Podcast Episode 369: Breaking the Overthinking Cycle: From Anxiety Spiral to Present Parenting Transcripts

Please note: Transcripts for the No Guilt Mom Podcast were created using AI. As a result, there may be some minor errors.

Brie Tucker (00:01)

Part of that overthinking, I think is also sometimes that mental load, right? Mental load can be in a lot of things, but I think that overthinking causes you to carry a very heavy mental load as well.

JoAnn Crohn (00:16)

Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast. I’m your host Joanne Crone joined here with the brilliant Brie Tucker.

Brie Tucker (00:24)

Why hello, hello, everybody. How are you? You know what? People, the tables have turned today. They have turned. Joanne is fighting a migraine on this episode and Brie is not.

JoAnn Crohn (00:36)

Well, it is the tables have turned.

Brie Tucker (00:38)

Yeah, in all fairness, had four last week, so.

JoAnn Crohn (00:42)

I think they’re like period induced migraines that I’m getting the hormonal ones because I thought I’m like at the end of my period and I Yeah, it’s not great. It’s not great whatsoever But today we’re talking about overthinking Brie.

Brie Tucker (01:00)

This is Bree’s special superpower. I could do this so well.

JoAnn Crohn (01:06)

It’s Brie who is always on step 20, she says, but you acknowledge it. You’re like, is this a step 20 thought? Everyone’s like, yeah, this is a step 20 thought.

Brie Tucker (01:14)

And step 20 is actually like, it’s actually helpful. We’ll talk about that later in the episode. It does do something for me saying step 20.

JoAnn Crohn (01:23)

Saying it’s funny. Yeah. So we’re doing this because in our balance program, everybody completes a little questionnaire when they come into balance so that we know that we’re best helping everybody in there. And so we saw a lot of comments in there about this overthinking. In fact, one which you may identify with how to stop overthinking and just be present for myself and my kids. I mean, instead of living in future land, right, Bree? Because I live in future land.

Brie Tucker (01:49)

Yes. And I would also say part of that overthinking, I think is also sometimes that mental load, right? Right. Yeah. Mental load can mean a lot of things, but I think that overthinking causes you to carry a very heavy mental load as well right now. So.

JoAnn Crohn (01:56)

Yeah, all the things we have to do.

Yep.

And we are going to cover in this episode actual strategies beyond just relax.

Brie Tucker (02:15)

ain’t gonna cut it guys I’ve been trying that for years

JoAnn Crohn (02:18)

I like to say telling moms just to relax is telling something on fire to be less flammable. It’s just not working. It doesn’t tackle the real problem, which is all of this stuff that we have on our minds. So stick with us. It’s going to be a fun episode, even though it’s all going to be filled with anxiety in a fun way.

Brie Tucker (02:39)

We have solutions to the anxiety. So yes, it is an excellent episode.

JoAnn Crohn (02:43)

Exactly. Let’s get on with the show.

You want mom life to be easier. That’s our goal too. Our mission is to raise more self-sufficient and independent kids, and we’re going to have fun doing it. We’re going to help you delegate and step back. Each episode, we’ll tackle strategies for positive discipline, making our kids more responsible and making our lives better in the process. Welcome to the No Guilt Mom podcast.

So we have this perfect storm. First of all, information overload, breaking news every 10 minutes. I don’t think they know what breaking news means anymore, Breaking news used to be something like important, but now it’s like, is it new? It’s breaking.

Brie Tucker (03:38)

Like now it’s like, just kind of glance. Okay. So I’m in this endless infinity loop. I swear where I sign up for the news notifications and then they’re all not breaking news. So then I get rid of them, but then something big happens and like I hear from other people and I’m like, how did I miss that? cause I didn’t have my breaking news notifications. So then I turn them back on and then it just, never, it never ends. And like you said, I don’t care.

about most of the breaking news. I can’t live in a state of fight or flight 24 seven. Like, I feel like it’s kind of creating.

