I’m so excited this week to introduce Dr. Angele Close on the podcast. We're talking all about motherhood, the myths of motherhood (including the “good mom” myth), and what it's like to be a mom in this modern world. In fact, we had so much to talk about that this week’s episode is only part 1! 

You’ll Learn:

• Why motherhood feels so heavy
• A key concept that can help you drop the self-blame and shame around not feeling good enough as a mom
• How choosing to value connection over achievement can benefit your child
• Ways that gentle parenting has over-corrected from traditional parenting styles
• The time I decided I was a great mom

Dr. Angele and I talked a lot about the myth of being a “good” mother and the process of matrescence -  the act of becoming and being a mom. We also got into how to release yourself from our society’s unrealistic standards of motherhood so that you can tap into your own internal wisdom and intuition.

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Meet Dr. Angele Close

Dr. Angele Close is a clinical psychologist, motherhood coach, and mindfulness teacher. She is also a therapist in the Internal Family Systems model. 

She is about to release a new book called Unburdening Motherhood: A Guide to Breaking Cycles, Healing Trauma, and Becoming a Self-led Mom. I cannot tell you how much I love this book, and I know you will too.

Dr. Angele is also the mom of 3 teenagers and shares how, as they entered elementary age, parenting got really tough for her. Her oldest child is neurodiverse, and traditional ways of parenting just weren’t really working anymore. 

Everyone (including Dr. Angele) was having a lot of big feelings, and she found herself becoming really self–critical and hard on herself. Emotion-focused therapy, mindfulness, and meditation were her profession, but as a mom she felt like she was losing her mind. 

This led to seeking out help and support, learning about the concept of matrescence, and discovering the Internal Family Systems model. As she healed herself and gained some traction in her personal life, she quickly realized she needed to share it with other moms. 

What is Matrescence?

The word “matrescence” was conceptualized by an anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s. She was interested in what happens to women when they become mothers. 

It turns out that mothers go through a significant, profound transformation of identity, similar to in adolescence. It changes every aspect of our lives - emotionally, physically, hormonally, spiritually, our roles, and our careers. 

Dr. Angele says, “Some people will say it's only the first few years of motherhood. That's not been my experience. To me, it’s lifelong. Our relationship to our children and our identity are forever tied.”

These transformations can happen at different stages of motherhood. For me, one of those times was when my youngest started kindergarten. I’d lost myself in the previous 7 years of parenting, and I didn’t even know who I was or what I liked anymore. 

When you realize that you’re in a transition like that, it’s an opportunity to redefine yourself, your career, whatever it is that feels like it’s shifting. And whoever you become in that transition is okay. We don’t have to make ourselves wrong for any of it.

The other piece that is acknowledged in matrescence is that through motherhood, anything we haven’t healed or dealt with from our own childhoods will get reactivated. 

Finally! A concept that lets us see motherhood as a process. To recognize that we’ve changed, and that’s okay. 

The “Good Mom” Myth

Dr. Angele says that a key focus of her book is on the myths in our culture about what it means to be a good mom. These ideas change over time, and we absorb them through society. In the 50s, the standard was the stay-at-home mom/homemaker. Then the feminist movement pushed women back into the workplace and told us we could do it all. 

Today, we’re in the era of the Super Mom, where we’re actually expected to be superhuman. Society tells us we’re supposed to raise amazing, well-rounded, adjusted children while feeding them organic food, attending ALL the school things, monitoring their grades online, and organizing a full extracurricular and social schedule. Overwhelmed yet?

Women are crumbling under layers and layers of pressure. Here are some of the common myths that are floating around our culture. These are the stories we need to shift if we want to move into a new parenting paradigm. And just a reminder: they’re called myths because they aren’t actually true!

A good mom gets pregnant easily and naturally. 

As an adoptive mom, this was a hard one for me. Moms often swap “war stories” of pregnancy, birth, and having newborns. So from the beginning, I felt like I didn’t belong.

A good mom is self-sacrificing.

She puts everyone else’s needs above her own, often at her own expense.

We don’t often hear people talk about the inner split that happens. When you’re torn between the you before you became a mom and the you when you are a mom. That inner tension is normal. 

You want to take care of yourself and your kid. You want to be a mom and have a career. It doesn’t mean that you don't love your children and that you don't love being a mother.

A good mom loves all aspects of motherhood. 

I’d be willing to bet there are some parts of motherhood you could do without. 

It can feel really isolating when you think you’re the only one feeling this way (you’re not!). This is when it’s easy to slip into thoughts like, “I suck at motherhood,” “I guess I’m not as good at this as other people.”

Plus, mothering and homemaking often get grouped together, when they are actually two completely different parts of life. 

A good mom raises good kids. 

This leads to a belief that you can control your children (which, spoiler: you can’t). So, if anything goes wrong, it’s your fault. 

This can become even more difficult in the teen years, especially if your kid is neurodiverse, struggling with mental health, or showing up in ways that are outside the norm. 

The truth is that kids misbehave - all of them. If you think you’re a bad mom every time it happens, it’s going to take a major toll on you.

Unburdening Motherhood

The social pressure to look and perform a certain way and volunteer for all the things is counter to your desire to show up in a calm way. 

Dr. Angele says, “the job of a mom in this day and age requires an insane amount of skills. We just need to look at the stats to know moms are drinking more, moms are depressed more, moms are anxious more. It's not a great situation. And we're just pushing them even more and more. So we need to shift that narrative.”

Your manager (or momager) part is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s really useful when you’re juggling sports, birthday parties, and multiple schedules. But when we lead from those parts, they can become too extreme and take over.

We’re also starting to see that the heavy focus on achievement can lead to mental and physical health issues for our kids. It makes it harder for them to show up as their authentic selves. 

So as we look at the benefits we think our kids are getting (e.g. getting into a good college, earning accolades, or making a lot of money), we also have to look at the drawbacks. How does it hurt us if we buy into all of this?

When we’re chasing what society tells us will make us happy, it takes us away from our true selves. We miss out on moments of joy in the here and now.

This new generation of moms is moving away from a focus on achievement. Instead, we want our kids to feel safe - to feel their feelings and to be themselves. 

The challenge is that most of us were raised to suppress our emotions, so it makes it extremely hard to deal with our kids’ big feelings. And Dr. Angele says, “when you raise your kids to feel safe with all of their feelings, it turns out they actually have a lot of feelings.” We are naturally going to get activated in those moments, so we have to do our own inner work to heal ourselves. 

