A Heart That Beats for Home

59. Menopause, Mom Life, and My 5pm Wednesday Meltdown

• Season 2

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Have you ever felt completely overwhelmed despite everything in your life looking "fine" on paper? This raw, unscripted episode emerged from my own struggles. 

Sitting in my bedroom with a makeshift recording setup, no makeup, and desperately needing a shower, I share honestly about my current season of diminished capacity. Menopause symptoms have left me crying unexpectedly, feeling overwhelmed by normal responsibilities, and questioning my ability to keep all the balls in the air. The irony? Much of what's overwhelming me consists of beautiful things—my children growing independent and pursuing their dreams, exactly as I've raised them to do.

I explore how my default response to overwhelm is overconsumption—frantically seeking answers through endless podcasts, books, and expert advice. But this behavior only amplifies the noise instead of bringing peace. Drawing from a book about digital detoxing, I reflect on how we've become a culture that immediately turns to Google instead of sitting with our questions or seeking wisdom through prayer and stillness.

The heart of this episode centers on the profound difference between happiness (which depends on circumstances) and joy (which transcends them). When we feel ourselves losing stability, it's often because we've allowed our joy to become dependent on external validation, perfect performance, or maintaining control. True joy—the kind the Bible refers to when it says "the joy of the Lord is my strength"—remains steady even when life feels chaotic.

To the mothers feeling overwhelmed today: You are not alone. The work you do matters profoundly, even on days when you feel you're failing. We're all imperfect humans raising imperfect humans, but we do so under the guidance of a perfect parent who offers endless grace.

Take a moment today to quiet the noise, open your Bible, and remember that what you're doing matters—even when you can barely keep your head above water.


Reconnected: How 7 Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Lost Art of Being Human by Carlos Whitaker:

https://amzn.to/4lebDkP

Story Behind the Hymn - It Is Well With My Soul:

https://www.staugustine.com/story/lifestyle/faith/2014/10/17/story-behind-song-it-well-my-soul/985525007/

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Speaker 1:

Hey friends, I'm Nikki Smith, your host here at A Heart that Beats for Home, the podcast where we're ditching filters and diving headfirst into the raw beauty of all things home. Now, I am no expert when it comes to this whole parenting and marriage dance. I'm simply a gal who's been riding the mom roller coaster for 22 years and a wife still untangling the mystery of it all 25 years after saying I do. My goal is to bring you unapologetically messy and boldly genuine conversations about cultivating strong families. We're gonna laugh, possibly cry, and straight talk about the joy and chaos that comes within the four walls that we call home. No judgment and certainly no perfection, just real talk from my heart, a heart that beats for home. Let's dive in. Welcome back, friends. Thanks so much for being here with us for another week. Glad to have you here. I will tell you that my heart is beating a little bit.

Speaker 1:

Typically, I come to record the podcast, whether it's just a solo episode or a guest, and I feel super organized and I have an outline. I have good questions for our guests, and today that is not the case. Today I am coming to you. If you are listening to this live, on the day it's released. The podcast goes out every Thursday morning at 5 am and it is currently 5 pm on Wednesday, the night before the podcast is set to drop. And in doing this podcast and making the decision to follow what I believe was a prompting and a calling to do this podcast, I made really two commitments to myself. Number one is I'm going to be super consistent and every single Thursday that there is supposed to be a podcast, there is going to be a podcast. I'm not going to allow life and circumstances to come in and let it be just a sporadic posting. I really wanted it to be something that every Thursday at 5 am, in the months that we are doing podcasts, for that podcast to drop. And the second thing that I committed was I wanted, every time that I hit the record button, to know that I was sharing something of value, to know that I was sharing something that would bring you know, whether it's contemplation for the listeners or encouragement and challenge, sharing my own stories, our amazing guests, whatever it might be. That when I went to record that it wouldn't be wasted airspace, that if people are going to take the time to tune in, to listen, to have this streaming in their car, in their house, in their AirPods when they're walking, that I wanted it to hold value and I wanted to feel like it was something that I was feeling prompted by the Lord to put out there. And guys, this week it wasn't there.

