Stop Drinking and Start Living- The Feminine Way

The Mental Load: Why You're Overwhelmed and How to Let Go

• Mary Wagstaff

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Women are wired to handle a lot. It’s our superpower—but it can also be our kryptonite. The mental load we carry—anticipating needs, managing tasks, and caring for everyone around us—can easily become overwhelming, especially during perimenopause and beyond.

Takeaways:

  • The mental load is both a gift and a curse for high-achieving women
  • Overwhelm often peaks during perimenopause, turning our superpower into burnout
  • Setting clear boundaries and dividing tasks creates clarity and peace
  • Letting go of control and practicing surrender is essential for mental health
  • Alcohol often becomes a coping mechanism when we feel mentally overloaded

In this episode, I break down why women, especially during life transitions, get caught in the trap of doing everything. I share a powerful exercise to help you reclaim your mental space: drawing a line between what's truly yours to hold and what's not. Plus, I’ll show you how to protect your peace by honoring your non-negotiables—like my 10pm bedtime rule—while letting go of what isn’t serving you.

Ready to reclaim your energy, mental space, and freedom without alcohol? Tune in to find out how.

CTA:
Join our monthly women's circle on the first Thursday of every month at 5pm Pacific. Grab the Zoom link in the show notes! And, don’t forget to download my free urge guide to break the cycle of cravings in just five minutes—no deprivation needed. Your nervous system will thank you.

DISCLAIMER: This podcast and its contents are not a substitute for rehabilitation, medical treatment or advice. It is for educational and inspirational purposes. I am not a therapist or doctor. The views here are expressed a personal opinion and based on first hand experience. Please consult a doctor if your mental or physical health is at risk.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Stop Drinking and Start Living the Feminine Way. I'm your hostess, mary Wagstaff, holistic Alcohol Coach and Feminine Embodiment Guide, here to help you effortlessly release alcohol by reclaiming your feminine essence. Sobriety isn't just about quitting drinking. It's about removing the distortions that keep you disconnected, overwhelmed and stuck in cycles of numbing. Each week, I'll share powerful tools, new perspectives that transform, and deeply relatable stories to help you step into the power, pleasure and purpose that it is to be a woman. This is your next evolution of awakened empowerment. Welcome to the feminine way. Welcome back to the show.

Speaker 1:

My beautiful listeners, here we are with another week, another episode. I may have said this last week, but I'm going to say it again because I think it's worth mentioning, if you're here, if you're listening, if you're alive worth mentioning If you're here, if you're listening, if you're alive. It's all worked out in your favor. Everything, every moment, has said yes to your existence, and I think that that's a powerful, powerful perspective. And on that note, you know, I wanted to just share briefly what coaching is about, because there are other sobriety podcasts out there, other women's health podcasts, other podcasts about perimenopause, which is something that we're going to be talking a lot about now, because they go hand in hand and I know that this is the threshold at which most women show up to me with is post-menopause or perimenopause, and post-menopause you're still finding your new hormonal normal too. You're still figuring out. Um, you have all this awareness like you're, this completely different version of yourself, but our thoughts and our beliefs are were created from when we were kids, from when we were in in the womb, right, and so a lot of perspectives aren't necessarily through the lens of coaching, and what coaching is really all about, at its core, in my perspective, is generating awareness. Generating awareness around what's happening in our body, what we're believing, what we're thinking, what emotions we have, what our emotions are telling us. Instead of just reacting to life, right, we're kind of taking a step back. So instead of being in the play up on the stage in the play, we are sitting in the audience watching, and there has to be this willingness to want to believe something new.

Speaker 1:

And what we're going to talk about today is the mental overload of most women that I know, especially high achieving, high functioning women who kind of have this I can do it all. Attitude and the truth, attitude and the truth. You know like you can, but we still have a capacity. Um, and based on recent events in my household and if you've been listening, you know there's a lot of new things and a lot of transitions. I went from one transition to the next, so I'm learning in my journey, but I'm coming, to add it, from the perspective of where many things that I would have in my old life would have turned to a drink, for I'm no longer doing that. I'm using the tools of coaching. I'm using the tools of mindfulness, mindset and awareness to create new results for my life that are more useful.

