Podcast Episode 393: Overfunctioning and Over It: Why Doing More Isn’t Helping Transcripts

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

JoAnn Crohn (00:00)

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

Brie Tucker (00:06)

Wah, hello hello buddy, how are you?

JoAnn Crohn (00:09)

So this podcast is for moms who feel overwhelmed, underappreciated and stuck managing everything for their families. We want you to know that you are not alone. And in this podcast episode, we promise that you’re gonna walk away with doable strategies to reclaim your time, your energy and your joy. And in this episode, we’re talking about over-functioning.

JoAnn Crohn (00:36)

\ When I first learned of this term, everything made sense to me in terms of the relationships I’ve seen, such as my parents’ relationships, such as the relationships that have been portrayed on TV of how a mom should act. It was in Dr. Tracy Dalgash’s book. Her book is so interesting and I so want her on. She describes couple counseling and how in relationships there tends to be an overfunctioner and an underfunctioner, and typically the overfunctioner tends to be the woman who is taking care of all the things, making all the plans, setting all the appointments.

Brie Tucker (01:18)

That’s what we’ve always been raised to do.

JoAnn Crohn (01:20)

Exactly. It’s what we’ve seen, which then allows for an under-functioner who just sits back and doesn’t do much of anything, nor do they really put themselves in that place of, hey, I’ll do that. They just stay back and under-function.

Brie Tucker (01:38)

Wait, I can think of a perfect example for everybody listening. If you’re not quite sure if this episode is for you, if you’ve ever had a Christmas morning where your spouse was just as surprised as the kids to see what was wrapped up under the tree, you are an over function.

JoAnn Crohn (01:55)

That’s a funny example because in my family, I’m the one who’s surprised with what’s wrapped up in under the tree. Yes, I did get to that point. I got to that point. And it’s actually a really, really nice point to be at. And stereotypically, we’re talking about if husbands are allowed to under function and they get to experience that, I can understand why they will continue to under function because it’s

Brie Tucker (02:00)

Well, but you got to that point.

It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful life of under functioning.

JoAnn Crohn (02:26)

So stay tuned the rest of this episode because we’re going to help you recognize why it shows up, especially for moms. And you’re going to walk away with three habits that you can ditch immediately to get your time and your sanity back. So let’s get on with the show.

So Brie, let’s talk about this over-functioning. Like I have definitely been guilty of it. Have you?

Brie Tucker (02:52)

I think that there’s lots of different terms for it. When you said over-functioning to me when we were having like a meeting, I was like, wait, I don’t know if I would call it over-functioning. And I wasn’t quite sure what you meant, but when you talked about it some more, like, ⁓ yeah, that totally makes sense. And over-functioning I think is a very good word for it. It’s just not one that we use commonly. So one that I hear and I have been accused of myself is mothering.

And it’s not meant in a nice way. Just to be clear people, mothering can be a nice term. It’s like bless your heart. Bless your heart. was so sweet. And all bless your heart. You can tell there’s a difference there. I think that when it comes to like the over-functioning, mothering, when it’s been said to me, it’s like, you’re trying to fix the situation that doesn’t require you to be fixing it.

JoAnn Crohn (03:50)

Can you think of an example where that term has been used?

Brie Tucker (03:54)

well, everybody in podcast land on occasions, JoAnn has told me stop mothering me, Brie. I got this because I have a tendency to try to fix things for people. hate people being unhappy, uncomfortable, whatever. Right. And so like, there’s a couple of times where like you’ve told me about something that was going on and I tried to fix it and you had to be like, Brie, stop mothering me. got this. And I’m like, okay. But I mean, it’s not just that.

I’ve been told that by my husband. I’ve been told that by my kids. And I think even on occasions, like when I was like working with my teams, being like a manager in different roles, occasionally I would take on so much that they would expect me to. then like the staff would kind of start to under function. And then you would get a little mad because you’re like, why am I the one doing everything and nobody’s even trying?

That’s because they know Brie’s going to step in even if they try.

