Ever find yourself ignoring your to-do list, reaching for the remote, and wondering why you can’t just do the thing you said you’d do?

You’re not lazy, you’re probably overwhelmed, a word I have heard countless times by my clients and colleagues.

In this episode, I’m sharing what emotional flooding actually is, why it happens, and how to reset your nervous system when your brain feels maxed out.

These aren’t vague mindset tips; they’re tangible, physical actions you can take to calm your body and regain control of your day.

• What emotional flooding is and how it hijacks your focus
• A 3-step toolkit to reset your brain and restore calm
• Why your prefrontal cortex goes offline during stress
• How to prevent overwhelm by managing your energy
• The role of simple habits like breathing, journaling, and setting boundaries
• What I personally changed to handle a high-stress season

• Overwhelm isn’t weakness; it’s a real, physiological stress response.
• Your brain’s logic center shuts down under pressure, making focus feel impossible.
• A quick walk, controlled breathing, and grounding techniques can help reverse feelings of overwhelm.
• Planning ahead, managing energy, and setting limits help prevent chronic overload.
• Your brain is trying to protect you, not sabotage you.

“You’re not lazy. You’re not unmotivated. You may be on the verge of extreme overwhelm.”

“Your brain isn’t trying to sabotage you, it’s trying to protect you.”

“In a world where everything is speeding up, we need to slow down.”

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00:00 – Teaser + Opening Message

02:18 – What Real Overwhelm Feels Like

04:10 – What Emotional Flooding Is

05:09 – What Happens in the Brain

07:11 – 3-Step Toolkit: Break, Breathe, Ground

13:39 – Long-Term Prevention Tactics

15:57 – Final Thoughts and Encouragement

As always, I’m grateful for your support, and I would appreciate it if you could take a moment to rate and review our podcast on Apple Podcasts. Your review would help this podcast reach a wider audience while continuing to provide you with valuable content.

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 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marisashadrick/

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Marisa Shadrick :If your to do list feels long and impossible to tackle or all you want to do is anything but work on your business, this episode will help you understand why and what you can do when overwhelm causes your motivation to disappear. Stay tuned. Got the solo business blues, wearing too many hats? Stay tuned for an episode that understands where you’re at. From birth burnout to break through. We’ll rewrite your story with AI and strategy. Let’s amplify your authority. Hello everyone, and welcome to Amplify Your Authority podcast. I’m your host, Marisa Shadrick.

Marisa Shadrick :I’m an AI marketing consultant and certified copywriter, and I’m so excited to be here with you today, and I am honored that you are listening. Thank you so much. It really means the world to me. Today we’re going to talk about an important topic, something that I often hear many, many, many people say. I’m overwhelmed. I don’t want you to be overwhelmed. So this episode is brought to you by Momentum Lab, which is a free private membership where I help entrepreneurs like you, like me, get more traction on the things that they’re doing without overwhelm. So you can stay consistent without feeling all the stress.

Marisa Shadrick :You can always go to my website, right? Marissashadwood.com and you can join at any time. But I decided to take content from Momentum Lab and share it with you today on the podcast. Why? Because I feel it’s a relevant topic and I don’t want you to miss out on this. So you know that feeling when you just don’t want to get up in the morning and you’d rather just pull that blanket over your head and stay in bed for another hour or so, or sometimes when you want to curl up on a couch and lose yourself. And in a Netflix series, even though you’ve got a whole list of things to do for your business. We’ve all been there, right? Look, you’re not lazy. You’re not unmotivated. You may be on the verge of extreme overwhelm.

Marisa Shadrick :Now, we all go through overwhelm, and sometimes it’s because on a particular day on our calendar, we’ve got a lot going on and it could feel a little overwhelming, but we bounce right back. It’s not something that’s consistent. I’m talking about the type of overwhelm, or where you begin to have trouble focusing and concentrating, that mental fog when you begin to feel a little bit emotionally numb. That’s what I’m talking about. That type of overwhelm. It’s not quite burnout. Yet, but it’s on the verge. You maybe have a little bit of negative self talk or you just have that urge that you want to escape or just shut down and hide somewhere.

Marisa Shadrick :That, my friend, is chronic overwhelm. And there’s a specific term for it that I’m going to share with you here in just a minute. Occasional overwhelm isn’t that big of a deal because it happens to all of us. But when you begin to see these symptoms, especially that feeling of helplessness, that’s when we have to pay attention and see what we can do about it. And there are things that you can do. So in this episode, I want to help you understand what’s really going on. Because there’s something going on on the inside. And once we’re aware, we know how to tackle it and we can shift out of that stuck place without beating yourself up.

Marisa Shadrick :Because most people just feel like, well, I’m not like these other people, or I’m not an action taker or I’m just lazy or what’s wrong with me? There is nothing. Nothing wrong with you. Hey, building an online business, there’s a lot of moving parts. There’s a lot to it. It’s not easy. Otherwise everyone would do it. And so I’m hoping that you’re going to walk away with some really helpful tips today about overwhelm. So let’s take a look and go step by step with this.

