Do you ever go to bed wondering if you did enough as a mom today?

If you've ever second-guessed your parenting, compared yourself to other moms, or felt crushed by the pressure to get motherhood right, this conversation is for you.

In this encouraging episode, Willow sits down with counselor and author Heather Harrison to unpack why so many mothers struggle with shame and self-doubt, and how we can begin to trust ourselves and trust God in the motherhood journey. Heather shares four essential types of trust every mom needs, practical ways to quiet the noise of comparison, and wisdom gathered from hundreds of mothers reflecting on what they wish they had done differently. This episode is a gentle reminder that your children don't need a perfect mom, they need you, present, imperfect, and deeply loved by God.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why so many moms struggle with shame and feelings of inadequacy
• The impact of comparison and social media on motherhood
• Heather's four types of trust and how they apply to parenting
• How to distinguish thoughts from facts when self-doubt creeps in
• Why self-care isn't selfish
• Practical ways to be present with your children, even in busy seasons
• Wisdom from older mothers on what they would do differently
• How to parent with your long-term relationship with your children in mind

Whether you're rocking a newborn, navigating the teen years, or simply longing for reassurance that you're not alone, this conversation will remind you that you were uniquely designed to be your child's mother, and that being present matters far more than being perfect.

Hey, there.

Welcome to the Collide Podcast.

This is Willow Weston, and it's so good to hang out with you.

I am actually in our new podcast room, and I have to say, what an upgrade.

And by upgrade, I'm just telling you what people.

I am no longer recording in an old bathroom where there's open plumbing on the floor and friendly spiders who live in the corners.

There's probably some new spiders that are coming to hang out with me, but I'm in a cozy, warm space, and I'm just so glad to be with you.

I today got an interview.

Dr. Heather Harrison.

She draws on 35 years of experience in leadership training and coaching and counseling in consulting, and she activates transformational change with leaders, teams, and individuals.

She's been running a private coaching and counseling practice for over 20 years, and today she hopped on the podcast to talk about her passion for young moms.

And she is just amazing.

Dropped so many gems of wisdom.

We talked about this thing that we often do as young moms where we're comparing and we feel so much pressure, we don't feel like we're enough.

And she speaks into this tough place that we often find ourselves.

So take a listen.

Heather, it's so good to have you on the podcast today.

Oh, thank you, Willow.

It's good to be here.

Yeah.

I'm excited to have a conversation with you about motherhood and specifically about young moms.

I know this is a huge passion of yours.

I'm curious, just like out of the gate, how did this passion rise up in you to want to infuse hope and help and wisdom into young moms?

You know, I think it comes from many different aspects, Willow, but just as you asked me that question, I remember back as a mom of three young kids, and I had three kids in three years, and we were out in our cul de sac, and we were, as adults planning a beginning of summer party.

And as the adults talked about what we could do or not do, we kind of came to a plan.

And we were beginning to engage in, well, who was going to do what?

And one of the dads turned to me and said, well, Heather, you're at home all the time.

What do you do anyway?

Can't you just plan the whole thing?

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

And I, as an introvert, I tend to take those situations, walk away, feel frustrated, and then say, oh, I wish I'd said.

But for whatever reason, in that moment, I think probably God dropped these words down and I just looked at him and I said, scott, I'm Facilitating the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual well being of my kids and the kids in this neighborhood.

What exactly do you do all day?

Yikes.

And having come out of corporate America and paused the full time job for a moment, I knew that and was experiencing that moms and parents, especially parents that choose to stay at home for some amount of time and raise their kids, they're not seen.

And I just began to get really curious and really passionate about this role that God gives us, this unique role to be a mom to these kids and what it means to rear children.

And it's hard work, it's rewarding work.

But I think if you haven't been on that side of it, a lot of society does not give it the credit that's due to it.

You work with people, you counsel people.

And I'm imagining that you have a lot of young moms that come into your office.

What kind of pressures are you seen them live under?

You know, I saw this magazine clipping fairly recently and it was, you could just see kind of the upper half of a female's torso and she had, her hair was pretty and she had a nice shirt on.