JoAnn Crohn (04:13)

Yeah, it is crazy. I can’t live in that state either. And like social media comparison, I have to turn off my Instagram and Facebook because every time the ads are attacking me and telling me how somebody is doing something better than me and ho hum, you’re a failure Joanne. Like that’s how I read it.

Brie Tucker (04:31)

my gosh, okay, so I turn off my Facebook and Instagram notifications. I only see them when I go in, but I will say Instagram knows how to get my shopping addiction going. You know. Little things all the time.

JoAnn Crohn (04:43)

They know how to do it.

I swear like our moms did not have to worry this much. They’re not concerned about their kids’ optimal growth development. Like just the other day I was at coffee and I heard some moms talking about if the courses at their kids’ elementary school were challenging enough for kids. And I’m like, they’re in elementary school guys.

Brie Tucker (04:51)

No. Be careful.

JoAnn Crohn (05:09)

They need to play and they need to have fun and it’s more about like their relationships at that point in time than if they’re getting two grade level above math. Let’s give the kids a break and not worry about that so much.

Brie Tucker (05:24)

Yep, there was a time when our parents only worried about whether or not Tang had enough vitamins. And now we’re sitting here going like, my God, is that too much blue light? At what time do I need to cut it off for my child? like, it’s, it’s everything. It’s everything nowadays.

JoAnn Crohn (05:40)

Well, my husband and I want to like go back to like stranger things parenting. That’s how we want to parent our kids where we don’t even know where they are because they’re roaming the neighborhood somewhere.

Brie Tucker (05:50)

from the underworld and like so on and so forth.

JoAnn Crohn (05:54)

Hopefully they’re safe from the upside down for sure. But I mean, you get those worries that prevent, first of all, your kids from living a great life and from you from living a great life. I’ve talked about this before in the podcast, but like this driving thing is completely wrecking me. My daughter can just leave whenever she wants to leave and she frequently forgets to tell me when and where. And so like I’m looking around the house and then I pull up Live 360 and she’s like three miles down the road and I’m like, great, okay, cool.

And I’m staying up late because I’m worried that she’ll get into some like kind of crash. I wouldn’t have been up to like help everybody with it. It’s just anxiety central. And then it’s like, am I worrying too much about it, Bree? But then, but then Bree, then she comes in and she’s in her talking mode and she’s like, oh my gosh, I almost wrecked my car this weekend. This guy came out of nowhere. He was a bit of a ghost.

Brie Tucker (06:53)

Okay. Advice to any teens that are listening while their parents are listening to this episode. Don’t do that to us. Don’t. Just don’t. We don’t need to know about how you had a brush with death. It would not have helped my parents if I told them about the time that I played chicken in my car and almost, almost took out a minivan when I was 16. my gosh. No, no, nobody needs it. I still get chills thinking about that. Nobody needed to know that.

JoAnn Crohn (07:21)

It was not eaten.

Brie Tucker (07:23)

Is that, you know, you’re talking about the whole thing with, know, you’re struggling with your oldest starting to drive. And I just had a similar issue happen too, with my anxiety over thinking the other day, my son came home and was like, Hey, can I go out with friends on Friday night? And I’m like, yeah, sure. Where do you want to go? Who are you going to see that? he went through the whole list. And then he said, can we talk about my curfew though? And I just like turned and looked at him and I’m like, it’s Friday night. Your curfew is midnight.

Why does that matter? And he’s like, well, can I stay out later? Nobody has a curfew. I was like, no, no, you can’t. And then my husband chimes in and it’s like, well, he is 18, Bri. And I’m like, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. I’m still stuck on the like, you don’t go out past that time. That is a decent time. Midnight is a great time. And then they all, my daughter, my son, and my husband all started ganging up on me. Well.

What exactly do you think is going to happen at 11:59 PM or 12:01 AM? That’s not going to happen at 8:25 PM. And I’m like, shush. Okay, good point. Good point. But I was convinced he stays out past midnight. Like all hell’s going to go.

