Break Free from Overwhelm: Mind Traps from Yellowstone

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The hit TV series Yellowstone reveals powerful mind traps that keep us stuck in overwhelm. In this episode, I explore three key traps inspired by the show—false choices, the illusion of control, and catastrophizing—and how to break free. If you're tired of feeling overwhelmed and pressured to push through, this is for you!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to Overwhelm is Optional.
The podcast for big hearted,highly driven professionals who
are ready to turn overwhelm intoclarity, ease and joy.
I'm Heidi Mark, the GentleRebel Coach, and in each episode
I share insights, stories andpractical tools to help you
gently rebel against thepressure to push on through,

(00:33):
because you matter.
How you are in the worldmatters.
Hello, hello, hello.
Have you watched Yellowstoneyet?
I've just finished.
I've just finished watching it.
I loved it, loved it, loved it,loved it despite any of its

(00:54):
flaws.
And there are three mind trapsthat I want to pull out for you
because I just found them really, really helpful to think about.
So, whether you've watched itor 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.

(01:15):
I just loved it.
Anyway, are you ready?
Mind trap number one so one ofthe characters is called Casey
and he is feeling lost anddoesn't know his purpose.
So he goes on a vision questand he spends three days with

(01:35):
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, nowater, vision quest.
And it's all very excitinguntil he believes he comes out
of this incredibly courageoustime.

(01:56):
I'm so disappointed because,instead of having clarity to me,
he looks really scared andoverwhelmed.
Yeah, I wasn't a fan of that atall.
As you know, I'm a big fan ofpersonal growth and digging deep
and finding out what you reallywant and following your heart.
And he comes out of that visionquest and I just thought, yeah,

(02:18):
you need a good hot bath and agood meal before you decide what
you found out.
It just didn't work for me.
Ask them a good meal before youdecide what you found out.
It just didn't work for me.
He believes that his futureconsists of two terrible choices
Impossible, impossible tochoose between.
And that reminded me of the twoterrible choices.

(02:42):
Overwhelm trap To me.
When I believe that I only havetwo terrible choices, I'm
overwhelmed, severelyoverwhelmed, and I need to take
a step back, get out of theoverwhelm so that I can see all
of the other choices.
I know this to be true fromworking with clients, from doing
work with myself and also if Ijust look behind me.

(03:04):
I'm sure you can do this.
You look back to a time in yourlife when you felt that you
only had two terrible choices,and you will see all of the
other choices that you couldn'tsee at the time.
There are always more choicesavailable.
The only time there aren't arewhen we're in a genuine
emergency, which is exactly whatthe overwhelm is for.

(03:25):
So that would be somethingactually life-threatening Like
there's a bear in front of youbecause you don't want to be
thinking then.
You don't want a millionchoices before you.
You just need to run or freezeor whatever saves your life,
depending on what flavour ofbear it is.
I don't know the bear rules.

(03:46):
So, yes, that's what I got fromthat.
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 onon my lips here, but I'm not
going to.
I'm not going to.
I've got this other sentence onmy lips here, but I'm not going
to say it because I'm not doingspoiler alerts.

(04:08):
I refuse to ruin it for you ifyou want to watch it.
Mind trap number two.
This involves John Dutton.
John Dutton's the maincharacter, kevin Costner, and he
is the father and head of theranch.
This is a seven generationranching family and they have
had to fight the whole time forthis ranch.

(04:31):
And one of the traps the mindtraps he has fallen into is
revealed beautifully in thefinal series when he has a
conversation with hisdaughter-in-law, Monica, and she
says to him he asks her forsomething and she says, of
course, and they've had a verydifficult relationship for lots

(04:53):
of reasons.
And she just says, of course,course.
And then she says that was allyou ever had to do.
Ask Wow, that's powerful, right?
So he has spent I'm not goingto ruin it for you, but he has
spent his life fighting for theranch and controlling his

(05:15):
children in order to save theranch for them and their
children, because that's whathis parents did, that's what his
grandparents did.
It's a big fight.
So he believes that the onlyway to save the ranch and
everything he's worked for andhis ancestors have worked for is
to force his children to dothings, not to ask them to force

(05:38):
them, because that's probablywhat happened to him, right?
I don't know because I haven'twatched the other there's.
There's um 1883 and 1923, whenyou can go back and see the
stuff before Yellowstone and I'mreally excited to watch that
soon.
But I'm a bit dumbed out at themoment, so we're taking a break
.
Man, I get involved in thesedramas.