Speaker 1:

So women kind of have this superpower of really holding a wide perspective and there's a good reason for that. Right, this is our evolutionary gifts. We are the caretakers, we are the nurturers, for better or for worse, and so much of that we love, right, like I love nothing more than to pack a lunch for my family and send it off with them and they don't have to even think about it, right? And that's not something I do out of righteousness or expectation. Or make coffee for my beloved in the morning or put a note in my kiddo's lunchbox, right, something that you know dad probably wouldn't do, but he's got his own things. But we can kind of see like into the future. You know, I know that I hear my clients all of the time that are working mothers and they're also running the household and this is, you know, this is the perspective that we're talking more and more about in in kind of the mainstream is that the, the caretaker, the home taker has a full-time job.

Speaker 1:

And, honestly, even if you had a stay at home partner, um, the chances are if you're a woman, there's going to be a lot that you still see, that you still hold in your field, even if you've decided that it's not your job. Even if you're really good at delegating, it's like there's still this mental knowing and that can create overwhelm, even if you've put it in its place, even if you have no mental drama about it. So the thing that we're really good at making sure that summer camp is scheduled because it fills up, you know, in February, um, or you book your campsites for the summer, or there's water for everyone and there's a first aid kit and the doctor's appointments are done and all of those things and there's dinner ready so that you're not scrambling at 9 PM and everyone can go to bed at night, can also be our kryptonite, can also be the thing that we impose ourselves on to other people, which can create conflict, where we're micromanaging, and then we have that kind of righteous indignation of like, if I don't do it, no one else will, or this is the right way. And I've seen this time and time again. It comes up in my household all the time and, frankly, you know, as a woman, I believe everyone needs to live their own sovereign life. But, you know, I want to be in an environment that is suited to my needs, right, that feels like it supports my nervous system and is an integrity with who I am, and for me that is mostly organized, tidy, clean, not to a degree I live on a farm, there's animals here, there's a child, right.

Speaker 1:

So it's not like crazy and I don't even want to justify it, because even if it was, that would be okay too, and my male counterpart has a very different way that he would probably live his life if I wasn't around, and so oftentimes that can get kind of brought up in when, say, there's a confrontation of like, well, like, I have to live the way that you want to and, um, you know this is, this isn't the way that I would live. And there can be thoughts, and there can be like well, don't you want to treat me like a queen? Don't I deserve, like don't I deserve the queendom, right, but it's also in yeah, so what? Right? So I get to decide in that moment what I want to make that mean that this mental load that I hold, that I am asking to create a certain environment, or is it rolling over into micromanaging other people's lives and telling them what is right and what is wrong? Because really, in the end, there is no one right way to live. There's no clean, I mean, I believe cleanliness is next to godliness, but that doesn't mean that it's true. Two things can be true at the same time.

Speaker 1:

So I always believe, in a situation where we have this mental load that we are carrying around, it's not up to anyone else to fix that for us. So A we have to start with the positives, all of the ways that this mental load serves right, and then how can we choose to let go? Where is it not for us, where is it none of our business? And from that place now we can set it down and we can decide that if someone else is choosing to live a lifestyle that you've asked for in this example in my house, so that my mental load can be lighter, then that's also their sovereign choice, right? No one is forcing anyone to do anything. Even if there were as a grown person say negative feedback, say, if I complained a lot or argued or yelled about it, right, that is still someone's sovereign choice.

Speaker 1:

So we have to clean up our side of the street. We have to know where we're imposing and taking on the mental load that's not ours and where we're taking on other people's emotions and behaviors about the way that we have chosen to live our lives. So it is a blending and it is a meshing where sometimes those lines can get really, really blurred. So my suggestion for you this week if mental overload and your hormonal cycle is not working and it's causing you to drink and it's causing conflict in your home, where it's like I can't handle this, why are you not remembering things? Why are you not showing up to meet me?

