The past couple of years, I found myself saying “I feel overwhelmed” more than ever before.

At first, I thought maybe it was
• the pandemic
• hormones
• aging
• something wrong with me

Every time I felt that wave of overwhelm, I paused and asked myself, what do I need to fix?

But then in December, something clicked.

It wasn’t the hormones
It wasn’t burnout
It wasn’t the world falling apart

It was that my brain had gotten lazy

Every time something felt slightly more challenging or required me to stay focused longer than a quick notification, my brain tapped out. I was hooked on fast dopamine.

And I know this isn’t news. Everyone talks about how distracted and overstimulated we all are. But when I started naming it differently, when I started seeing it as lazy brain symptoms, everything shifted for me.

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I realized that for me, overwhelm often showed up when my brain just didn’t want to do something harder than usual. Not because I was broken or incapable. But because I had unknowingly trained my brain to crave shortcuts. I had made it easy for that lazy brain to take over.

Looking back, I had loosened a lot of structure in my life. Some of it was intentional. I was exhausted by the noise of the productivity world telling me how I should be doing more, being more, achieving more. I wanted to live slower, more intuitively. I wanted freedom from all the “shoulds” I had inherited.

But truth is, at some point what I called intuitive living was slowly becoming lizard brain living. I was cutting corners the moment something felt slightly harder than what my brain wanted to deal with. I was chasing ease instead of alignment.

I started losing the boundaries I once had. And those boundaries, while originally shaped by external systems, were still helping me stay grounded. Without them, I was floating. Avoiding. Distracted. And calling it freedom.

At some point I even started identifying with ADHD symptoms. I began thinking about getting tested. And I noticed so many people around me were saying the same. It made me wonder, is it our brains or is it the system that keeps hijacking our focus and pulling our attention in every direction?

So at the beginning of this year, I made a decision. I’m taking my attention back.

I treated my brain like it was in recovery. And I let the Self take the lead again.

And let me be clear, this is not about promoting hustle or productivity culture. I’m not telling you to do more or push harder.

If anything, I’m working less than I used to. But the difference is, when I do work, it is focused. It is intentional. And it is directed toward the long-term vision I’m holding for my life. No more scattered effort. No more urgency to keep up. Just deep presence with what actually matters.

Here is what I changed:

• I deleted all dopamine-triggering apps from my phone
• I removed YouTube from our TV (I used to spend hours watching renovation videos for the hit)
• I installed browser blockers to remove video suggestions and thumbnails, social focus is my favorite.
• I committed to doing one task at a time, even when my brain wanted to do otherwise
• I started timing almost everything, and Pomodoro Technique has become a dear friend
• I watched my work hours drop and the quality of what I created rise

In three months, I created work that I feel proud of. I showed up for the things that matter to me. I stayed with the discomfort instead of running from it. And I feel more in control of my brain than I’ve been in a long time.

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So if you are in a season where everything feels like too much, I invite you to ask yourself:

Is this true overwhelm?
Or is your brain avoiding effort because it is addicted to easy?

And what would happen if you stopped believing the story?

I talk more about this in this week’s video. You can watch it here:

Thank you for joining me on the path of unconditioning,

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Hedi Shah
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👁️ Bodyworker & Mindfulness Teacher
🌊 Teaching change makers to uncondition their bodies, nervous systems, and voices from systems built to keep them small so they can move, speak, and live with sovereign power.

📲 Website | Youtube | LinkedIn | Insight Timer

Unconditioning Movement

How to Stop Overwhelm from Running Your Life?