Over-functioning, especially among women in the midst of divorce, becomes a relentless cycle of exhaustion and misplaced control. Join me, Karin Nelson, as I share insights, personal stories and heartfelt exploration of how societal pressures and more lead us to take on too much, become burdened by the mental load of it all and feel like we have the world on our shoulders - always at the expense of our own well-being. Learn how recognizing and addressing these patterns can be the first step towards reclaiming your identity and peace of mind.
This episode sheds light on the deeper roots of over-functioning, revealing how it's often intertwined with self-worth and past experiences. It's not just a habit; it's a stress response learned from a young age, stemming from environments where proving oneself was a necessity. By shifting our focus inward and aligning our mind, body, and spirit, we can begin to understand and appreciate our inherent worth, free from external validation.
I'll introduce the concept of weaponized incompetence and discuss the power of setting boundaries and opening up to trusting others. Through grounding techniques, somatic practices and mindset shifts, you will know just how to break free from the cycle of over-functioning.
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Grief and trauma are the two biggest struggles women deal with as they go through their divorce. It's highly likely that you are experiencing both and don't even realize what you're feeling. I'm here to tell you that it's okay for you to grieve your marriage (even if it was shitty) and it's normal to be experiencing some kind of trauma (which is essentially a disconnection from yourself - your mind, body and soul). I can help guide you through the grief in all of the forms it shows up so you can heal. I can also teach you how to ground yourself in healing so you can ease through the trauma. Schedule your free consult by clicking here.
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Full Episode Transcript:
You are listening to Becoming you Again, episode number 187, and I am your host, karin Nelson. Welcome to Becoming you Again, the podcast to help you with your mental and emotional well-being during and after divorce. This is where you learn to overcome the grief and trauma of your divorce. We're going to do that by reconnecting with yourself, creating lasting emotional resilience and living a truly independent life, so that your life can be even better than when you were married. I'm your host, karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast. My lovely ladies, I am so happy that you're here today.
Today, I'm talking about something that I think is going to be very useful for a lot of you, especially women. So many of us deal with this. The word I'm calling it is over-functioning, but this has many, many names. When I say the word over-functioning, first of all, what do you think of? What do you think that means, or what do you define it as? Because I have clients who define it as doing it all, carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, not taking care of themselves, carrying the mental load which is basically like all of the invisible organizing and planning and fixing of all of the people and things in the household, carrying around the societal expectations of women, things in the household, carrying around the societal expectations of women, believing that women are the caretakers and are the fixers of the world. Carrying the emotional load of not only your own emotions which usually that just means pushing them to the back burner and pretending like everything is fine but then trying to manage the emotions of your partner If you're still married your ex, your kids, their teachers, their friends, your friends, your family and everyone else around you. Trying to make sure that everyone else is happy and comfortable and taken care of, and then leaving yourself behind, trying to anticipate others' feelings, feeling guilty for saying no to something or for taking time for yourself. Those are all different types of over-functioning and it needs to stop because, women, it is not our job to be in charge of everyone else, to make sure everyone else is comfortable, to make sure everyone else is comfortable, to make sure everyone else is feeling fine, to take care of everyone else and to forget about ourselves. It is not our job to carry the mental load of 10 people, to plan everything, to organize everything, to make sure everyone is good, to make sure everything is fixed, to carry around everyone else's emotions and try and control it in some way. That is not your job, and if you've never heard that before, let me be the first person to tell you. I'm going to teach you what over-functioning looks like, why you do it and how to start on the path of leaving it in your past. Because if you are an over-functioner, what ends up happening is you feel exhausted, but you still somehow continue to push through the exhaustion.