Speaker 1:

It has been a really in full transparency. It has been a very difficult week for me, in full transparency. It has been a very difficult season and I know I've talked about this pretty openly on the podcast. Menopause is like this whole beast and I think kind of in God's humor and kindness. This week I've probably had three or four different conversations with women who are in my stage of life who have just confided in me and said, oh my gosh, nikki, I'm crying all the time, like I'm doing dishes and I'm crying and I'm out with my family and I'm crying, and I can so relate and it feels so weird and it feels so out of character, especially for someone who likes to say that they're a super high capacity person, that they're a doer, they're a shaker, they're typically pretty positive.

Speaker 1:

I just feel like my capacity is so limited and so I've really been struggling and I was having this battle of okay, what can I? What could I talk about today Looking at my bookshelf, what books could I talk about? What random topic could I throw together that I would talk about? And it just wasn't happening. And so I dropped my son off at the gym. He was weightlifting with a buddy. So funny, I have a 15 year old who's totally in this bulking stage of trying to eat like 4,000 calories and pump, pump iron. So it's what boys do.

Speaker 1:

And so I thought, well, I'm going to take him to the gym and why he's doing his guy thing. I'm going to just put my weighted vest on and I'm going to walk around outside. And it was a pretty I don't want to say a miserable walk, but it was a mildly miserable walk. It was way hotter than I thought it was going to be, so it was humid. I had this 16 pound weighted vest on me and the wind had to be 20 to 30 miles an hour. So, number one, I couldn't hear in my AirPods hardly at all because of the wind noise. Number two, the weighted vest felt like instead of weighing 16 pounds, it weighed a hundred pounds, walking into this wind wall and I was just frustrated.

Speaker 1:

But I just kept walking and I just kept walking and I got to the point where I felt like God told me not in a loud, audible voice, but it was just like just be transparent, nikki, just talk about, just talk about where you're at, talk about what's going on, because there's going to be a lot of people that can relate to just the real and the raw of life, and so I have not one single note in front of me. I actually even turned the camera off on my recording platform here because I don't even want to see my own face, because I have no makeup on and I need to take a shower, and I'm just looking at a blank screen on my computer with this Bojangles podcast set up in my bedroom with a lap board and a laptop and a mic. Like there is nothing fancy and nothing super professional about what happens on this podcast, other than I have a heart to reach through the mic, through the airways, to primarily women who are moms, who are wives, who maybe feel overwhelmed, who are just in all these different stages of life, and just offer encouragement. And so that's my hope today that in just having this quick conversation with you, completely unscripted, just being able to tell you number one, I see you If you are struggling and I don't think it matters what stage of life you're in my struggle right now when I say it's been a really tough week. The really crazy thing is and I think so many can probably relate to this it's not even all bad stuff. So much of the overwhelm that I'm feeling in my life is connected to really wonderful things and I know that mamas who have these babies that they're sending off to college or moving them into new cities and just so much that's happening, that's good and it's beautiful.

Speaker 1:

It still carries an element of weight and heaviness to it because as parents, as moms, we carry so much weight of what our kids are walking through. We carry some of that anxiety and we carry some of that fear and wanting, you know, when they're walking in to take that big exam or when they're having to do that really hard conversation or confront that thing or all these different things go into the job interview. We carry a lot of that weight just naturally as moms. And I know that I need to be able to lean into the verse of be anxious for nothing and just commit everything to prayer and as much as I try to do that and I try to tell the Lord all the time like this is too much for me. This is too heavy. I need you to take it. It's still my sin. Nature wants to carry it, it wants to fix it, it wants to protect the kids, it wants to resolve their problems for them.

Speaker 1:

And there is just a stage that even beautiful things in our life can just cause overwhelm. And then you pile on things that are hard relationship friction or busy schedules, your own health, journeys and trying to do all of the things when it feels in a lot of ways like man, I cannot keep all of the balls in the air. I am constantly dropping the ball on things, I am forgetting things, I'm not managing in the way that I used to. I was recently just telling somebody I am a high capacity person, I'm somebody that can say bring it on, yep, I'll do that, I can take that on, I'd love to help organize that. And all of a sudden I'm like my capacity is shattered. I look sometimes up from my computer and I'm like what am I doing? What am I supposed to be doing? And because I recognize that some of that is directly connected to the stage of life that I'm in and hormones, I'm working super closely with a naturopath that's helping me with that stuff. But I just think there is this time where we have to just pause and we have to be able to give ourselves grace.

