What to Do if You're Feeling Overwhelmed (Part 1 of 2)

Sophie's family was not in a good place.

She was failing as a wife and mother, but her rest was the last three whole never give up helping writing a G on Jim Daly today. Sophie's family is thriving.

Working together can help rescue and strengthen more families like hers give today@focusonthefamily.com/real family. I manage a lot of details at work and sometimes it just feels overwhelming. Pretty large family, and I think sometimes try to keep track of everyone's birthday and making them feel special and the birthday can be overwhelming. Family health issues is always hard to deal with.

I am at my church for at least three services a week.

Sometimes more, and it's just really hard to keep up with that and life. What I find overwhelming deadlines. It seems as soon as I finish one and try to take a breather got another one. Well, maybe you can relate to those comments that we all have overwhelming days. How do you cope with those today on Focus on the Family were going to look at some of the common reason for the stress and pressures we all face and shift our focus to God's truth instead. Thanks for joining us today your hostess focus presidency and Dr. Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller, John something that we try to provide families every week on this program is perspective, especially in the parenting category because you can get down into the nitty-gritty and forget what it's gonna look like 30 years from now, hopefully very different than picking up crumbs off the table right God has a plan and purpose for your marriage. Certainly, but he also has a plan to accomplish things through your children and I guess the question is have you ever stopped to think about that. What does God want to do for my kids and was my responsibility and raising them in such a way that God can use them for his goodness and his glory at the fact is that family life is crazy busy right we all have these demands upon us and challenges and as a result, life becomes overwhelming. Pretty much all the time and today were going to talk to an expert who has so many great stories of her own, which is far better than using our story. I think you are going to touch on this idea of how to kind of de-clutter our lives is probably a good way to talk about yet in KY my is an author or speaker, blogger, video podcast or she's written a number of books about life in the context of family she's been here before. Probably her leaving credential is. She's the mom to five kids is good today welcome to focus thinking back, and I had to laugh about the birthdays because we do have five kids and me. Some of the mess overwhelming them. It's When I have to fill out forms for them and I cannot remember their birthdays and I'm not exactly sure if I did I find one of them out for camp when you're using her brother's birthday that went down real well to become a great title, not the boss of us know this sounds like it's coming right from the kids union they got together and said mom you're not the boss of reclaiming with this to my kids all the time, believe it or not, because they walk into the situations that are stressful because it's stressful and overwhelming. Just about the stuff we have going on that for the kids.

It's so stressful and overwhelming. Just without the pressures that's upon them and they live it in the time their little bitty and am I'm embarrassed my children with that statement. I yelled that one of them as he was getting out of the car and going into his freshman year in high school he was changing schools he'd Artie tried out like kind of gone for the cross country team. He didn't really like it was too competitive episode like Goldilocks competitive he gets to the soccer and there's a yelling coach and I'm liking the cuts might just like yelling, so it doesn't have anything to do with you just to scout out that you nine S. keep getting out of the car. There's people everywhere he knows now when I rolled the window down and I like tonight – Matt and I was like priest and I drove away I really have told them from the get go.

These pressures, the circumstances that is saying to you you have to do or be. In order to be okay. That's not the boss of you and I go in and tell them what is the boss of me. Not quite as embarrassing as your child. Yes, that's up from sure what it was in front of everybody in the retainer.

I hope that you are once more mom to another funny story about school. I love your school stores, but not a lot, but you drop off zone at school and what happened like we really do bring light out hi there, all you kids playing and as is often the case trash is flying out with them harassing trash like McDonald's wrappers and things like that and I'm cringing. I like to show this sweet teacher is fly running after the wrapper as it's floating around in the sky and I just like run with it to speak and that was just the beginning of a day that was overwhelming because from from there.

I pick up a kid from school and taken to get his haircut because he needed a haircut and unbeknownst to me as the person is cutting his hair. She comes over to me and says is I'm sending Bailey's people I can't cut his hair. Michael why not because he has lice and I like because what and because he has lice and so here's this little kid shamed and other mothers are Tina Dave Booth clearly away for next to me and it was our first time is our fifth kid was our first time to go through life. So we had public shaming both in the carpool line and not the haircut place and I leave there seriously is all in one day, I get a notice from the bank that somebody is having a high time on the hog at the dart station with my credit card because my car actually quite possibly had been broken into at the school parking lot, but I didn't know because sometimes I leave the door open. I just never know.

