[302] Overstimulated & Under-Joyed

Your brain isn’t broken, it’s overloaded. I’m sitting down with a cup of tea and naming the thing so many of us feel but rarely say out loud: life is loud, busy, and weirdly serious, and we’ll do almost anything to avoid an empty moment. If you’ve ever found yourself “productively” organizing junk, scrolling Threads a little too long, or filling every pause with content, you’re in good company.

I talk about why constant distraction feels so tempting in 2026, how information overload can keep our nervous system stuck on high alert, and why quiet can feel uncomfortable at first. We practice a simple reset I love called a “nothing pocket” a short, timed window where you do nothing on purpose so your mind can breathe again. From there, we shift into the real mission: joy. What’s actually fun for you right now? When did we stop playing, and why did adulthood become a loop of work, chores, and screens?

We get practical with ideas to bring play back without overhauling your whole life: revisiting what you loved as a kid, scheduling it like it matters, trying an “artist date” style weekly adventure, checking local events, going to things alone, following tiny creative urges like doodling, and even shaking out energy with a five-minute dance break while dinner cooks. The goal is simple: more play, more core memories, less autopilot.

If this lights something up, share it with a friend who needs more fun, tag me so I can thank you, and please leave a five-star review on Spotify or Apple to help this community grow.

Thank you for listening to Self(ish) Confidence! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or on your social media and tag me @jess.clerke so I can personally thank you for helping spread some confidence + love!
 
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Transcript

Welcome To Selfish Confidence

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Selfish Confidence, a place where we can connect and be real about the artist to be your damn self. My name is Jess, and my goal is to help you build confidence and belief in yourself to live any life path you want, even if it's unconventional. It's time to flip off societal pressures and connect with women who've also felt on the outside by their life choices. We're here to encourage you to grab the mic and speak your truth. I know it can be scary, but we're in this together. Let's get started. And I'm sitting down with a nice cup of lemon tea just to take a deep breath with you. Anybody else feeling that? Oh man, just the busyness of life. And I know we're all in that season of overwhelm and busy and chaos. We talked about it last week. But it's just so interesting because we take everything so seriously. Life feels serious. It feels like everywhere we turn, there's another task. And even as I was getting ready to sit down on the mic here with you and to hang out, I found myself distracting myself with little things like, oh, scrolling on my phone, or I went through a drawer here that's in one of my cubbies with like all of these old cords. I found like five HDMI cords. It's like we don't even have five TVs. Like, why do we have so many cords? And this is just one box of cords, like charging cords, and there was an old cell phone in there, a mouse in there. Like just like things that you're just like, why do I have all of these things? And they've just accumulated over the years. So I organized that. Well, kind of. It's all on the floor right now. I just have to bring Glenn down here to be like, what do what do you even want? And today has been just one of those days of like nitpicking at things. We were home sick today. My little guy was sick. So I've just been like tackling a few tasks here and there throughout the day and just distracting myself from the things that I actually need to do. And maybe you're doing the same thing. We are pros at that, right? The world that we live in makes it so easy for us to distract ourselves all the time. Like, like if you do not want to be present in your life, you could distract yourself 24-7 if you wanted to. There's endless amounts of TV and videos and YouTube and podcasts and social media scrolling and books that you could dive into. And like there are distractions upon distractions upon distractions if you didn't want to deal with your own stuff. And I bet you have a list of your favorite distractions, the ones that you use all the time. But I was sitting at my desk and I like to just kind of get in the zone before I sit on the mic, six my tea, and have a moment to be like, oh yeah, this is what I kind of want to touch on. And I make my notes and I kind of map out the episode. And if I'm being honest, it it it never goes the way that I map it out. But at least I have an idea and a direction. And as I was sitting down today to do that, I just found myself, you know, checking social media or yeah, organizing chords that definitely don't need to be organized or checking for, you know, the Easter gifts that we have and making sure we have enough of this. And oh, I went through the three T clothes that I was given so I could kind of check and see what we wanted from that pile and what we were going to give away to another friend of ours. And I was just like, oh my gosh, the things that we get done when we are distracting ourselves from actually doing the thing that we are supposed to be doing and even want to be doing, which for me was sitting down and recording this episode. And I don't totally know why we do it, why we always want to be distracted, but it is becoming a common theme, a theme that keeps popping up for a