Speaker 1:

I think we are so difficult on ourselves and, in a natural default for me, I go into overconsumption. As soon as I start to feel a certain way, as soon as I start to get overwhelmed, my natural instinct whether it be in parenting, whether it be in marriage, in business, in health and nutrition I just start to go like what book can I listen to? What podcast can I put on? Who can I talk to? That might be an expert in this and it creates even more noise and more commotion. And in my overconsumption. It's kind of ironic in this state of knowing that I'm overconsuming and I'm scrolling too much, because scrolling feels like well, at least my mind isn't constantly telling me that I'm not doing something. Well, I can just sit here and I can doom scroll. I'm listening to a book. I can just sit here and I can doom scroll. I'm listening to a book. I can't even tell you what it's called. I'll have to link it. It's Unconnected, reconnected, anyhow.

Speaker 1:

His name is Carlos and he wrote a book about this exact thing. He felt like he was on his phone way too much, he was way too plugged into way too many things, always had information, music, podcasts, sermons, books all coming at him all the time and decided to take a step away from technology and went for two weeks he lived in a monastery no phone. Two weeks he lived on an Amish farm no phone, and then he went back into his house with his family, I think for three weeks I haven't finished the book yet Three weeks with no phone. And it's just him talking through this process and the withdrawals and all the things. And there was a point in the book where he was at the monastery and he was talking about, like this withdrawal that he was having and this realization of how much noise and how much stuff we have coming at us and how that was so impacting his ability to process, his ability to show up, his ability to have joy, his ability to even have any sense of wonder and our kids co-op.

Speaker 1:

The whole theme is from wonder to wisdom and he was talking about how we're living in this day and age where there is no more wonder, because anytime we have a question, anytime something pops in our brain about how that worked, or who said that there's no more conversation about these things that we wonder about. We immediately wonder and then we go to something, we go to Google that or we go to find the book on it and it's making as he said. It's making all of us experts quote unquote what we think is experts. Everywhere you scroll there's a health coach who's an expert, and there's a this expert and a that expert and even podcasts. Right, there's everybody who is quote unquote an expert. And the reality is none of us are experts unless we've actually gone and had that degree and practiced it for thousands and thousands of hours to have that experience.

Speaker 1:

But we're constantly getting all of this information and it's so overwhelming and it was just this challenge to kind of pull back and make yourself wonder and make yourself think through things, even medical stuff. We used to go to a doctor and they would say, hmm, something looks suspicious, you might need to go have this test, and you would wait and you would wonder and process for a week, two weeks, three weeks sometimes to get the next answer to that problem or that thing, where now we leave the doctor's office and we're immediately Googling and researching and talking who's ever experienced this and we're having all of these things come at us, and it was just really convicting to me. He said something along the lines of we go to Google instead of God. We have become like Google experts instead of going. Well, I'm sure there's a gazillion things on the internet that will tell me what this is or how I can calm anxiety or how I can deal with menopause, and there's absolutely a place for that. But I was convicted in the sense of I'm constantly going to research and to look and to study instead of just being still, instead of just disconnecting, instead of just reading the Bible in silence and asking God what is it? Give me the answer, give me the tools, give me even just the next step. I don't need the whole picture, I don't need the whole plan, I don't need to know what it's going to look like in five years. I just need to know what I need to do today. No-transcript.

Speaker 1:

They handed out note cards, just regular note cards, all different colors, on a spiral not a spiral, but a little like round clip thing you know a little binder clip and encouraged you, just as you found Bible verses and stuff, just to write those Bible verses down on those and come back and read through those on a regular basis. And so last year when I read through the Proverbs so many times, there was a lot of verses that came just every month. When I read them they kind of jumped off of the pages and so I put those on there and put some on there about rejoicing in the Lord and do not grow weary chasing after things of this world, but have wisdom, and just on all kinds of different topics. And have just found myself this week in these states of overwhelm, just going to those note cards and asking God like make this my truth, make this my resource, make this my Google information, because I don't need to have the five-step plan to reduce anxiety. Obviously, there's so many things out there that are beneficial and I'm not saying that there's not a place for those, but for me to center back and go, I have to come back to the main resource in my life, which is the Bible, which is just going to God's Word, which is turning off the podcast and that's funny to say, as I'm recording a podcast.

