of ourselves to be the best parent we can be, to do the best for our kids. And it's such a falsehood. It's such the opposite of what we need to be doing right as you're talking about that when we're more intentional, we teach our kids to be more intentional. When we're more intentional, we feel better and we're putting that energy into our families. And when we feel good, we do good. That's what I always talk about with behavior. It's like, if I feel crappy, I can't do good for anyone, myself or anyone else. Right? It just isn't possible. And what we're talking about here is like a break from that. Just taking a hard break from getting caught up in that expectation of society, in the chaos and overwhelm and doing kind of a reset. That's what this activity that you're talking about reminds me of is just like, okay, it's time for me to make a reset. I don't feel good. I'm not the parent I want to be. My kid is not doing great, and I really want to help them do better, right? I need that reset to be able to then manage the energy instead of the time.

Heather Chauvin [00:25:16]: You know what's interesting is this year has been I've had to advocate for my oldest more than I've ever had to advocate for him within an educational system, within a health system, and then also having teenager, right? So typical developmental rebellion, pushing away on top of a brain that thinks differently and looks differently, and then yet on the outside it's invisible, right? So being labeled as neurotypical and yet I know that that is not the case. Working on my own triggers and projections of expectation of who he should be, but legally an adult, all these things I'm sitting here preaching and convincing people to give themselves ten minutes a day and yet they will still have resistance and push away and tell me they don't have time, whatever. And I'm like, have you ever had to sit across the table from somebody and have a really emotionally uncomfortable conversation? They're pushing one agenda on your child, and you clearly know that that is not going to be of highest service to the child. And have you ever been able to negotiate in a calm demeanor and get your voice heard in a room where you just want to be heard, seen and understood and really advocate for your child? This year I've had to have some really uncomfortable conversations and get people to hear me on my child's behalf and also watch my husband not be able to do that because he just lives a different lifestyle. And he looks at me, he's like, you're ten steps ahead of me, take this, right? He's like, you have the confidence. I'm telling you right now, every day when I wake up in the morning and I try to convince myself that I don't have the time, I don't have the energy, I don't have the resources, I don't want to. Why can't I just be normal and get rid of all these challenges? Like, poor me, poor me. Every time I want to give up, somebody will say to me, you've inspired me just by how you show up and how you lead your life. And I just think it is selfish of me to play small and tell myself that not feeling good or not feeding any part of my desire or human basic needs of like food, water, right? That none of those matter because when I do nurture myself and nourish myself, that pours over into every single person I care about. And when I can look at my kid and say, and this makes me choke up, but when I can look at my kid and say, I will never give up on you. I've got your back, and he looks at me and feels held and supported. That to me is priceless. But I would not be able to do that if I can't support myself. And that is a huge mindset shift. There's a lot of beliefs and healing that goes into that. I'm telling people right now, you're not going to find the perfect strategy in a book or on a podcast. It's when you're doing the work and you're committed to it every single day, even if it's just ten minutes.

Penny Williams [00:28:40]: Yeah. And that was the big pivot point for me, too. And my parenting in my life was doing the work, looking at myself and going, what's going on with me? What is happening to me? And for me, I was very much living a victim mindset, and everything happened to me. I had no control of it. I was not destined to be happy. This is what I believed, right? I got really stuck there and I had to do the work, and it took a long time. And sometimes I have to do the work again, right? Like, I'm in that stage again where I really have to focus more heavily on that work again, because it takes constant practice. I always talk about it's like a muscle. We have to keep working at it to keep it in that state that we needed to be our mindset. And it's okay if we stray from that as long as we're still aware and we keep working on coming back. Right? There's no perfection. There's no perfection. And so that's what I like to remind parents of, is like, yeah, you can do the work and you can feel a lot better. It's going to take some time, but also it's okay if it doesn't stick all the time. It's not like this thing where you're just going to shift and forever more. It's that way, right? It is a journey. There is grief that comes up. There are messy things. I also love, too, that you're talking about really kind of showing up for humanity in a way. Like we're not just showing up for our kids and our families, but when we are doing what we can for ourselves and we're nourishing ourselves, we're maybe affecting the other people at that school meeting table. We're maybe affecting another parent who's really struggling and sees us to continue to show up and fight. Right? It does make a difference. It has a ripple effect, and it's about more than just us and our families. It doesn't have to be that for you, but that's just like this great byproduct, right, that it can be even more.

Heather Chauvin [00:30:50]: Yeah. I've always had a desire to be the change or make an impact. And I see a lot of parents who go through challenges and they kind of run towards the challenge. They want to be the change. And I've had conversations with many people, especially when you start having business conversations, they're like, okay, I want to do this or I want to do that. And I'm like, but have you already accomplished that? Or I want to help people who blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, but have you personally accomplished that? And if you haven't personally accomplished that, how are you going to be able to help other people with that? You have no idea. Like, the whole emotional roller coaster. And so it comes back to this role modeling that when I have another human in front of me, whether it's my child, a colleague, a friend, a client, a neighbor, and they say, oh, my gosh, I am so overwhelmed, or I am this or I am that, and I can empathize and say, I know exactly how you feel. I remember being there and I remember getting out of that. Right, of course. Exactly. Nobody knows exactly what your experience is like, but I remember the steps I took to get out of that. If you're interested, I can show you the steps, but if you're like, I'm just stuck here and I refuse to move. And you're perpetuating this victim mentality within yourself. You will always feel that way. And so you have to lead, you have to move, you have to do the emotionally uncomfortable work. It's as simple as that. It's uncomfortable, yeah.

Penny Williams [00:32:23]: Which leads right into your podcast, emotionally uncomfortable. I'd love for you to share a little bit about that with everybody listening so they can connect more with you before we wrap up.

Heather Chauvin [00:32:34]: Yeah, so I always say the magic happens in the action, and the action is where things really start to get messy. And I talk a lot about managing your big emotions so that you can get on the other side into how you want to feel and your relationships and all the things. So that's what emotionally uncomfortable is about. You can check it out on any platform. You listen to podcasts. I even have a private one where we talk just solely about parenting. So you can go to Heathershauvain. Chauvin.com parenting. And I have a whole bunch of resources on my website as well, and kind of the teachable part of this conversation, which is called Energetic Time Management, but I teach you how to find your own ten minute habits. You can go to Heatherchauvay.com ETM and check out the step by step there as well. But, yeah, my website, Heatherchauvay.com Chauvin.com, will send you all the resources, links freebies.

Penny Williams [00:33:30]: It's all there.

Heather Chauvin [00:33:31]: There is another way to parent, that's for sure.

Penny Williams [00:33:34]: Yeah, absolutely. And for all of the links to connect with Heather and any resources that we've talked about. You can also visit the show notes and get that stuff. And that is at Parenting ADHD and Autism.com two two five for episode 225. And again, I just want to thank you, Heather. It's always a pleasure. I always feel more inspired after talking to you. And I really appreciate your time and your wisdom. And the energy that you're putting out in the world for all of us is so amazing. And with that, we'll end this episode. I'll see everyone next time. Take good care. Thanks for joining me on the beautifully complex podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share. And don't forget to check out my online courses and parent coaching at parenting. ADHD and Autism.com. [email protected] thanks.