Breaking cycles is hard. It’s messy. And it’s an opportunity. 

The Good Enough Mother: Lower the Bar—And Find Freedom

Parenting advice as a whole has gotten a little intense. We’re supposed to take care of ourselves, be present with our kids, and validate all of their feelings. 

I’d like to add a caveat to that. Yes, do those things…most of the time. Dr. Angele said she’s even heard 30% of the time is good enough. You get to be a person. Your kids get to be people. It’s okay.

In fact, it’s good for our kids when we fail them once in a while. Dr. Angele talks about a study by Dr. Donald Winnincott who said that when moms fail their children in reasonable and expected ways (i.e. not being attuned 100% of the time), the child developed resilience through that adversity. 

Plus, when we over-attune to our kids, we under-attune to ourselves. We make their needs more important than our own, which also doesn’t benefit the family. 

In my own life, I’ve found that when I’m in a period of deeper healing or focusing on the emotional health of my family, I may not be performing the way the world thinks that I should. For example, my kids didn’t do any travel sports because I wanted to protect our time as a family on the weekends. 

Dr. Angele shares that she lives in a community that is very high achieving. Where most kids are in Club sports and 6th graders are stressed about getting into college. So, she says that focusing on connection and emotional health is, “radical, courageous work, because it is choosing to tune into our own nervous system and our own emotional needs. When we're well, everyone in the home can feel more grounded and centered.”

She also shared the example of her own mother being a bit obsessed with a clean, tidy house. And while Dr. Angele likes a tidy home, she learned early on in motherhood that she had to drop her bar lower because she wasn’t interested in nagging or cleaning up after everybody all the time. 

The emotional work of healing and managing our nervous systems takes a lot of effort in itself. Then, we’re adding on the work of parenting on top of it. That’s why simplicity in our rhythms and schedules is so important. Managing your nervous system often means saying “no” to stuff. 

Lowering the bar of motherhood creates space for you. You can even decide right now that you are a great mom. You don’t have to question it anymore. It’s pretty freeing.

I loved this final takeaway from Dr. Angele: “A mom loving herself is the greatest gift she can give her kids.”

I hope you’ll try on the thought this week of “I’m a good enough mother”. Believe it. See how it feels in your body. 

Connect with Dr. Angele:

• Learn more about Dr. Angele’s work on her website
• Preorder the book, Unburdening Motherhood
• Follow her on Instagram @drangeleclose
• Follow on TikTok @cyclebreakingmomma

Resources:

• Episode 183: Internal Family Systems (part 1)
• Episode 184: Finding Your SELF (IFS, part 2)
• Episode 185: Being What Your Kid Needs (IFS, part 3)
• No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz

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• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlin Childress. I'm a

life and parenting coach. And I, as you know, am

really interested in internal family systems,

in healing, in talking about motherhood and

the strain of motherhood. And in that vein,

I have recently met Dr. Angelle Close

and she is a clinical psychologist. She, she coaches women on

motherhood, she teaches mindfulness, and she is also

a therapist in the internal family systems model. And

she wrote a book called Unburdening A

Guide to Breaking Cycles, Healing Trauma and Becoming a Self

Led Mom. And I cannot tell you how much I

love this book. I got an advance copy of the

book. It won't be out until January 27,

2026. So if you're listening this in real time,

like while the episode is released, you might have to wait a

little while. But you can pre order it. But when I read it, my

like heart burst. I was like, this is such a good book

for moms to understand what is going on

for you. Why are you so stressed? Why is it so overwhelming?

How come you're working so hard and trying to do it all right

and. And yet you still feel overwhelmed, stressed, and

show up as the mom that you don't wanna be. In this conversation

with Angelle, we talk a lot about this

myth of the good mother. We talk about this process called

matrescence, where you are in the act of becoming a mom and

what that does to you and how to release yourself

from the unrealistic standards that society

has put up in, in terms of motherhood and what it's like to be a

mom in this world and how to release yourself from some of that

pressure so that you can tap into your own

internal wisdom and guidance and

intuition and really show up as the calm mama

that you wanna be. I felt like reading Angelle's book

was a book that I would have really benefited from

earlier in my parenting. I've benefited from it reading it even

now because it really helped put some words and some understand

to my experience as a mom and put into context.

So we are going to have two different interviews. The first

one is going to be all about this unburdening motherhood,

talking about the myth of a good mother, the demands of motherhood,

and how to free yourself from some of that. And then the second

episode, which will come out next week, is going to be

about kind of all these different

internal noises and voices that we have in our head as

moms that prevent us from being the calm mom that we want to

be and how to tap into that internal calm, that

internal self, that self led energy and

show up in a different way and how to relate to our parts in a

way that's really loving and soothing and calm. These two

episodes are really incredible and I'm really excited to share them with you

now. We kind of jump right in in the

conversation. So if you haven't listened to my

three part series I did on internal family systems In July

of 2025, I highly recommend you go back

and listen to those either now before you listen

to this episode or afterwards. If you're inspired and you want to learn more about

internal family systems, highly recommend you go back and listen to

those episodes. Those would be episodes 183, 184 and

185. All right, here is

Dr. Angelle Close and our conversation about unburdening

motherhood. I'm Darlin. Hi. Darlin.

Angelle. Angelle. I was like, I have no idea

what this name is gonna be.

Angelle. Yeah, most people don't, so. So you're not

alone. Same, same. Darlin is not alone name. What kind of things

do you get? Because people. Oh, Darlin. Mostly Darlin.

Darlin, Darlin, Darlin.

Okay. Darlene.

Of course, but mostly Daryn. Dar.

They swap the Y. You know, I mean you are like

Dr. Angel Close. I mean you. It's like the best

name ever if it was just angel.

Like, oh yeah, it's very sweet. Let's go.

Let's do it. I am welcoming Dr. Angelle close to the

podcast and we're going to talk all about motherhood, the myths of

motherhood, the myths of the good mother, and

what it's like to be a mom in this modern world. So welcome

Dr. Angell close to the podcast. Thank you so much

for having me, darling. Happy to be here. Good.

Sometimes we do backstory on here, but I want to like

do so much talking about this

topic, but I wondered if you would just introduce like

how you got into this particular topic about motherhood.

And your book is titled Unburdening Motherhood.

Maybe just a little bit of story about kind of what it

was like for you and when you realized, eek, maybe

I'm needing support here or help here. Yeah,

absolutely. I mean, I've been a therapist for 20 years now.

So I had my children while I was going through graduate school.