Speaker 1:

If you are feeling anxious and overwhelmed and you are struggling and you're listening to this today and you haven't sat and read your Bible. I'm gonna tell you, turn this off Like hit, pause, go, get quiet, go open your Bible. Go to the Bible app, which I love I also don't love because it's on a phone and it can be distracting but go to the Bible app and pick a Bible five-day plan that you can read, or just commit to start reading the Bible every single day. Go through the Proverbs, whatever it might be, but start there and ask the Lord to calm your spirit. And I just find myself running back to this.

Speaker 1:

I truly believe that Bible verse that says the devil comes to steal and destroy and when we are already feeling doubtful, when we already have reservation, when we have things that we believe that God has called us to, he's going to come and he's going to try to steal and destroy and even just my head garbage in the last 24 hours of struggling through I don't have a podcast and I committed to this and I have to do it and it's this thing that I said I was going to do and trying to take the control of it. I have just seen the devil coming at me and I know that people can probably relate to this in every area of your life, whatever it is the business. You started the marriage. You're committed to working out the patience and the restraint of anger that you're trying to use in your home instead of being a yeller, the way that you've asked for patience, all of these different things. And when we pray, lord, heal my marriage. Lord, help me in my parenting. Lord, help me have more patience, it is like Satan attacks and is like oh girl, I'm gonna show you that this is bigger than your God.

Speaker 1:

And even with the podcast this week, just the amount of doubt and lies that I felt coming over me, of doubting if I should even be doing this Maybe people look at me and think what a fake she is. She's crying all the time, she's going through menopause, she was short with her kids, her and her husband had a spat over something and it makes you go. I just need to retreat. I just need to go into safety. I need to get out of all the limelight of all things because it feels dangerous and I am just convicted that this is the exact time when we have to step forward. We have to step forward and say I am gonna show up on the podcast. Satan, watch me. Lord, give me wisdom because I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna say I am so far from perfect.

Speaker 1:

I am so far from being the perfect mom, the perfect wife having all the answers, but in just having a conversation with a child the other day and talking through different stages of parenting and somewhere we've struggled and laughing about different arguments or whatever it might be and just being like, but we've stayed consistent and we've continued to show up and we've continued to be so human and so flawed. And in those times of humanness and flawedness, the devil wants us to believe that we aren't equipped, we aren't called, we're not living on mission or on purpose. And overwhelmingly this week I keep having this thought of Nikki your joy is not based in the right thing, because the reason that you keep coming up short is because you want people to like you, you want people to approve of you, you want to be heard, you want to be validated. And when those things don't happen, or when you feel like you're losing grip of some control, it's very easy to not have joy. And I've talked I don't know if we've talked about it on the podcast, but I think we did there was an episode about do I pass the joy test?

Speaker 1:

I think is what it was titled and talking about the difference between happiness and joy, and this is something I feel to my core. I believe that in the Bible verse, the joy of the Lord is my strength. It doesn't say the Lord is my strength. It doesn't say my happiness is my strength or me being happy in my life is what's going to get me through. So much of it is talked about the joy and the difference between happiness and joy is happiness is based on my circumstances. You are happy when things are going well. You are happy when all of the stuff is lining up and it's going your way. That's happiness. Joy is not dependent on circumstances. True joy is not dependent on circumstances.

Speaker 1:

We all know the people that have been in just crazy, crazy situations with hurt and heartache and health issues, and yet they still somehow have this unbelievable joy that bubbles out of them right along with the diagnosis that they just got, or the bankruptcy, or the tragedy with their child or all the different things. There still is this just obvious joy, and I just keep praying Lord, let me stop focusing on being happy and let me focus on figuring out how to make you my source of joy, because then it won't waver. When I have bad weeks, I won't become short with my family. I won't shut down. I won't be so afraid of what the world thinks of me. I will be able to just show up and say this is really hard and this feels like a really dark season and yet the joy of the Lord is my strength and because of that I can continue to show up and I can continue to be authentic. And I can continue to show up and I can continue to be authentic and I can continue to be me, flawed and all. Not afraid to put that out, not afraid to say I am really struggling, not afraid to say my capacity is gone or I'm exhausted, or I need help, or I need you just to come, sit with me, or I need you to take a walk with me in silent and having those conversations with the Lord. And so today I just want to encourage you, no matter where you're at. I have felt in these seasons of like man, this just feels tough right now.