JoAnn Crohn (08:37)

Because that’s how our brains work. mean, that’s how we were taught to think too by our parents’ parenting and by like the news. It’s 10 PM. Do you know where your children are? Like, I think we talked about this before. We did. Yes. That’s a whole-

Brie Tucker (08:54)

whole different lifestyle that we’re not even fortunate enough to be anywhere near anymore. Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (09:00)

think it’s so unfortunate that they all gagged up on you because you must have felt very alone in that period of time. I thought-

Brie Tucker (09:07)

Okay, you guys have a valid point, but I’m still scared. Like that’s where I ended the car. And you know what? He went out. He worked out with my husband to have a 130 curfew to come back home by. And I ended up being up anyways, cause I had drank at a Dr. Pepper too late in the afternoon and I couldn’t sleep. Caffeine and over 40 sucks.

JoAnn Crohn (09:27)

Bye. Yeah, mean, didn’t help when kids are out that late either. When you think about all the things that we are worried about and all the reactions we’ve had, I feel bad about it. I feel bad as a mom for having these reactions and for maybe making things too big of a deal. But I’m also like, am I really making things too big a deal or is that just something they tell women to keep them small? it’s it’s a figuring that out is

JoAnn Crohn (10:01)

Difficult so right after this we’re going to go into the science behind the madness and what your brain is doing when it is overthinking So stay tuned

So let’s talk about the brain on overthinking, because this is a concept that we talk about a lot here in No-Guilt Momland, especially with all our lolas and balance. We talk about these pathways, neural pathways that the brain creates when we have the same thought over and over again.

And when we’re overthinking, we are treating our brain as kind of like an overzealous security guard who treats a kid’s dirty sock like an explosive device being like, we got a live one here, ⁓ my gosh. I can’t believe.

Brie Tucker (10:43)

I can relate to that. could think of a time or two. It wasn’t a sock. ⁓ I lost my schiznit over a tank top yesterday. So yes, a tank top. My tank top was taken out of dryer before it was done. And I lost my schiznit. All of a sudden I jumped into, I’m completely disrespected in my home. My kids don’t care about anything. And now I have nothing to wear to the concert that I am literally walking out the door to.

JoAnn Crohn (10:55)

How was that?

That’s a big job.

Brie Tucker (11:14)

loves me and that’s what I got from a wet tape.

JoAnn Crohn (11:20)

That’s a huge jump and it’s something though that your brain does automatically. Like if you’re thinking in terms of overthinking, it’s basically building a water slide to anxiety land in your brain and your thoughts are like, whee! Let’s this again.

Brie Tucker (11:33)

They are! They are!

JoAnn Crohn (11:35)

And when you think about the impacts of overthinking on presence too, you’re just basically immediately jump to my family doesn’t love me. I can’t have the right outfits that you might not notice this other wonderful thing that your family has done for you because the brain hops on the anxiety waterslide. And I’m guilty of it as well. I’m totally guilty of it as well. I will go into my little holes and be like,

Nobody loves or appreciates me. I compliment everybody else, but nobody says anything. Like I just take one moment in time, by the way. I’m like in one 30 minute slot. I’m like, everyone’s telling me what I did wrong. ⁓ that’s my little overthinking waterslide going there.

Brie Tucker (12:21)

It happens to the best of us. We know that. And it’s really taxing. It’s really difficult sometimes.

JoAnn Crohn (12:28)

It is but it’s also the old advice doesn’t work because you hear about this so much where it’s like, ⁓ you’re overthinking and you’re worrying about all these things and you’re not taking advantage or being present in the moment. And somebody could tell me that all day and I’ll still be like, yeah, I still can’t stop it though.

Brie Tucker (12:45)

Yeah, so thank you for pointing out another thing that I am doing wrong. I appreciate that.

JoAnn Crohn (12:50)

Just knowing that you shouldn’t be overthinking isn’t the way to stop overthinking. It’s not.

Brie Tucker (12:58)

If it were that easy, would all be, nobody would be on meds. Nobody would be in therapy. We’d all be like just.

