S1:E6 Ever Feel Like You're Walking in Wet Cement?

Transforming Wet Cement Days: Practical Tools for Everyday Resilience

In this episode of the Flourishing After Adversity podcast, host Laura Mangum Broome addresses the 'wet cement' feeling of overwhelming fatigue and offers practical tools to manage it. She validates the common yet often unnoticed emotional weight carried, especially by women in midlife, and discusses how to navigate through heavy days without feeling guilty. Laura shares three effective strategies: creating a 'good enough' list, engaging in gentle movement, and reaching out to one encouraging voice. She also invites listeners to download her free guide, 'Reframe the Spiral,' to help shift negative thoughts. This episode is a reminder that resilience can be found in small, manageable steps and self-kindness.

00:00 Introduction to Flourishing After Adversity
01:26 Understanding the Wet Cement Feeling
02:34 Invisible Weights and Everyday Resilience
04:43 Personal Story: When I Couldn't Push Through
05:53 Three Practical Tools to Lighten the Load
07:57 Reflecting on Your Own Experience
09:52 Final Thoughts and Key Messages
10:29 Closing Remarks and Call to Action

Free Resource: Reframe the Spiral: 5 Quick Coping Strategies to Shift Negative Thoughts and Reclaim Your Day https://www.icope2hope.com/reframe

Website: iCope2Hope: From Hardship to Hope https://www.icope2hope.com

Free Paperback: Flourishing After Adversity (Pay only $4.99 shipping; U.S. Orders Only) https://www.icope2hope.com/freebook 

Transcript

Introduction to Flourishing After Adversity

  Welcome to the Flourishing After Adversity podcast. I'm your host, Laura Mangum Broome.

If you've been knocked down by life, by grief, illness loss, or unexpected change, you're in the right place. Get ready to turn your setbacks into stepping stones because healing, growth and joy are just the beginning. Today's episode we're talking about those days that feel like walking through wet cement, where everything feels heavy, even when nothing's wrong.

If getting dressed feels like a full body workout right now, this episode is for you. You'll walk away with three practical tools to lighten that weight and a fresh perspective on what everyday resilience looks like. But first, if you're stuck in a spiral of negative thoughts, please don't wait another day to get my free guide.

It's called Reframe the Spiral, five Quick Coping Strategies to Shift Negative Thoughts and Reclaim Your Day. These aren't generic tips. They're the exact tools I reach for when I feel overwhelmed, unmotivated, or stuck in fear. Each one is short, simple, and designed to help you interrupt the spiral and feel grounded again, even if everything else feels out of control.

If today feels heavy, this guide will give you something to hold onto. You can find the link in the show notes.

Understanding the Wet Cement Feeling

Have you ever had a day where brushing your teeth felt like climbing Mount Everest, where simple tasks, such as responding to a text, putting on socks, making a sandwich, felt like a difficult challenge.

Where simple tasks such as responding to a text, putting on socks, making a sandwich, felt like a difficult challenge. That's the wet cement feeling. You're not in a crisis. No big event happened, but your energy is gone. Your thoughts feel foggy, and everything just feels hard. This happens to so many of us, especially women in midlife, navigating transitions, grief and stress.

And here's what I want you to know. This feeling is real. You're not imagining it. I call it the quiet exhaustion, and it's a type of fatigue most people won't notice unless they've been through it. It's not burnout from work or a bad night's sleep. It's an incremental emotional weight, the kind that builds up over years of caregiving, chronic stress, decision fatigue and loss.   

Invisible Weights and Everyday Resilience

Why you feel heavy? Even if life looks fine, you might be thinking, I have a roof over my head. I shouldn't complain. My kids are okay, so why do I feel like this?

This isn't a crisis. I should just push through. But here's what I discovered through my own experience. You're nervous system doesn't rank pain. It doesn't say this is small, so it doesn't count. It only knows one thing. Something is draining you and you're carrying more than your body and mind. Were meant to hold long term. Let me name a few invisible weights that might be showing up for you. Caregiver fatigue. Maybe you're checking on aging parents or raising grandkids or helping a loved one through chronic illness.

It adds up. Decision overload, even tiny decisions, what to make for dinner, which email to answer first can feel like too much when you're already emotionally maxed out. Emotional residue. You might think you've moved on from that divorce or that layoff years ago, but grief has layers. It can resurface in quiet moments. H ormonal changes, midlife brings shifts that impact mood, energy, clarity, and even self-esteem. Feeling invisible.

Many women tell me, I feel like I disappeared, that loneliness is its own kind of weight. When these pieces combine, it's no wonder you feel like you're trudging through cement. And if no one validates that struggle, it's even heavier. Resilience doesn't always look like strength.