Speaker 1:

When I was young, married and I was trying to figure out marriage, I felt it in my career in different stages. When you're going after things and you're working really hard and you aren't seeing the results that would match what you're putting in. I've seen it in postpartum depression, when I had everything I could have ever wanted and yet I cried all the time and was scared to death. I've seen it when I was parenting little kids and I was so tired I literally couldn't function. And I would look around my house and I would think what do I do all day? I feel like I never sit and I just run, run, run and my house is a disaster and I can't keep on top of anything. I can't keep up on the dishes, I can't keep up on the laundry. My kids have black fingernails because there's so much dirt and grime under them and they've got snot, crusted noses and they've been eating horrible food. And I felt that when I can't remember all the things at school and my kid isn't in the right dress up, or they don't have the right uniform piece or they miss the practice, or I totally skipped the doctor's appointment because I forgot about it.

Speaker 1:

I felt it with adult kids, when I feel like there's nothing I can do because I have to let them struggle through their own heartache and figure it out, and I can't pick up the pieces and I can't fix it, because now they're adults and they have to figure it out and they have to fail forward. I felt it in this stage where it's like I have everything I could ever want and my kids are doing amazing things, and yet there's a sense of being a little paralyzed, of fear of what's coming, because I'm looking at a three-year projection of you're going to be home alone and your kids are all going to be gone and everything that you've worked for your whole life to be doing exactly what they're doing right now to be successful, to be kind, to be working hard. They're doing everything you ever dreamed. They love the Lord, they love their family, and yet you're crying because you're so afraid of this stage ending and what it's going to look like next. And so I just want to be real and I want to be transparent and I might regret recording this, but that's okay, it's going out tomorrow because I feel like this was my commitment to show up like I said I would and to not bring content that was just going to be mumble jumble of some random thing that I was going to force out, because I said I would do it. I knew that I had to be okay with every time I hit record, knowing that I was bringing something of value. And so there might be a ton of you that this means nothing to, but to the one, two, three, four, five moms that right now are in that place of overwhelm and fear and doubt and wonder like what is this even all about? I want you to know that you're seen. I want you to know that you're not alone. I want you to know that there's not a podcast, a book, a sermon that's going to do for you what you need, until you just get on your face before the Lord and you open the Bible and you start asking Him to be your strength because of the joy that you find in Him. The joy of the Lord is my strength and it brings me back to I read the story once about the hymn Most of Us Know it Is Well With my Soul goes way back and the story of the gentleman and I don't remember enough of the details, but I know a handful that at least gives the gist of what this is.

Speaker 1:

But that was a song that was written by a gentleman who, at the time that he wrote it, was sailing over the seas where I believe it was his wife and two of maybe his three children. His wife and a couple of children had been in a shipwreck that had sank at sea and it was a long time ago. So there was no Instagram, there was no phone call. He received information back I think he was from Chicago Again, I'll try to link it I'm sure I can find the story online and link it in the notes but received word that his family had perished at sea and so he was traveling across then the ocean to go be where they were at to have services, whatever to be with the rest of his family, be where they were at to have services, whatever to be with the rest of his family. And it was when the captain told him we're sailing over right now the waters where your family was killed at sea. And that is when he wrote that song it Is Well With my Soul.

Speaker 1:

And when you sing that song and you know that story and again I apologize if a few of those details are wrong, but that's kind of how it's in my brain from what I remember If you can be passing over the sea where your family has died and you can write the words it is well with my soul when you can have lyrics to a song that say when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, whatever is going on, thou has taught me to say it is well. It is well with my soul. And to be able to be in that place is what I want, it's what I desire. I'm still trying to figure it out. I'm trying to figure out how do I allow the joy of the Lord to be my strength. What does that look like? How do I get there? How do I not just say that that's what I want, but that that's actually what it is?