You know, running in and out answering if someone had not my purse and so I got all this going on and one day in the same day, but thankfully as you pull back and breathe because you really could that could sink a person, or you can just fight to find your solid ground and so rather than you know crater in the moment, I get it I can like is there any way to stop this and a very nice person help me walk through stopped all the charges we lived through the lies. I'm sure we made whoever was behind us in the carpool line feel really great about themselves because at least trash was applying out of their car and so here we sit in the moment not be overwhelmed by these things which really can't tank a person heading to the place where like to live through this, we can get through this. Let's, for those of okay overwhelmed by feel overwhelmed at times. What's the definition of overwhelmed well overwhelmed feels a certain way, like you actually feel heaviness come upon you, and it can come in all sorts of fashions like it could even come with the text. If you had attacks coming from someone that you had a strained relationship that can overwhelm you and calendar can overwhelming.

One of the silver linings I think of this environment that we been in over the last years we've had a lot of stuff pulled off of our calendars to the busyness part has exited for in in a lot of circumstances and it's like one of those things as we move back into being up to fill our calendars. May we be reminded of how number one we survived without everything on it, and number two, we still can live balanced because the hard part is is overwhelmed tempts you to be unbalanced in whatever area you're being overwhelmed by something. What I would think people are overwhelmed with different levels know some people can take a lot have broad shoulders, so we say so, how does it relate to our ability or temperament does overwhelmed this play in the door.

I find this things that I think it's worth being honest about where you allow yourself to take on feelings that may not necessarily need to be taken on and we are so used to it, especially United States. The intensity, I think, and we love the intensity and so were accustomed to these feelings of always having to measure up always having to do in order to be always having to you know strive with the enough category where I've got to keep going and being doing more and more and more, and then it brings with it overwhelmed whether or not we want to call it that or not. And so as we sat in the middle of all this and you know usually these books come off of me as her mom being frustrated with something that stealing from the people that I care about my friends and my kids and I sat there going if I can be overwhelmed, why not, why not reframe it and do it for good, because why aren't we overwhelmed by truth instead because we usually put that on a back burner, so to speak. Our arc maybe we categorize it and put it in a box one place but it can inform all of this stuff and such highlight why not lead with being overwhelmed by truth instead of letting the other take the lead and that's were in the Westborough program were talked a lot about that you had a story about a pivotal moment in your life, you had an eating disorder what happened and what did you learn through the okay so one of those things. It's a pressure on that I felt to have to look a certain way in order to be okay and maybe it was pressures from all over because I decided it's these coping strategies that we use to deal with pressures for me. I chose food and so I chose to control the feelings that I had by controlling my food and to the point where I actually needed help and I recognize that one day in college going. This is stealing from me. I can't do this anymore. I'm not living healthily and so I exited and got at full-time help and when I came back out of that a friend of mine saw me and she's like me.

That must've been really hard and because they controlled everything. They literally controlled everything to help me be able to grow in my soul to be able to walk life and the first thing she said to him, he was cash. You can finally start eating how you want because you know your pants look a little tight and I was like it's going to do seriously just say that like I chip I had no response, and thankfully the Lord moved my thoughts to something that is been so freeing to me because as I stood there I thought I have a couple choices I can exit, and not have this relationship be a part of my life which I did not want to do or I can recognize the fact that the situations are going to change.

I have to change how I function in them and and I was like I can't change how I function in these situations because if I go to truth that I'm in with the truth and for me so that I can walk and wholeness in any situation rather than the situation owning me and Think it's important to get some more stories here, but I think it's important God whirs God in the struggle that you had with being overwhelmed. I don't know that overwhelmed is a word you see in Scripture what comes out in different way. You know, being joyless when one probably but what about society actually comes anxiety pervasive through Scripture.

Even the performance pressures in Scripture. The New Testament Jesus spent so much time with the Pharisees who absolutely are dying underperformance pressures that were short yeah and so he addresses it head on, and he addresses it with the greatest words you are mine.

I see you you are know you belong. I know your name. I mean one thing and every hair on your head every here and every tear thought about every tear, because if you grab in a coping strategy or in any situation I can have a kid walking into the new high school crying because they're not sure who there to sit with at the cafeteria.

You know it's like every tear.

No clue how many tears you've cried because they tend to be in a stream and so you can count our tears and yet it is not important to God to be able to know every single hair and every single tear. You know in that category of heaviness we were teenagers or current mood depression and suicide rates are skyrocketing that you had a situation I think with one of your daughters between friends explain what happened in how you and your family cope with well it was just hard to think that even as they were 14 and undeniably. It was the pressures that way down on this very amazing young lady who just one afternoon decided she couldn't take it anymore and she was one of those kids that was had bought the language that you really do have to be good at everything, so she was a phenomenal student.

She was a phenomenal and the orchestra playing.

She was phenomenal. Every club that she joined his ship to join every club because if you don't join the clubs and how you thought your resume when you get out of school to be able to get into college because she believed she believed every AP course.