JoAnn Crohn (04:54)

Even if they try. So what’s the point of doing it? I used to do that with my husband because he would work late. And so I just took on everything. I took on the dinner. I took on getting the kids ready for things. I took on taking them to all the kids activities. Anything that had to be done in the afternoon. I took it on without even asking him about it. And so like he didn’t even have a chance to contribute because I had already done it. And I was getting super resentful, super mad all the time. And I think that’s when all of these phrases come up with, I feel unappreciated. Yeah, you don’t care about what I do for you.

Brie Tucker (05:36)

Yeah, everybody just expects me to do it all.

JoAnn Crohn (05:40)

Yes, but really, who expects you to do it all? You probably. I know I did. I expected me to do it all.

Brie Tucker (05:48)

I feel like there is a stigma out there for women, especially for moms, that we need to drive our family. Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (06:00)

Like you’re the boss of the family. Yes, be the CEO. ⁓

Brie Tucker (06:03)

⁓

And if you are a mom who is home more often than out of the home, then I think you get this extra unsaid because I bet a lot of us, we really went back, we’re like, wait a minute, nobody actually said I had to do everything. It was just, I expected I should. I assumed my partner expected I should, so I just do it. So we feel like we almost have to earn, like we feel this like drive to be doing all the time. ⁓

JoAnn Crohn (06:30)

My drop.

Yes.

Brie Tucker (06:33)

 Right? And then there’s a flip side to it. If you are out of the house as much as your home or you’re out of the home more, then when you’re home, you feel like a lot of times you have to make up for having been gone.

JoAnn Crohn (06:47)

Yeah, yeah, it’s like a double edged sword. can’t win either way. Either way you can’t win regardless of your situation. And some of it is perpetuated by our society. Seeing TV shows, I say TV shows, it’s like streaming now, but we grew up with this on TV. Seeing like the Claire Huxtables of the world or the Home Improvement Mom or

Brie Tucker (06:58)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I was thinking of her. Jill, I can’t remember.

JoAnn Crohn (07:12)

It was Jill. Handling all the things and then also seeing the super mom narrative kind of perpetuated like ⁓ don’t know how you do it all and it’s like I’m like just little one task short of a mental breakdown that’s how I’m doing it all like. yeah

Brie Tucker (07:29)

Right? So like that’s the other thing is that we’re living up to the criteria that we feel has been passed down to us. We might know it’s unfair to some extent, but we also go, can’t change society. I can’t personally make that big ripple effect. So then we just kind of put our heads down and we’re like, okay, I’ll just do my best. And then doing your best in this over-functioning role leads to burnout.

leads to resentment, leads to unhealthy relationships with others in your family, as well as your kids seeing this and perpetuating it. So if you think you can’t have a role in it, yes, you can.

JoAnn Crohn (08:15)

It’s called being a cycle breaker. I’ve heard this term used a lot. And it’s a really hard thing to do because we saw it from our moms happening. They are constantly on the go, have a hard time resting. And then when we try to change the narrative for ourselves, we don’t have any examples to go from. I believe that you have to see it to be it. And we’re making that model for our kids so they see it, but we don’t have anything to see to be. We’re kind of like, making it up as we go along because we’ve never witnessed how this looks like in everyday life.

Brie Tucker (08:51)

Can we also just acknowledge that there’s also a big push culturally right now for women just to embrace being a mom and a spouse and that be our highest ideal in life?

JoAnn Crohn (09:05)

and the MAGA party. Let’s call them out. That’s what they’re doing.

Brie Tucker (09:09)

I’m just saying I don’t think it’s healthy. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t love being a mom or a spouse. That’s awesome. That’s great. But that doesn’t mean that you are responsible to do everything all the time. All the things all the time. And I think that’s where we get stuck, right?

JoAnn Crohn (09:26)

It is where we get stuck doing all the things all the time. And I witnessed a lot of women in my own life who stress themselves out. I mean, one of our friends has four kids and four different athletic activities and is running every time. We love you. We’re worried about you. We want you back.

Brie Tucker (09:40)

We love you.

You’re back, duh duh duh.

JoAnn Crohn (09:51)

It’s just hard to break the habit. So coming up next, we’re gonna talk about something a little bit deeper because we could talk about all this over-functioning and how it affects you. And you might be thinking, yeah, but I’ll handle it because it’s for the good of my family. Actually, it’s not. And we’re gonna talk about how the over-functioning affects everyone else right after this. So a lot of times when we talk about moms, we give them this high.

higher status ranking of like super mom, the mom who’s able to do everything and keep it all together and have the career and have the family life and have the kids who never must behave and all of these things. But by doing that, I think it’s really a detriment to everybody else around the mom, as well as the mom herself. We’ve already talked about, though, how it hurts us as women doing this. So let’s shift the narrative into how does it affect

the people around you and your relationship.