lot of people because we're just so overwhelmed and burnt out and life is busy, and the second that we get a moment, we open up our phones and do something to fill that moment. And I am noticing that we, myself included, we, me, can sometimes have a hard time with that pocket being totally empty. There's a practice that I have shared on here many times and also have shared with many of my clients and friends. It's like doing a nothing pocket where you actually literally do nothing for a set amount of time, whatever you think you can do. For some people, a minute, 10 minutes, 15, whatever. And I was doing not necessarily a nothing pocket today, more of like a meditation and just trying to kind of calm my nervous system and bring myself back to reality here. And I set my timer for 15 minutes, and I felt like I hit my peak at eight minutes, and I looked, I'm like, oh my gosh, there's still eight minutes left. It's hard to even stop yourself for 15 minutes. We are getting so much information. We get more information in a day than our grandparents got in their whole lifetime, right? Like we can see videos of the most tragic things happening uh in the world right now and in the news, and then look at a puppy, you know, playing with a kitten in the very next video. A friend of mine have we've had this conversation where it's like we can go from death in a conversation to, you know, what you're having for supper in the same couple sentences because you just like that's the world we live in. It is so noisy and our brains are so full, and we're so overwhelmed because we were never meant to be tapped in as much as we are right now. And I know you know you're not alone in this. If you are feeling this overwhelm right now, if you're feeling the abundance of information and energy and opinions and the world in your pocket, it's normal, right? We're all going through it, but it doesn't make it any easier. And so today I really wanted to talk to you about a couple tools that can help you to unwind in this season and unlock this need to always fill every single inch of space. And I know I have said this many times, but if this is your first time here, hello, welcome. I'm so happy to have you here. But if you are only getting ideas when you hop in the shower or when you're driving your car and you're like, oh my gosh, I need to write this down, you are not slowing down enough during the day. And I know easier said than done. I'm a parent now. I also get it. We are busy, we are on the go. Life is crazy, and we need to be making that time for ourselves. We need to be making those pockets so that we can not feel like this and not feel like we have to fill every second or doom scroll or even bloom scroll. I've seen this thing, bloom scrolling, where it's like scrolling for like, you know, the purpose of joy, and I get that, but I also think we need to be finding some things outside of the scroll that are really gonna help us to unlock the peace that we're looking for, and that's always what I'm looking for. It's like peace, that calmness, and I am not getting it. I even noticed I was on threads scrolling because it's like one of the only social media apps that I don't have a limit on because I didn't think I needed a limit on. I think I need a limit on it. But it's like the algorithm is not going in the direction that I want it to. The content that I'm starting to get, I'm like, oh no, I stayed on one post for too long and now it's all I'm getting. And so I want to know are these posts, are the noise on social media, the things that you're consuming on social media, are they bringing you joy? Because for me, some of it does. There are people who I like to watch, it sounds creepy when I say it, but there's people who I like to follow and check in on and see what they're doing. And there is noise. There's a bit of both. And I think that that's why it's so hard for us to have this balance with it, because one, it's created for us to be addicted to, for one. Two, it is also a place where we do have community and connection and joy and friendships and people who we want to check in on and our favorite creators that we want to see. That is all on there, and then also we get sucked in so far. So I know I've talked about some limits before, but that's not what this podcast episode is about. It's not what you need to do to get off your phone. That no, but I do want to shift the conversation to being more about joy. What is actually bringing you joy and playfulness and fun in this season right now? So we just had our sisterhood, our first sisterhood brunch last weekend, and when we were there, I asked everyone around the table, like, what do you do for fun? So, what do you do for work? What do you do for fun? And a lot of us are really stumped on that question of what do you do for fun, myself included. Like, what even is fun? Organizing these cords that are in this box? No, that was not fun, but it was great to get it done. Laundry, no, that's not super fun, but you know, it's great to check it off the list. Like, we're just in this autopilot mode all the time that we don't even know what fun is anymore. And I want to know when that happened. Like, when did all of a sudden we unticked the box of like, okay, I want to I don't want to play anymore, right? We were kids and we played all the time and we got dirty and we ran through the woods and we would play on the swings and you, you know, you couldn't pull me off of one of those what's those spinny things. I want to call it a tilt-to-world, but it's not. But like all of these great toys at the park, like I could spend hours at the park or hours