No matter whether she was gifted in math or English because people are gifted him but this intense pressure to have to be everything it one and it just was a terrible day. That day, and I'm soon to be honest with you when you walk along someone that has done that it impacts the people that live it for very long time and it made me see how mad it still the main sorry it is just so wrong it still a lot, and it doesn't get to steal and I thought if she knew really knew that she didn't have to be all those things are do all those things if she knew how much she was loved if she believed how much he was loved now and I would think you know when you see that result from the pressure that overwhelm the cilantro to John 1010 comes to steal, kill, he did and destroy the day. Unfortunately, one, and that that is something is apparent you need to be mindful of, you know, we've got a great resource alive to thrive, to inform parents and teachers and coaches and youth workers. It's absolutely free and you can just come to Focus on the Family. Call us or get on the website and you can download the material because we want to help save as many of those kids in our heart goes out to events that have done. I don't know if there's anyone that hasn't been touched by I was thinking about that before coming here is any, does anybody live unscathed by it and suchlike please let's not be afraid. Please let's because one of the most important things is talk and I sat by these girls that walked alongside her each one of them thinking.

Was it my fault that I not say something to me got branching and it was like if only she had said, and then the tables turn to. We have to say. It's like you've got to talk about these taboo subjects not in fear, but in strength and I think the strength comes from being overwhelmed by the truth of God. But it's really good. Appreciate your continual drive back to the Scriptures and as Jim mentioned, we have our curriculum or help online for you to better understand teen suicide and the coping mechanisms we've got a lot for you at the website gets in the show notes or call 800 the letter a in the word family and be sure to when you get in touch ask about his book, not the boss of us putting overwhelmed in its place in a do all be your world. It's a terrific resource. Okay let me ask you when it comes to this idea performance in the book you mention performance mindset versus purpose to explain the difference and why it's so important for us as parents to pursue purpose orientation to how we teach our kids how to live rather than performance. That seems like one invites wholeness and the other invites a lot of striping yet and how does that work practically bushes take a child who struggling in your sale okay man, you get the or maybe enough.

Can we do better you get the homework done that's communicating performance I know but yeah world bright because you live in the world and the nuts. I said this admonition live in the world but nobody of the world. Okay. And so I think that's the difference of the performance pressures are absolutely intense here because everyone's looking and grading even when you come home from the hospital with the baby. You come home with the chart you now and save to fill out.

Did you have to do that babies born to those of 190 my word is truth dragging you're getting a number from the get-go, and so there's nothing wrong with the number I rail if you're letting the number somehow define you or inform your identity. It's there's just a problem because the numbers always change with my kids that you know we've got five.

Let's just use the SAT scoring mechanism as an example because in my small time engaging with the lovely entrance exams. The SAT has changed three times the scoring mechanism has disappeared because, like this year.

I am a senior.

We both had seniors you even have to have an entrance exam to get in the college this year for the kid.

That's not good at math. The kid is not trying.

So that's one thing the kids not gifted in math, which actually could be the case and that's okay everybody doesn't have to be everything right now.

Mathematics is celebrated as is computer science things in that genre because that's where the jobs are not the jobs you know – look at the centuries that involves the phenomenal artist like Mozart or you know any time that you had painting artists we had Monet and you had cost so they were not really know struggling with English because it wasn't even that same mechanism of education and so education in and of itself is slightly man-made, which is fine and we live in it. But if we let it onus there's a problem because we in it owning us.

I'm saying that my identity as an honor student or my identity as a failed student has determined my worth, sure, and therein lies the problem. All right, so switching it to purpose which goes with your giftedness changes the trajectory completely and allows you to live in these performance areas. Holy because everything a person is uniquely created. Every person I find this phenomenon.

We were talking about how science proves Scripture, will it does in this case to because now that they know more about the genome. There realizing that people actually really are completely different with unique gifting's right, which is fascinating and suchlike find out what your unique gifting and purposes because you're actually happiest when you're doing that, and then celebrate it and move your kids towards that and even as you did you figure out your own gifting and purposes, which likely we all sort of shark that are maybe we were lucky and landed in the career like you two gentlemen have because yourself fun have to go if you didn't get to talk like that with your gift of making people feel great and it's like what if you are stuck in a cubicle never able to speak to anybody.

What a shame go crazy.

Sure, let me ask you say. So let's get in the lane of where our wheelhouse and giftedness because it is woven within you, and it really is a part of the Lord himself that he is put in you only get to heaven want to be celebrating when I be comparing and will be relishing each of the gifted, each one of us has because will actually learn a little bit more about the Lord by celebrating in this gas. Finding those drinks can really leave you there pressure we feel a sense of being overwhelmed, yet it puts it in its place.