You say yes to things that you really didn't want to say yes to, when you really actually wanted to say no, but you do it anyway because you don't want to say yes to when you really actually wanted to say no. But you do it anyway because you don't want to let other people down, you don't want people to think badly of you or whatever there could be a myriad of reasons why but you say yes when you really just wanted to say no. You feel very responsible for everybody else's feelings and if somebody gets upset, you take that on as that's your fault. If somebody feels down or low or sad or angry, you take those emotions on and blame yourself that you must not have done enough to help them not feel that way, to not create happiness in their life in some way. You have a very hard time relaxing. You have a very hard time believing that you can take rest for yourself, that you're not worthy or you haven't worked hard enough yet and so you don't deserve it yet. And you do all of these things and then you hold everything that you're feeling in because you feel exhausted and you feel tired and you feel let down and you feel like you're doing it all and no one else is around helping you. And then you feel resentful of everyone around you, of your life, and then you blame yourself, and then you yell at everyone else and you blow up. And then you say to yourself I can't believe I reacted that way. I'm never going to do that again. I'll never get to that place again. And then a few months or weeks or days later, it all happens over again. The cycle continues. You can step out of this cycle of over-functioning, and I'm going to teach you how today. All right.
So over-functioning is basically a way to feel safe in a world that feels out of our control. It's a way to feel like we are in control of something when we feel very out of control, and this is very, very, very, very common in women who are going through a divorce or who have gone through a divorce, because there are a lot of things in our world going through a divorce where we do not feel like we are in control. We're not in control of the final outcome of what goes into the divorce decree, like we yes, we can say we want some things and there can be the back and forth, mediation or between lawyers and all that, but oftentimes we don't get everything that we want and that feels very out of control. We're not in control of seeing our kids whenever we want anymore, right? Maybe we're losing some of our income and that feels very scary, right? So there's a lot of things that go into this idea of feeling out of control.
So oftentimes we will turn to over-functioning, or maybe it's a symptom that we have been using in our lives for a very, very, very long time, and so, turning to that over-functioning during the divorce even more, or right after your divorce, it feels very safe and one of the reasons why it feels very safe is because you haven't learned how to be with your emotions. I talk a lot about this in podcasts, of how to be present, be in your emotions, process through your emotions and if you aren't quite sure how to do that, I'll give you some tips today, but also go back and listen to some of those. I think some of them are called processing emotions. That's probably the main one that you would want to look at, but anything that has to do with somatic practices, grounding practices, allowing emotions, emotional regulation, any of the podcasts that I have talked about where I teach you how to be with your emotions and to not have them be so scary for you, those are the things that are going to help you the most. So finish this podcast and then go check out the other ones, because I promise you it's going to be important for you as you let go of this over-functioning trait that you've got going on.
So one of the reasons that it feels safe when we over-function is because we don't know how to allow our emotions, and so when we're alone and the anxiety pops up or the worry pops up, or the fear of being alone pops up, or the judgment pops up of what other people might be thinking or whatever, right, there's lots of different emotions out there. One of those emotions pops up and we're like this is scary. I don't like how this feels. This feels terrible. I don't know what to do with this. Let me get busy. Let me go do something. I got to keep myself busy, right, because that feels safe. The emotion feels scary because we don't know what to do with it, and that's okay. You only know what you know. It takes time to understand new things that can help you create the life that you want. All right.
So another reason why you might be over-functioning is that maybe you felt constantly judged as a kid. Maybe you had to become the parent as a child. That's very common with people who over-function. Maybe you were married and you constantly felt like you had to be busy because, if not, your husband at the time would look at you or make comments like you're so lazy, you're not doing enough. Why don't you get a hobby? Why don't you go out there and do something? Why are you just sitting here? There was a lot of judgment and worry that you hadn't earned your keep in some way, and so you had to stay busy. Because, again, the over-functioning felt safe, because you knew if you were working, doing busy, most likely those comments wouldn't be shot at you, right? They wouldn't be torpedoed your way and you wouldn't have to feel like you were unworthy in some way. So it makes sense. All of this makes sense if you are over-functioning. So take a look at your life right now and see where you might be over-functioning and try and figure out why. Maybe it's one of those reasons, maybe it's something else, but either way, it's important to have awareness, because awareness is where all healing begins. Without awareness in your own life, there will be no healing.