Brie Tucker (10:50)

Because if you’re listening to this episode and you’re going, okay, yeah, I’m a hustler. I might be somebody who’s quote unquote over-functioning, but I’m showing my family I love them because my love language is acts of service. Hello, that is 100 % Bree’s love language, acts of service. You’re like, so I’m showing everybody that I love them. And I know that I don’t have to do it, but I’m doing it to show my love.

We want to just take that statement and that belief you’re holding onto, and we want to just shift it slightly and show you some other perspectives.

JoAnn Crohn (11:28)

Yeah, because for instance, there was a situation I was in when I was in PTA long time ago and I had volunteered to run all the restaurants, fundraising nights. And there was one mama PTA who always volunteered to help with everything. I’ll help you out. I’ll help you out. I’ll help you out. And there was a situation where I couldn’t make it to the copy room to make copies, to get the pamphlets out to advertise like this McDonald’s thing.

And so she’s like, I’ll help you out. I’ll make the copies. Well, instead of just helping me out to make the copies, she redid the entire work I did on that slip as well. Like she redid the wording. She told me like, this is better. This is worded better. You’re welcome. I fixed it for you. ⁓ yeah.

Brie Tucker (12:17)

And I already know this story that still hurts.

JoAnn Crohn (12:21)

And I think she did it from a good intention place. I do. Yeah. But I was also really pissed off because I’m like, why am I even here?

Brie Tucker (12:30)

I think that’s spot-on because I do think 100 % her goal was not to insult you. No, it was to be a bigger help but she literally Robbed you of all the time energy and effort you had put into that. Yeah, I’ll get away and said Yeah, this isn’t good enough. I’m gonna fix it basically and that’s not what she meant, but that is exactly what was done

JoAnn Crohn (12:56)

Yeah, and I think this good enough narrative really plays out in other situations too. We talk about weaponized incompetence, for example, and I know that on the other side of it, no one in my family likes how I load the dishwasher. And when I say no one in my family, it is my husband and my son.

Brie Tucker (13:14)

And your teenage daughter’s like “Fine with me!”

JoAnn Crohn (13:19)

She’s more like me in that respect. I think we drive them crazy. And my husband in particular, every time I put a dish in the dishwasher, he would just reload it and put it in another place in the dishwasher. And so pretty soon I’m like, why am I even doing this? I’m not going to do it anymore. And I just gave up the role because there’s such a thing that if you feel like you were never doing anything right, you stop trying. You can’t win.

Brie Tucker (13:44)

Yeah.

What is the point of putting in the energy and effort when, it’s all said and done, I’m going to feel like I didn’t do enough that my work isn’t good enough for people that I love.

JoAnn Crohn (14:00)

Yeah. Let me say something a little bold here. ⁓ I think a lot of moms are doing this. God, yes. I think that this is happening and it’s a hard truth to hear because there’s all the complaints like, ⁓ my husband doesn’t do a chore like I want him to do it. They don’t do the task right. I have to come in and redo it. And I want you to step back a little bit and think about what it means to that other person when they’re told all the time that they’re doing it wrong.

Brie Tucker (14:06)

Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (14:29)

they’re doing it wrong.

Brie Tucker (14:31)

Or you’re not telling them that they’re doing it wrong. Like I think that’s the other piece, right? Okay. So I will say that I will at least start with this caveat guys. My whole family knows that we are allowed to call each other out on our schiznit at any point in time in our household. So I feel confident and actually my daughter calls me out on it the most. My husband would be the second and my son is the third. And it’s only because he splits his time between his dad and me. So.

but my daughter’s around all the time. So anyway, going back to my point, if something’s not done right, I’ve asked somebody to do it. I have two examples. Let’s start with a chore. My daughter is supposed to clean her bathroom. Okay. I went in there the other day and like drop off some shampoo or something I had bought for her. And I was like, ew, this bathroom is disgusting. Hey, Audrey, you’re in charge of cleaning the bathroom. Why does it look like this? And she’s like, I cleaned it. And I’m like, it looks disgusting. And she goes,

I’m supposed to be cleaning the bathroom. It is clean enough to my standards. And I’m like, all right, as long as we both understand. And she stopped me right there and spoke over me and said that if anything is like really bad, like there’s a ring on the toilet or something like that, I’m in charge of figuring out how to clean it. You’re not going to come in and do it for me. And I’m like, yes. You know I did after that? She left to go to work. I went in and cleaned the toilet. great.