Let's challenge the picture of resilience we've been sold. It's not always about being tough or pushing through life-changing events. Real resilience? Sometimes it looks like this, letting the laundry stay in the basket for one day, saying not today, to plans that drain you. Eating breakfast for dinner without guilt.

Everyday resilience is quiet sometimes. It whispers, "That's enough for now." And I've had to learn that lesson again and again.

Personal Story: When I Couldn't Push Through

I'd like to share a personal story when I couldn't push through. After my heart transplant and divorce, I had a day that broke me.

I wasn't sad in the dramatic movie scene kind of way. I was just done. I had just got off a quick phone call with my insurance company about a claim they decided not to pay. The representative was unwilling to listen to my side. Ugh. I stood in my kitchen, keys and purse in hand, and I couldn't convince myself to still leave and ran a simple errand.

Nothing important. I wasn't afraid. I wasn't depressed. I was just deeply bone tired. I didn't wanna leave my home and "people" while running my errand. Have you ever felt that way? Instead of forcing myself out the door, I opened my patio door and sat in the sunlight for five minutes. That was it. I didn't fix my life in that moment, but something inside me softened.

It reminded me I was still here, still breathing, and that was enough for that day. I'd try again tomorrow.

Three Practical Tools to Lighten the Load

Let's talk about what to do when you're too tired to push through. You don't have to overhaul your life today, but you can shift the weight just a little. Here are three simple tools. I use myself and share with clients when the heaviness takes over.

Tool number one, make a good enough list. Forget the long to-do list. Instead, write down one to three things that are good enough for today. That's it. A few examples are feed yourself and your family one nourishing meal. Move clean laundry from the dryer to a basket, not folded. Just moved. Text one friend.

I hope you're having a good day. Why does this help? It gives your overloaded brain a finish line, something small, something doable, and when you check them off, that's an accomplishment because something done is always better than everything avoided. Tool number two.

Move, but don't call it exercise. Movement isn't about working out. You don't even have to sweat. It's just about waking up your body when your soul feels sluggish. Try to: stand and reach both arms up as high as you can, then let them fall to your sides or shake out your hands and feet, really like shake your emotions off or walk to the mailbox.

Or put on music and sway while you heat leftovers. You're not training for a marathon, you're reminding your body, "We're all still here." Even a little wiggle helps loosen the cement. Tool number three, reach for one encouraging voice. You don't need a village, just one kind voice.

That might be a 10 minute podcast, maybe this one. A call to a friend who makes you laugh, A song that always steadies you, a quick prayer whispered to yourself. Let someone else's strength hold you up when yours feels like it's slipping.

Reflecting on Your Own Experience

I ask women in my circle to describe their wet cement days. Here's what they said.

It's like I'm underwater and everyone else is walking on dry land. I feel like a phone on 1% battery and I still have to perform. I stare at the dishes in the sink, like it's a mountain I have to conquer. I'm not sad. I'm just deeply tired and I don't know why. Do any of these sound like you? You're not the only one.

Take a minute and ask yourself today. I feel heavy because, and fill in the blank. Don't filter it. Don't make it pretty. Then ask yourself, is this mine to carry? Can I set this down even for one day? What does self-kindness look like right now? Sometimes clarity comes not from fixing, but from identifying.

Let's talk about the guilt. The guilt of not doing enough, not bouncing back faster, not being who you used to be. Here's what I want to tell you. You're not the same person you were before. The loss, the diagnosis, the divorce, the burnout, and that's okay. You're not going backward, you're growing. Healing takes time, and time takes energy.

So if today your only win is a warm meal and sitting in sunlight, that's more than enough. When the fog lifts and it will because the heaviness doesn't last forever, there will be a day where you feel like laughing again. The to-do list feels less intimidating. You surprise yourself with how far you've come, not because you pushed through, but because you gave yourself grace to breathe to rest.

And rest is not quitting. It's restoring. You can do this.

Final Thoughts and Key Messages

Let's review today's key messages. Wet cement days are real and common. You're not alone. Your nervous system doesn't need a crisis to feel overloaded. Everyday resilience often looks like pausing or taking smaller steps forward. We also talked about three proven tools to help lighten the load.

A good enough list, one to three small tasks, gentle movement. Not exercise one. Encouraging voice to borrow from. You don't have to fix everything. Just ease the weight.

Closing Remarks and Call to Action

Before we close, if you want help getting unstuck from a spiral of negative thinking, grab my free guide. Reframe the spiral, five quick coping strategies to shift negative thoughts and reclaim your day. You'll find the link in the show notes or go to iCope2Hope.com/reframe.  

All right. That's it for today's episode. If this message resonated with you, please subscribe and leave a review. It helps others find this podcast and reminds them they're not alone. Better yet, please share this episode with three friends who are in need of hope. Until next time, remember, adversity can make you bitter or better. Choose better.

You've got this!