The interesting thing about overfunctioning is it's a stress response, right? A stress response means that our nervous system, when it gets heightened, our habitual, natural reaction to things, is a stress response. That means we go into fight or flight or freeze functional freeze where we may be doing things, but we feel like dead inside, we feel frozen inside. We can't actually create new things in our lives or open ourselves up to new things growth, anything like that and that creates resentment toward everyone around you. And the really terrible thing I'm just going to emphasize this right now for you, my sweet, lovely ladies the really terrible thing is when we go into the stress response that fight, flight or freeze that we're living from. There is no room in there for our own self-discovery, for our own growth, for our own ability to thrive, take our power back and create and live the kind of life that we want to live.
So what do we do to stop living in this over-functioning world, to stop being this over-functioning human? We have to learn how to stop focusing outward on everyone else and everything else and we have to learn instead to start focusing inward, on ourselves, on how to relate to yourself and the world and your life in a different way, because the way you've been relating to it up till now is in this over-functioning way and it is not serving you. Because when you are over-functioning, you are giving your power and the control that you actually do have in your life over to everyone else around you. What's happening is you are sacrificing your sense of safety real, true safety, not this pretend safety that we think we get when we over-function, but real, true safety, not this pretend safety that we think we get when we over-function, but real, true, internal, emotional safety, our worth, our inherent worth and our inherent value, and we tell everyone else around us that they get to define it for us. We give everyone else permission to define our worth, our value and our safety and we let go of those reins instead of seeking that knowledge and that understanding from within us, and understanding what it means to have our brain, body and our spirit, our intuition, aligned, that is where you're going to find true safety for yourself. That is where you're going to find true safety for yourself. That is where you're going to understand your worth and your value, and that it's inherent and it's always there. You can't do more to feel more worthy or more valuable, because it's always 100%, no matter where you are, what you're doing.
And I want you to know I understand this idea of over-functioning firsthand. I lived this way for years and years and years. I was married for almost 20 years and in that time I learned how to over-function. I taught myself how to live this way because, again, it felt safe in some way. And what happened during those 20 years is I completely let myself down, over and over and over again, letting people on the outside pull my strings and decide for me how I was going to feel, how I was going to think of myself, how I was going to feel about myself, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm not telling you this because I'm trying to blame myself and be like there's just one more thing that I need to blame myself, for it was all my fault. I was the one who let myself down.
No, what I'm why I'm telling you this is I want you to know that I had to gain awareness over what I was doing to myself to be able to make the initial changes in my life, of deciding that I wanted the divorce, of deciding what was best for me, of deciding to make changes, to let go of the over-functioning so that I could learn to heal. And if you were to look at the version of me from eight years ago, when I first was going through my divorce, till now, I'm very different in so many ways because I see myself as worthy, I love myself, I'm compassionate with myself, even when I make mistakes, even when I do things wrong, even when I don't show up in the way that I wanted to or thought I would have or think I should have. I'm kind to myself, to myself, and I don't believe any longer that I have to do it all, that it's all up to me and that everyone else's emotions are my job. I focus on me and reconnecting with me, and that, in turn, radiates to the rest of my world in such an amazing way. So, if you are an over-functioner. I want you to think about this, and this is important when it comes to understanding what emotions feel like.
But what does over-functioning feel like in your body? When you feel like, oh no, I have to do these things, I've got all this stuff on my list and I got to do it all? Where do you feel that in your body? I've had clients describe it as a knot in their stomach, a knot in their throat, tightness in their shoulders, heightened shoulders. You know, when you get like kind of nervous or scared, your shoulders kind of creep up towards your ears. That tightness that you feel bloating, decision fatigue, not feeling like they can make decisions anymore, saying I don't know to things because they just can't do it anymore. Feeling crazy, feeling like you can't believe you still have to do this thing or make this decision, or be around this person or make everyone feel comfortable, when you can't even feel comfortable yourself. Headaches, sleeplessness, waking up in the middle of the night, worrying it can feel like a racing heartbeat. It feels like heat going through your body and many, many more things. So I want you to think for you. What does over-functioning feel like for you in your body? Let's get out of your brain. I don't want to know the thoughts that are coming up. I want to know what it feels like in your body, because that's how we understand emotions that are going through us. It's how they show up in your body. So let me give you a quick example.