JoAnn Crohn (13:06)

No, let’s talk about that meds thing though, because it’s like, you could go through, and I went through this thought process too. I’m like, I’m trying to do all the things. It must just be me. I’m trying not to get into the overthinking traps. I know that this is just a neural pathway that my brain has created and I’m jumping from one thing to another. Or I’ve tried all the calm down strategies. I’ve tried meditating and it’s just not working. The fault must be on me.

And I was bringing up all of this to my psychiatrist and she’s like, well, what if we could just give you something and you wouldn’t have those thoughts anymore? And I’m like, okay, sign me up. Because you try so much and in our society, it’s very resistance against drugs right now, especially with the whole, you’ve heard of the Maha movement, right? The Make America Healthy Again with the devil incarnate, I’m sorry, his not, ⁓ RFK Jr.

It’s a joke guys. It’s a joke. It’s a joke. It’s a joke. It’s a joke. But all of this is to say that personally, my anxiety medication has made such a difference in my life. I was able then once I got on anxiety med, all this stuff that we’re talking about here, overthinking.

JoAnn Crohn (14:33)

and creating new neural pathways, I was finally able to do it where I had not been successful before. Public service announcement, if you are resistant just now, they’ve been a wonder of good for me. So I just want to take that stigma away from it. We have some overthinking traps and some more tools for you to go use over on our YouTube channel. If you want to DM me at NoGuiltMom, the word anxiety, I can send you a quick link to that.

So go and look at that stuff. But I want to get into some practices that we can put into place right now that will help us with these anxiety loops. And the first one is curiosity, replacing the judgment with genuine curiosity.

Brie Tucker (15:18)

Okay, can I just say I love that and every time I hear about being curious, all I can think about is that scene from Ted Lasso where he’s playing darts with Rebecca’s ex-husband and he’s like, you know, I mean, people been misjudging, people have been judging me my whole life and think, had you just come in here and been a little curious and been like, hey Ted, did ever play darts before? I’d be like, every Sunday until the day I turned 16.

And that always makes me think about that. If we immediately assume we know the situation and we’re already judging it up, we’re already sizing it up, we’re already coming up with the problems and the solutions before we even ask what’s really going on. Yeah, that sets us up for an anxiety overthinking loop because we think we have the facts and we don’t have any facts.

JoAnn Crohn (16:10)

Even the facts about ourselves, how we react that way. Just thinking with curiosity, for example, Brie, like, I wonder why you reacted that way to your tank top from seeing the tank top out of the dryer and then being able to immediately jump to no one respects you.

Brie Tucker (16:25)

You know, that is a good point. Yeah, I’ve been on that thought process lately. And every time I bring it up, there’s always an answer that does not involve me not being respected. Every time I have been incorrect in my assumptions, yet I keep getting stuck in that loop. And when I say keep, mean like in the last two weeks, that’s been a recurrent theme around my house.

JoAnn Crohn (16:36)

Yeah So something like I have been so interested in lately is this inner child work. And I thought inner child was so woo, like so woo before until I finally realized what it meant. It just means like when we have those anxiety meltdowns, something is triggering us. And it’s probably something that triggered that happened to us when we were kids or how we reacted in a situation as a child. And we weren’t able to protect ourselves from it. So like,

each time we have those really insane reactions, it’s our inner child fighting for attention and wanting to be heard. The one thing that I keep going back to and that sends me in anxiety loops is this whole, one appreciates me or the work I do kind of thing. That I think is very typical for moms. So I think a lot of moms think that way.

Brie Tucker (17:41)

say that the next door neighbor of mine not being respected. They think mom can just mom will take care of everything. So I don’t need to worry about it..