And so when I was kind of finished my education

in clinical psychology, I had three little ones. I

mean, although completely exhausting, I was fortunate that, you know, having

Them was fairly smooth. Early motherhood

seemed fairly smooth. Like I sort of. I got feedback from people that

were like, oh, you're pretty good at this. So I kind of was

riding it out for quite a while

and then things really came to a head when

my kids got a little older and so they weren't, they were always cute, but

suddenly they were like, I don't know, eight. My eldest was seven or

eight, six and like four. So I

have three kids all they're teenagers now, but had them all really close

together. And I guess I just. Parenting got

really, really tough. One of my kids is neurodiverse

and so, and that's my oldest. So that was really difficult to.

Traditional ways of parenting just weren't really working. It just.

I think I had this assumption that we had a lot more control over

our children, that we really do. And when they were this

age, that I had a part of me that just was like, well, they should

know better by now. They should listen. They should. So I started to get this

inner dialogue and really struggle

with. It just wasn't smooth anymore. It was actually really hard. They had a lot

of big feelings. I had a lot of big feelings. And then I

became really self critical because I am this. At the time I was

an emotion focused therapist. So I thought, why am I not

handling their emotions so well? You know, I was this mindfulness meditation

teacher and I thought, well, I'm not feeling calm all the time, like I'm

losing my mind, you know. And so I became really hard on

myself in that phase of parenting. And then I went and I got

all like the parenting books and it just. That was sort of when the journey

started for me, as a lot of people do, is it was my

own personal journey of parenting. And through that I

realized, gosh, moms are just not really

talking about what I want them to be talking about, right? Am I alone

in this? Am I. Is it just me that feels like I'm. I'm

flailing here and struggling in these ways? And so

that sort of started the journey of me, you know, seeking out to get

the help and support. And I sort of followed the thread and found

the word matrescence, which was huge. And then I discovered, discovered internal

family systems, which was just really helpful to give me something

to do with what inside felt like a storm.

It just felt like, yeah, it was like in

a battle that I just didn't really know how to find the

calm, the inner peace that I thought I could. So

that's what brought me here. And Then. So that was, you know, several years ago

and through that journey because

internal family systems and other facets of healing were so

needed for me. First off, I realized in the crux of parenting,

I needed to fix myself and heal

myself now because my kids needed me

to be that sturdy leader, to be more regulated,

to know what's happening. So I was very

eager to figure it out for myself. And then I did get some

traction. I did learn a lot of amazing tools and practices that

were so, so helpful for me. And very quickly was like, I need to

tell all moms about this because why do mothers not all know what matrescence

is? And understanding our parts was so healing

for me and empowering for me. So that's why I

wrote the book. Ah, it's so. It's so relatable for me

personally because I did

not have an easy, like early childhood

raising kids when they were little and. But

similar in that when you have a kid whose

behavior is out of bounds or in, you

know, something you can't control and you're trying to do all of the techniques

and you're still finding that they're not, their children still

misbehave, what do you make that mean? Like,

I'm. I would be reactive to that behavior, to like hitting,

kicking, spitting, punching, all that. And then especially under six,

they're really physical. So it was like a lot of physical behavior. Getting in trouble

at preschool, dah, dah, dah, dah. And then making that mean, like, oh, I must

be. I must be doing something wrong. Something's wrong with me.

Especially because then I would rage at the behavior.

And that was shocking because that's not my identity at

all as like a reactive, like, you know, intense. I'm not.

But then I was. And I was like, I don't understand what this is, who

this is. I didn't have the language of internal family systems

and those listening. We're going to link to the show notes

like previous episodes I've done where I teach it and talk about it and we're

going to talk about it as well. But I didn't have any language for it

except I knew I needed to get help and heal and

show up as a parent. I knew I wasn't being the parent I wanted to

be and there was a disconnect and whatever that

for all of us when that happens, it's like changing our mindset around

motherhood and parenting and behavior for sure is a big piece of. And

then also then that internal healing as well.

So that's Kind of what we're talking about here. It's like,

I think in motherhood, what we

want to talk about today is that these, like, thoughts and

beliefs around mothering and parenting, like, that you can control

your children or whatever it is, and that if there's anything

gone wrong, it's your fault. There's some room to

dispel those myths and those beliefs and

heal kind of our impression of what we're supposed to act like or

what the expectations are, and then also then still

take responsibility for our own internal work. It's

like, I can definitely be like, fuck all those ideas about

motherhood. It doesn't matter. And that can be

true. But if I'm still not internally well and

I'm reactive towards my kids, that's also not helpful. So it's

like doing both. And. Yeah. So

let's start with. You mentioned matrescence and this

concept that was really helpful for you, and I think it'll be really helpful for

anyone listening to understand,

kind of like what the hell happens when you become a mom.

Yeah, exactly. Share with us about that.

Yeah. Learning the word matrescence. I had already been a mom for nine

years, and when I. And I went down, it was during COVID

and I went in my basement to get on the treadmill to try and stay

SANE for my 20 minutes to, you know, handle this, as

we all were kind of locked down. And I just clicked on this

podcast that was called the Happy Mama Movement Podcast, and I was like,

I need to be a happy mama. I'm not click. And I learned

this word that. That was conceptualized in the

70s by an anthropologist called Dana Raphael. She's

actually also the person who identified the role of a

doula, and she was interested in what happens

to women when they become mothers. That there is. Is there a process? What

happens? Do they change? And. And in fact, the

researchers who. Who do. And since her, there have been others

who have looked at this concept, and it turns out mothers go through

a significant, profound transformation of identity,

similar to an adolescence. Just like emotionally, physically,

hormonally, spiritually, our roles, our

sense of our career also can shift. So it changes

every aspect of our life. And some people will say it's only,

you know, the first few years of motherhood. That's not been my experience.

I mean, the fact that we have this phrase called empty nest is

to identify that when we launch our children into the world,

that's also a significant. So to me, it's lifelong, I think,

our relationship to our children and our identity are forever tied

in ways, you know, unique to each person. But it's so, it's kind of

this umbrella term that reflects

multiple changes. So, so one of the things, what my book

really took to heart, what I kind of focused in on, because for me, what

was most relevant was the fact that we have these

myths in our culture and society of what it means to be a good mom.

So through matrescence, you cannot be impacted because through

your life you have absorbed these indirectly. And sometimes it's

very directly what, what it

means to be a good mom. And, and that will, that

will definitely come up in your journey, whatever unique journey you

have. And then the second piece was that through motherhood,

we. Anything that we haven't kind of healed or dealt with

in our childhoods are going to get reactivated. So

matrescence addresses that. It acknowledged that that's what can happen for

moms. And so for me, that those two are really connected.