A few weeks ago, I was traveling to Zions, which is a national park in Utah. I was going there with my kids, we were staying at my brother's house that he has down there, and we just happened to be leaving on a day where it was like the first snow storm in Utah, which it was very early for snow, and it was very frustrating that it was snowing because we were going South. We live North, we were going South and South is usually, in Utah, more warm. However, it was very frustratingly snowing on our drive and so it was scary. It was like snow the first snow. It was a lot of snow. We were.
There were a couple of different, you know, mountain passes that we were trying to take, that we couldn't take, and we went through one of them that looked clear, looked fine, you didn't have to have chains or so we thought. If we got to a certain spot and the road became very impassable, very scary. We could not see anything and we had to turn around. We got stuck. My kids had to jump out and push the car and we were able to turn around and get back down the mountain and take another route. But that entire drive, until we got to the clear skies, the clear roadways, was full of anxiety and I could feel it. It was very prevalent in me, as a giant black rock in my stomach, and I felt it for about a three hour stretch on that drive where I could not relax, I could not get out of that anxiety. It was just there, sitting very firmly and hard in my stomach. That is what anxiety felt like in those three hours for me and I just I let it be there. I didn't like it, but it was there and I noticed it very much.
So when I'm asking you, what does over-functioning feel like in your body? Go inside your body, get out of your brain and understand what's happening. What are the sensations that are going on in your body? All right, so if we want to get out of this cycle of over-functioning, if we want to stop doing this so that we can begin to heal and move on, how do we do that I told you before. The main part of it is going to be turning inward and letting go of the outward that you can't control, but turning inward into what you can control. Right, and so part of that means you're going to start recognizing that you do this. That is the awareness, understanding that this is a function of you and it is not your fault. Many of you have been doing this. You were conditioned to do this, first of all because you're a woman and because women are conditioned to believe that we are the caregivers, that we're the only ones that can do it. Because you're a woman and because women are conditioned to believe that we are the caregivers that were the only ones that can do it, that were the only ones that can fix things, that were the only ones that we do it the best.
This was something that my ex-husband used to use on me a lot, and he would kind of do it in like a oh, this is so funny way and this is maybe a silly example, but if he wanted something to eat and it was like a snack or just a. You know, a Saturday evening we hadn't planned anything for dinner and he wanted me to make something, and I would say why don't you just go make it? You're the one who wants it. And he would say but you do it so much better. It tastes better when you do it, which is a hundred percent Not true. It doesn't taste any different if I do it than if he does it right it's.
It's that weaponized incompetence that people, men especially will throw on us and throw at us and say but you do it so much better. I don't know how to do it, I, I'm not capable, right? So we have to recognize, number one, that this is going on, that we are showing up in our lives in this way, and it is not again, it is not your fault. All of these things have been heaped on you, you've been conditioned to live in this way and it feels safe. So let's just recognize it.
Number one you're going to learn how to set boundaries. I have podcasts on setting boundaries and what that actually means, and I actually have one coming out soon. That is about the difference between boundaries and ultimatums, which is important for you to know, but I have other ones about what an actual boundary is, and so you're going to have to learn to say no. You're going to have to learn to say no. I know that sounds really scary, but I promise you, when it comes to dropping this pattern of over-functioning, it's going to be key, because you got to learn to say no and follow through with that no. And then here's a really, really big one You're going to need to learn to trust that other people can do the job, or delegate to other people to help you do whatever it is that you think you need to do, and believe that they can do it, even if they don't do it the way you think it should be done or needs to be done, or you would have done it right now.