You know the probably one of the biggest issues for teen girls is appearance and beauty push for the boys have a two – a lot of acne you want to grab you know you want to work out and look good so it does affect both boys and girls and recognize that in its inner one of the most overwhelming messages for young people to you dealt with this during a shopping trip with the daughter is so good.

Your story is the swimsuit you can't make it that in that shopping day so happy you like the summer is coming and is likely by the Nordstrom rack, so we went and we were like this is some other swimsuit since they start looking and I to girls which I should've known was a problem to begin with because I started watching the air being sucked out of there pretty quickly. As one is in one size and the other is in another size which is a problem right then and there, and so they pick their swimsuits and then we go to the back and these terrible dressing rooms that have fluorescent light seen out of course of a three-way mirror that makes anybody look terrible and they start to try on their swimsuits and it was amazing how they couldn't stop looking at each other and going. I wish I look like her and the other one is saying. I wish I looked like her, which was fascinating to me because they were born with different body types like one has even blonde hair, blue eyes, the other has brown hair and brown eyes. And I mean they're just different, and I watched their psyches completely tank in this dressing room, and I like the others had done innocent by that point, I don't put up with this stuff anymore I if it's stealing were added there and so we let weeds doing what stealing their joy it was stealing their joy and nothing is worth that it just isn't and will come back I will talk about it and go back. Hold you know, because that's a great opportunity in any way shape or form. When you see your kid tanking get to the why what's going on because I want to know what you're thinking because nine times out of 10 you're thinking something not right about you.

So if we went into it with the whole mindset. This is a gift that's been given to me. I'd like to steward it well rather than I have to sculpt this so that I look okay next to everybody else. One can give you life the others going to steal from you. As we were checking out of the it you know of the swimsuit store and there was a little baby in front of us in this little tiny little cart and I look at the girls and I'm seen a going baby has no idea what size diaper has on you know if you're happy because a baby isn't contending going online before I'm horrible.

You know it's like a copy. I would put our youngest one when he was little and a size 6 and he could wear it all day like like night and then it worked.

It was a great guy. And so he wasn't down on himself as he was wearing a six diaper and I looked at them and I was like, please do the same thing. Don't let a size run number mess you up. Let's go to the place where we can be surrendered to the Lord's goodness and his definition of beauty because his definition about us in Ephesians 210 is that we are a masterpiece. He uses the Greek word is Pulliam, which is the and it's something that's one-of-a-kind and its beauty is so far surpassing and it's my kids are like them. On my way now. They get so sick and you can get through because another part of the Bible. Samuel says that the words don't fall to the ground and I'm sort of like those take root there getting so much other stuff, why not put truth on because the truth words don't fall to the ground and I not see when it starts to sprout that they're not my words, those aren't my words back to this is been so good I want to come back continue the discussion even deeper and has more fun with your stories. I got mine. What a great concept, not the boss of us and it really is to relax a little and live this life in such a way that honors the Lord and those around by loving them. Well not being stressed out or overwhelmed with everything coming out us. I think that fits like you said earlier so much of the Scriptures so obvious when you read it. That's what the Lord is saying to us. My yoke is easy, this is that which doesn't sound right because it is I know it's everything's chaotic and yet he brings peace and that's really our bottom one message giving you godly hope right where you are today.

That's what Focus on the Family exists to do to give real hope to real families. If you're feeling overwhelmed. There are several things you can do one is to call us. We have caring Christian counselors who can encourage you to pray with you and point you in a better direction for your family. We also have an extensive counselor referral network. I'm sure we know somebody in the network who's near you and can provide ongoing help and of course we have Katie's great book, not the boss of bosses. Other such good content in here and I want to put a copy into your hands when you send a gift of any amount Focus on the Family to be part of the ministry will send it right out to you as our way of saying thank you for being a part of our family building team and that's how we can do ministry together with your generous support in order to bundle casebook with CD of our conversation today, and next time as well that what you can listen together pass it on to a friend might be feeling overwhelmed contact us. Let us know how we can help. Donate. As you can.

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That was great for the next time think survey with thanks so much for heavenly and on behalf of Jim Daly, and the entire team. Thanks for joining us today on John Fuller inviting you back. As we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.

So please family was not in a good place. She was failing as a wife and mother, but her rest was the last strong chain now in my thankfully silk you became a follower of Christ in her jail cell, and soon she was discovering how to restore her marriage and family, with our help family whole because they never give up the pain you being there for a family, never give up on helping on Jim Daly.

Working together we can rescue and strengthen more families like silk count on your support gift today focusonthefamily.com/real family