E82: Overwhelm Isn’t Random with Guest Colleen Underwood

Feeling like you’re constantly under a cloud of overwhelm? 

In this heartfelt conversation, Delores sits down with business coach Colleen Underwood to unpack why overwhelm isn’t random. 

They explore the hidden patterns and beliefs that keep creatives stuck and discuss Colleen’s LIGHT framework for building a sustainable, joy‑filled business. 

Colleen shares how she discovered her own overwhelm triggers and explains the five archetypes that often show up for creatives — from the rescuer to the lone wolf. 

Together they remind us that overwhelm is normal, but it doesn’t have to run the show. 

Learn why managing your time, team and tracking matters, how shifting your thoughts can free you from the cycle, and why choosing one clear path beats juggling every “recipe” in sight.

Listen to the full episode to hear Delores and Colleen’s honest chat about overwhelm, and discover small shifts you can make this week. 

Don’t forget to support the show—your backing helps us keep sharing these conversations. 

Hit play now and tell a creative friend who needs this reminder.

If you want to get to know more about Colleen Underwood, you can with her website here and her Instagram here.

You can also grab Colleen's free business roadmap here. 

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Transcript

Delores Naskrent: [00:00:00] Hi friends. Delores here and welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy, where we talk about balancing creativity, business, and everything in between. Today is one I think many of us need right now, and we're talking about something that affects everyone that is overwhelm. Where does it really come from?

What patterns cause it, and how can we break free of it? My guest today is a business coach, Colleen Underwood, she helps entrepreneurs build sustainable, profitable businesses using HER L-I-G-H-T Light Framework, which she has registered as a trade work. She's helps so many creatives identify their hidden, overwhelmed triggers, and I can't wait for you guys to hear about this, Colleen.

You've built a reputation around helping entrepreneurs get [00:01:00] out from under the weight of overwhelm. What led you to start teaching this topic? 

Colleen Underwood: Well, that's a fun question to dive in on. Delores. It's delightful to be here to talk about overwhelm because it's actually a common experience to every person and certainly to entrepreneurs.

I will just dive in and share my story. You know, I didn't just get interested in overwhelmed because it was something that I was curious about. It was an experience that I had, that I had again the next day and the next day, and it turned from a moment of overwhelm into a week and a month, and it almost felt like my life was overwhelmed and I hit this point.

Ouch, right? Where I realized I'm not just having overwhelming moments in traffic or with my kids or in my business, I'm living. In a state of overwhelm. And as you might imagine, it was almost like an [00:02:00] anxiety that just sits on you, A weight on your shoulders. In your chest. An uncomfortable feeling that never goes away in your stomach I wasn't living life well, wasn't being in my family or my business or my body the way that I wanted to be, and I realized I have to do something about this.

Delores Naskrent: Wow. Just thinking about it. I can, feel that feeling. You know? I love that you said that you lived it, because that is so relatable for myself, and I know for a ton of our listeners, many of us in the creative industry start with excitement in the first place. We're excited about starting our business and all the things we have to dig into.

But then one day we realized that the thing we loved. Is buried under a pile of systems and endless to-do list. And if you're anything like me, sticky notes galore. When you begin connecting those patterns to yourself [00:03:00] and your clients, what surprised you the most, about overwhelm? Where does it come from?

Colleen Underwood: Okay. Yeah, that's a great question. So I think it's important for us to name that, overwhelm is a normal part of human life, right? We have a long, bad day, or we're unexpectedly late and we get overwhelmed, right? That's normal. And so we, wanna make that normal for everyone so that no one is walking away thinking, gosh, I got overwhelmed and I, you know, I only have five kids at home or something, overwhelm is normal, but when it becomes the pattern of your life, when you come into your business in a state of constant overwhelm, then there are some things that have been happening. This is what happened in me. I've seen this in countless clients. There's a thread that goes from our internal core beliefs to the external behaviors that we have.