And that's what I personally wanted to focus, needed to focus

the most on for myself. And yeah, that's what I

focus on in my book. But as I tell moms about

matrescence, you know, what resonates for them might be different. Some moms

might say I don't really get the myths, but I know that ever since I

had my kid, my mother in law used to have a certain relationship and now

we don't, you know, so that's also part of matrescence. So

to me, having that language is so validating.

And I know when I learned that term, it just kind of

dropped at least a good portion of the kind of self

blame and the shame that I was carrying because I thought it was just me

who wasn't good enough at juggling my work with being a mom.

And I just kind of felt like I was failing everywhere. And I didn't

understand all the inner emotional experiences I was

having and outward reactions like you had mentioned, darlin, I had my

own and it didn't make sense to me. So it

really helps. I think moms make sense and, and that they can

not turn against themselves. Like it. Yeah,

yeah, I think a bit. Think about it like when you're in

adolescence, you know, it's this transition

between childhood and adulthood. And it

takes into account the transition that there's

a change. Right. And you know, I

am in the midst of becoming

menopausal, postmenopausal. Right. And I'm so. They used to call it

the change. And it's so interesting that,

you know, it is a period of time I Feel like I'm in, like, at

this point, like a reverse adolescence. Like, because my hormones are all

weird and I'm self conscious and insecure in a new way and I

don't know who I am. And I also, for me, it's coming

at the same time as emptiness. Like, you know,

end of the family years is how I've been defining this period that I was

in the family years for 20 years and now I'm not

in the family years. Like, my kids are going to go create

their own families and this version

of it is over, and that's okay. And they're young

adults now, so. But I'm also wrestling and

moving through that. And the same thing happened to me

as becoming a mom, and I was an

adoptive mom. So I come to this parenting journey

where the first myth you talked about is, like, a good mom gets pregnant easily

and naturally. And quote, unquote, naturally, you wrote. And

that was like the beginning. I mean, I had such a traumatic childhood. And

then I go into motherhood, and I always felt like I came

from the back door. And moms will swap

war stories. Like, our version of war stories is pregnancy and birth

and having newborns. And as someone who didn't have

those war stories already, I was like, set up like

old wounds. I don't belong. I don't fit. I'm not like everybody else.

Things don't happen for me the way they do for other people. I mean, just

all of it. Yeah. And it was like,

there and then I had these kids who come from trauma. They were from

Russian orphanages. And I just. The

whole beginning was just a mind fuck.

And I did not know what to do with any of it. And

that's how I came to this work. But I think I thought.

I didn't have the word matrescence. I just thought about it as motherhood,

like this period of time where I'm in my mothering years

or I'm in my motherhood time. And

I think it's helpful for women to recognize

you have changed and that's okay.

And you have split priorities,

and that is going to be.

That's going to create conflict within you. Like, I want to take care of myself,

but I also want to take care of my kids. I want to have a

career, but I also want to be present for them. Like, yeah, that

conflict is. Is hard. It's like, I

want to be a little kid and I want to be an adult. That's right.

It's like adolescence, you know, it's like, I want Both. Yes.

Yeah, that's right. It is both. Absolutely. And because

nobody there isn't that permission. Right. One of the myths, like, well, a

good mom loves all aspects of motherhood, so nobody talks about that

inner split, what Amy Taylor Cabaz calls her the inner split.

It's like the you before you become a mom and then the you

after when you are a mom. And. And parts of us. Yeah. Didn't

sign up to be a mom. They want the career, they want the hobbies

and to do the things and. And to feel that inner tension is part

of matrescence. And it's. Yeah, it's normal. It's not wrong or bad.

And it doesn't mean you don't love your children and that you don't love being

a mother. Right. It's both. And yeah, the fact that

nobody really talks about that, I think it's very isolating for moms. And so

what happens is, if. No, if your girlfriend's not talking about it. Right. Where else

do you get that permission to. To feel that

inner tension? So what happens is, without that language is we

think, well, I suck at motherhood, or I guess I'm not a good mom. I'm

not as good at it as other people. I'm not doing it as

well. They seem to have. They don't. They seem to love it. And there's parts

I don't like. And yeah, I also think this part, I don't want to go

into the down rabbit hole, but I think that mother mothering,

the. The ask the aspects of mothering get

conflated with the aspects of homemaking a lot.

And we, like, make them the same, that

homemaking and mothering are the same or parenting.

So anyhow, it's like, I think there are a lot of women who

like being moms, but not necessarily homemakers or like, you know,

taking care of or don't like taking care of children, but like, being

a mom. Right. I don't like the acts of mothering

or caregiving of, like, you know, I don't know, wiping

bottoms or whatever. There's like also these tasks and skills and

things like that that, you know, you can love your kids

and not, like, the job of raising them well. That's it.

I mean, the. The job of a mom in this day and age, especially like

the intensive mother phase, it's an insane amount of

skills. And I've struggled to feel

like I fit that mold because I don't think I do fit that mold. I

don't, you know, being a project manager Is not something that I'm really that

great with, you know, and so I struggle with that. I drop a

lot of balls, I miss appointments. I make all of these mistakes

that for a long time, my perception was that, yeah, I'm not good at it.

But I think what you're tapping on is. Is exactly right,

darlin. Is. And maybe there are moms who seem to be really good at it,

and maybe they work really hard. They have parts that have really taken it on

because they think they have to and expend a ton of energy

to, like, be this intensive mom. But I would suspect

that inside, yeah, there are. There's inner turmoil there,

that, that. Why is that what it takes in

this day and age? And we know moms are totally depleted with trying to make,

you know, meet this mold and this idea.

It's exhausting. And we just need to look at the stats to know moms are

drinking more moms are depressed, more moms are anxious more. Like

it's not a great situation. And we're just pushing them even more

and more. So we need to shift that narrative. And,

yeah, that's part of why I want to shift it with you.

Alongside you, darlin. Yeah, I know we're doing the work.

I was thinking about when I

really wrestled with, like, who am I now?

I think. And it was when my youngest was going to

kindergarten. Actually, he was in kindergarten. He was going to go to first, so he

was in a kindergarten program that was half day, and then the

next year was gonna go to full day. And so then I have both kids

in full day, and I didn't have a career at the time.