JoAnn Crohn (17:49)

Yeah, mine I feel is more on a personal loop. Like nobody appreciates me as a person, a kind person. No one sees me as a kind person. No, but I mean, it’s something that definitely got me as a kid. And I think when you do the inner child stuff, you’re basically asking yourself the question, when was the first time that you can remember feeling this way? No one liked you, no one respected you. And I could feel it. I mean, I thought first when I started this,

topic with you. thought I was going to talk about middle school with getting bullied and being excluded. But it was actually when my sister was born. I was seven years old. And everybody was saying, my gosh, she’s so cute. my gosh, she’s so amazing. And I felt like a little jaded as an older sister. felt no one cared about me anymore. No one thought I was cute. And my little sister laid on top of the couch, not like on the pillows, but on the upper part where you’re supposed to lean against and she was laying there.

And I decided I was going to lay there as well, but I was much too big for the space. did not look nearly as cute as her, but like my parents thought it was so hilarious. They’re like, look, there’s Joanne wanting attention. And I mean, just me saying that hurts me in my soul. Cause I’m like, I have always constantly just wanted attention.

Because I mean, that was the child that was the child. So I mean, if you’re listening to this right now and you have a big reaction to something, think back to when you first had a reaction like that. And it’s not something to just fix. It’s something to let your child be hurt. How were they feeling at that time? For me, it was nobody loves me. Everybody loves her. Everybody’s paying attention to her. And I’m like worthless.

It’s basically what my child was saying.

Brie Tucker (19:40)

Aww, that’s hard.

JoAnn Crohn (19:42)

But it’s important to get those things out to know where they come from and to know that they don’t have any bearing in the present right now. Yeah.

Brie Tucker (19:50)

Yeah, mine is like, and I think that’s probably why I’m dealing with the whole respect thing. Cause mine is that my story that I, and I learned this from when I became a certified positive discipline instructor. I only matter when I am helping others be happy. And so if somebody else around me is not happy or is upset or has shown disdain for me.

I go into a spiral that I’m not belonging because I’m not fulfilling my role in this world and my role in this world is make other people happy. We both know, like that’s not true. Nobody ever said that to me. I mean, I know why I had that role. was the third, I was the baby in my family and it’s common for the youngest to feel like it’s our job to make everybody else happy in the family. 

JoAnn Crohn (20:39)

relates to your inner your child how I got that information as a kid.

Brie Tucker (20:44)

Yeah, yeah. So like I definitely still carry that through with things. And so yeah, when I struggle with making to living up to somebody’s expectations, at least the way I perceive it, then I struggle with my self worth and all of that. So yeah, and that Bob, that little son of a gun Bob is a real jerk. Bob, for those that don’t know that voice in your head that tells you lying sacks of crap. ⁓

JoAnn Crohn (21:08)

Yeah, but they all come from somewhere and knowing that is so important because it stops you from being that immediate reaction to being like, ⁓ this is bringing up my feelings of inadequacy or unlovableness and those feelings that I started when I was a kid. And our members in our balance, our lolas, Alyssa actually has a Bob side in her room.

that says beware of Bob, which is just that voice in your head that’s telling you all those things. And all it means is that just pay attention to that little voice in your head, give it some like space to be free and let all of its thoughts and fears out and you’ll find it has less control over you.

Brie Tucker (21:51)

When you do does it does okay well we have an amazing practice next practice number two and we’ll bring it to you guys right after this.

Okay, guys, I am all excited about practice number two. This one’s Breeze thing, okay? It’s basically where you have to give your anxiety a shot of humor to make it kind of deflate and go away. The title we gave this is Ridiculous Reframe. And I am guilty of this thought all the time. Earlier Joanne mentioned it. If you listen to the podcast, you’ve heard us talk about Breeze, like step 20 thinking. And I use that phrase not only to make

poke some like humor at myself. But it also is almost like that phrase from being hypnotized that brings you out of the cycle of thought that you’re in. Because I catch myself catastrophizing things all the freaking time. And I have to like acknowledge that it’s going a little crazy. And I bring some humor back to it to make it better. So like an example would be and this is honestly where some things come from with No Guilt Mom.

If I don’t get my son signed up for band, he’s never gonna develop teamwork skills. He’s never gonna understand responsibility, which means he’ll never be successful in a job. And he’s gonna get fired from every job he ever has. And he’s gonna end up living in my basement. And then I’m gonna still be doing this laundry when I’m 97 freaking years old. All because I sign him up for band.