And the three things that entrepreneurs avoid [00:04:00] externally that cause overwhelm are, these are kind of practical, but I think everyone's gonna relate. Managing their time with a good calendar and an ideal week. Having a team that truly supports and tracking their data numbers, that means tracking important numbers in their business.

Income expenses, just your data. Yeah, so there's kind of three Ts to make it easy, your time, your team, and your tracking. But all of those things happen because of something that's on the inside, which we can dive into in just a minute. Our core beliefs, and we kind of all know this to be true, we actually live out of what we believe, right?

Is we believe we're beautiful, we show up confident in the world. If we believe we're unworthy, we kind of shrink up and become small. And so whatever we believe to be true about our time, our team, how we relate to others and numbers, data, money is going to. [00:05:00] Those beliefs will show up in our business, but can we all agree, time, team and money, this is what's gonna make or break the business.

Yeah, for sure. I think it'd be fun to transition to the five types of like overwhelmed entrepreneurs, and so something that I've created over time is an archetype, and there are five different archetypes I see showing up in my coaching practice again and again. I think that everyone's gonna see themselves in one of these five and maybe even two.

Right? I'll explain them to you, and I think these are not just particular for creatives, but especially for creative entrepreneurs. These are the five different kind of personality or entrepreneur archetypes that really create this sort of systemic overwhelm that crushes you.

The first one is what I call the rescuer. The rescuer, she is always looking to fix everything that could possibly be broken, [00:06:00] maybe there's a real problem, maybe there's a potential problem, but she's like, Nope, it's my job to fix it. To make it right. Okay. Number two is the do it all. The do it all does everything okay.

The do it all wakes up and says, it's my job. It's a heavy burden, but it is my job to carry the whole thing. I'm not supposed to share it. That's my role. The third one is the perfectionist. She shows up and says, I can't do it. Launch it, share it, move it forward. Until it's perfect. Until it's right. It has to be flawless, right?

She believes that the value comes from the product, not the person. Okay? The fourth one is the people pleaser. The people. Policer really believes that the main role is to make other people happy. It is her core [00:07:00] responsibility to make sure that everyone in her world is happy. And then the last archetype is the lone wolf, and she really believes that she is just best alone 

She does it kind of in a silo all on her own because that's how she functions. So the rescuer, the do it all, the perfectionist, the people pleaser and the lone wolf. So, I mean, I hope, isn't it kind of Ooh. But I think also can we give some space to say we're people who are in process, right?

Yeah. No matter what age we're coming into this listening space today, what life stage we have some room to grow. We're not saying it's okay to rescue somebody. It's okay to make others happy. It's okay to do something on your own, but these archetypes are meant to just give words and a framework to why you're stuck in overwhelm 

Delores Naskrent: So which one of these do you see kind of showing up the most? I [00:08:00] could relate to a couple of these for sure, but which ones do you see showing up most for creatives? 

Colleen Underwood: You know, I don't actually know if there's one that shows up. I would say that for creatives who are creating work from their hands, maybe digital work or analog work, there tends to be a little bit of perfectionism in the work because it's an output, right?

Like I want to create something beautiful. But then as entrepreneurs grow from, just maybe like this is just specific to creatives. If you start creating work and then grow your business and start to bring in support, that's when you start to relate to others more in your business. And then I think these other personality types kick in, right?

For instance, if you're a people pleaser and you have a big membership and you have a hundred requests from people, well, if you're a people pleaser. This creates layers of challenge. 

Delores Naskrent: Yes. 

Colleen Underwood: If you are a do it all or a rescuer and you bring a [00:09:00] team in, well you might have a tendency to micromanage, it's an invitation to believe something differently so that you act differently.

So I think what we'll find is that these different archetypes show up, and if we don't gain an awareness of what's going on in us on that core belief level. We're gonna act, react, or sometimes be inactive avoidance. Right. And that's where we get stuck in the loop, i'll give an example, Delores.