And I. I was like, I, I, I don't

know. I. I was like, who am I? Like, I just. I'd lost myself

in the previous seven years of parenting and mothering,

and I don't know, I didn't know what I liked anymore. I didn't

know who I was. And I just keep connecting it to adolescence. Like, the big

job of adolescence is, like, creating an identity, and you get to try on different

ones and explore that. And then you kind of settle in and you

continue just like adolescence is a transition from childhood to adulthood,

but you continue to grow. Yeah. And I think all of us at

certain point. And what I notice is it tends to be, as a coach

and a mom observer when that

youngest goes to kinder, like right when you're entering in

the elementary school, school years, maybe because it can be

slightly less intense at that time that you have childcare

handled for the Most part. Yeah. You have to get space. Yeah. You start to

get some space. Yeah. And then thinking

about that, like, oh, I've been in a transition, just kind of

owning. I've been in mattress since. And I am now,

like, redefining myself with as a mom, as a

woman, as a career person, like, whatever it is that

you. Or maybe double down on homemaking. I have lots of friends that

I. That did, and I'm like, they are really satisfied.

And I did not like it. I found it very boring and tedious.

And for me, I was like, I can

go. I'm not. Plus, I'm very efficient, so, like,

I have a high capacity. So I could, like, make dinner in 20 minutes,

like, at noon. And people on the podcast know this about me, and they get

annoyed. But I. But then I would be

like, I'm done. I did all the mom things. I did all the doctor's appointments,

and I just had more. I was more interested in something else. And then

I found this career that I have now and

made that okay. Yeah. And it's like,

not making ourselves wrong for any of it, whatever it

is, whoever we become, you know, in that.

Period, I love that. And there's not enough of that, though, just permission to

be different or to have your own way. Right. Well, let's talk about that, because

that's the good. That's the myth, right? Yeah. The reason why we don't give ourselves

permission is because of the myth. So. Boy,

did I love this section of your book on the good mother. I mean,

I love your book. It doesn't come out till January,

people. You're gonna want it so bad. I want it so bad.

I read, like, an advanced copy on my phone,

because it's not even in print yet. It. I can't. You

guys are gonna love it when it comes out. We'll have to come. You have

to come back on to, like, talk more about all of it.

So the good mother, the myths. Talk about what the good mother, like, in general,

and then some of the myths around the good mother. I just love this section

so much. Sure. Well, just to first recognize

that we have cultural myths, so. So we all

absorbed. And so it changes throughout history. So these are ideas that

can change throughout time about

what it means to be a good mother. So what it was

to be a good mother in the 50s, you know, before the second wave of

feminism was. Was that homemaker, and you stay at home. And

the feminist movement worked really hard to say, well, women, we

deserve to be in workspaces. You Know, and so that

idea, I. Love that period of time people were like, taking

Quaaludes. And like, that's when women start to go to

psychotherapy for the first time. Like, lots of unhappiness. When

you're like, okay, we're going to define motherhood in this way. Staying at home,

homemaking. And then you just see, like, the rise of unhappiness then leading

to this, you know, hey, maybe there's other ways.

Yeah, yeah. And I think I just heard this

recently, that Valium in The, like, the 60s, 50s, 60s

doctors would give moms Valium, and it was called Mommy's Little Helper.

Yeah, Mommy's Dolls. Yeah. So, like, come on now.

Like, let's look at the evidence of maybe it was. And that's happening today. I

think it's another intensive period of time of mothering. And you. Then

you see high rates of depression and loneliness and all of

the other parts. The firefighters coming up

and, you know, activated

and, you know, all of these maladaptive strategies. Because we're all like,

this is shit. We don't. What are. We can't keep this up.

So that is what we can't keep up. What we bought into is this myth

of the good mother. Yeah. Yeah. And it's impossible to meet. So that's

the, the, the challenge is the idea. And I mean, my kids

literally bought me a snow globe that said super mom, like, several

years ago. And I've since, you know, put a little. Painted a red

line across it to remind myself. Right. But we have

this concept called super mom. And so we're actually

expected to be superhuman right now. So we have all this

research from the past 30 years of developmental psychology. So

parent. We have to be these, you know, perfect parents and raise our kids

to be amazing, well rounded, adjusted children while feeding

them organic food while attending all of the school thing. You

know, the emails we get nowadays from schools, previous

generations. My mother didn't. There was no email. So it was like, you know,

when you were home, you were home. Way to monitor whether you had missing assignments

or the grade report that. It's also the

constant feeling like you need to be monitoring

your children's academics. Like, academics and their social

life. Yeah, their social life. Play dates. Organizing their

extracurricular. Yeah. So this is like the

tasks and the. And. And I am a part of the problem and I

fully own it. Like, hey, be super present with your children

and heal your previous generational trauma wounds

and also set really strong boundaries and don't be permissive. Like

podcasts are like terrible for motherhood, even though I have

one. And because of this, because there

are best practices, people feel overwhelmed. They're not sure what they're supposed to do.

The previous blueprints of parenting don't work because we used

authoritarianism and fear. Yeah. And everyone's like, what do you do

instead? So we want help because we want to do it better, different, for

sure. And it's just layers and layers

of pressure. And I think

women are crumbling under this pressure. It is

like an avalanche. And it's not great

out there. It's not great in these streets. No. We got a lot that we're

carrying on our shoulders. Yeah. We now have language, the mental load

and you know, the division of labor, all these things.

Yeah. But it's creating this paradigm shift that you touched on. I'm

glad you mentioned it, darling, because you're right. There's this massive.

Parents wants a new way. And then what I

found is that the challenge for us wanting a new way is we

have had. We've absorbed the messages of what it means to be a good mom.

So these ideas that a good mom is all self sacrificing,

that a good mom raises good kids. So this. Yeah, that's the biggest one,

I think. Oh yeah, right. If our kid misbehaves in public,

we feel like all the eyes are on us and they're all thinking we're a

bad parent because our kids dysregulated. Right. So they get older

teenagers, like, if they are outside the

norm. Right. They like, they like they're doing their identity work and

they're kind of showing up in different ways or they're brooding

or they're depressed or they have, you know, any sort of

mental health issues or they don't do well at school.

Like if you raise a neurodivergent kid and then you're

looking at your children's the results of their

behavior and making that about you, it is going to

be very difficult for you to then feel good about yourself.