I want to kind of go back to that idea of weaponized incompetence. When I'm talking about delegating and trusting others to help you, I am not talking about the people who are showing up with weaponized incompetence, and so if you're still living with your spouse but you're going through a divorce and they're throwing this weaponized incompetence at you, I'm not saying go trust them and go believe that they're going to help you. My guess is they've already shown you who they are. They're not going to help you and they're not going to change. So I am talking about other people in your life people at work, friends, family, kids, even you can trust those people and you need to learn to trust those people that they're going to do what they say they're going to do, and the real test is to let go of the control of the outcome of like what it looks like. We're not talking about people who are throwing weaponized incompetence at you and saying I just, I can't do it, I'm just not capable. You do it better. No, we're not doing that. But we're going to the people that we know love us or that we know are there to help us, but we're not allowing them to because we're like I got this, I can do it, I just do it better. Right, we tell ourselves that, but it's not true. True, okay, you don't have to do everything. This is the whole idea behind over function. We want to heal from this, so let's have other people, allow other people to help us.
This was something that I absolutely had to learn, and I had to learn it because, number one, I did not want to continue to show up in my over-functioning trait in my new relationship. So I've been with my partner now for about seven years and we've lived together for probably about four to five years. And this really came into play when he moved into my home, because I used to over-function a lot and the house was always clean and the dishes were always done. And it wasn't perfect, but it was like I'm vacuuming every weekend, I'm making dinner every night, there's never dishes in the sink, they're always immediately put into the dishwasher. Uh, the laundry's always done, the laundry's always folded and put away, right, all those things. I felt like it had to be that way.
And I remember, even like when I was first married like this is so many years ago, 28 years ago, 27 years ago, something a long, long time ago I remember my husband at the time newly married trying to help me fold the laundry and I was literally I literally said the words you don't do it right, you're not doing it right, which probably didn't feel that great to him and I'm sure didn't help him wanting to help me fold the laundry over the next 20 years. But at the same time, that was a function of this over functioning, of this I have to do it myself, I have to be in control of the outcome, right, okay? So I didn't want to carry that trait with me into my relationship, my new one, because I knew it didn't serve me, because I had done that for years and it basically meant I completely forgot about who I was and didn't know who I was and wasn't connected to myself in any way, and I didn't want to do that anymore. I had already started on my path of getting to know myself, of loving myself, and I did not want to go backwards. And so when my partner moved in and I kind of got to see exactly how he lived right, because when you're dating someone it's one thing, but when you live together it's definitely something else, and he does things differently. He doesn't clean the house in the way that I clean the house, and that's okay.
I had to teach myself how to be okay with that, to ask him for help with things and to let it be okay that he does it his way and it doesn't have to look like my way. So the way I did that was number one. I would ask for help. Number two he's very good at just noticing. He has eyeballs, which is great. Some of our partners or kids don't seem to have eyes that actually work and see what needs to be done. He's really good about okay, I can help in this way and I don't even need to ask her what to do. I can just do it. And it's very nice, right?
Because part of that over-functioning is keeping that mental load in our head of what needs to be done, and it's nice when someone else takes part of that load and we don't have to actually carry it around in our brain. So I had to trust that he would do some things and I didn't have to ask or tell him or nag. He would just do it. And then my next step was allowing him to do it, not needing to control the outcome of what it looked like or when it happened, or believing that it wouldn't get done. I could let go of all of that. And then the final step was creating safety within myself to allow all of these things to happen and let go, let go. And by creating that safety in myself, I was able to do that. I was able to let go of the control and let it be okay.
So some things that you can work on when it comes to stopping this cycle of over-functioning is you need to let go of the idea that you have to be the thing, the person, the woman for everyone and everything. You're not super woman and you don't need to expect that you should be superwoman anymore. You can let go of that idea. Number two this is an idea that I have learned from a previous coach, who is amazing, but she was always like do B plus work. It does not need to be a plus plus, plus, plus. It does not need to be perfect in everything that you do B plus work. It does not need to be A plus plus, plus, plus. It does not need to be perfect in everything that you do. B plus work is just fine. B plus work gets a pass. B plus work is enough.