JoAnn Crohn (23:19)

That’s quite the job. Quite the job.

Brie Tucker (23:21)

I start worrying about step 20 before step one is even done. So yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (23:27)

It’s hard. You’re trying to keep serious.

Brie Tucker (23:31)

and you’re like every time we all know it’s funny I can laugh about it now but when that fear is going on in your head rent free and you haven’t said it out loud it seems real it.

JoAnn Crohn (23:43)

It’s like you do have to say it out loud. There’s a trend here. There’s a trend with taking what your brain is telling you and saying it out loud to reduce the impact that it has on you. And I think that’s definitely what you could do with the ridiculous reframe. I don’t know if it helps you with the ridiculous reframe because everything when I’m in that state of fear, anything is possible. ⁓

Brie Tucker (24:09)

you say it, you’re able to like, I think the other thing too, is there’s certain people I go to to say it to. You and Miguel are definitely two of my like first go-tos because the two of you are very good at being like, and we know we’re a little bit out on the ledge there, right, Bri? And I’m like, yeah, we are, we are. And then I’ll start joking about the rest of it. And then I can kind of walk away the anxiety lessons when I can laugh about it.

JoAnn Crohn (24:35)

Yes, definitely. Definitely. All of my anxiety is about people dying or getting sick and dying. So I can’t think of a way to make that ridiculous ever. Like, I don’t know how the ridiculous reframe would work in my anxiety mind and overthinking. It’s like, and then everyone on the earth will die. Oh, duh.

Brie Tucker (24:55)

kind of hard to come back from. I was just going to be like how you know have a cough and then all of a sudden it’s like damn it I have lung cancer. I’ve never smoked a day in my life. I’m not around smokers. I don’t have any history of lung issues but I have cancer because I coughed.

JoAnn Crohn (25:08)

This one person who got lung cancer, who had never had any of those. See, I can always rationalize it. This is a bad, don’t tell me if you ever have a health issue. Obviously, no, I can take you down for health issues, but my health issues are always death and cancer.

Brie Tucker (25:25)

Well, I was gonna say, child, I have a deep rooted fear. You want to hear this one? Okay, I have to give audience you guys are gonna love this. Okay. So when I was in my teens, I would occasionally babysit for my mom’s co workers. One of them I absolutely loved her name was Faith. And they would get headaches. One night they had a really bad headache, ended up having an aneurysm and die.

JoAnn Crohn (25:53)

my god.

Brie Tucker (25:54)

She died in her thirties. It was awful. And it was awful for me because I’m like, I know somebody. I know that family so well, cause I would babysit for them and everything. And they didn’t even find her till the next morning because she was on her way to the bathroom. Cause she thought she was going to throw up. And then she ended up having her aneurysm and falling down right next to the bathtub. And again, cause it was the of the night. ⁓ God bless her. God bless her family. They’ve all.

have lived a great life, yes, and healed from this tragedy. But like I told you, I get migraines. When I get really bad migraines in the middle of the night, one of the things about my migraines is I get really hot. I will still put on clothing because I am terrified I’m going to drop dead of an aneurysm and I will be found like in my jammies with my butt hanging out or something. I don’t know.

Brie Tucker (26:50)

Yeah, in the middle of the night a blinding pain. I feel like I’m gonna throw up I may have been throwing up and then on top of it all like damn it I gotta put pants on cuz if I die here. I don’t want them to see my butt ⁓ Ambulance comes

JoAnn Crohn (27:04)

That’s kind of a funny thing to put a ridiculous reframe on it. Yes.

Brie Tucker (27:10)

laugh about it and I know it’s highly unlikely it would happen to me. I’ve already lived a longer life than she had but I still still to this day. ⁓

JoAnn Crohn (27:21)

⁓ my my gosh. That’s a hard-

It’s something that happened to you as a kid that affects you like today and makes you act that way. See, there’s a… It does. There’s a pattern here. There’s a pattern. Well, our third practice is writing yourself an actual permission slip for imperfection. this is just giving yourself a pass. Say that, you know what? This has been a hard day and now is the time to take and rest. For example, Friday, very Friday.