Like anytime your kids misbehave. Oh, that's because I'm a bad

mom. Holy shit. You're going to be a bad mom all day, every day. Because

kids misbehave. Because feelings drive behavior. Oh yeah, yeah. But

then we use these. Oh yeah. These things as evidence of

whether we're good or not good and whether. Well, and we don't want.

And so I think we want our kids to feel like they can be their

more authentic self than passion. Right. With getting rid of this

authoritarian kids should be seen and not heard. And, you know, we only

want children who are happy. You're not allowed to be angry. You're not allowed to

be sad or vulnerable. And so all that shunning, you know, the

younger parents, we don't want that anymore. We know the impact of it. We're

all in therapy because. Right. We were raised. Yeah, yeah.

We want to raise our kids to feel safe. And it turns out what I've

realized is when you raise your kids to feel safe with all of their feelings,

it turns out they have a lot. They actually have a lot of feelings.

What they're complex humans. Thoughts and feelings, the

range of emotions, which is wonderful. And for us, though, when

if we grew up in an environment where we weren't allowed to experience

that range of emotion or express it in a safe way,

our parts have taken on to suppress our emotions.

Right. So our inner protective system is

the one that we're still running with. And so this is where

what I think makes it extremely hard. We want to be

conscious parents and we know our values are aligned.

Like, those are good things to want to be a better parent and learn the

things to do it. Right. But I feel like what gets harder is

just our own inner work that's still going to get

activated and still going to come up in those moments. And so we kind of

have to, I don't want to say untrain ourselves. I think we heal, we unburden

them. But the system anyways, whatever language we use, like we need

a software update or whatever metaphor lands for you. Yeah, I've heard

blueprint, mind map. Yeah, there's a lot of them

right now. But it's like, that's why it's so hard. And I just want moms

to know it's not you. Like, it's hard because this is kind

of a generational shift of us cycle

breaking. Right. Really getting messy. It feels

messy. And it's an opportunity. And I'm hopeful and I'm

optimistic, like I landed where I did for a reason to do this

work. Because it does make me more hopeful, though, for the future generation,

you know, that our kids are growing up with parents are doing their own work

and their own healing, and that it will be better, different and better for them

because we're doing it and dispelling these myths and. And I think when we're

recognizing that we're doing this hard work, this hard emotional work, and raising

kids in an emotionally healthy environment, that itself

is so taxing. Like, it takes a lot of

effort and emotional Regulation on our part

and a lot of simplicity really and rhythms that work for us so

that we aren't running around all day every day

doing all the things with all the kids and volunteering for all this stuff and.

But then because there's like the social pressure to look

and perform a certain way and then there's this internal

value system that we really do want to show up

in a calm way. They kind of. I think that they're

counter. Again, they can't oppose each other.

Especially for in seasons where we're in a hyper healing state

or we're really trying to work through our own calm

or like repair in our family. Yeah. While still

meeting these myths of, you know, loving motherhood and

sacrificing for your kids and doing it all on your own and

you know, having your kids look right, look well, perform well, be

good. It. I don't know. You

can. I don't know, you can do all of them. But it's

like when you're in a. I noticed like for myself when I've done

deeper repair work inside of myself and

making my family work better

for me and for them so that I'm not so activated all the

time, like when I de. Stress our lives, then

that means that we have to not necessarily perform

like the world thinks that we should perform. An example would be a

club. Sports. Sports. Okay. Travel. Sports. So

for my family, I needed to have

my family home on the weekends as a time to

repair my relationship with my husband, for him to rest, for them to see him.

He worked away from the house a lot of hours and

we just decided we weren't going to do it even though we had athletic kids.

And that maybe has caused social

like. Like held them back possibly

socially or something, or like they didn't have as much opportunity to

be on the teams and know the kids and go to the things and.

But in our inside of our four walls, it was emotionally

healthy. And had I not

chosen to prioritize emotional health, we may

have done all those things, but I may have created damage because I would have

been reactive and working from my manager parts and

protector parts. So I think I just want to name that

tension and I don't know if you

experience it or not. Then

sometimes like we would start to be smooth and I'm like, okay, we can add

something. And then it was like, okay, this is an addition I can bring back

into our life. But I

was so careful to manage my own nervous system and my own

family rhythm. Yeah. That meant saying no to

stuff. Yeah. Yeah, well, I, I mean, I

think it's radical, courageous work because it, it is choosing

to tune into to our own as a mom, right? Our own nervous

system and our own emotional needs. We're kind of the anchor of the family

and we're going to resonate kind

of calmer, more loving energy that's gonna

feed that connection. It's contagious, right? When we have, when we're, when we're.

Well, everyone in the home can feel more grounded

and centered. And I think making choices to value connection over

achievement are really the bet.

I mean, I'm just going to say I think it's a great. I'm just going

to say I think it's a great decision and people might decide differently and for

different reasons. So I acknowledge that too. But what I

hear in your experience, darling, is that.

And, and also we never know, right? So sometimes it's like we can always doubt

as a mom. We can always wonder, right? The little doubting part, that's like, well,

did I do the right thing? Did I? Oh, when you get to this stage

that I'm at, it's like this life review thing and

it's terrible. Don't do it. I'll tap out of that

one then if I can.

Yeah, I'm not quite there. I'm still in the adolescence, but. But these are

decisions. I think it takes courage because it can really feel

like you are going against everyone. I'm in a very community I live in, is

very high achieving, very push, push, push. I'm

like, you know, my son wants to play house league and they barely can scrape

up enough players because they're all in the clubs and they're all in the, you

know, and I see them absorb the stress of it, that they're at a

very young age worried about college. And I'm like, what? Like, I never had

to grow up with that thought in my head that am I

stressed in Grade 6 about getting into college?

Like, that's where I. That's what's in the zeitgeist where I live. And I don't

think that's healthy. And I think, I think we're starting to

learn. And I'm seeing it a little more online around the impacts

of high achieving. Right. High achievement is really just

a manager part. We're pushing these parts. It's been reinforced in

society because if you can get accolades and make money,

right, then that's one of those dupes. You're good.

You check box good. Yes. You're a good guy. You're a good

woman, you're successful because you've. But that's just a really

well functioning manager part that's oftentimes

not authentically who we are. And we know that that can lead

to loss of mental health issues, ulcers and

physical issues. You know, we know that. So I think the

way forward is, is going to be starting, starting to be more like what

you organically experience, darlin, which is to like what do

we need to keep our nervous systems calm? And that's how

we're gonna, that's the antidote to this overstressed, you

know, population and that we're, that people are

struggling with. Yeah, it. And it is,

it's possible and it does take that courage what you're talking

about. And I think when

I think about priorities, it's helpful to like what

is it that, what am I all about? What are my goals? And

my business goal is to heal the next generation in advance.