coloring or doing crafts and not even noticing the time going by or not even being aware of anything else going on around me because I didn't care other than the activity that I was pursuing. And I get it, we're older now, we have more responsibilities, more things to think about than when we were a kid. But imagine if you could shut your brain off for an hour to play. How joyful that would feel. And even when I suggest this to people, most people are like, I don't even know how to do that. Like maybe let's start at a minute because I don't know what play looks like. And since having my son, I do really feel like I can start to see it a bit more because I play with him, but it's more for the purpose of his amusement and his entertainment and less about my own. And so I'm really curious what is play for you? What is fun for you? What's that thing that you're like, oh, I really enjoy doing that? Is it crafts? I feel like we're getting in some of those like granny hobbies of people who enjoy doing crafts and having fun and uh creating new things, crocheting or quilting or painting, right? There's so many things. Or maybe you're more of a sports gal and you want to join a sports team or you know, get out and play some tennis or pickleball or whatever it is that you like to do, or go for a run, or get in the wrestling ring, whatever. I did boxing for a little bit, that was really, really fun too. So, what is that thing that brings you joy and finding those things and then not only finding them but actioning them and adding them into your week and into your day because I just don't think we're doing it enough. I know we're not doing it enough. And when we look at children, the simple act of them like waking up. My son wakes up and he grabs his books and he reads his books and then he plays with his Legos and then he has a snack and then he goes and he plays with his kitchen and he just doesn't think of anything other than in the present moment, what do I want to do? What do I want to play with? What do I want to check out? And again, I know we have a lot more on our plates than a little 14-month-old kid. But we could really take some advice from them. I have a client, we talk about this all the time. If I could be more like my dog, how much more joyful my life would be? They do not care about anything else around them other than the present moment and what they want to do. Take a nap, play, go for a walk, do whatever they want to do, get some cuddles, and they get what they want in the moment that they want, and they don't think about anything else. And so I think we need to be creating a moment in our day where we do not need to be thinking about anything else. That we could put all of the noise aside and do something fun. I think we need more play. It's not even I think, I know we need more play in our life. We need more play. But the issue here is nobody knows how to play. It's like once we got to a certain age, it's like you hit 21 and then you're just like, Oh, I don't know what to do anymore. I don't play. I put on a suit and I go to work nine to five. And in the evening I come home and I watch TV. I make dinner, watch TV, I work out, work out fun. You know, like I feel like we're like robotic as soon as we hit a certain age, and that's not how we're meant to live. It's not how we're meant to live at all. And we do this for the majority of our life. Let's say that turns on at 21, and let's say you live till 81, right? That's 60 years of autopilot boring life. Autopilot boring life. And I'm noticing more and more I'm forgetting what I did. Went to the pool yesterday with some friends and they said, Oh, how was your week? What'd you do this week? Couldn't remember yesterday. So I pulled out a notepad so that I can start tracking this down, even writing down every single day, like what did I do today? Because I don't remember, because every day is autopilot, and I'd be curious if it's the same for you. And I just Googled, like, there's a song that I was listening to, and I was trying to figure out who the artist is. I think it's Tones and I. And in her song, she says, Are we alive or are we just living? Are you living for today? Because there's a very big difference in being alive on this planet and living. And then when I Googled that, a lot of weird things came up. It was just like the lyrics that I remembered. I wanted to make sure I could see the artists and give them credit. But I got some weird, weird, weird things that popped up. It's like, are you alive or are you dying? And I'm like, whoa, okay, thank you. Let's uh let's uh bring it back here for a minute. And that's how the algorithm gets messed up over here. But really, are you alive or are you living? Like every single day we get this opportunity to open our eyes, to breathe a little bit more, and to play. I really do not think that we were created to come and work our butts off for a short period of retirement or you know, whatever the world is telling us is societally accepted right now. But I think there's something more here. I really think we need to be playing more. And as adults, we gotta figure out what that is. Like, what is play for me? And it's gonna look different for all of us. I know I say that all the time, but it is, but I thought maybe we could kind of talk about some suggestions on the way places to to start playing a little bit more. One of my favorite memories, oh man, I can think about it right now and it just like get right back in the fields. I have always loved, and I this is a part of I'm excited about having a kid too, with like going to the playground. I've always loved a playground