So let's say for example, an online education membership. If I get a member who comes to me or the team and says, we don't like the color pink that Colleen has, we wish it was more subdued. If I'm a people pleaser, then my tendency will be to make this person happy. Change the color, maybe write her a letter explaining why I chose my brand colors 

the core belief in me that [00:10:00] it's my job to make others happy. Trumps the mission of my membership, which is to teach people X, Y, or Z. Right? Gotcha. I don't exist as a business to make people happy or put out the perfect product to deliver good educational art or something.

And so I think you'll see the archetypes show up at different stages of growth. But I think that this is the last thing I want people to know about this. They come from somewhere. They come from your story. The country you grew up in, the time you grew up in, the family of origin that you grew up in.

Maybe it was your job to make people happy or maybe you had, you know, an existence where you learned to be the lone wolf or the rescuer. So we come into the world relating to others in a certain way for a reason. Yeah. So we don't get to change those circumstances. But this is what causes entrepreneurs to be stuck in overwhelm is if you just ignore [00:11:00] this and go on with your life.

So the internal work we have to do is who am I? Am I a lone wolf? Am I a perfectionist? Be curious about that. Why is it there? There's a story a reason there. There's an, there's an agreement, kind of a core belief, and then that's the internal work. And then the external work is your time, your team.

You're tracking. Right. And that's really the framework that I like to walk people through. 'cause if we try to build a team but never work on the people pleasing heart are we building a healthy team? Right. Not at all. 

Delores Naskrent: It's completely fascinating 'cause I see that exact cycle in myself, in my students especially, when we're at that point where we're trying to scale or we're trying to launch something new.

I think about recognizing those things in myself. I just had a situation this week, something that was like a dagger in the heart and I had to talk about it to two or three people to just kind of really [00:12:00] put perspective on it. part of it was just exactly what you were just talking about, that people pleasing part of it, you know?

And then. I think talking it through really helped me to get honest with myself and to see where those kind of beliefs that you're talking about have shown up in my work. And that was a perfect example. Absolutely. Perfect example. And you know what? I woke up this morning feeling like, you know what? I'm not gonna do anything about it.

It's fine. I'm just, if somebody's unhappy, I'm sorry. They just have to be 'cause I'm not gonna be able to deal with it. Sometimes you're forcing yourself to just stop and think about it for a bit. 

Colleen Underwood: Yes, and what you just described, Delores, is exactly what I would like lead a client through in an exercise, because here's what happens.

We have all these core beliefs. We all have a worldview and a way that we approach the world. We've all agreed that it comes from somewhere. But what happens is circumstances happen all day long, [00:13:00] right? Emails come in, people knock at the door. We wake up with a stuffy nose, we have circumstances, and then what happens is we have thoughts about those circumstances.

Little judgements, right? The member or somebody has a little dagger in the heart, or the member says, I don't like your color pink, Colleen. what happens is these core beliefs are so core to who we are that we usually don't hear 'em. one of the practical shifts that I would encourage people to take.

Is to begin becoming aware of what thoughts pop through your head. Lightning quick after circumstances happen, right? What is that thought? Does that thought lie through your head saying, Ugh, now I have to make sure she's okay. Or, oh my gosh, I have to do this by myself, or, oh, that's not good enough to share yet, right?

We have circumstances that we can't change thoughts that fly through our head, after every thought. We have an emotion, A feeling. [00:14:00] Yeah. Fear, anxiety, excitement, it's the emotion that drives the action or the inaction. If I feel afraid, I'm gonna avoid. If I feel courageous, I'm gonna lean in.

The only thing you can change in this whole series of events is your thought's. I love that. That's 

Delores Naskrent: it. 

Colleen Underwood: That's a 

Delores Naskrent: great 

Colleen Underwood: I love it. So that's the shift. If I were to give one bit of advice today, it wouldn't be to like identify your archetype and then like go on. It would be to slowly, thoughtfully, without any judgment towards yourself, begin to listen for what are those thoughts, and then exactly what you just explained.