And then you flipped it to the next page and you could see the entire picture of her and she had on sweatpants and there were just multiple toys on her feet and two little kids crawling up her legs.

And.

And that's reality.

And what I see these young mamas come in with is this.

They just see that first picture of every other woman having it together, having the right stuff, doing the right things, saying the right things.

And they come from this place of shame that somehow I'm not enough.

And I see it over and over and over again.

I don't know how to do it, I'm not equipped, I'm not enough.

And what I see is this pattern.

And of course I see it in other areas of life as well.

But in motherhood, I think it's so problematic of looking to the outside comparing based only on what you see then coming up short and the devastating impact on an already hard job and a pretty lonely job at times as well.

And what I want to say most to them is I want to encourage them to trust themselves and to trust God in the process of parenting.

What does that look like?

Because I'm rewinding back and wow, I mean, I have a 23 year old and a 20 year old and it definitely, I mean it resonates.

I often would go to bed at night and not feel like I was enough.

Like did I teach them Enough.

Did I hang out with them?

Enough.

You know, did I take them out of the house?

Enough.

Were we out of the house too much?

I mean, all of these.

Yeah.

That you are so hard on yourself every single night.

But, you know, I didn't have the pressure of social media.

I didn't have.

When my kids were little, we didn't have Instagram.

Right.

That makes archaic.

But the pressures that young moms are under is something else.

It's something that other generations haven't experienced, where you're constantly being bombarded by being able to see what other moms and their lives look like.

And of course, everybody's showing their best.

Their best image online and not the poopy blowouts and the, you know, the fights with your husband and the lack of sleep and all the things that go down.

So when you say you want women to trust themselves and trust God, how do they do that?

Because I think even when you think about women being bombarded, they're being bombarded with all this marketing to tell them not to trust themselves, but buy this product and follow this influencer and do it exactly like this person in this philosophy and this way of parenting and disciplining and all the things.

So how does a woman know I can trust myself?

Yeah.

I mean, that's a fantastic question.

It's a fantastic question.

And I'm just having a recent experience with this.

Throwing a baby shower for somebody and them having to ask their friends for what they should put on their registry.

Because they had to get the registry right.

Because if they didn't get the registry right when the baby came, they wouldn't have the right things.

And the amount of stress that went with this was just.

I just felt so bad for this particular young mom.

So trust.

So there.

I think trust is one of those words.

It's like a jello on the wall word.

So I define trust in four different ways.

There are four different kinds of trust.

So the first kind of trust is intentional trust.

So I'll walk through them and then we can come back and say, so how do we do this as a mom?

So intentional trust is I trust that you have the best intentions or that I have the best intentions, which serve in any relationship.

Serve me well and serve you well.

If we have intentional trust, the next kind of trust is competency.

I trust that I or you have the competence to do what we say we're going to do.

We've got the skills, the knowledge.

The third one is contractual trust.

I trust that you're going to do what you say you're going to do or that I'm going to do what I say I'm going to do, I'm going to follow the contract.

And then the fourth one is self awareness.

That to the degree that we are aware of ourselves or the other person is aware of themselves will increase the likelihood that we can trust them because we know who they are.

And like you said, that social media we think we know, but we have no idea what's going on behind the picture.

So if I back up and I say, okay, intentional trust, can you trust your own intentions?

Can you trust that you're a child of God and that you're gonna do the very best that you can do and that your best is gonna be good enough for this child?

And I think this is an everyday conversation with yourself of yeah, I'll do anything I can for this kid.

But it's also about staying in the moment.

You know, so often we get into that distorted fantasy, futurized thinking, but just in the moment, can I trust that when it's crying or having a temper tantrum that I have their best intention in mind?

And I think that's a question and a conversation with yourself.

And when you know that you don't have their best intention in mind, I mean they've been crying for a long time or they're tamper tantrum.

You have no patience trusting that you can and will go take care of yourself so that you're prepared to give them the best intention that you can.

And that's another conversation I have with parents, well and everybody a lot.

Is self care selfish?

And the definition that I give them is selfish behaviors.

Any behavior that would radically negatively impact someone else.