And so what do I mean by B plus work? The house doesn't have to be completely sparkling, cleaned with a toothbrush every other day. If you get to vacuuming once a week or once every two weeks, great. If there's dinner on the table three nights a week and the other nights it's fend for yourself. Or your kids are eating cereal, or you're ordering in on DoorDash, it's a win right. We have to stop beating ourselves up for not being perfect in every way. If you need to take a break and you give your kids the iPads or let them play video games for two hours while you go take a break and reconnect with yourself in another room in some way. Then you do that, because guess what? That's being a good mom? That's B plus work, that's fine.
You learn how to be an emotional adult over your own life. You stop needing to be in charge of everyone else's emotions and you focus on being in charge of your own emotions, on allowing your emotions, on processing through them and being with yourself. You stop people pleasing because people pleasing is not safe. People pleasing is lying to yourself and lying to others and trying to control the emotional regulation of every situation and it's not possible and you're torturing yourself the more you try and people please. So we got to let that go.
And then you got to believe in this idea that if you do less it's actually okay, it doesn't mean you're lazy, it doesn't mean you're not worthy and you don't have to earn your rest ever. That idea has been handed to you on a platter and implanted in your brain to make you feel less worthy for not doing enough. And it's bullshit and we're going to stop it right now. Doing less is actually an incredibly radical idea that is going to serve you in the long term and I promise you. Your brain's probably like but if I do less, then I'll probably just be lazy and not do anything. I guarantee that is not going to happen, but that's what your brain will tell you, because it feels so scary and out of the realm of what's possible that it's like complete black and white thinking of like, well, if I don't do more and I do less, then I'm going to go to the opposite end of the spectrum and do nothing at all. I'm going to say that's 100% not going to happen, that there is no way that you will ever go from doing it all to doing nothing ever and forgetting about everyone and walking away from your life and who the fuck cares. So allow yourself to do less and believe that it's okay.
And then the last thing that I want you to work on when it comes to this over-functioning is learning how to realign your nervous system, and we do that through somatic practices, which means body practices. Right, we focus on our body. So you're going to start doing some of those somatic practices that I've done podcasts about. I did one a couple of weeks ago where we move, we change our state. I've done many others, so just look up any of the podcast episodes where I talk about somatic practices.
Any kind of grounding technique is going to get you into the here and now and into your body. We want to calm your nervous system and get you out of that stress response so that we can realign your brain. Because once your body is in alignment and your nervous system is realigned even if it's just a little bit, even if it's not quite back to baseline, but we're working on it right Our nervous system realigns and then our prefrontal cortex comes back online. Because we know through scientific data that when our nervous system is out of whack, when it's going crazy, when we're in that stress response, that our prefrontal cortex goes offline and basically what that means. Our prefrontal cortex is the part of our brain where we reason, where we make decisions, where we plan, where we decide intentionally things. And when that goes offline, you can still do some of those things, just not to your full capacity, because your intelligence goes down. Like scientifically it's proven that your intelligence goes down. When you scientifically it's proven that your intelligence goes down when you are in a stress response and your nervous system is heightened, you're in the fight, flight or freeze mode, right.
So we want to use those grounding techniques and those somatic practices to realign our nervous system and then our brain's going to come back online. And then this is what you do. When that happens, you bring in some new thoughts that you want to be thinking, that are going to get you to neutral belief or total belief over what it means to overfunction. So when your brain is like you better do that thing, or people are going to think you're lazy, you can ground yourself or do a somatic practice and then get your brain back online and you bring in this new thought. I am also deserving of care. It's okay for me to rest. It does not mean I am less worthy. I can let go of needing to control this situation or something else. There's probably thousands of thoughts that you can come up with for these moments, so maybe make a list what feels good to you. You can use the ones I gave you. You can come up with one on your own. You can use like some kind of hybrid of a couple of them. So do the somatic practice, get your prefrontal cortex back online and bring in some new thoughts when your brain is telling you that you need to turn to that over-functioning to create safety. This is how we break that cycle.
All right, my friends, I hope you find this helpful. Thank you so much for listening and, of course, as always, I will be back next week. Hi friend, I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life, with weekly coaching, real life practice and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to karinnelsoncoaching dot com. That's wwwkarinnelsoncoaching dot com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating. Wherever you listen to podcasts and for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married. Make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.
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