Being a mom and experiencing “mom guilt” seem synonymous these days. Does this sound familiar? 

You know deep down that motherhood is such a privilege and blessing, but it seems like you’re never enough, and it feels like you’re drowning. The guilt pushes you to shrink down, retreat, and hide in your shame that you must be the only one who can’t do it all. You feel stuck, alone, overwhelmed, and like a failure. The guilt continues to grow, and so the cycle continues. 

Mom guilt, the overwhelming feeling of not being enough or doing enough for our children, is one of the most common struggles I work through with my clients. While it’s tempting to hide, Mama, I want you to know that you’re not alone in your feelings. There’s an army of mamas who have experienced the same things you’re going through right now. 

I know this with certainty because I was that overwhelmed mama, and I coach moms daily through this struggle. The good news is, as a result, I’ve noticed three specific contributors to these feelings of guilt and shame moms experience. Awareness is half the battle. When we can identify triggers, we can begin to make a plan to move forward, which I’d love to start working on with you today.

I’d love to share with you today not only the most pervasive triggers for mom guilt, but the root cause and proactive practices to kick mom guilt to the curb, so that we can begin to let go of the guilt and shame and experience more freedom and joy in motherhood. 

Sound like a plan? Let’s jump in! 

Dissecting Mom Guilt: The Triggers

The Output of Motherhood

The load moms carry with the thousands of little things we do every day that often go unnoticed is tremendous. Each day can hold the demands of chef, house cleaner, medic, scheduler, chauffeur, counselor, friend, teacher, and more.. According to salary.com, the cost of a salary to replace the role of “mom” (as if that’s possible) was estimated at $184,820 in 2020, with stay-at-home moms working an average of 106 hours a week (15 hours a day 7 days a week), and working moms averaging 54 hrs a week working in the home in addition to their workload – which averages 107 hours a week. No wonder moms are tired!

Not only are the to-do lists seemingly endless, the mental load of a mom is heavy. Our brain is full of facts like shoe sizes and food preferences, due dates and play dates. Add that to the instant access to the entire world’s highlight reel (thanks social media), and we feel like the only ones who aren’t doing things well. It doesn’t matter that we intellectually know that we’re only seeing the best parts of people’s lives, it still normalizes the mountaintop experiences when we feel stuck in the every day mundane. 

The Impact of Motherhood

The weight of caring for little people is tremendous. I don’t mean only keeping them alive, which can be especially difficult especially in those toddler years, but helping them grow into productive members of society, and dealing with all the fears that come with this. It’s a heavy and weighty responsibility that constantly has us moms feeling like we’re overwhelmed, out of control, and not doing enough.

We can want all kinds of great things for our children, but we can’t force them to live into what we hope for them. This can put us at odds with our kids and ill at ease, as we try to navigate a world where we feel like we should have control but we don’t actually call the shots. 

Our “Mom Manual”

I know I’ve said more than once that I wish being a parent came with an instruction manual. I’d like to offer today that it does… sort of! 

Along the way, we’ve subconsciously created ideas and expectations of what a good mom is and does – our “Mom Manual”. These expectations come from our past experiences, society’s unwritten rules, and what we’ve seen. As a whole, moms are overwhelmed and teetering on the edge trying to be everything to everyone when they weren’t meant to do it all. When our “Mom Manual” compares our mama actions how we’re showing up as a mom, it can’t meet our reality. This is a breeding ground for discontentment, overwhelm, guilt, and shame. 

There’s also a section in our “Mom Manual” about how our kids “should” act and be. Our kids are their own people with their own ideas and preferences, which often clash with ours, and it’s a recipe for madness. 

We were never meant to do it all – we were meant to embrace our specific purpose and life here, not someone elses, even if that someone is an arbitrary character. 

The Mom Guilt Cycle: It Starts in Your Mind

The origin of mom guilt is a story we’re telling ourselves that isn’t true. Our thoughts create our feelings, which drive our actions, and they continue to cycle like a loop. The mom guilt we’re feeling is coming from a sentence in our brain. 

We may not even be able to recognize the story we’re telling ourselves, and this is where its so valuable to have someone outside of your head to talk through it with – a friend, a mentor, a coach, a spouse – they can help you see what’s inside that’s creating your outer world. 

We’re pointing our brain to find evidence

I know for me, and a lot of mamas I talk with, the shoulds are killing us. 

This should be easier.

I shouldn’t feel this way.

Other moms are doing this well – I should be able to also.

I shouldn’t want anything more. 

The shoulds create so much guilt and shame – and that tends to spill out on those we love all around us.

Your brain is so smart. When you put it to work with a thought, it starts looking for evidence to prove that thought right. 