Delores, you gave a new thought. Instead of the old thought being, I have to make that member happy. And then the action that followed is, gosh, now I have to go change my whole program. You said, I'm not gonna worry about that particular [00:15:00] request or that incident. I'm not going to give that person what they asked for.

It's not reasonable. It's not a part of my business. And that changed, the action that followed. Was it uncomfortable? Probably. Was it challenging? Probably. It was intentional and the new thought gave you a new result, and that's the only thing that will give us new results. 

Delores Naskrent: That's a perfect way to explain it, and I know that those small shifts really do help you build momentum.

I've seen that firsthand in so many of the challenges that we do it helps artists take small. Repeatable steps. They're talking to themselves as they're doing this and I'm talking to them through my classes. And you're talking about things like that through your coaching. it helps to stop that pattern.

and unlock something bigger. 

Colleen Underwood: Yes, it's true. Well, tell me Delores, where do your students get overwhelmed? Where do you see, as you're interacting, I know you've [00:16:00] got a lot of education both through courses and memberships and of course your podcast. Where do you see overwhelm showing up in your world a lot for your students?

Delores Naskrent: Well, a lot of them struggle with not knowing what thing to focus on. Mm-hmm. So they'll, they'll have. Listen to, you know, tons and tons of different speakers and, looked at a lot of stuff online that tells them that they should be posting on Instagram every day. Posting on Pinterest every day.

They should be doing this, and they should be doing that. And it becomes extremely overwhelming because without experience, they haven't learned what things to focus on. You and I can both relate to that and being in a lot of different groups that I've been in, a hundred percent that is very common through all of the different stages,

so you could be just starting out and you're having all of that overwhelm, and then a year later you're thinking, well, [00:17:00] I got that all under control, but now this is so overwhelming and then I gotta do this and I'm not doing this yet. So it's just kind of a domino effect. 

Colleen Underwood: It is. And I think that's one of the unique struggles of the day and age that we live in, where we have both the privilege and the challenge of having so much noise and input into our lives.

Yeah. It almost makes me think you like the idea of overwhelm. I like to sort of visualize like, here's a small espresso glass for just a small shot of espresso, and here's the big. Carafe of coffee, and if I try to take this big full pot of coffee and pour it into the tiny espresso cup, what happens? This is a no brainer.

It spills out. It spills over, and it happens quick because there's more content than the container can hold. I see this happening in education, especially [00:18:00] creative entrepreneurship education. To me that feels like the wisdom is to learn to quiet the noise and to pick a track, 

if you're gonna learn procreate, you're gonna learn affinity. We're gonna take these clear, manageable steps and we're gonna do them one at a time. We're gonna tune out all the other noise. Are there different ways of doing it? Of course we don't need 10 recipes for chocolate chip cookies when we're baking.

We need one, right? The goal is to get a batch of cookies, not to analyze all the recipes and then come up with our own recipe. Imagine the goal is to make chocolate chip cookies, 

The outcome is to have baked chocolate chip cookies for movie night on Friday nights. So what does person A do? They go to the internet and they get a recipe. Well, what if they see a few other recipes and they print 10 by looking at the recipe? [00:19:00] Can you know how it will taste?

No, you can't. You need to bake it. To really know and you need to just bake it and have the experience and taste the cookie at the end. To truly know you can't look at 10 different recipes and then put together your own path. You need to follow a recipe. You need to follow a track to get to an outcome. I would suggest that for beginners it's better to not print out 10 different recipes and listen to 10 different teachers.