If it's not that, then you're actually being self aware and taking self care.

Right.

So if I went home and my kids were 1, 2 and 3 and said too tired, not going to cook dinner, selfish.

But now if they're all at our house and they're 28, 9 and 30, no, not selfish.

If I say I'm not going to cook dinner because they can and it would be good for all of us.

That's being self aware and taking self care.

So what does that translate to?

A toddler screaming?

It might look like letting the toddler making sure they're in a safe place and going into your bathroom for three minutes and breathing.

It might look like putting on earplugs so you can see them but not hear them so that you can care for them out of your best intentions and you can trust yourself that you have their best in mind.

Talk to us about the next three.

Competency, contractual and self awareness.

Yeah, that competency one, I think is a really big one.

It goes back to exactly what we were talking about, that I'm not enough.

I mean, and so let's face it, no babies ever come with an instruction booklet.

And.

That mine did.

I'm joking.

I wish.

I wish.

Right?

A job aid.

And if you're a first time mom, you've never been a mom before, so those are facts.

But what I believe and what I try to facilitate others in believing is that we are uniquely designed to be this child's parent.

And with education and experience, all of us can go do many jobs.

Lots can be nurses and doctors and, you know, computer scientists.

But we are uniquely designed to be this person's mother and so trusting that God, who is the designer, has designed us to work in the best interest of this child.

And so, again, what we think impacts how we feel, impacts how we act.

So if I can tell myself I'm uniquely designed to be, in my case, Adam's mother, I will feel more confident and I will act in ways that are confident.

But if I keep telling myself, boy, Willow, you could be Adam's mother much better than I could, I will feel anxious and I will hesitate in how I engage in parenting them.

Yeah, I think that's so true that a lot of moms, including me, I remember doing this when my kids were younger where I tended to trust what other people thought I should do with my kids more than what I thought I should, just because I was always second guessing my competency, you know?

And I think we're being sold a million and a half different kind of philosophies on how to parent, whether it's how, like what kind of food to feed them and when to introduce it and how to discipline or not discipline or all of these things where you just bombarded and you stop trusting, like your own sense of, I love this child more than anyone else and God made me their mom.

What do I think is best is so, so true.

I mean, I resonate with that completely.

And I think the mothers of this generation have so much noise coming at them, so much data, story, fact coming at them about how to rear a perfect child, which you and I know there is no such thing.

There's no such thing.

I have yet to meet one me as well.

And, you know, to even be able to hear yourself, it's like you need to walk out of the bar or the cocktail party that's just roaring with noise and go over and sit by the creek to just hear.

What actually do I think?

How do I want to feed them?

How do I want them to engage with others?

What is important to me and really get clarity on what does competency mean to you?

What is important to you?

And I often, I would say this to myself and I would say it to moms currently too, and other people.

But let's begin with the end in mind.

What do you want to see in 18 years?

And most of us want to see a healthy, ish human being that can go do life on their own for good for the world.

Now, that can come in a hundred thousand different forms.

But stepping back and saying, okay, so what do I need to do in this one minute in front of me?

You know, it's interesting because I think when you question your own competency, it makes sense that you would go and gather wisdom from other people.

I certainly did that.

I met with multiple moms who are older than me.

Like, I went searching for mentor moms, basically, and was like, you're ahead of me.

I want to learn from you what worked, what didn't work, what do you wish you would have done differently?

What do you, you know, I loved learning from them.

I read books, I read blogs, like, Listen.

You know, people are listening to podcasts.

All those things are good.

But how do you take all this different information?

Because it's not bad to learn from other people, but how do you take it and go, you know what, I might take a little bit of this and learn a little bit of this and implement a little bit of this, but some still keep that sense of not second guessing yourself all the time.

Yeah.

I think that two things come to mind is one, moving to the contractual trust piece.

Let's go there first, because again, that contractual trust piece, can I do what I say I'm going to do?

And the question you're posing, which is really powerful, is how do I sift through all of this and how do I listen to my own voice?

So there's, you know, I think of almost what's coming to my mind is a Venn diagram of there's all this wisdom out here.

And then I hear my own voice.