Brie Tucker (15:58)

I couldn’t stand it. And so she comes home and she’s pissed. Why did you do that? Why, mom? I had a plan. She goes, can you just trust my plan? I saw it as the toilet’s bothering me, not her, so I’m going to clean it. And she saw it as I don’t trust her word and I don’t trust that she’s responsible. It was not what I was trying to put out there at all, but I can see it.

JoAnn Crohn (16:13)

Mm-hmm.

the after effect of it. And it’s not what any of us are trying to put it out there and being like called on our being called on our ship by our family members. ⁓

Brie Tucker (16:34)

And a toilet at that. I don’t like cleaning. Okay, let me just be clear. I was traumatized as a child. I do say that very jokingly. I was in charge of cleaning the bathrooms in our house and ⁓ having to clean. Okay, we have all women except for obviously my dad and having to clean up after a man on the toilet. No, I’m like, how does pee even get in those spots?

JoAnn Crohn (16:58)

my gosh, I could not even. I would be like, I’m out, I’m out.

Brie Tucker (17:03)

Yeah, so for that reason, I hate bathrooms and I hate cleaning bathrooms. And that’s why I gave her the be in charge of your bathroom. Because once she moved in here full time, I’m like, thank God, because I can’t stand cleaning up after your brother.

JoAnn Crohn (17:15)

The trauma that comes with the reason we do things the way we do. There’s always a backstory about why it’s this way. And there’s probably a backstory with you listening right now. There is a reason you’re over-functioning and it’s not because of some personality flaws, because of everything that’s happened before in your life.

Brie Tucker (17:36)

Right? We step in because we think that we’re being helpful, but we’ve talked about this before in the podcast, and people have listened for a while, but I mean, you’re going to 100 % be like, heck yeah, once I say this to Ed. We absolutely love the book, of Failure, Jessica Leahy. She was on the podcast a couple of times, absolutely love her, love her work. And we fully believe in that. By not letting people try things, how are they ever going to figure out what works for them and what doesn’t?

JoAnn Crohn (18:03)

Yeah. Cause there’s only so much you can tell people, but if they don’t experience the failure, it’s never going to stick. mean, I didn’t know the real reasons behind having to have an oil change in my car until I ruined my car as a 19 year old. And I have to say, like, I am very on top of car maintenance. Now you may think of that and be like, my gosh, JoAnn, well, you ruined the car and you cause so much like money for your parents and da da da.

That happens, yes, with kids that happens. It was an old car, they inherited it from my grandma, there was more emotional sentiment attached to it than anything else and I felt like really horrible about it. But part of that learning process was feeling really horrible about it. And I think that sometimes we try to prevent our kids from feeling those horrible emotions and feelings. No, that’s the way you grow is feeling horrible, getting through that horribleness, deciding that, I’m gonna

JoAnn Crohn (19:02)

do things a little bit differently from now on, because I don’t want to feel horrible.

Brie Tucker (19:08)

Exactly. Okay. I have another story. Shall I tell them about what happened yesterday in my office? Okay. So both my daughter and I had a gift of failure yesterday. Yeah. Long story short, you guys have heard me talking about the puppy on the podcast. We have a puppy in the house. My daughter got a dachshund, whatever you want to call it, but she got one of those little puppies.

Brie Tucker (19:34)

The puppy is now seven months old, I think. And we had a weird day yesterday where nobody was home. Normally, at least one of us is home. And I told her to put the dog in the kennel, but she didn’t want the dog in the kennel for like the whole day. So her and I were talking and I felt bad as well. So I wanted to make her happy and not feel uncomfortable about her puppy being in there. So I’m like, all right, put the puppy on the first floor, which is my office. Put the gate up, leave the puppy down there with.