It's better to get a recipe and bake the cookies. Say, I'm gonna follow Colleen. I'm gonna follow Delores, and I'm gonna see what she says, and I'm gonna do step one and step two and step three. And along the way, I'm gonna maybe learn that I like a little more vanilla or a little less chocolate, right? I'm gonna make progress because now I have the outcome,

I have the plate of cookies. I have my greeting cards finished. I'm using procreate. I'm using Affinity. I've got it. So that would be my other practical [00:20:00] suggestion in early stages is tune out the noise. Pick one path. The path doesn't have to be perfect, but one path allows you to finish and get the outcome, then you can refine the recipe, a little more vanilla, little less chocolate, and make it your own.

That is perfect. 

Delores Naskrent: Perfect. And make my mouth water at the same time. 

Colleen Underwood: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, this isn't business related, but my husband does make the chocolate chip cookies in this house and we use a brown butter chocolate chip recipe. None of us want him to do anything different. We just want that recipe.

It's really delicious. I 

Delores Naskrent: totally get it. We have our favorites. My mom makes a specific kind of dainty that to this day, everyone knows if he hits the table, everybody's right there because they know that is the one that they want. They could have 60 different dainty on a table, even at that Christmas party the other day.

We knew which ones they were, and then there was the odd neighbor that knew which one it was, and it was gone in minutes. 

Colleen Underwood: So 

Delores Naskrent: [00:21:00] cute. 

Colleen Underwood: That's so cute. Well, I'm glad we landed in chocolate chip cookies because overwhelm can be a little bit of a heavy topic because I think that sometimes we really internalize our experience of being overwhelmed.

And without processing it, we can really walk away feeling like there's something wrong with me. I'm not meant for this path. I'm never going to succeed. Can you hear the thoughts? Can you hear the thoughts popping into people's heads? This is too much for me. Maybe the problem is with my A DHD.

Maybe I'm too old. Maybe I haven't started early enough. So all these thoughts that follow these moments of overwhelm. And then of course the emotion, which results in. Our actions. Right. And I agree. I think it's just a gentle reminder. Remember like everybody has these, but this is the point where we can change things.

Is at that thought level, isn't this best done in community or [00:22:00] with somebody else? Delores, 

Delores Naskrent: I agree 100%. I love the fact that we can. Communicate in our groups and getting another perspective from someone else in the group at the time can make such a difference. I love that and I really love the whole idea.

You mentioned this before too, about having a plan sometimes it can be very loose, sometimes it can be very specific, but I think writing down those things is really helpful. And I can provide a link here for a goal planner that I have that I give away. I think it's one that anybody could use, but there are lots of goal planners out there.

And actually a simple calendar will work just as well. Just giving yourself a little bit of structure will also help, and it'll help you to focus more, which is one of the things that will help you with the overwhelm. 

Colleen Underwood: Yes. A hundred percent. I agree. It's that recipe, right? Yep. It just says, try this, 

know It [00:23:00] works. It's simple. And as you're in the process, you can refine it a little bit as you go, but in the early stages you need the guide. At every stage, the invitation is to be reflective and to grow in awareness. So I would say from where I sit as a business coach. From the early stages of entrepreneurship all the way through clients who are over a million dollars, seven figures growing beyond this one aspect of becoming aware of who we are with no judgment, right?

Came from somewhere being aware of those thoughts and then changing them, right? Yeah. Even though some have been old and automatic for years, they don't have to take up space in the new season that you're shifting to. Some are gonna stay true, some are gonna have value, but some were just there probably from the time you were five and they helped you in your five, but they don't need to help you.

With your adult entrepreneurial journey, now you can [00:24:00] set them aside, change them, and get a different result. 

Delores Naskrent: I love that, and you have known me for long enough to know what stages I've gone through with all of this. I really appreciate this. It's so insightful. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and giving us such a complete and simple framework to work with.

For everyone listening, you can find Colleen online. I'm gonna put her links in the show notes, and if this conversation hits close to home, take just a few minutes today to name your overwhelm if you can, and decide on just the smallest shift that you can make this week. As always, keep juggling, keep creating, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process. Thank you so much.