Where's that overlap that's beginning to just resonate with what I value and what I want this human being to be doing when they're 18 years old and likely no longer under my care and roof to the extent that they are now.

What really resonates with me, and I think here is where we get into a conundrum because there's not a right or wrong and there's not a black or white.

And that's actually distorted thinking when we think it's right or wrong or black or white.

There is a way that's uniquely designed for you that again, you need to trust you've got your best intentions.

You can do it because you're the uniquely designed for it.

You've said, this is what I want to do, and trust that you'll know when it doesn't work.

I remember I had my.

I'm 6ft.

My husband's 6, 4.

So consequently, we have very tall children.

And our first two kids were sons and were really good at basketball.

Well, as you can imagine, the coaches wanted them to play.

They wanted to play a lot, and they did not want.

In fact, they forbid them from going skiing.

And both my husband and I grew up skiing.

We taught our kids when they were three and four to ski.

And we were going to ski because this is a time as a family we could actually be together.

And so we valued family time, we valued doing something together as a family, and we valued looking ahead to when they were 25 and likely not professional NBA players still having something to do together as a family.

And so we said to the coaches, we're going to ski, and whatever that means, if you need to bench these two really good players, then you need to bench them.

And that could have gone many ways, but that's an example of we were making a contract.

What we do is what we're going to say we're going to do based on our values, based on our vision, and we were going to know really soon we're going to get feedback.

Does that work?

Does that not work?

So for the kids at work, they wanted to ski.

For the coaches, it didn't work so well.

But their competitive spirit won over their rules, and they still played these kids a lot.

But you're going to run.

When you again, look at what you value, look at where you want to go.

Take in what everybody else is saying.

Sit in silence and see what God is saying to you.

Make a choice and then proceed.

Because you'll get feedback from the world at large and yourself and your kids.

Is this working?

Then keep walking.

Is this not working?

Then pause and consider what the next good enough step is going to be for you.

Because again, we're not going for the right, wrong, perfectionistic product in this.

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Talk to us about the self awareness.

Trust.

Yeah.

You know, self awareness is so important and myself included and many mothers, I think we just tend to override self and we don't see self often until self is an absolute mess because we throw her 100% into rearing.

But when we can step back and self awareness at a very basic level is stopping to just scan your body and say, okay, what am I thinking right now?

We've got 90,000 thoughts.

Most of them are just thoughts, few of them are facts.

Let's let the thoughts go.

Let's keep the facts.

So a thought I'm not good enough.

That is a thought, not a fact.

Fact.

God created me to be the mom of this kid.

That's a fact.

Be aware of your thoughts.

Let them go.

Keep the facts.

Be aware of your emotions.

Emotions are real and they're like waves.

We need to sit in them, experience the sadness, the anxiety, the frustration, and like a wave, it's going to come in but it's going to go out.

And we need not make decisions out of the emotions.

They're like consultants.

They come in and tell us something's up, lights on in the car.

But they're not meant to be our CEO because when they're our CEO and we lead out of anger or frustration, it never works.

So self aware of your emotion and then self aware of your body.

What's my body experiencing right now?

You know, oh my gosh, my shoulders are under my ears and my gut hurts.

You probably need to step away for a minute or a night and figure out how to make that work for you so that, you know, full circle back.

You can trust your intentions and your skills and competencies and do what you say you're going to do.

That's a good word for an old mom.

I'm an old mom now and I, I needed to hear that.

That's really good.

I mean, I suppose some of the biggest mistakes I made as a mom were probably when I operated out of my emotions.

Right?

I mean, and all of us have been there let's, let's put motherhood aside.

I mean, we've been there as spouses, friends and co workers.

Yes, right.

Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

One of the things I want to talk to you about for sure, Heather, before our time ends together, because I think it's so fascinating.

You've recently done a really cool project where you've compiled, you've gone and talked to older parents and combined compiled from them what they would do differently versus what they would do the same.

And I'm so curious for young moms listening today, what did you find out that you can pass down to us?

Well, you know, I started this project when I think the kids were 2, 3 and 4 and I was out there looking for data.