from a young, young age. I loved doing the monkey bars and sliding down the slide, and I still do. If I go to a playground, you best believe I will be testing out the slide. And I remember uh my husband Glenn when we first started chit-chatting, chit-chatting and texting to each other back in the day, back in the day before all of this stuff. I think we might have had Facebook back then, but we were just texting and he had said, okay, I'd love to hang out. And it was late in the evening. Uh, and I said, Okay, let's go meet at a playground. And we did in the dark. I met a man in the dark at a playground. Now, again, this was a little earlier, less less scaries out there than there are now. This is probably like 16 years ago or more, maybe 15 years ago. I can't do the math right now, but it was just this like beautiful moment of us just playing, like literally, we went to the playground to play and to chat, and it was that innocent. And I look back on that memory with such fondness. I feel emotional. We were just so young and so full of opportunity and full of life. And I didn't know it yet, but I had just met the person who I was gonna play with for the rest of my life who's going to be my best friend, and at some point we both turned it off and just went into all of our things that we need to do. Like shoveling. It's it snowed here today. We gotta get some shoveling so that you know our dog can go out to go to the bathroom, and well, one of us has to put the baby down, so that's gonna take a little bit longer because he's sick too. So though those responsibilities weigh heavy on our shoulders that we forget the opportunity to play, and we forget the opportunity to have like a moment of fun every single day, to the point where we are forgetting what is happening every single day because it's so mundane and boring. When can we shift this? How can we shift this? Because we need to, and that moment is so clear of the early days of dating. I think for a lot of reasons. One, we didn't have all the noise that we have now. We had there was noise, obviously, but it's just not the same as this constant that we have. And those beginning stages are like fundamental and something that we will always remember. There's going to be moments like that going forward in our lives too, right? Things that we're like, I'm never gonna forget this moment. I'd like to have more of those, maybe not every day, but like frequent enough, those core memories, and those core memories come from doing things differently. Those core memories are powered into your body and into your brain when you do something that's memorable. And if every day is the same thing, wake up, work, work out, watch TV, eat a meal, pet the dog, go to bed, period, every single day. There's no excitement, there's nothing, nothing core about that. And that's why I'm forgetting so much lately. There's nothing core about the days that I'm living. They're mundane, they're the same thing, they're beautiful. Don't get me wrong. I love my days. Like I love playing with my son, I love taking our dog for the walk. I love, you know, getting out in the woods. Like these things are the same thing every day, and it's not a bad life at all. I absolutely, I actually I love my life. I think I have the most beautiful, gifted life in the whole world. But I do also think we need more play. And though that play is gonna create core memories for us. What a gift that would be. So if you're looking for more opportunities to play, there's a couple things that I would suggest. One, think about your childhood, think about you and the little version of you and what brought you joy. Like, what was the thing for you? I loved coloring as a kid, I loved playing outdoors, I loved just enjoying more crafts and yeah, put me outdoors with a coloring book. I'd probably have been there for hours. Like I just loved those two things. It's as simple as that. Uh swinging, swinging, sounds like uh like swingers. No, like literally on the swings, okay? Swinging and playing at the park and going to, you know, sports and dance class and all these things. I really do think for me, the simplicity of having fun is like going to the playground or sitting outside and having a little bit of time to color. I'm a simple gal. Oh man, to read in a hammock. I was never much of a reader as a kid, but now that would also be play for me. I had a moment earlier today where my little guy was sleeping and I was like, oh, maybe I'll try to take a nap too. I definitely couldn't, but I just laid in bed and read my book, and it was like a really, really beautiful moment of me just like being able to relax. And that was play for me, like to read. So don't overthink it. Just go to the simple things that first come to your mind. Like when I was a little kid, I enjoyed doing this X, Y, Z, whatever it is, and pick one of those things and put it on the calendar for sometime this week. Again, I'd love for this to be an everyday thing, but I know in reality that's difficult for us. We got full lives. So there needs to be a pocket during your week where you can do that. I'm reading the book The Artist Way. She talks about an artist date every week and doing something uh to spark your creativity. And this can be something like to have fun is also gonna spark your creativity. It's gonna spark productivity, it's gonna help you in so many ways if you need to reframe this in your brain to be like, this is useful of my time. I think it's useful to just have fun, but sometimes we need to reframe our brains, especially if it's not safe for us to slow down in our bodies just quite yet. So look back to what was