Marisa Shadrick :Extreme overwhelm is also known as emotional flooding. Emotional flooding is a surge of intense emotions that feels all consuming, like your system is completely overloaded and you can’t process anymore. You’re done, you’re maxed out. It interrupts your thinking, your focus, even your responses and your decision making. You might forget what you were saying mid sentence or feel incapable of making a simple decision. And often it’s triggered by daily stressors, like maybe too many projects or maybe a tense conversation that you had with someone, a client, or maybe some peer that you’re talking to, or maybe feeling buried under tasks and deadlines. All of this is chipping away and it’s creating this anxiety, stress. And you’re starting to feel extreme overwhelm.

Marisa Shadrick :And that is called emotional flooding. Now, how flooding affects the brain, this is what is so fascinating and blows my mind. There’s something physical that’s happening in your body. Neuroscience tells us this. So the research shows that during moments of intense stress, the brain undergoes significant physiological changes and the amygdala. I’m not going to get techie here. I’m Just going to use a few words because these words are too big for me. So I’m going to keep it simple.

Marisa Shadrick :But the amygdala detects a threat and alarms go off. Right? Your body is made so beautifully that it’s made to protect you. And the body floods with cortisol and adrenaline. It gets flooded with these hormones and the prefrontal cortex, which is the part that allows you to focus, your logic center, it sort of goes offline, it turns off, making it harder to concentrate, to focus, to remember, to make decisions. And so this is what we need to be aware of, that when we feel this way, overwhelmed, there’s hormones that are being released that makes us feel even worse. Right, because we can’t focus, but there’s things that you can do. So when you’re aware that your frontal cortex is shutting down because you’re so overwhelmed, there’s a way to stop those hormones from being produced. So it’s very, very simple.

Marisa Shadrick :Almost too simple. You’ve heard people share these tips, but oftentimes we don’t know why it works. And it sounds very woo woo. Well, this isn’t woo woo. This is actually something that’s going to help you. And when you practice it, you’ll see that it helps. So here’s the first tip. So what to do in that moment when you’re feeling that extreme overwhelm and you’re feeling foggy headed and you just want to go escape somewhere, you just simply take a break.

Marisa Shadrick :Now this is doing something physically in your body. So even though you may not feel better at the time, you take a break, you step away maybe for 20 minutes to calm the system. So stepping away from the situation gives your body and mind a chance to calm down. It lowers stress hormones and it reactivates your ability to think clearly and make better decisions. And it could be just one decision that you make in that moment when you take that 20 minute walk, like saying, look, it’s not the end of the world, I’m going to find a solution, it’ll be all right. It could be that simple. But we have to kind of pull away from that environment. Maybe the environment is your office or your laptop.

Marisa Shadrick :Just move away for a few minutes so that you don’t have those hormones being released from feeling so overwhelmed and having that flooding occur. The second tip, you’ve heard it everywhere. Everybody talks about breathwork and breathing. I always thought it was just for yoga, but this is so helpful. There’s different ways that you can do this, but the box breathing is Simple. You simply inhale for four seconds, you hold for four seconds, and you exhale for four seconds and hold again for four seconds. So it’s just being very conscious of your breath and holding it, and you repeat this cycle for a few minutes. So all we’re trying to do is minimize all of those hormones being released.

Marisa Shadrick :This breathing slows your heart rate and that signal safety. So when you slow your heart rate down by breathing, that sends a signal of safety to the nervous system and initiates the process of deactivating the fight or flight response, which is just releasing all those hormones that are affecting your prefrontal cortex, which is where you focus and think. So this makes sense when we think about every action is causing a physical effect in our body. And so when we become overwhelmed, the first step is we could step away. The second step, we breathe. And there’s a reason for it. We’re not meditating or anything. All we’re doing is being very conscious of our breath.

Marisa Shadrick :That slows the heart rate down, and that sends a signal of safety, and that deactivates the fight or flight response. I find this so fascinating that God created us in such a beautiful way. We do have control, do have something that we can do. We don’t have to live in agony. Now, obviously, if someone needs maybe therapy or maybe needs to see a counselor, it’s always best to do that. If that’s something that you can do, that’s great. I love to read a lot. I like to understand a lot of what’s happening in my brain because I had to overcome a lot of fears.

Marisa Shadrick :And I follow a neuroscientist, Caroline Leaf, that I absolutely love. And I discovered so many things, and it really helped me in many cases, when I was going through to an international speech competition, that scared the dickens out of me. Everything that I was scared of, it helped me calm myself down, be able to think clearly, and take the next step. And that’s what I want for you. So the other tip, the third tip, is a grounding technique. The 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So all you have to do is first acknowledge five things that you see, anything that you see. For example, right now, I see my monitor, I see my mouse, I see my rodecaster, where I’m recording this podcast.

