You're not drowning. You're stacked.
Pulled in ten thousand directions and can't even name what's wrong? There's a reason for that.
Last week we named the freeze. This week we go to the thing that causes it.
A client described her week to me, and I want you to see if any of it sounds familiar. She was covering a colleague’s cases while that colleague was on vacation. She had back-to-back video calls that left her needing to lay down at 4 in the afternoon. Her brother was texting her about sushi. A friend kept calling, again and again, about her sick dog.
And when I asked her what was wrong, she couldn’t tell me.
Not because she didn’t want to. Because she genuinely could not find it. There were too many inputs to point at any one of them. Another woman I work with described the exact same feeling a different way. She said, “I’m treading water. I’m really good at treading water. But when something like this happens, somebody’s throwing a backpack on me.”
Here is the pivot. Your overwhelm is almost never about any single thing. It’s about the stacking. Too many inputs at once. No single item on your list is the problem. The problem is that they are all happening at the same time, in the same body, on the same afternoon.
I will be honest with you. I don’t like to stack either. I know this about myself. When too many things land at once, I feel it in my body before I can even name it (this is the one-thing-at-a-time approach I teach in One Pattern. One Week. One Pivot.).
And this is why you can’t tell anyone what’s wrong. There is no one thing. Asking “what’s the matter” is like asking which raindrop made you wet.
So we stop trying to solve the whole plate. We just take one thing off.
The woman with the full plate did this without even realizing how wise it was. She told her brother, ”I’m gonna call you back. I can’t respond right now.” That is not rude. That is not cold. That is a woman listening to her nervous system and removing one input before the stack tips over.
This is the exact work we practice together every week, and it is why this letter is free. If a friend of yours is treading water right now, send it to her. Nobody should be stacked alone.
You do not have to clear the plate. You will never fully clear the plate. The plate is not the goal. The goal is to feel the stack building and take one thing off before your system spins the rainbow wheel.
So this week, when you feel that drowning feeling and you cannot name it, do not try to. Skip the diagnosis. Just take one input off. Send the “I’ll call you back” text. Decline the one call. Move the one errand to next week.
You are not drowning. You are stacked. And a stack can be taken down, one piece at a time.
If this is the line that hit you, restack it with that one line. I want to see which one lands the hardest.
Pivot Prompt: What is the one input you are taking off your plate this week? Hit reply with one word.
Last week we named the freeze and why your brain is protecting you. If you missed it, read Your Brain Isn’t Lazy. It’s Protecting You.
For anyone else who cannot name what is wrong: read What Your Body Is Trying to Tell You Right Now
Three small things that help: tap the heart, leave a comment with the input you took off, and restack this for the woman who is treading water. New here? Subscribe free.
Want to go deeper than a weekly letter? That is what The Intentional Life is for. You are warmly invited whenever you are ready.
