Six Strategies to Overcome Mom Guilt
First, you’re not alone. We’ve all been there, Babe!
Telling ourselves we aren’t good enough and feeling guilty about everything we’ve ever done or said, or not done or said to our kids. No matter what we do as moms, one thing is for certain….we will always find a way to make ourselves feel guilty about pretty much everything. Buying a pair of underwear for ourselves can make us feel guilty! (For God’s sake, just buy the fancy panties!)
Now, let’s take a minute to LET THAT SHIT GO! Seriously, enough is enough already.
Let’s shift our perspective for a moment and focus on a few strategies that can help you overcome mom guilt, once and for all. These are small shifts in the way we talk to ourselves and treat ourselves that can have long-lasting effects on our mental health and our overall self-confidence.
Are you ready to overcome that mom guilt? Let’s go!
1. You are stronger than you realize!
Being a mom is the hardest job you will EVER have! PERIOD!
The fact that you are a mother means you’re stronger than you realize! You carried that child for 9 months in your womb, survived childbirth, survived the first few months of sleepless nights, maybe you’ve even survived the treacherous tween and teen years and early twenties.
Wherever you are in your journey, you’re surviving! That means your strong as hell! Own it!
Maybe there were some mistakes along the way, but that’s where grace comes in. We all do the best we can at any given moment with what we are given. Some situations are just plain shit and we didn’t create them or ask for them! But as moms, we’re strong, and we put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.
Own your strength. I mean really step into it fully. If you need to imagine yourself as Wonder Woman, do it! Whatever gets you there, look in the mirror and say to yourself, “I AM STRONG!” The more you say it, the more you’ll believe it, and the more you’ll live it! (Sticky notes on mirrors work wonders! Ask me how I know!)
2. Forgive your past self and move on!
Okay, let’s face it. We’ve all made mistakes. But why is that a bad thing or something to be ashamed of? NO ONE IS PERFECT! Not one person (I don’t care what it looks like on social media!).
There is not a single mom out there who hasn’t felt the mom guilt or had a bad day and yelled at her kids. It’s okay! It happens! Mistakes are opportunities to learn. Forgive yourself. Give yourself some grace and keep going.
My kids are both in their 20’s and trying to figure life out. When they make choices that are not reflective of how I raised them, I question where I went wrong. I literally can play back every critical moment and say, “If only I would have….”…Fill in the blank because there are too many of those thoughts to count.
My mom always says that you can’t live your life looking in the rearview mirror - that’s not where you’re going! (She’s pretty much always right!)
Forgiving your past self and giving yourself some grace allows you to leave it in the past and look forward. I’ve even written my past self letters to show my current self some compassion - it can be a powerful journaling experience and I highly recommend it.
3. Love yourself - Practice self-care
One of the best ways I’ve learned to love myself is by practicing self-care. Let me be really clear on something before we get into this one - SELF-CARE is NOT SELFISH! Okay, I said it. It’s NECESSARY and it doesn’t have to cost anything!
This can be anything from carving out time to journal or do some yoga to taking a long hot bath with your favorite podcast or book. Self-care is important for many reasons including your mental, emotional, and physical health. It will improve your focus, prevent that burnout we all feel at times, and it could even improve your relationships and quality of life.
Trust me when I say that the way we treat ourselves can completely shift our self-talk and even our confidence. It’s easy to say “I don’t even have time to use the bathroom or take a shower!” and I get it! But MAKE TIME!
Whatever you have to do, make 30 minutes a day for quality time with yourself. Wake up early, stay up later, take a walk at lunch. Choose something that feeds your soul and is restorative so you can mom like the boss you are!
4. Just say no!
If you’re a people pleaser, like me, you want everyone around you to be happy. If you’re also co-dependent, like me, when they are happy, you are happy! (God bless you if you don’t struggle with this one! Tell us your ways!)
It’s taken me years of therapy to say NO to the things I don’t want to do! Sure, there are always things we have to do that we may not want to do (taking out the trash, meetings at work, etc.). I’m talking about the things that suck the life out of you and steal valuable time while bringing you little to no joy. Don’t volunteer for things unless you want to and it brings you joy. Setting boundaries for yourself and deciding what you are and are not willing to do is important.
Do you want to know how to carve out time for #3 above? Practice this one…ALOT….and see how much time you get back to take care of yourself so you can show up as your best self!
5. Accept what is, not what you think it should be (Radical acceptance anyone?)
This one is a doozy! It’s really hard to accept when things don’t turn out the way you think they should. We all have ideas about how we want things to turn out, for ourselves, our kids, and our relationships. When they don’t meet those expectations, we are let down in big ways sometimes, and it hurts. I have a lot of personal experience with this one!
Not only did my marriage fail, but I have a daughter in her twenties who has really struggled and is currently incarcerated. Talk about feeling some serious mom guilt! I have replayed so many scenarios in my journey as a mother. I’ve had sleepless nights, beating myself up and battling my thoughts and feelings about myself as a mom. The “if only I would have”’s and “why didn’t she/he just”. In reality, we can’t go back and change anything (jump back up to #2 on forgiving yourself!). Others have to be responsible for their own choices and we have to be responsible for ours. Sometimes, the outcome isn’t what we think it should be, and that’s okay. We love them just the same and as mothers, we will always love and support them no matter what.
Accepting the situation, whatever it is, for WHAT it is can help you let go of the things you cannot control and focus on those that you can, including patterns of thought and how you treat yourself (jump to #3 on self-love).
6. NEVER compare yourself to other moms
No one is perfect, no matter what their Instagram looks like! We all struggle with the same things and even those moms that seem to have it all together cry in the closet with a sleeve of Oreos now and again. Don’t believe what you see and never judge someone by what they put out on social media. We all know this…but we do it anyway!
Still looking for ways to carve out time for yourself? Put down your phone! Stop scrolling. Stop clicking on the ads about the latest fad diet or wall pilates challenge. You’re amazing just the way you are! We are all perfectly made and perfectly flawed. Isn’t it time we embrace that about ourselves and each other?
I love the things about my fellow moms that make them REAL! I have a friend who confessed that she bought cupcakes at WalMart, took them home, scraped off the icing, and re-iced them with store-bought icing to pass them off as homemade at a school bake sale! GENIUS! I love her creativity and time-saving skills! Ain’t nobody got time for homemade baked goods a the school bake sale! Am I right?!
So the next time you start feeling that mom-guilt creep in, remember these 6 strategies to squash that shit right away! And if you end up in the closet crying with a sleeve of Oreos, I’ll bring the milk!