Replaying these thoughts over and over every day reinforces all the ways you’re doing things “wrong”, and ensures we completely miss all the good in every day, leaving us stuck in guilt, frustration, and overwhelm. 

So, how do we get unstuck?

Proactively Practice Challenging the Mom Guilt: Practical Tips 

One of the first things I teach my clients is the MIND + HEART + SOUL method. I’d love to share this simple practice with you to start the journey of freeing yourself from mom guilt. 

Be conscious of your MIND 

To direct our steps on a new course, we first have to determine where we are and uncover the thoughts that are creating your reality. The voice we hear the most is our own, and it often runs non-stop unconsciously. 

When we pause and take a moment to bring what’s running in the background to light, we give ourselves the power to make a change. You can write it all down, type it out, voice record your stream of consciousness, or talk with a trusted friend or coach. Any of these options give you a mirror to reflect your thoughts back to you. This makes it easier to see what’s actually going on inside that beautiful brain of yours. 

Tap into your HEART 

If our thoughts create our feelings, our next step is to understand and process the emotions there. These thoughts that have been running in our mind have generated all kinds of emotions. None are good or bad – they just are. 

To process emotions, you can follow them through your body. Notice where you feel it, breathe through it, and allow it instead of trying to stuff it down or distract yourself. Once you allow it to move through you, you can consider what the emotion is indicating. If it had a loving message for you, what would it be?

Once you’ve processed the emotions that are already there, you get to decide what you WANT to feel!

Lead with your SOUL

Lastly, we tap into our soul to embrace the mom you were created to be. Allow her to be present – first with yourself, and then with your kids and those around you. 

Decide ahead of time how you want to show up. Do you want to be more present? Less offendable? When you’re thinking about future you, ask yourself what she needs to feel to be that person? What thought creates those feelings for you? For some help coming up with new thoughts to practice, grab my free download of thoughts here!

Choose to practice that thought that generates these feelings you desire. Set a reminder on your phone so it will pop up every couple of hours. You’re so used to doing it the way you’ve always done it, so it won’t be perfect. Progress is all we’re after.

We’re so quick to offer others grace, but need to learn to extend that same grace to ourselves. Mama, you’re doing the best you can with what you have right now, and every moment is a learning & growing opportunity. You’ve never done this day before. 

We don’t berate our children when they’re learning to walk fall down again and again. Instead we cheer them on for the progress they’re making and encourage them to try again. If only we could see ourselves through those same eyes! 

The next time you feel paralyzed by mom guilt or catch yourself spiraling, remember that you’re not alone in how you’re feeling. And now you have the tools to begin to create a different reality for yourself, starting right now. 

What thoughts create the most mom guilt for you? What do you find yourself struggling with the most? 

Planning your day is so important. Getting things out of your head and onto paper (or digital paper if you’re anything like me) clears all that clutter in our brains and allows us more space to be present, to learn and to grow.

If we’re not careful, though, that planning can put us in hustle mode, where the to-do list is king and there’s no space for presence. Staying busy is a great way to avoid feeling our feelings and working through them. I know this, because this is me.

When things get hard, or tough emotions are churning inside me, I double down on the actionables and get busy. If I stay focused on tasks, I don’t have to be uncomfortable and feel hard things that seem like they will last forever.

I work myself into a frenzy, exhaust all my reserves, and then lash out at those around me from the pain of those unprocessed emotions. It’s not a pretty cycle, but my mind has an old, well-worn pattern that this is better than actually feeling the hard stuff.

In reality, I’m just stuffing those emotions down deeper, where eventually they will come spewing out in the most unloving ways to those around me. Festering emotions store up all kinds of problems – they work to be seen and recognized, and when not acknowledged, can wreak havoc on our physical and mental wellbeing. They have a message for you, and won’t stop until you slow down to hear it.

While your emotions aren’t always truth-tellers, they do have a message for you. You can’t control how you feel – but you can gently acknowledge and allow them, thank them for trying to help you, and listen to the most loving message they have for you. After you feel those emotions and allow them to pass through, you can determine how you want to feel moving froward, and create thoughts that support this new feeling.

You can’t think your way out of feeling emotions – that’s the hard, slow work we have to be present for. As a growing, thriving human, we have access to the full range of emotions – the joy-filled, the grief-stricken, the anger-fueled. No emotion is bad, it just is. When we allow it to be felt and carry its message to us, they can move on.

Don’t dam up your emotions until there’s a breach. Allow them to flow freely. With practice, this becomes easier. You become more in tune with yourself and how you feel, and it feels less catastrophic to process them through. They aren’t here to hurt you, but to guide you along your path.