JoAnn Crohn (20:01)

Yeah.

Brie Tucker (20:03)

Max, our other dog, it should be fine. It’ll only be like four hours, right? My daughter sends me a video four hours later of my office. Five books eaten by the puppy. had like a notebook that had like all of my training from my life coaching certification eaten. He tore up Max’s bed. It was awful. It was terrible. I have never seen such destruction in my life.

JoAnn Crohn (20:31)

Those Puppies man.

Brie Tucker (20:32)

my god, and I turned off that video before I got to the end of it because I was just so pissed. Yeah, and I’m like, well, I guess I’ll never make that mistake again. I will never say that dog can stay out of its kennel. And then later in the day, I go back to watch the video to show it to my husband. And at the end, I hear my daughter say, I’m really, really sorry. I have learned my lesson. I will never suggest leaving him out of his kennel again. And I’m like, both of us had to get through that gift of failure because the whole reason it happened.

Brie Tucker (21:00)

was I was over-functioning. I wanted to make her happy. ⁓ And I was taking on the mental load of trying to figure out a place that that dog could go that wasn’t in his crate. So now I’m mad at myself too. I knew that was gonna happen.

JoAnn Crohn (21:16)

When you like make those mistakes and stuff and you do over function, it ends up getting to you. It’s hard to distinguish who you’re mad at. And usually when I do it, I get mad at myself and it’s all an internal monologue. That’s like, my gosh, you are such a horrible person. How could you be so stupid? And that happens, I think in all of our heads. It really does. And so it’s twofold. But like when you over function, it affects the other people in your life too.

And it’s one thing that we didn’t talk about is like the doing so much at home that no one else has the opportunity to step in. When you do so much and you do it so fast and you do it so well that no one even has the opportunity to be like, I’ll do that for you because it’s already done. Overfunctioning hurts you with the stress levels and it hurts people around you. now coming up next, we are going to give you three things you can do to stop over-functioning.

if you feel that we have just described you throughout this whole episode. That’s coming up next.

Brie Tucker (22:20)

So if you feel like you need a vacation after your weekend home, you might be over-functioning. There are a few things that we think you should just throw out the window, stop doing right now. All right, guys? Number one, and this is a big one that so many of us are guilty of, stop treating rest like it’s a reward.

JoAnn Crohn (22:46)

It’s so interesting because the whole rest thing, we both see therapists and you always have to fill in that form every time you go to a meeting. It’s like, do you, and I forget how the question’s worded. It’s always like, do you feel so restless that you have a hard time sitting You can’t sit still. Yes. And I think that goes hand in hand with this treating rest like a reward because honestly I see I’m supposed to rest. Oh my gosh, that’s going to be so uncomfortable for me. I don’t know how to do that.

Brie Tucker (23:14)

See, okay, so that is interesting about the two of us, right? Because like, yes, I have noticed that about you. We both have the same end results, but we have a slightly different path we take to get there. And mine is, I feel so guilty when I’m resting. But I do rest. I just don’t get to enjoy my rest. Because I’m sitting there telling myself sometimes.

God, you’re lazy. You should be up doing something else. You you could be doing this or this. Oh yeah, you got to make that phone call and you got to schedule that thing. And it would only take 30 seconds. Where’d you come from? I think a lot of that actually comes from like that ADHD type thought process of like, just get up and do it, just get up and do it. And your body’s like, ah, I ain’t moving. So, and we were talking about this too, I think with our episode with Vanessa the other day about how like we treat

Brie Tucker (24:06)

so many basic needs like rest or food, or in my case, even peeing, like it’s a reward. I’ll be like working and I’m like, let me just finish this sentence and then I’ll go pee and I’m shifting around in my seat or I’ll not eat because I’m like, I don’t want to take the time to like cook something or to like even heat up a hot pocket because I got to get this done or I got to do X, Y, Z and I want more time. No, you deserve basic needs such as rest. And peeing. And eating

JoAnn Crohn (24:36)

Yes and eating. Definitely like all the things and rest can also be an active rest. That’s something that I learned a few years ago and we actually had the author of this. was one of our first guests. Yes. that book, Rest. It could be like doing your creative activity. It could be like, I like to do Pilates and workout. Yeah. Even though some people say workout is not rest, it is kind of rest for me because it’s like cool movements and challenging my brain in a different way than.

