The Mom Guilt That's Keeping You From Taking Care of Yourself (E90)

Rethinking Mom Guilt Narrative

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[00:00:00] You finally did it. You carved out the time. Maybe it's a workout class that you've been wanting to try for months, or maybe it's a solo coffee at your favorite place.

Maybe it's just a bath with the door locked and a candle lit. You did the thing, you showed up for yourself and within about four minutes. The voice shows up, the laundry isn't done. Did I pack tomorrow's lunch? I should be spending time with the kids. What kind of mom takes a bath when there's still dishes in the sink?

And just like that, the thing that was supposed to feel good doesn't anymore. Today we're talking about that voice, where it comes from, why it sounds so convincing, and most importantly why, what it's telling you isn't actually guilt even when it really, really feels like it is.

My name's Krissy. I'm a stay-at-home mom to two little boys, and this is Mom's Guide to Finding Herself.

Let me paint you a picture, a mom and, and honestly this is all of us at some point. Finally signs up for [00:01:00] the Saturday morning yoga class. She's been saying she wants to go for three months. She blocks off the time, she tells her husband, she sets the alarm and she shows up. She's on her mat. The instructor is talking about breathing into the present moment.

And she is trying. She is genuinely trying, but her brain has other plans. I wonder if the baby went down okay. I didn't finish that last email. My mom called yesterday and I never called back that permission slip. I, I didn't sign the permission slip, but by the time the class is over, she feels more wound up than she did walking in.

She drove home telling herself she felt guilty for leaving. But here's the part I want you to really hear. She went home and didn't sign up for the next class because it didn't feel worth it. The cost was too high. But what if the cost wasn't guilt at all? What if she was carrying something else [00:02:00] entirely, but calling it the wrong name and letting it make decisions for her? That's what we're going to unpack today.

Here's something worth understanding about the way your nervous system works as a mom. When you are in motion managing, doing, responding planning, your brain is occupied. It's running the checklist, solving the problems, keeping all of the plates spinning. The moment you stop, the moment you actually get still and try to do something for yourself.

Your brain doesn't know what to do with the quiet, so it fills it. It pulls up every unfinished thing, every unanswered message, every task that's been waiting. It basically opens every tab at once.

That's what happens when your brain has been trained to stay on high alert and suddenly is being asked to stand down and it doesn't know how. So the voice that shows up when you're in that yoga class or in the bath or [00:03:00] at that coffee shop, that voice isn't your conscience.

It's your nervous system doing what it's been conditioned to do. Running the list. Checking for threats, making sure nothing is falling apart. Understanding that doesn't make it silent overnight, but it changes what the voice means. It's not evidence that you're doing something wrong.

It's evidence that you've been doing a lot for a very long time. Let's talk about what it's actually saying. We call it guilt because guilt is the label we've always reached for, but when you slow down and actually listen to what the voice is saying, it's almost never you did something wrong. It's something else and the something else matters.

Sometimes the voice is worry. It sounds like what if something happens while I'm gone? What if they need me? What if I miss something?

That's not guilt. That's a [00:04:00] hypervigilant mind that has been the safety net for so long that it doesn't trust anyone else to hold it. Worry needs reassurance and permission to step back, not shame. Sometimes the voice is conditioning. It sounds like good moms don't do this. You should be home. This is selfish.

That one is sneaky because it sounds like your own thoughts, but it's actually a script that you inherited from other moms, from culture, from your own mom, from a thousand subtle messages that told you motherhood means disappearing into everyone else. That's not guilt. That's an old story running on autopilot Sometimes the voice is grief, it sounds like.

I, I should be home with them. They're only this little, once time is so fast. That ache isn't guilt. It's love and it's loss. You are [00:05:00] mourning the time that you're not spending with them. Even as you recognize the need to have time away. And it's such a big contradiction, but that's just how deep it goes, and it deserves to be felt, not argued away. Sometimes the voice is overwhelm wearing a mask, it sounds like a running to-do list that crashes the party the second you get quiet. That's not guilt about taking time away from yourself.

That's a brain that is genuinely overloaded and the only time it gets to unload is when you stop moving. That to-do list is always there. You just couldn't hear it over the noise. The voice calls it guilt because guilt is the one we've been taught to feel, but underneath it is almost always something more specific, more honest, and more workable than guilt.

Here's why the label matters so much. When you call it guilt, [00:06:00] you accept an implicit verdict that you did something wrong, and you start to build your life around not doing the wrong thing again. You skip the next yoga class, you cut the bath short, you bring your phone everywhere just in case you stay half present in every moment that's supposed to be yours because the alternative fully being there feels like it costs too much and slowly.

Quietly the thing that you were supposed to do to fill you up stops feeling like it's worth the effort. That's the real cost of calling it the wrong thing, it's not just a mislabeled feeling. It's a life that keeps getting smaller because you kept pleading guilty to something you never actually did. Now let's do something about this. Here are three things you can actually do with this.

One, give the voice a name that's true. [00:07:00] The next time you're doing something for yourself and the voice shows up. Don't just let it call itself. Guilt. Ask it. What are you actually. Is it worry? Is it an old script? Is it grief? Is it your overwhelmed brain? Finally getting a moment to breathe? You don't have to solve it right then.

You just have to stop letting guilt be the automatic answer because the moment you say, this isn't guilt, this is worry, or This isn't guilt, this is conditioning I inherited. You take the verdict off the table, you didn't do anything wrong. You're just feeling something real. Two, give the voice two minutes, then set it down.

Here's something that actually works when the voice shows up during your self-care time. Don't try to white knuckle it away. That just makes it louder. Instead, give it two minutes. Acknowledge what it's saying. Write it down if you can, and if you need [00:08:00] to write down the to-do list, the worry, the thing you're afraid that you're missing.

Get it out of your head and onto paper or tell it to somebody else or make a voice note or just say it out loud to yourself and then make a deliberate choice to set it down for the rest of the time that you have. you're not ignoring it. You're telling it. I hear you. I'll come back to you.

But right now, this time is mine.

Now that is a skill and it gets easier every time you practice it. Number three, finish the thing. This one is simple, but it is the hardest. Finish the class. Finish the coffee. Stay in the bath until the water gets cold, if that's what you need. Don't let the voice cut your time short because every time you leave early, you teach yourself that the voice wins, that the guilt, even if it's not really guilt, [00:09:00] gets to make the call.

And every time you stay, you teach yourself something different that you are allowed to be here. That this time counts. That you don't have to earn the right to exist in your own life. You earned it. You already earned it. You earn it every single day.

Finish the thing.

Now I wanna hear from you on this one. Have you ever cut something short, whether it's a workout or a night out, or even just a quiet moment because the voice got too loud? Come tell me about it On social media, at Mom Identity Project, and if this episode resonated, share it with a mom who needs permission to stay in the bath a little longer.

She knows who she is.

And if you want more of this kind of conversation, the honest, real kind, that actually helps you understand what's going on, go let me know in the reviews.

And while you're there, leave a five star rating.

I'm so glad you're here and I hope you'll stick around for the next episode. Until then, take a moment for yourself and remember, you are an amazing mom [00:10:00] just the way you are.