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It happened last week… Outside, it was a beautiful, sunny spring day. Inside my head? A Category 5 hurricane. Tax season was peaking, my to-do list was drowning me, and I could literally feel my heart pounding in my ears. I had a swim workout scheduled, but I couldn't get myself out of this thought loop that was playing over and over and over again. Honestly, I didn't feel like going to the pool. I just sat there. I really wanted to take a nap in the middle of the day. Then, Jagger decided to be Jagger. He didn't want to get into his car seat. He was really testing my patience, and I just felt like giving up. This is the exact moment where parents just snap or shut down completely.
My brain completely short-circuited. Courtney was out, leaving me alone with a toddler entering meltdown mode and our dog staring at me for answers. So, what did the highly disciplined engineer do? I hid in the kitchen, ripped open a bag of Jagger’s animal crackers, and shoved them in my mouth just to numb the noise. If you're the Chief Everything Officer carrying the mental load for your entire family, you know this exact feeling. It's the moment the “Invisible Manager” finally breaks. You manage the schedules, the meals, the meltdowns, and you're left living in the Scraps Economy. You give your family the absolute best of you, and you leave yourself the scraps. It's a terrible feeling… I tried to snap out of it. I really did.. As an engineer, I like to fix things quickly. But my human hardware was glitching. I'll tell you exactly what my brain tried to do next… and why it completely failed me. Look out for my email on Thursday.
PS: I did eventually find a way out of that spiral. I call it the Overthinker's Escape Map. I'll share more about how it works later this week. |
