Episode 3: How I know you're NOT failing

Welcome back! Today I talk about failure and why I KNOW you’re not failing…yes, even though I don’t know you.

Let's chat about how your internal programming is created early in childhood and creates the very path to the guilt that paralyzes us as moms. This programming then gets carried into adulthood and becomes how we view ourselves as mothers intertwined with our children’s behavior. I’m going to help you untangle the mom guilt (this can be tough, I’m not going to lie), to open a door that wasn’t visible before. The door that is our access to calm & expressing the love (that I KNOW you have for your children) in a bigger way because we are no longer living in the “shoulds” of motherhood.

I'm going to flip the script on what it means to be a good mom and invite you to a new way of seeing yourself.

Humans have a primal need to maintain love, safety & belonging. It's absolutely fascinating to me the way in which children will develop strategies to keep these intact. And the thing is, we all start life the same...with the primitive, survival part of our brain fully developed & the higher functioning, critical thinking part of our brain completely undeveloped.

The thing is that survival part of the brain has no filter of what is truth and what isn't and as children we make generalizations and interpretations of our experiences that lead to over 70% of our beliefs being limiting, disempowering, and self-sabotaging.

This is part of our human journey. And this is why so many of us feel like we are failing. All.The.Time. And why we're left desperately searching outside of ourselves to validate our worth.

Becoming a mom has the unique ability to get in there and really trigger those limiting beliefs. Enter mom guilt. It is SO strong, SO heavy. SO Crushing. Why can't I figure this out? Why can't I stay calm? I'm messing up my kids. I can't do this. How do people do this? Sound familiar?

We get stuck in this hamster wheel of trying to earn our worth (likely through our children & their behavior), so we can feel our worth, which never works..

“Our worth and validation don’t come from anywhere outside of ourselves. It is something inherent to us”

The work of an empowered mom is to connect with their inherent worth. To claim it. To honor it. This is how we thrive. This is what allows us to find our calm with our children, our partners, all of life, really. The work of an empowered mom is to let go. Let go of trying to control that which is out of your control. The work of an empowered mom is to seek to understand herself so that she can better regulate her emotions, meet her own needs, keep her cool and find her inner calm in any moment.

“Parenting is truly about controlling what is in our control…ourselves, our emotional regulation, our boundaries.”

You're not failing, because you're operating brilliantly for your very survival. You just likely haven't learned to stop and examine your strategies. Strategies that you developed at a very young age. This isn't a bad thing. It's simply a human thing. We so often get stuck in judging ourselves that we aren't reflecting on what made us react. We aren't learning.

THIS is where the magic lies. Inside. Exploration within. It is through awareness that you uncover your default operating system and create a new one that is in alignment with how you want to show up in the world.

“Truly creating the change that we want in how we respond to our child is about being 100% committed to the process.”

Because we WILL get it wrong. A lot. Probably way more than we’re going to get it right. When we accept that we can see every experience as an opportunity to learn & grow instead of proof that we're failing, we can accept it all as part of the journey. It’s not about perfect parenting. It’s not about having a well behaved & cooperative child all the time.

Raising kids is messy. Life is messy. Being human is messy. There will still be times of chaos & reactivity. But when we can shift our “come from” to a place of loving & honoring ourselves first, then THAT is how we lead with love, with calm, with intention. And THAT's what I get to model to my children. When we thrive, our children thrive. And we can't possibly thrive unless & until we are fully accepting & loving of ourselves. This is the work of an empowered parent.

Welcome to the conversation.

To learn even more, join me in the community on Facebook, Thrive in Motherhood .

You can also check out Episode 1: Welcome to the Conversation & Episode 2: Why Having Enough Patience in Parenting Isn’t the Goal