But I, there are tons of great books written, but I wanted real life experience.

And so I would literally go up to moms and churches and grocery stores and neighborhoods that I knew that I didn't know.

And I would sit, say, hey, would you mind telling me if you had to do motherhood over again, what you would do the same and what you would do differently?

So I captured hundreds of stories and examples, and fairly recently I was just compelled to take this out of the computer and put it in a book which out before Mother's Day.

And I called it On Being a Mother.

And maybe I'll just read a couple excerpts because as I have sat and edited and reread these stories, I mean, I get goosebumps, I get tears, and I get tremendous peace and hope out of this journey called motherhood.

Because I think what I've learned is we are so much more, so much more similar than we are different.

Even though, I mean, I'm talking to mothers that had kids as teenagers, mothers that had kids as 40 year olds, Christians, non Christians, stay at home, work full time.

I'm in the whole nine yards.

But we are way more similar than we are different.

And although we feel like we're alone, we are so not alone in this journey called motherhood.

And that to a T, every woman would say, I really had no idea what I was doing.

Yet when you read this book, it's just like wisdom coming right out at you.

So do we have a moment to read a couple of them?

Yeah, let's hear it.

I'll just randomly, I mean, look, I love it.

I'm going to kick back and listen to story time.

So this is, if I were to do it the same, I would stop to savor, to wrestle, to read, to make some cookies, to watch a cartoon, to have a pivotal conversation and to enjoy the fact that my children welcome my presence.

I would read together.

Picking out books to read was a big deal.

Times have changed a great deal in the past 55 years and I would still make it a priority when possible to spend quality time with my kids.

I would spend more time playing with my kids rather than working all of the time we needed to just kick back and have some downtime together.

I was a teacher in our local school district which meant I was always close by.

When my girls were in high school, I had the opportunity for a dream job 30 miles from our home.

If I were to do it over again, I would have stayed at the local school.

I would begin with the end in mind.

I would consider the quality of relationship I wanted to have with my kids as adults and the fundamental qualities I hope they would learn.

I would do my best to parent him towards that.

This end picture is not always easy to keep in mind during the long nights and tough times, but it's a nice touchstone that helped keep me focused.

I would put my relationship with my husband before the parent child relationship.

He will be here hopefully long after they are gone.

When my child pulled away from his faith, I would have had the courage and transparency to ask deeper, harder questions.

I still don't know how, but I'd try to be vulnerable without being manipulative.

Maybe when I figure it out, God will give me a do over.

I wish I could explain to young mothers how wonderful an empty calendar is.

Not having the busy stay at home mom lifestyle music class together, the mommy play dates, the trips to the zoo, the art class or the busy mom works full time lifestyle camps, classes, vacation, sports, schedule, schedule, schedule or the busy mom works part time lifestyle.

All of the above.

I would give my family time.

I'm not saying the activities are not helpful, enriching, important and fun.

Truly I'm not.

I'm saying I would not let them fill up a calendar.

I would not let them rob me of the space and time it takes to really live and see my children.

Here's one we can probably relate to.

I would not worry about the chores.

I would realize they would wait for me when I had more time and more energy.

Whenever that was.

Here's maybe one more I would understand that breastfeeding is really hard and that breastfeeding and working full time is really really hard.

I would not put so much pressure on myself.

Juggling a family, pumping work, etc.

Is more than any one person can handle.

I would do my best and realize I supplemented with Formula.

Oh, well, no one ever grows up to say, mom, I would have been better off if you had not given me formula.

I would find a mommy network.

I would include moms with kids similar in age or just slightly older so I could have a gut check that I'm not crazy.

I would also include moms in my network with much older kids.

They've been through more and often have a good perspective.

I would remember what is traumatizing for me right now may not be so bad once I hear how things come out on the other side.

You know, Heather, it's really cool to listen to all those things.

I think what's striking me is if I could, I'd go back and do it all over again.

Not because I have a lot of regrets at all, but not that I don't have regrets or things I do differently, but I'd go back and do it all over again so I could be with my kids.

But we don't get to.

But to learn from people who've gone before us to learn and hear those stories, and they make you reflect and they make you think, huh?