I was very, very stressed out trying to handle a lot of different things work wise on Friday. Things not working, my brain going everywhere. And you you have that feeling of your brain going everywhere. Like there’s just so many things that have to tackle at once and you can’t focus on any of them. And so

Brie Tucker (28:07)

It’s even worse when you’re aware of that, right? And I’m like, you’re like, damn it, just focus on this one.

JoAnn Crohn (28:13)

But it’s like, but this thing’s more important, but this thing over here is more like nothing. Exactly. I was like, okay, I’m going to go to Pilates. And you know, I just got a new car. My old car was a Tesla and it was operated by my phone. That’s all I needed to bring with me to operate my car, my phone. This car has keys. And I was driving out of the garage and I’m like, where’s my keys? Like I usually put it right in the middle console and I couldn’t find my keys anywhere.

On that afternoon, my son had biked to school specifically so I could go to this Pilates class because the class was during his release and like I wouldn’t be able to get him. So he had a bike. And so I’m standing there in the middle of the street, almost late for Pilates. And I’m like, I can’t find my keys, but I’m going to go anyways. And I’m thinking here that my car has some kind of defect. Like it’s new and I got the lemon and it’s driving without keys and it’s able to like be stolen.

I pull up to the lobby, like, no, there has to be keys in here. And I think I like look through every little compartment and know there’s no keys. And so I go into class and I’m worrying about these damn keys the entire hour class. And I come back out and I’m afraid my car won’t start because I don’t have freaking idea how this is happening. Thankfully it starts and I drive home and I look again through all of the creases, including the one right between the driver’s seat and the console.

Brie Tucker (29:27)

Jeez, Brie, I have-

JoAnn Crohn (29:39)

Of there’s a little set of keys that fell right there. The driver’s seat and the console. I don’t even remember taking them off the hook. I don’t remember bringing them into the car because of how screwy my brain was at that time. And after that happened on Friday, I’m like, screw it. The new season of You just came on Netflix. We’re not working anymore. Just laying down. ⁓ obviously brain can’t handle life right now.

Brie Tucker (29:42)

There you go!

Yes. And I’m glad you gave yourself the permission slip there. Cause that’s when it’s like, okay, screw it. This day is done. You know what? We’re going to just call it. The game has been called on account of rain. Life has been called on account of rain fog and we’re done. We’re done. Yeah. I can tell you so many stories about cars not starting when you don’t have the key in and what it does. Cause that’s a constant problem with me. I get in my car all the time going to start it. And it’s like,

He is unavailable.

JoAnn Crohn (30:37)

I’m so much. I’m just like, ⁓ yeah, that’s one thing I loved about the Tesla that it was my phone that was key. One less thing to keep track of. It was great. That’s about all I loved about my Tesla. As my husband called it a refrigerator on wheels. So I don’t know. I don’t agree with that. 

Brie Tucker (30:56)

agree with that one either. I mean, so like the point is, is that we hold ourselves up to this standard. And sometimes we should just let ourselves go. We have a balance member, her name starts with a BS as far as I’ll go with it. She talks about how she gets headaches a lot. she gets upset with herself if she can’t get things done because the headaches are slowing her down. Yet she refuses to slow down to let herself rest during these headaches because she feels

life doesn’t stop, I still need to be a parent, I still need to get stuff done. And I’m like, girls, sometimes you can write yourself a slip and be like, it’s okay, it’s okay to acknowledge this is harder right now. Think about the empathy you’re teaching your family members, especially your kids, right, towards others when they’re struggling.

JoAnn Crohn (31:43)

also there’s all this research that goes into pain being caused by refusing to rest as well. And the emotions that are built up inside your body that we haven’t taken care of. I can’t even remember the name of the book. It’s something mind body, but we’ll put a link for you in the show notes. in our Amazon store.