fun when you were a kid and bring that back to life now. Put it on your calendar and go out and have some fun. You can also go look at like Facebook events or Eventbrite and see what pops up what's something that interests you. Is there like a cool mad science day at the Discovery Center that you're just like, oh That's actually kind of cool. Maybe I'd want to check it out. Or a new exhibit at the local museum. Is there a paint class that that's being offered? Or, you know, a ceramic, like those pottery places where you can go paint your own pottery. Like, look at all of the things that pop up in these events and see what sparks your interest. Maybe there's like a weird woo-woo like I don't know. What was one thing? I think Gothic Christmas was one thing my sister-in-law went to recently, like just over over the Christmas break. And I was just like, that is such a strange niche thing, but also sounds super fun. So you might see something there that's like an event that you're like, oh, I didn't even know that I thought that would be fun, but let me check it out. And don't be afraid to go to things alone. I know it's scary. It's really scary to go do things alone, but it's also really liberating because you don't have anyone else's opinions, you don't have anyone else's timelines. You just get to go and experience something and try something new and see if it's for you. And if it's for you and you want to bring someone next time, cool. But like you could also dip your toe in all by yourself. And then follow those urges, follow that thing. Like lately, I've been feeling this urge to scribble. I feel like a kid when I do it, and I laugh as I say it, but like just like literally with a pencil. I've been enjoying holding a pencil in my hand, scribbling a bit more, doodling a bit more, and just yeah, having fun in the small moments and the small pockets that I have, making things more fun. I just made a new logo, which is like pretty fun and colorful and great. Follow those things that are like whispering to you or calling to you that might be a little bit fun. And do five minutes, right? Do a little pocket before you go to bed or when your supper's cooking. Like just take a little pocket to have some fun. You could also move, like swinging your arms and jumping around like you would when you were a kid. Like picture your niece or nephew or a kid that you can, a kid at the grocery store, right? And they're just like buzzing around and they're bouncing around and they're moving. And my little guy just like grabs the like balls and he just like is throw always throwing stuff, throwing balls at people and trying to play with the dog, like always in play mode, always in fun mode. And same with our pets, right? I want you to harness that energy a little bit. Like when you're cooking dinner, just like shaking your hands a bit, jumping up and down a little bit, moving some of the energy around in our body because I think that that gets stuck too, and then it's forcing us to just be exhausted, and then we don't want to do anything. So just move a little bit. Five minutes is enough for you to just like bounce around, put put on a song that would be playful and be able to dance to and just like take a little quick dance party. Find your pockets for fun. You don't realize how deprived you are of play and fun until you start to look into it more. As adults in 2026, we are deprived of fun, and that is the saddest thing I have ever heard because when did our life stop? We did not, you know, throw away the fun years of our life just to become adults who are boring and work. I love if if work is fun for you, but I just do not think that that's what we were put on this earth to do. And through having this chat at the sisterhood table, like we just like we're like, I like to eat food for fun. That is literally a basic life necessity. Like we have to eat, and that's what we're doing for fun. And don't get me wrong, I'll love me some good food. We need a little bit more fun than just eating, a little bit more fun than you know, playing with our dog, which I love to do, but there's more to life than these things, and I just want you to start to recognize it a little bit more. And then send me a DM, send me a picture of you having some freaking fun. Because I don't know. I just think we need more of it. I I think I might go to the palladium. If you're not familiar with what it is, it's like the indoor arcade. I love an arcade, I love an arcade, I love the candy store, I love like just fun, and I'm not doing enough of it, so maybe we need to challenge each other to have a little bit more fun in our life. Yeah, I think that'd be good. So send me a message and let me know what would be fun for you. And if you are loving the Selfish Confidence podcast, you're loving this community, and you're just like, oh man, I feel so seen when I chat with you, Jess. Please, please, please drop a review for the podcast. Wherever you listen to your podcast, Spotify, Apple, um, if you can leave a five-star review and you know, put a little jotty jot about what you love about the podcast, it really helps to get it out to new listeners. And we're looking to expand this into whoever needs a little bit more fun in their life. So I hope you have a wonderful week. And until next time, I hope you're playing today. I love you. What's up, sis? I am so glad we could hang out today. If you love this episode, send it to a friend or share it on your social media and tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me sprinkle some confidence in the world. And don't forget, you are magic. Let's show the world your shine.