And when I think about that, it's because I would love to see a

generation who in their 20s and 30s isn't healing those

childhood wounds, isn't activated those

firefighter and manager parts that are just kind of on fire,

you know, coping, coping, coping, achieving. It's like, what if

everyone was self led using the ifs language. And if I

could raise kids who

were able to manage their emotions, I felt like they could

do, they could achieve socially, emotionally,

academically, financially and it would be

more authentic, more within their own authentic self is still playing

out. They're 19 and 21. We're still, you know, jury's out. But I

think for the most part emotionally they're doing pretty good.

That's great and that. But it was, you

know, I think it's hard in this modern world

where you have a lot of information and there's a lot of expectations and

like best thing you could do is like, definitely.

I have clients who are like, should my child start a not for

profit in middle school so that they can go to Stanford? I'm

like, I don't, I don't, I don't. Let's just talk about

like are they self conscious about their zit? Like,

you know, like the scope is so, you know, different.

And it's like when you are

striving to meet the requirements of the world, whether super mom

or achievement or whatever it is, what

are some of the like draw blowback that

happens? Like you kind of started to talk about it like, you know, physically,

mentally, emotionally, like what are like how does it hurt us if we

buy into all this. I mean, so

many ways, just a couple that pop in. I mean, one is

it keeps taking us away from ourself, right? As long as we

are chasing what we think society tells us is going to make us

happy. I mean, this is the phenomenon of the midlife crisis,

right? It's like, okay, now I'm midlife and I did all the things that I

was taught are going to make me happy, and I'm not. So the

longer we get lost listening to these ideas of achieving

and performing and without just actually

valuing people for who they are, they have to earn that

love, respect and worth. We're lost. So

that's one thought. And the second is that for me is like,

so I sort of also hearing your question, darlin, like, what if we just, you

know, live from manager parts and.

And I once heard Gabor mate talk about that for himself because

he very much was a self disclosed workaholic. And

he said now when I think of me, of that little,

you know, that younger me, he said, I cry and I weep for his lack

of joy because he was so busy working hard that

it takes us out of our present moments and in

the present moment is where we can laugh, where we, you know,

we have a shared laugh. What's better than that? We experience

in the here and the now. The managers that are aiming for the goals. And

I'm a totally. I have a part that's very goal driven. Oh, me too. She's

called iPad Girl. What's yours called? Look what you've.

Mine's my grad student part. My

iPad girl. She's got like an iPad and she's like in charge of everybody. And

she's like always just like, huh.

Yeah, that's fantastic. And people listen to podcasts, like, also

fix it, fuck it. So I think a fix it fix it is

manager. And then firefighters are fuck it. And so

I go, I less and less. But that fix it energy of

like, get it done. What's happening? Let's come on. You know, that's that manager

part. That is, I think. Go, go. Yeah. Someone on my group

call recently, they called it Mama Jirial.

I heard momagers. My. My. My editor was telling me that that's what her

and her friends are calling it are momagers. Yeah, yeah. She's like, when

you get into that, like, you know, mom managerial mode and we're like,

momagerial. Yeah. And it made us chuckle, like, yeah, it's like

that. But. And there is a requirement of that part in motherhood and you

do talk about that in that's right Book. Like, it's really

helpful because there is a lot going on. You kind of. Even when they're little,

you're like, when did you last eat? Have you pooped? All the. Like, what?

Okay, if you don't. If you're going to soccer tonight and you have the

birthday party on Saturday, you're gonna have to do that now. Like, you kind of

are this schedule, calendar, task, all of that.

And some people are terrible at it, and some moms feel, like, absolute. Because they're

not good at that part. Like, yeah, have those skills.

Do less. That's all. Yes.

Hint, hint. So the parts aren't wrong. Like

Dick Schwartz says, no bad parts. But I think when we lead

from those parts, that's when we start to. Miss and they get too

extreme when we're living too much from them. Right. So I think

of the, you know, my mom was. Her manager part,

was very concerned with tidy cleanliness to the point that we

all made jokes about it. And I think a lot of families have a person

in their family who is, you know, she wasn't kind of ocd, but she

was so focused on the house being clean and tidy. Yeah. And. And

to the point that she would nag, and it was just like, she was miserable

because the house wasn't clean. And, I mean, that's one of the memories I carry

is like, oh, I remember my mom when she was always, like, I literally could

hear her voice and, like, yelling at us about our shoes in the. In the

hallway, you know? So for me, although I like a tidy home,

I learned very early on in motherhood that I have to drop my. My

bar real low because there's no way I'm

cleaning up after everybody that. So that I can feel that sense of, like,

oh, yes, all the time. Or nagging everybody or like, that. I don't want that

for me, and I don't want that for my family members to. To experience

that from my part that just wants to control them. And it's

not. You know, there's a time and a place. I. So I still have that

part. Right. I like things tidy and. But it's when they're just a

little too intense of that energy. So, yes, we need those

manager parts for sure. For me, when I realized I need to

get back into therapy, it's time to really do some work here, I just knew

I didn't. I know we have a window with our kids, as you've touched on,

Darlin, in your own Experience. There's a window and then they'll be gone. And

I just knew. I didn't want that. I knew that day would come really soon.

And I didn't want to look back with regret. And I think I probably will

on some level anyways. Probably. We all do when we do that life review.

You know, we can. We can torture ourselves in that way. But I

just also knew, okay, I'm in the here and the now. And the sooner that

I look at my stuff and, you know,

prioritize myself to look at my stuff, because we have to do that, we have

to make ourselves matter, to do our own work, then the

less, the fewer regrets I'm going to have down the road. And I.

And so for me, it was like, whether it's my, you know, high intense

manager parts or my firefighter parts that are, you

know, taking me out of my present moments with my kids,

I just knew that that would be the one greatest regret that I'll have. Like,

did I. And I. And I know I probably still will because there are times

I'll watch TV and not hang out with my kids because I. That's what I

want to do. So I'm not saying, like, we have to always be. And that's

nothing wrong with that. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. I think we are gearing

a little too, like, have all these present moments with your children. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a little bit intense. We just do everything intense. Everything is like,

out of bat. Like a little bit more than is necessary. Every bit of

advice, people are like, you know, I need to validate their feelings. I'm like,

mo. Most of the time. Ish. Like 51 of the time.