I’m usually challenging it. So that’s how I like to see rest, doing something else. Going to concerts is rest. Going on a trip somewhere is rest. Not a trip that I plan everything for. It’s more like a trip I take with friends. Going to happy hour is a rest activity. Yeah. So you don’t have to look at rest as something that I have to sit there and do nothing because honestly I can’t.

Brie Tucker (25:28)

I think that that’s a really good restructure there for sure. So, and the other thing we want to articulate is you should protect that rest the way you protect other things on your schedule. If you have scheduled time or you have an activity that you want to do that’s like important to you, it’s fun to you. It doesn’t feel like work. It feels like fun. Don’t push it aside because it’s inconvenient for somebody else in the family. Your rest time deserves just as much attention as the PTA meeting, as the parent teacher conference, as whatever else comes up.

JoAnn Crohn (26:08)

Yeah. So if you’re scheduled to go on a girls night, but you have work to do, don’t reschedule. 

Brie Tucker (26:14)

Yes. Okay, what’s number two, JoAnn?

JoAnn Crohn (26:18)

Stop saying yes without checking your capacity. So, you know, we’re asked to do something and of course we want to make everybody happy. And so we say, yes, we’ll do that. Yes, we’ll do this without really seeing, do I have time to do this? I mean, like I’m struggling with it now with a volunteer organization I’m a part of. They need help with stuff and I want to be the one to help, but I don’t know if my capacity can handle it right now.

And sometimes I think, my gosh, if I only organize things better. This is something that we tell our balance members about this evil voice that tells you if only I organize things better and how it’s not true.

Brie Tucker (26:56)

The next organizational thing around the corner is what’s gonna work.

JoAnn Crohn (27:00)

Yes, I know to tell you that because that voice is in my head constantly. Constantly berating me for not being organized enough. And if I could just fit things in, if I see my daughter’s planner and I honestly want to pull my hair out, she has things so nicely written and color coordinated. And that is not my brain at all. So don’t worry about saying no so much if you are going to be the tired, resentful version of yourself when you say yes.

Brie Tucker (27:34)

And you know what, to add on to that, the little cherry on top, I’m gonna share with you guys what my therapist told me this week in therapy about checking your capacity. Your capacity can also be your emotional capacity. So like I was just telling JoAnn, we have a group, we get together and do happy hour. And I was just telling you before we started this that I was having a rough week. I’ve had a lot of things that have like emotionally tapped me and I just don’t have anything left. So I was like,

I hate to tell you this, but I’m not going to make it to happy hour tonight. I have to say no for my sanity. Yeah. I can’t take on socializing right now because I have nothing in my cup. Yeah. There’s nothing left in there. So your capacity is both your time and also your emotional capacity. keep that in mind.

JoAnn Crohn (28:20)

It’s true. It’s true. If you don’t feel like you can make it through, don’t get.

Brie Tucker (28:25)

And if it’s not a heck yes, right off the bat, something that can give you some time is like, that sounds great. Let me get back to you about that tomorrow. Next week on Friday, cause things can sound great. Doesn’t mean you have to do it.

JoAnn Crohn (28:40)

Because then when I have time to think about it, that urgency that I have to say yes to make this person happy diminishes. And I’m really able to be like, does this fit in with everything I want to do right now? And most of the times it does not, unfortunately.

Brie Tucker (28:56)

And I feel like it gives you time to put together that answer the way that you want to put it together.

JoAnn Crohn (29:02)

Yep. And you can also consult ChatGPT on how to put together. That’s what I do. lot. ChatGPT helps me think through a lot of things.

Brie Tucker (29:12)

Chat GPT is fantastic. right. So number three, our last thing that we think that you should stop doing right now, if any of this has resonated with you in this episode, stop confusing busy with valuable.

JoAnn Crohn (29:29)

Yeah, just because you’re doing something doesn’t mean it’s valuable.