Is there something I can do?

Because I can't change the past, but I can change something today, I can change something tomorrow.

And so to glean wisdom from all of these people that you've compiled these stories from, it's just a gift.

So I'm excited.

I. I didn't know when you first came on here that.

That you were putting out a book.

So this is a really exciting thing to find out.

And how are you feeling about putting this out in the world?

Well, you know, I think I've gotten to this age and stage in life where if I'm teaching or writing, if it helps one person in any way, shape or form, it's a win.

And I know how much I've gleaned from other people sharing their life stories.

And sometimes I glean it from the hard stuff and sometimes the good stuff.

But what you picked up on is.

Exactly a piece of.

What I pick up on is presence, is how impactful our presence is, which doesn't often look like doing much.

And that's the world says, do, do, do.

You are what you do.

But it's all about being so.

If the words in this book or a word or a story help someone be a little more kind and present with themselves and lessly kind and compassionate to their children or someone else, then it's been used for good.

And if it doesn't ask you.

Yeah.

Just because there could be women listening where even the.

The encouragement of presence can feel like immediately because she's juggling working, and paying the bills and, you know, a job where she can't be as present as other moms or where she can't be as present as she wants to be.

Mm.

What is she supposed to do with that?

Wrestling or shame or guilt?

Like, yes, I know that's the number one thing I need to give my kids, and yet I can't give them as much presents as I want to.

What is.

What does she do about that in her own heart and mind?

Mm.

First of all, she recognizes shame and guilt are both an emotion.

Okay, so we're going to go back and just sit with that wave of emotion, let it dissipate.

Shame also is our number one lie teller, and it's going to tell us we're not enough in some way, shape, or form.

So back to our thoughts to say, that is a thought, not a fact.

I am enough designed by the God who made me enough.

Those two things and then presence, because this is often what we do, right?

We supersize and think, oh, my gosh, I need to be 247 present with them.

And like you said in the beginning, am I too present?

I'm not present enough.

Present can look as simple as when your kid comes to you.

Next time with anything, just look them in the eye and say, I get it.

I'm here.

Period.

And that can look like pausing for a second while you're washing dishes.

Or maybe it looks like, I really want.

I've worked all day.

I'm exhausted.

I think I need to feed them xyz.

But we're making Kraft macaroni and cheese, and we're building a fort under the table, and we're just going to sit there and eat out of the pot, put the pot in the sink, and go read a book.

Taking all those expectations off and just getting simple so that you can be present.

So much good wisdom from you, Heather.

And I know that I could ask you a million questions for young moms, so we'll have to have you on again.

But for people listening who want to follow along with what you do and want to check out this book for young moms.

How can they do that three different.

Ways and one central spot you can actually just go to, go to heatherann.

A n n e harrison.com and that's my website.

And on my website there, my phone number is there, My email address is there.

You can call me, text me, write me.

I'll get back to you within 24 hours.

And there you go.

Heather, thank you so much for being on today.

Oh, thank you, Willow.

I really appreciate it.

And I know we've just kind of nicked the top of the surface.

And my parting comment is, truly, if you heard anything that, for whatever reason, hooked you into shame or judgment today, it literally was not for you.

Throw it in the garbage can.

Take only what is helpful for you to take the next best step in your motherhood journey.

Hmm.

Such a good word.

Thank you, Heather.

You're welcome.

Thank you, friend.

If there is someone that you're thinking of right now who would be encouraged by this conversation, another young mom.

You can literally gift her this podcast.

And I say gift not because it costs anything, but because you can literally hand it to her.

And it will bless her, it will encourage her, it will help her her to move from no longer believing thoughts but believing facts about herself.

It will move her away from shame and comparison to a place of trusting herself and trusting God and going with her gut and listening to her own voice.

So pass it on.

Share it with her.

Another thing you could do to help our podcast and the ministry that comes out of it is to go and rate the podcast.

Make sure you subscribe and rate, and that will help us out immensely to get the word out so that other people can hop on this episode and other episodes like it.

So, friend, be blessed, Keep colliding.

We'll catch you next week.