I don't know. It's okay. Well, I heard. I

mean, there's a. There's a data. I tried to confirm it, so I. I won't

mention it. Other than I heard 30%. Yeah, I. That's. I'm always joking

around. I'm like 1%. I don't know. It's like,

it's okay. You get to be a person. Your kids get to

be people. And, you know, and I had, we had someone on to talk

about attachment. And we. She's like, it's a robust system.

It's not as fragile as we make it out to be. And I think family

is pretty robust as well. And like, relationships are robust

and they're very difficult to break. And I

think you talked about when we let these parts come

out, you know, take over. In your book, you talk about the critic, the perfect

mother, the perfectionist, the fear, worry part, the guilt and shame, and then

that mom rage. And I think when we

are trying to live like the world tells us to live,

and we're using these benchmarks and these standards to measure up against,

we're gonna be critical. We're gonna. If we have the expectation of perfect, we're gonna

be critical. Then we're going to feel guilt and shame about ourselves. But then

we don't know what to do with that. So it's got to be also our

kids, we're going to feel rageful that they exist sometimes. And

we're always worried like, are we doing enough? Are we doing enough? Are we doing

enough? And we're going to mess them up. Either we're going to emotionally mess them

up or they're not going to be successful. And it just spins, spin,

spin. And to get out of that spin

and heal. It's like you said, we have to prioritize

our self. And I think we don't know

what that means, but really it's like maybe prioritizing

our own emotional well being. Because I think

sometimes it's like massages and getting your nails done and whatever.

I don't know. That's not what we're all talking about. Like, that

can be helpful if you need a little break or whatever. But

the self care is really about your own

prioritizing your own internal self, like

your self. Ifs self care.

Yeah. And the care for the parts that are so exhausted because they're

doing all the things to meet these standards of

what it means to be a good mom. And they're never, they're never getting there.

Because it's like a hologram, right? Yes. Right. It's not possible. And

then you're always just going to feel like crap. Yeah. And so I want to

end this episode on the concept of the good enough

mother. I feel like that can be its

own book. If we could all just

adopt a philosophy around the good enough mother,

it would heal a lot of these, these myths and

the pain and the stress and the overwhelm. So how would you define

the good enough mother? Yeah, well, I

mean, it was defined by Dr. Winnicott, who studied mothers and

their, and their toddlers and their children. And he came up with this

phrase, I can't remember what year.

And he concluded based on his research that actually

moms that fail their children in reasonable and expected

ways, so that's, that's important there. But fail them,

not attuned to them 110%, but you know, 30%,

40% then that actually

served the child because the child was sort of given a

little moment of adversity and developed resilience

through that. So that's the idea. We don't need to be

perfect. And in fact, I would say, you know, there's this, that gentle parenting

movement, and I'm not pointing fingers specifically at that, but

there has been a swing of parents, myself included. So I'll just

speak for myself where I didn't want my kids

to. I wanted every emotion validated. Every time they spoke, my

husband and I would stop speaking because, well, they needed to know that they mattered.

And we didn't realize that suddenly we didn't matter that, that we

swung that pendulum from like we were totally emotionally neglected.

Kind of like we weren't given that priority. We swung it

so far as. As what happens. Right. We like

overcompensated and then suddenly we realized, wow, it sucks that

you and I can't have a conversation without our kids interrupting us. And we

realized, I'm laughing because it's fun to do that. Like in a generation

where your feelings don't matter as a child, then we

raise kids. That's so funny where you're like, now my feelings still

don't matter because my kids feelings matter more. That's right.

It's great. It's. It's like we just

keep wounding ourselves. Almost like it's like a

trauma response. It's pretty funny in some ways it is, right? It's

like we're never going to do well from just swinging the opposite. We need

to recalibra and like, get conscious and figure out what

that deeper need is. Right. With. With inside me.

So that's one of the ways it shows up. But to be. I wonder if

I could coin a new word, like. Yeah, instead of parenting, like familying,

like, I don't know. Because we're so focused on our children and what they

need and we're not like, focused on the family

and like what it needs as its own entity. Because then

I'm a part of the family and you are part of the family. I don't

know. We can't, you know, we can't. We're. We're not able really to.

Yeah. We want to over attune to our kids and we're

under attuning to ourselves. And like, how to find that balance would be, you know.

Yeah. And I think adopting this good enough mother

philosophy would be, you know, it's just

lowering the bar just enough where there's some room for you in

there. And. Well, I just, I mean, I much prefer. It's like I would

invite, you know, listeners to just think, okay, Think of the term

a good enough mother and notice how that feels in your body.

And then think and then hold the term super mom and

notice how that feels in your body. You know, I

mean, it's. Which one do you. Which one do you want?

Which one feels better? We think we know. We think we know.

Yeah. Yeah. I just think all of

us want to be good moms. And like,

I. A couple years ago, maybe seven, eight years ago, I just

decided I was one. I love it. I just was like,

I'm a great mom. I don't know. I just decided not to make that

a question anymore that I spent any time wondering. And

you can do it too. It's like, yeah, no, I'm.

I'm good. I'm good enough. I'm good. I'm a good mom. Yeah,

you're good mom, Angel. You know we are.

Yes, we are. I love that. Just what, what would it feel like to

just decide I'm no longer going to expend. What is it you just said? I

don't even question it. It's no longer a question anymore. I love that. What

freedom. That. Yeah, Yeah. I just. The assumption is that I am

and I'm doing it pretty well, and

then I don't feel so drained by it all. Yeah. Yeah.

So good. So everyone listening, try those

thoughts on I'm a good enough mother

and see how it feels in your body. And

yeah, we believe it, right? We believe that

anyone who's asking the question is probably the answer is yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Anyone listening to your podcast? They. They are. I mean, the people

reading the books, reading the parenting books, everyone's trying

their best, you know, and this idea that we have to

be perfect, it doesn't serve us and it doesn't serve our kids because

they're human too. So the more that we can have

compassion for ourselves, we're modeling it to them.

So I try and remember that when, if my own inner critic

gets a little agitated, then I just, I just remember that, like

me, a mom loving herself is the greatest gift she can give her

kids. So true. So you guys are thinking to yourself, gosh, I want more of

this conversation. And we have good news is because next week we're

gonna continue this conversation with Dr. Angelle Close and

have more topics and conversation about internal family

system, self led mom and putting some of the things we talked about today in

practice so have a good week. And, yeah, you can

say bye. We'll see you next week. Both of us. See you next week.

Thanks, darlin. It.