(05:59):
So that's two mind traps foryou.
One the belief that we onlyhave 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 severeoverwhelm.
Mind trap number two I have tocontrol everything, when

(06:22):
actually sometimes we just needto ask.
And I don't necessarily meanasking for help either, because
I know there can be resistanceto asking for help, that's
another story.
I just mean sometimes you justhave 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?

(06:43):
Just asking myself questions.
I find that really reallyhelpful.
Otherwise, I very easy get into.
I need to do all of thesemillions of huge things in order
to make this thing happen.
Sound familiar.
Mind trap number three If thishappens, everything is lost.

(07:04):
If this happens, everything islost.
Everything I've worked so hardfor will be lost.
So this is really the wholefeeling underlying the whole
premise of YellowstoneEverything's a fight, it's the
ranch or nothing.
There is no other way to liveand you can understand it

(07:26):
because it's a really deep wayof 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 incrediblybeautiful way of life and this
incredibly beautiful, I mean, ohmy goodness, montana, how can

(07:47):
you not fall in love withMontana, so beautiful.
But that belief everything's afight.
If this happens, everything'slost.
I can really relate to that.
Oh my goodness, that soundslike several times in my life.
That sounds particularly thepremise I was working on in my

(08:08):
career as a teacher.
If this happens, everything'slost, everything's lost.
Definitely I was running onthat, 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 survivalmode.
At the time I thought I waswinning because I thought

(08:28):
everything was a fight and thatI was winning the fight.
Really, I was just having afight with myself, convincing my
body to be quiet and let me getthrough another day, convincing
my mind that it just needed tofocus and get these millions of
things done and then everythingwould be okay.
I was fighting myself.

(08:49):
That's one of the things, oneof the many things that I'm
grateful that I burnt out for,and now I'm finding different
ways of being For me, realisingthat overwhelm is a series of
complex traps.
So by overwhelm, I'm puttingthese mind traps inside this

(09:11):
umbrella.
Overwhelm for me is this big,huge topic that I can geek out
on.
There's different flavours ofit, there's different underlying
beliefs, there's thoughts aboutit.
It's just one big screwing withyour mind thing, because it's
just not true that we have tofight our way through life.

(09:31):
We are not in survival modeanymore.
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 thispodcast, come on, look at what
we have the internet.
My words come magically acrossthe internet to you for free.
That's magic.

(09:52):
There's loads of magic.
So, instead of overwhelm, howabout some magical thinking?
Imagine that there are morethan the two terrible choices in
front of you.
Imagine that you don't have tocontrol everything and fight for
everything.
Imagine that it's not true thatif this one thing happens,

(10:13):
everything is lost.
Imagine the opposite for you.
Just imagine, imagine, imagine.
Imagine which of these mindtraps resonates the most.
Which one makes you feel likethere'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 nexttime.

(10:34):
Thank you so much for listeningand for being part of the
Overwhelmers Optional podcast.
If you want to continue theconversation, please do connect
with me on LinkedIn, instagramor YouTube.
Let me know your thoughts.
I love hearing from you and ifyou found this helpful, taking a
moment to share, subscribe andleave a review would be much

(10:54):
appreciated.
It helps other people find thepodcast.
If you're ready to turnoverwhelm into joy, you'll find
my books, resources and ways towork with me on my website,
heidimarkcouk, and on Amazon.
All the links are in the shownotes.
Until next time, keep gentlyrebelling and making overwhelm
optional for you.