Marisa Shadrick :I see my wipe erase board, and I see my clock. All you have to do is kind of be aware of what you see, then acknowledge four things that you feel. I feel comfortable because I’m sitting in my chair. I feel a little hungry because getting close to dinner Time. I feel a little excited because I’m creating this podcast podcast for you and hoping that it’s going to serve you really well. And I’m feeling really excited that I just booked a local event in Nashville that I’m going to go to in January. There you go. Four things that I’m feeling.

Marisa Shadrick :The third one is three things that you hear. Now, that’s hard. I have to close my eyes because I don’t hear anything right now. I’m in my office, but what do you hear? And if I really got quiet, I could hear the ticking of my clock. I can’t hear anything else. And I’m glad because I shut up. Notifications, and I shouldn’t hear any notifications, but that’s what you need to do. And when you’re doing this, you’re distracting yourself from whatever it is that’s causing the stress and the overwhelm.

Marisa Shadrick :The next thing is you need to acknowledge two things that you smell. Now, it was my birthday yesterday. My husband got me roses. And so they’re in my office, and I can smell the roses, and I can’t really smell anything else. I mean, if I tried hard, maybe, but I get a little hint of fragrance of the roses. And then one thing that you taste, I don’t taste anything right now. But what do you taste? Is there something you’re tasting? Like if you were chewing gum, were you tasting the flavor of the gum? If you were drinking a beverage, are you tasting the beverage? That kind of thing. So all of this, the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, it sounds super silly, but it really takes you away long enough to calm your body down because you’re focused on something else.

Marisa Shadrick :So the three, just to recap, the first one is to walk away for about 20 minutes, maybe go get the mail or go do something. Go outside in the patio, do something, walk away. The second one is the breathing exercises, and the third is the grounding technique where you’re very aware of your environment. Now, how do we prevent. So knowing what I know and knowing that I was going to write a book this year, I knew that it would be, or could be an extra layer of anxiety or stress because I’m already busy with my mastermind and my membership, and I have a paid membership, too, with AI, There’s a lot of AI stuff coming out, and I do a lot of podcasting and I’m doing a lot of writing for the book. So there’s a lot of things. So what I did, I prepared. Prepared.

Marisa Shadrick :And you can prepare and kind of pave the way for yourself to ease into a busy season without experiencing the overwhelm. Here’s some things that you can do. Protect your energy by setting regular work hours and making time for rest. This is really hard for me but what I decided to do was get up earlier so I can end earlier and definitely not work on the weekend. So I would work a full day earlier so I can get some writing done. And I managed my energy and did writing first in the morning because I’m better in the morning at being creative. And then the other stuff followed. And I have a planner that I use to organize all that.

Marisa Shadrick :The other is the physical care you need to fuel your brain with good food and stay hydrated. So I have a water bottle and I usually have this energy packet that I put in the water that has vitamin B and has a lot of nutrients really good for. And I move and I have a stand up desk and I also move around and I try to walk or use elliptical that’s in the garage. So I implement a little bit of exercise. Not a lot, just a little bit of movement. I’ll spend maybe 10, 15 minutes maybe on weights or I will do stretches, I will do something and I will alternate it because I knew I was coming into a busy season. But who can’t do 15 minutes, right? I’ll do 15 minutes. And you know what? It’s really helped.

Marisa Shadrick :And then the daily practice, I set aside 10 to maybe 20 minutes each day planning out my day. Now at the end of the week it takes me a little longer. I’ll have to look back at what I did the past week and kind of look at the week ahead and see what I’m going to be working on. And I use a full Focus planner because I am a Full Focus Certified Pro with Michael Hyatt and so have that. So that will take me about an hour and usually on a Friday and maybe that’s the only thing I do on the weekend. Maybe on a Sunday afternoon I’ll look at my planner and then plan it out. So I hit the ground running on Monday and then I also journal and I reflect. Your brain isn’t trying to sabotage you, it’s trying to protect you.

Marisa Shadrick :But all of those hormones that are released, it’s too much for us. And we need to calm our system down so that it stops doing that and, and we can regain some control. It’s sending you a signal to slow down, slow down. In a world where everything is speeding up, we need to slow down. When you learn to listen, listen to your body. Listen to those signals and respond with care, with patience. Give yourself grace. You don’t just survive overwhelm.

Marisa Shadrick :You lead yourself back to clarity, back to focus and back to momentum. So I hope this episode was helpful for you. I know it was a little different than what I usually share, but I felt like it was really important, especially we’re getting the holiday season and people probably working on Black Friday and the coming year and trying to finish strong. I don’t want you to be overwhelmed and if you ever want to reach out to me and you want to get on a call with me, you just go to my website it and we can have a chat and I can recommend something. I mean if it’s something that I provide, great. If it’s not, I can give you some free advice. Be happy to do that. And if you like this podcast, I would love it if you would leave a five star rating and review.

Marisa Shadrick :So until next time, take care. I’ll talk to you soon.