Break Free from Overwhelm: Mind Traps from Yellowstone

How you are in the world matters . Hello , hello , hello . Have you watched Yellowstone yet ? I've just finished . I've just finished watching it . I loved it , loved it , loved it , loved it despite any of its flaws . And there are three mind traps that I want to pull out for you because I just found them really , really helpful to think about .

So , whether you've watched it or haven't watched it , I am not going to be . If you haven't watched it yet , I'm not going to ruin it for you because it's just too yummy , it's just so good . I just loved it . Anyway , are you ready ? Mind trap number one so one of the characters is called Casey and he is feeling lost and doesn't know his purpose .

So he goes on a vision quest and he spends three days with just a fire , no food , no water , fire and a skin a skin , a fur thing , what do you call it ? Like a bear skin thing . Yeah , three days , no food , no water , vision quest . And it's all very exciting until he believes he comes out of this incredibly courageous time .

I'm so disappointed because , instead of having clarity to me , he looks really scared and overwhelmed . Yeah , I wasn't a fan of that at all . As you know , I'm a big fan of personal growth and digging deep and finding out what you really want and following your heart .

And he comes out of that vision quest and I just thought , yeah , you need a good hot bath and a good meal before you decide what you found out . It just didn't work for me . Ask them a good meal before you decide what you found out . It just didn't work for me .

He believes that his future consists of two terrible choices Impossible , impossible to choose between . And that reminded me of the two terrible choices . Overwhelm trap To me .

When I believe that I only have two terrible choices , I'm overwhelmed , severely overwhelmed , and I need to take a step back , get out of the overwhelm so that I can see all of the other choices . I know this to be true from working with clients , from doing work with myself and also if I just look behind me . I'm sure you can do this .

You look back to a time in your life when you felt that you only had two terrible choices , and you will see all of the other choices that you couldn't see at the time . There are always more choices available . The only time there aren't are when we're in a genuine emergency , which is exactly what the overwhelm is for .

So that would be something actually life-threatening Like there's a bear in front of you because you don't want to be thinking then . You don't want a million choices before you . You just need to run or freeze or whatever saves your life , depending on what flavour of bear it is . I don't know the bear rules . So , yes , that's what I got from that .

I looked at Casey and I thought , no , no , there's so many more choices to you . Please think again . Please think again , casey . I'm not going to . I'm not going to . I'm . I've got this other sentence on on my lips here , but I'm not going to . I'm not going to .

I've got this other sentence on my lips here , but I'm not going to say it because I'm not doing spoiler alerts . I refuse to ruin it for you if you want to watch it .

Mind trap number two . This involves John Dutton . John Dutton's the main character , kevin Costner , and he is the father and head of the ranch . This is a seven generation ranching family and they have had to fight the whole time for this ranch .

And one of the traps the mind traps he has fallen into is revealed beautifully in the final series when he has a conversation with his daughter-in-law , Monica , and she says to him he asks her for something and she says , of course , and they've had a very difficult relationship for lots of reasons . And she just says , of course , course .

And then she says that was all you ever had to do . Ask Wow , that's powerful , right ? So he has spent I'm not going to ruin it for you , but he has spent his life fighting for the ranch and controlling his children in order to save the ranch for them and their children , because that's what his parents did , that's what his grandparents did .

It's a big fight . So he believes that the only way to save the ranch and everything he's worked for and his ancestors have worked for is to force his children to do things , not to ask them to force them , because that's probably what happened to him , right ? I don't know because I haven't watched the other there's .

There's um 1883 and 1923 , when you can go back and see the stuff before Yellowstone and I'm really excited to watch that soon . But I'm a bit dumbed out at the moment , so we're taking a break . Man , I get involved in these dramas . So that's two mind traps for you . One the belief that we only have two terrible choices . Not true . Not true .

There's always an easier way , which we'll be able to see later , and it's just a sign of severe overwhelm . Mind trap number two I have to control everything , when actually sometimes we just need to ask . And I don't necessarily mean asking for help either , because I know there can be resistance to asking for help , that's another story .

I just mean sometimes you just have to ask , or let go a bit and just see or even ask yourself . This is a good one for me . Is there an easier way , heidi ? Is this really what you want ? Just asking myself questions . I find that really really helpful . Otherwise , I very easy get into .

I need to do all of these millions of huge things in order to make this thing happen . Sound familiar . Mind trap number three If this happens , everything is lost . If this happens , everything is lost . Everything I've worked so hard for will be lost .

So this is really the whole feeling underlying the whole premise of Yellowstone Everything's a fight , it's the ranch or nothing . There is no other way to live and you can understand it because it's a really deep way of life and it's been ingrained in the Duttons Seven generations . They fought for the land .

There's lots of strife involved , there's lots of awful things in order to have this incredibly beautiful way of life and this incredibly beautiful , I mean , oh my goodness , montana , how can you not fall in love with Montana , so beautiful . But that belief everything's a fight . If this happens , everything's lost . I can really relate to that .

Oh my goodness , that sounds like several times in my life . That sounds particularly the premise I was working on in my career as a teacher . If this happens , everything's lost , everything's lost . Definitely I was running on that , definitely running on that . Can you relate to that one ? That's survival , isn't it ? That's survival mode .

Now I can see it's survival mode . At the time I thought I was winning because I thought everything was a fight and that I was winning the fight .

Really , I was just having a fight with myself , convincing my body to be quiet and let me get through another day , convincing my mind that it just needed to focus and get these millions of things done and then everything would be okay . I was fighting myself .

That's one of the things , one of the many things that I'm grateful that I burnt out for , and now I'm finding different ways of being For me , realising that overwhelm is a series of complex traps . So by overwhelm , I'm putting these mind traps inside this umbrella . Overwhelm for me is this big , huge topic that I can geek out on .

There's different flavours of it , there's different underlying beliefs , there's thoughts about it . It's just one big screwing with your mind thing , because it's just not true that we have to fight our way through life . We are not in survival mode anymore . We were as humans for a very , very long time , but for most of us today we're not .

And if you're listening to this podcast , come on , look at what we have the internet . My words come magically across the internet to you for free . That's magic . There's loads of magic . So , instead of overwhelm , how about some magical thinking ? Imagine that there are more than the two terrible choices in front of you .

Imagine that you don't have to control everything and fight for everything . Imagine that it's not true that if this one thing happens , everything is lost . Imagine the opposite for you . Just imagine , imagine , imagine . Imagine which of these mind traps resonates the most . Which one makes you feel like there's something to gain by considering it ? I'd love to know .

Drop me a line . See you next time . I'd love to know . Drop me a line , see you next time . Thank you so much for listening and for being part of the Overwhelmers Optional podcast . If you want to continue the conversation , please do connect with me on LinkedIn , instagram or YouTube . Let me know your thoughts .

I love hearing from you and if you found this helpful , taking a moment to share , subscribe and leave a review would be much appreciated . It helps other people find the podcast . If you're ready to turn overwhelm into joy , you'll find my books , resources and ways to work with me on my website , heidimarkcouk , and on Amazon .

All the links are in the show notes . Until next time , keep gently rebelling and making overwhelm optional for you .