Speaker 1:

And I do see this oftentimes in masculine, feminine dynamics and especially, um, there seems to be a trend in this current era, um, where, um, men aren't always taking the lead. If that's your dynamic, and even if you are in a relationship where it is a female relationship, right? Oftentimes there is these certain roles that we play, where one person tends to be more of the caretaker and the other person might be a little bit more passive, right? So first, kind of just identify where you're at, and then an exercise that would be really, really powerful to do is to take a sheet of paper and to draw a line down the middle and really ask what is mine to hold, right, like what is important to me, and get really, really clear, especially on like the. You know, it's like the difference between what's unsolicited, like what would be what would cause death, and, most importantly, focusing on your nervous system, right?

Speaker 1:

So I created a non-negotiable and this isn't like all the time, but if it's later than 10 o'clock which you know, unfortunately, like that's it If I don't get to bed at 10, because I wake up early, I have a, I have a early morning routine. I have just I have had to tell the person that sleeps next to me I'm for the night, I am done for the night If it's after 10 o'clock. If you want to hang out with me and there wants to be some intimacy, you have got to get in bed before 10 o'clock, and it's not because I don't want to, it's just because I have to create a sacred boundary for myself. Or I'll be up till midnight, I'll be up till one o'clock and then I get five hours of sleep, and that is not serving me, right. So what are all of the things for your own mental, physical, nervous system, health, that is part of your mental load that you're willing to take on? And then what do you take on? That's not for you, right, even if you think, well, this is the right way.

Speaker 1:

I still want you to write in that other column that if I didn't do this, no one would die, because what we have to do is we also have to practice receiving. We have to practice Practice allowing things, to let go of things right that aren't ours, and this could be at work, this could be with family stuff, this could be with drama, and that is another area that we have to stretch our capacity and our resiliency in is being in the relaxed space. Because in this, something we'll talk about on next week's episode is why is boredom a trigger for so many women when you have such a mental overload? Okay, because there's so much space for you to let go of what is not yours to solve, what does not need to be done now, right, and what my coach, my marketing coach for the farm. She's like the plants aren't going to die overnight if they don't get watered. So if it's nine o'clock at night and it's time for bed, go to bed and you move it to the next day, right, so the laundry doesn't need to get changed over and no one's going to die. So make these two really distinct lists. Like these are for my health, because stress is a real thing, right, these are not mine, and I want you to really see it down on paper, what you've been holding and what you can let go of. And then do it right, hang that list up on the fridge and every time you see yourself go there, take a step back, take three deep breaths and simply tell yourself this is how I protect my peace. This is not for me. I'm no longer holding this and give it up to God.

Speaker 1:

There's this podcast I listened to and you all have probably heard me talk about it Curly Nikki. Good mornings with Curly Nikki, and there's a surrender prayer. It's like Jesus, you take over. I say love, you take over. Right. It's just like if love was to take over, what would love choose? Love wouldn't care, love could laugh about it, right? So many of these things we take so seriously we could also just laugh about, right? They just brought home literally like a 17th Nerf gun with these like little jelly pellets and there's goggles, and Emmett was so excited and I like totally burst their bubble because I was like, really Like this is what you're teaching Emmett to.

Speaker 1:

You know, get another thing, this like shiny object syndrome. Who cares? We're going to die, the humans will not even be, we won't even be remembered. The plastic will cease to exist, the mushrooms will eat it, like. There's so many other things happening besides this one moment. There's infinite other moments happening besides this one, and all you have to do is shift 1% to the left or 1% to the right.

Speaker 1:

I just listened to a Michael Singer podcast and he said you're ruining your life because you're not accepting reality. I'm going to leave you with that. Have a beautiful week. My beautiful, beautiful friends, and if you're listening to this in real time or anytime, the first Thursday of every month we're having our women's circle. Remember, the link is in the show notes to get the link for our live zoom call. So it'll be happening on Thursday, the first Thursday of the month, at 5 PM Pacific.

Speaker 1:

I would absolutely love to see you live in person. Join us. It is a wonderfully beautiful time. I'll see you soon. The days of white knuckling your way through an urge are over. No more distracting yourself, no more avoiding alcohol, no more resisting. And I am not exaggerating when I say that doing this one thing for five minutes Will change not only how successful you are in drinking less, but how much you will love your alcohol-free life. You are going to feel so good. So come on over to my website or follow the link right here in the show notes to grab the free urge guide that gives you the exact cheat codes to use to find relief without a drink. And the best part is, no deprivation, no missing out required. I'll see you over.