Brie Tucker (29:33)

You are still you and you’re still amazing and you’re still this awesome person that your friends still love that your family still loves even if you’re doing less They all still love you Yeah

JoAnn Crohn (29:43)

Mm-hmm.

and then they have the opportunity to come in and help you. Yeah, because when you’re busy all the time, no one can step in and help. it honestly like helping someone else, we all get a little buzz, I think, from helping someone, knowing that we were truly helpful. And that is something that our family does not get to experience if we’re over-functioning ever. ⁓

Brie Tucker (30:07)

They’re used to you taking it on. And if you are going like, okay, JoAnn Brie, I hear you convinced me I’m over-functioning, but if I stop now, cold turkey, the whole family will fall off the rails. The whole family will.

JoAnn Crohn (30:24)

Yeah,

we might need to investigate that comment a little bit into what falling off the rails looks like. Yeah. And see exactly what is being pictured in your head when you say fall off the rails. Lots of questions on that one.

Brie Tucker (30:37)

I would say it’s a good conversation to have with somebody else.

JoAnn Crohn (30:41)

Yep. That’s what we do in coaching and balance. Because a of people come in and they’re like, ⁓ like I have this issue. And upon further questioning, it all comes out, all of the fears. Because mostly when you are starting to do something new, and especially in this over-functioning thing, when you stop doing the things, there’s a lot of guilt. There’s a lot of emotions that are associated with it. So many. And it’s usually those emotions that are driving your behavior instead of like what is actually right and what needs to be done.

And when you can identify those and be like, feel a lot of guilt, I feel a lot of shame for doing this, we can put those in a separate box and be like, okay, so there is guilt and shame there, definitely. Then you’re not alone in it. So many others feel guilt and shame and you’re in pain having to take this away. So let’s just acknowledge that right now and think about one small little step forward that you can do to get you into the direction you want to.

Brie Tucker (31:36)

I also think having the conversation with somebody else helps them question your line of thinking. And what I mean by that is, and again, like I’m gonna take this back to conversations, the joys of being best friends. We talk all the time about everything. So like, I know like you and I have had conversations where I’m like, but I can’t do this because X, Y, is gonna happen. And you’re like, how do you know it’s gonna happen? And I’m like, because I’ve been doing it the whole time. And if I stop doing it, it’s all gonna fall apart but what if it doesn’t? You kind of need somebody to sort of help battle that voice in your head. Yeah. Because the voice in your head is talking already for you. You’re going to go, yep, you’re right. Yep. ⁓ Yep. Yep. But sometimes you need somebody else to be able to go, well, wait a minute.

JoAnn Crohn (32:23)

And because of that, we actually, it’s very exciting, have a new course coming out here at No Guilt Mom, because we’ve seen this so much in both our balance members and you when you reach out to us through the podcast, but this feeling that you have to do everything in your house and that no one is stepping up to help you. We have a plan on how you can step back and get your family to step in. It’s called Family Team, and you can go look at the link.

that we have for you in the show notes, but it is at no guilt mom.com forward slash family dash team T E A M. All the info is there. We would love to have you join us for it because this is going to be the live beta version of the course where I’m teaching it live four days during the week and we’ll also have a group going on. So I’ll be available to answer any of your questions and especially like how it relates to your exact situation.

Because there’s so many times when people read something and I do this too and I’m like, yeah, but this is what’s happening in my family. This doesn’t apply.

Brie Tucker (33:28)

The yeah-buts. Yeah. Yes. There’s always a lot of yeah-buts.

JoAnn Crohn (33:31)

So I’m gonna be there as your coach. So this is why it’s great to get in family team right now to get in when I am available to you. And it also helps me create something that is gonna serve everybody. Cause you ask the questions and then it gets redone and everyone else is better. So you do a solid to every other mom out there struggling with this as well.

Brie Tucker (33:54)

Yep. So remember over-functioning isn’t noble. It isn’t an award. It’s actually exhausting you and probably robbing your family of experiences that they could have. We can’t pour from an empty cup, people. Nope. And doing more doesn’t make your value higher. You are an amazing person without doing everything all the time, everywhere. Yeah.

JoAnn Crohn (34:21)

Yes, absolutely. So until next time, remember the best mom is a happy mom. And you are not happy by doing everything. You’re not. So take care of you and we’ll talk to you later.

Brie Tucker (34:38)

Thanks for stopping by.

JoAnn Crohn (34:42)

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