Sometimes It’s Just Too Much

This blog is more personal than my last one.

That’s intentional.

I talk a lot about executive functioning, nervous system regulation, and adapting to context. I coach people through overwhelm for a living. I help them build systems that hold when life doesn’t.

But here’s the truth:

Even coaches freeze.
Even mental health professionals hit capacity.
Even people with tools have days where the tools feel like they’re made of paper.

Today was one of those days for me.

What some of you may not know is that I am a solo parent to two teenagers. That alone is its own ecosystem of logistics, emotional presence, invisible labor, and constant decision-making.

My mom is eighteen months into her battle with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Today she was admitted to the hospital for jaundice. The word alone carries weight. It means something has shifted. It means another layer of unknown.

My phone has not been quiet.

Family group text.
Updates from my dad.
Questions.
Logistics.
Speculation.
Fear dressed up as optimism.

All of this while we are collectively living through what feels like the unraveling of democracy in the United States. The steady creep of modern-day fascism. The background hum of political tension and global instability that never fully turns off.

Life is life-ing.

And somewhere between the third hospital update and the tenth unread message, I hit a freeze point.

I was doing everything “right.”

I was breathing intentionally.
Stepping away when needed.
Trying to break work into manageable pieces.

But then there was the added layer.

A long-distance partner in their own season of struggle.
A moment of conflict between us.
Time and geography delaying repair and reconnection.

There is something uniquely destabilizing about needing the person who usually steadies you — and knowing they are not fully available in that moment.

It isn’t betrayal. It isn’t failure. It isn’t even wrong.

It’s just life.

Even our partners cannot be there to support us 100% of the time. We are all just people trying to get through our day, none of perfect, all of us navigating the best we know how. And sometimes the universe really just is that bitch, and it’s no one’s fault.

As my abuelita says, “It is what it is.”

And yet.

Somewhere in all of that, my to-do list stopped looking like a list.

It looked like a word search had a love child with the New York Times crossword puzzle. Lines and letters blurring. Tasks I normally could sequence with ease now floating untethered. My planner felt like vertigo on paper.

I opened my MacBook.

Stared.

Closed a tab. Opened another. Re-read the same email three times.

My mind wasn’t blank — it was loud. Racing. Looping. Trying to solve ten things at once while solving none of them.

My heart rate crept upward. Not dramatically. Just enough to notice. My stomach tightened, that low-grade nausea that signals the body has shifted into protection mode.

I tried for an hour.

An hour of staring, rereading, reorganizing digital windows, pretending that effort was happening.

And then a very honest thought surfaced:

What is the point of this masochistic exercise?

I wasn’t producing anything.
I wasn’t solving anything.
I was simply further dysregulating myself.

So I stopped.

Not in collapse.
Not in self-pity.
Not dramatically.

Just in recognition.

Sometimes it is too much.

Sometimes the load exceeds capacity.

Sometimes your nervous system says, Not today.

And the most regulated choice is not to override it — but to listen.

This is what I mean when I say executive functioning is a capacity, not a character trait.

Today my capacity was smaller.

That does not mean I am less capable.
It means the context expanded beyond my margin.

And pushing harder would not have created more capacity. It would have created more harm.

What I Did Instead

Stopping doesn’t mean spiraling.

It means shifting.

Here are the resources I lean on — and offer to clients — when freeze sets in:

• Step away from the screen entirely (physical interruption matters)
• Cold water on wrists or face to reset the nervous system
• A five-minute walk outside without a phone
• Naming out loud: “This is a freeze response.”
• Writing down only one next task — not the whole list
• Texting someone safe just to say, “Today feels heavy.”
• Lowering the bar deliberately
• Choosing one body-based task (laundry, dishes, sweeping) to re-enter motion
• Drinking water before making any decision
• Allowing the day to be smaller

These are not productivity hacks.

They are capacity-preserving practices.

When Capacity Shrinks

There is a quiet shame that can creep in when we cannot perform the way we are used to performing.

Especially if you are high-functioning. Especially if people rely on you. Especially if you are the strong one.

But strength is not measured by how hard you push through overwhelm.

Sometimes it is measured by your willingness to pause before you break.

If you find yourself staring at your screen, heart racing, to-do list blurring into nonsense — it may not be a discipline issue.

It may simply be that life is life-ing.

And sometimes the most powerful executive function tool you can access is the decision to stop.

Tomorrow will be there.

Your capacity will return.

And in the meantime, gentleness is not weakness.

It is wisdom.