4 Tips for Dealing with Noodle Brain

First of all I’d like to start off with an apology. I downloaded a new calendar  that (apparently) automatically schedules blog posts. Or random drafts and paragraphs, as I learnt. For those of you that have already part of this, I’m sorry! And for those of you that are reading this for the first time, lets get into it and talk about noodle brain!

A while ago I heard an analogy about women’s and men’s brains from Bill and Pam Farrel. They compared the brain of a man to a waffle. Lots of little compartments with different boxes for different things. There might be a work box, a wife box, a sports box, a kids’ box, etc, etc. It doesn’t matter if life isn’t going so well in one box, as long as other boxes are doing ok, everything is just fine. In contrast to this, they talk about a woman’s brain being like one big fat bowl of spaghetti, with tangly noodles wrapped and woven together, overflowing the rim of the bowl. When I heard this, a big light bulb lit up above my head. This not only made sense in terms of my relationship with my husband but understanding myself and my emotions.

Last week I received some very sad family news which upset me a lot. Over the next few days I found myself losing it over nothing. Like so many other women, I get crazy emotional when its ‘that time of the month’ basically turning into a 22 year old toddler. Imagine the Kim Kardashian cry face, but the blonde gumboot wearing version. NOT PRETTY. I seriously feel for my hubby at this time because I become a terrible person to be around. Last week I cried because of an unwashed chopping board, because I didn’t know where to plant a shrub, because I didn’t know what to wear, because I had to go to a meeting, and so the list goes on. I was an emotional wreck. During the shrub planting melt down I had to quit the water works and give myself a bit of a pep talk. I was getting upset about the dumbest of things and knew it needed to stop. I got out a piece of paper and wrote down all the things that were stressing me out. There were 13 things on the list. Thirteen things that were making me upset all at once. Some of those things were relatively easy fixes, such as not having a better plan for the garden, and other things were much bigger and out of my control, such as the terribly low dairy pay out.

My noodle brain was making me crazy. Because I had one noodle out of place, the whole bowl went nuts. You can’t take a single noodle from a plate without disturbing the others. Once one is moved, they’re all moved right? So how do you deal with an out of control noodle brain? I’m not too sure but I do have a few things that help me out.

1. Hand it over to God.

That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

“And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

Matthew 6:25-30

Real talk right? My Heavenly Father knows what’s going on inside my little world. Why, he created it! Yet here I am stressing out because I don’t have a good enough plan for my garden. I saw something on Instagram the other day that asked if I had prayed about it as much as I had worried about it. I’m constantly reminding myself to hand over my problems to the one who can fix them.

2. Talk it out.

My husband is constantly telling me that I need to talk to him more. I know, a strange thing for a man to say right? I often get the idea in my head that my problems are not worthy of being talked about, yet I’ll silently stress over them for weeks. Talking to someone makes such a difference. They could be going through the same thing, or have overcome the same problem in the past.

3. Solve the easiest problems first.

There’s a debt managing strategy called the snowball method. It works like this: you pay off your debts one at a time starting with the smallest, no matter what the interest rates are. You feel great and as you pay off the debts, you build momentum, continuing until you become debt free. Getting rid of the things that stress you and upset you can be done in the same manner. For me the past week, that meant cleaning the house, spraying it for flies and spiders (gross), and drawing up a better plan for the garden. As for some of the other problems, they’ll require more work, determination and time. Obviously you will almost always have trials in your life, but having strategies to deal with them sure helps!

4. Compose a hit list.

For all you Kiwi girls, you just pictured Naz from the Bachelor right? Now I’m not going to tell you to go and start trying to get rid of people in your life. More so the opposite actually! Compose a list of things that you really love doing, maybe its having a bath, going for a run, reading a book or watching a movie. Take a little T.O. and have a moment to relax. Your noodle brain will look less tangled if you’re relaxed.

Thanks for listening to my random rant! If it helps just one of you I’l be happy.