Speaker 1:

It is my prayer that, to the one or the two that are listening, that are feeling overwhelmed, that are lacking joy, that are feeling themselves questioning their worth or if they're making a difference themselves questioning their worth, or if they're making a difference, that are maybe seeking approval from outside voices or from approval of others, or the job security or the recognition or any of the things, I just want to encourage you to take the time to be still, to let there be quiet, to go to the Bible, to go to those memory verses, to let the true overflow of your heart be scripture that you have hidden down in there, the Bible verse out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. How do I get to the point that there is so much truth and scripture and just solid foundation of the word of God in my heart and in my soul that when I come into situations that feel hard or feel overwhelming and you guys, this probably maybe seems really dramatic because there's nothing major going on in my life it's just this sense of overwhelm and just some hard things stacked together that make it feel overwhelming, and even some, like I said earlier, some really good things that just carry heaviness because it's change and it's different and it's adjustment to not be in a place where those things cause us to lose our joy and just navigating through that. And so I hope that those that are listening that can relate to that, that you will just make the commitment to really try to figure out how to make that truth and the scripture, the joy that your family sees, that even when circumstances aren't happy. And I feel like there's a lot of guilt specifically for moms and I can speak to moms. I'm sure there's guilt for dads too. I'm not a dad, I'm not a husband, I don't carry that weight, I carry a different weight in our household, but for moms specifically, when you're looking at your life.

Speaker 1:

I've been dealing with this today and I'm like, oh my gosh, I adore my husband, I have a wonderful marriage, I have wonderful kids who are doing amazing things, and everything I've been working for, you know, 23 years to raise them to be strong and independent is happening and they're leaving, they're becoming strong and independent and somehow that feels like debilitating. I have a home that is warm and it's heated and I have food in the fridge and we have cars that drive and we have a savings account and it's just, honestly, to me this week a beautiful reminder of Nikki. You can have all of your ducks in a row here on earth, you can have all the relationship things figured out, you can have the bank accounts, just right, you can have the material things and until you figure out how to find your joy, your only source of joy in me I shouldn't say my only source, because there's huge joy that comes from those things that I just mentioned but to be able to know that, even when those things are rattled and shaken, that I still can have joy, I can still say, though sea billows roll, though this feels hard, though this feels overwhelming. Though this feels scary, or this feels like loss, or this feels like uncertainty, it is still well with my soul that these things don't send me into a tailspin of doom and gloom. And life is too hard and I can't do this and nobody likes me and poor me. And been running to get validation that we can just find peace and solitude in the joy of the Lord is my strength. This sounds a little bit like a broken record and I can tell you that this is.

Speaker 1:

It's going to be a flat miracle if we get this thing out tomorrow, because I, just about a few minutes ago, went to go. I had finished the recording and went to go hit end and saw that my recording had finished seven minutes prior. So somehow it got disconnected, probably lost the internet connection. So this is actually take two of the last seven minutes. So I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I'm hoping that this is having a lot of adversity coming against it, because it's what needs to be put out there and not because it's God saying like, don't do this, and this is all this human doubt. But I just believe that women need real, they need honest, they need encouragement to keep going, to know that they're not alone to be reminded that there is a firm foundation in a very shaky world that can only be found when we put our trust in the Lord. So that's today, friends that was all over the board, going to go edit, gonna get it up, gonna get it. Live and pray that, even if there's just one sweet mama out there that needed this message today, that you would just be encouraged, that you would go right to the scripture and that you would just be able to finish out your day with a renewed sense of joy and hope and energy to get through the day and to just hold your head high knowing that, even as flawed humans, that we are doing good work, that parenting those kiddos and shepherding their hearts and schooling them and driving them everywhere and cooking for them and making sure they have clean clothes and being the backbone of the office administration stuff that happens in our houses, and the bookkeeper and the financial coordinator and the soccer mom and the basketball mom and the lunch packer I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

Speaker 1:

What you are doing matters, and don't let Satan tell you lies that you're messing them up. We all are going to mess our kids up to some extent, right, because, again, humans trying to shepherd humans. But we get to do it all with a grace and a compassion from the ultimate parent, and so I love you all. I'm in this with you. I am down in the trenches and just committing to do life alongside you all, so I hope you are encouraged. Until next week, friends, take care.