Brie Tucker (31:59)

It is in our Amazon store, but I was gonna say, I also would hate for my kids to feel like they can’t stop when they need to stop. You’re allowed to have a, let’s just call it, this is a bad day and it’s done and we’re gonna go restart it tomorrow.

JoAnn Crohn (32:16)

You’re allowed to have your breaks too. mean, we both kind of let both of our kids take breaks from school. If they’re feeling the mental overload, they can stay home and regroup and try it again the next day. Whereas even right now, I’m reading a book, a thriller novel, where the girl is dealing with this huge scenario and the mom’s like, nope, you’re going to be going to Saturday school if you don’t get yourself to school right now. We need to allow ourselves.

grace for everyone around us as well as ourselves to let ourselves take a break to let ourselves rest instead of overthinking about the worst case scenario that’s going to happen. What do you need in this moment to take care of instead of trying to prevent step 20?

Brie Tucker (33:02)

Yes, exactly. So let’s talk for just, know that we’re getting near the end of the episode. Let’s give some tips on how to implement this, these things with your families, right? Yeah. Cause that’s where it can be tough. The first one, communication is really important to explain to your family, especially your kids. Hey, I need a break right now. Yes.

JoAnn Crohn (33:26)

Absolutely. And one great tip that I have for you all to do that is to go to our YouTube channel and watch the YouTube video. All you have to do is DM me the word anxiety and I’ll send you the link to the video or you can just go to No Guilt Mom’s YouTube channel and watch this with your kids around. You don’t have to sit them down. Just watch with your kids around. We’re talking about some overthinking traps.

And it really will start the conversation about like, Hey, do you ever get into these overthinking traps? Do you ever think about these things? Because when you start making it a conversation and you start using this vocabulary about overthinking with your family, you could all catch yourself doing it.

Brie Tucker (34:07)

Yep. And I think it’s important too, because another thing that I’ve tried and drill into my kids is that they have every right and the same for my husband to call me out when I’m doing this anxious overthinking, because we all know that I have anxiety. I am diagnosed with anxiety. Yes. And trust me, I don’t ever question that diagnosis. But I try to like make sure my family knows like, you can say to me like,

Mom, I think you might be having like an overthinking moment. Yeah. They know that I will take that at face value and I’m not going to sit there and go into the, you don’t respect me because you said I’m overthinking. I know that that’s like kind of my reset. Like, okay, I got to stop and I got to think about this. And it helps sometimes. It really does.

JoAnn Crohn (34:52)

It does. And it helps identify it in your kids too. First, make sure you have it in yourself being like, you know what? I’m really thinking about what could happen. And instead of thinking about what is happening right now, because it’s all about this future fear that gets us all worked up, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Brie Tucker (35:12)

It is, it’s rough. So like it’s important to make sure that we model our thought process with our kids. We tell them about that inner dialogue that’s going on with the things that are appropriate. You know, I don’t have to tell them everything, but the appropriate ones. I don’t tell them about the aneurysm story. I don’t think they know that story.

JoAnn Crohn (35:32)

to myself that was packed in the vault. Just like we told our kids about driving, we don’t need to know your near-death experiences. Yeah. You don’t need to know it. You don’t need to. No, no. It just starts all these things. So remember, those tips we gave you is to become curious about why you’re acting this way, the ridiculous reframe, make it funny, and give yourself just a permission slip. Just opt out. Opt out of the anxiety that day. Give yourself a break and let yourself rest. right? Yeah.

Brie Tucker (36:01)

Yes. Everybody, everybody deserves that for sure. So I want to hear from our listeners, if you want to leave us a rate and review, I would love to hear in that review, whether or not you tried any of these anti overthinking strategies and which ones worked for you this week or which ones you’re going to try, know, or join us in our podcast group and share that. I just want to hear what you thought about.

JoAnn Crohn (36:24)

Yep, let us know. And until next time, remember the best mom’s a happy mom. Take care of you and we’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker (36:31)

Thanks for stopping by.