Have you slowly disappeared inside motherhood and wondering how to find yourself again?

In this honest and empowering episode of the Collide Podcast, we sit down with Alli Worthington to talk about what happens when moms lose themselves while raising their children. Alli shares about the silent resentment that can build when women never advocate for their own needs, the fear of being “selfish,” and why so many good moms secretly feel like they’re failing.

From the “Aunt Shirley” syndrome of over-giving to the emotional crash of the empty nest season, Alli offers practical wisdom on how to remain who God created you to be — even in the thick of carpool lines, laundry piles, and late-night worry.

Whether you’re exhausted with little ones, overwhelmed in the teenage years, or staring down a new season of transition, this episode will remind you that you are still called, still valuable, and still becoming.

Meet Alli Worthington

Alli Worthington is a bestselling author, speaker, business coach, and host of The Alli Worthington Show. She has written multiple books, including Remaining You While Raising Them, and has spent years coaching women in life and business. A mom of five boys and a passionate advocate for women’s emotional and spiritual health, Alli is dedicated to helping women break free from burnout, guilt, and limiting beliefs so they can step fully into their God-given calling.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

1. How to recognize the signs that you’ve lost yourself in motherhood
2. Why the fear of being selfish keeps so many moms stuck
3. The “magic question” every woman should ask herself daily
4. How to navigate transitions (like kids going to kindergarten or college) without losing your grounding
5. What to do when mom guilt feels overwhelming
6. How to discern between God’s conviction and the enemy’s shame
7. Why modeling self-worth teaches your kids their worth

How This Episode Will Encourage You

This conversation will help you release unrealistic expectations, quiet the voice of shame, and embrace a healthier, more joyful version of motherhood. You’ll be reminded that you don’t have to be perfect to be a great mom — and that taking care of yourself is not selfish, it’s essential.

If you’ve been gritting your teeth and telling everyone you’re “fine,” this episode is your permission to breathe, reset, and remember who you are.

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Mentioned in this episode:

New Book Release! Collide: Running into Healing When Life Hands You Hurt

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Collide Book

Hey there. Welcome to the Collide Podcast. This is Willow, and I am so glad I get to hang out with you today.

If you're a mom, you are in the right place because I just got done interviewing Ally Worthington. She is the best selling author. She's written five books and counting. She's speaking speaker, a business coach, a podcast host.

She lives in Nashville or just outside Nashville with her husband, and they have five kids and a golden retriever. And she hopped on today and we talked about the topic of one of our books called Remaining you while raising Them.

And I don't know about you, but it is so easy as a mom to point out.

Pour into your kiddos and love them and walk alongside them and invest in them and feed them and tutor them and, I don't know, teach them how to eat and speak and poop and all the things and lose sight of you and who you are and what you're passionate about and what you need and your health and so that's what Alli and I just got done talking about. Take a listen,

Alli! It's so fun to have you on the podcast today.

Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.

Let's dive in. Yeah. Are you chiming in from Nashville? Is that home for you?

I am, yeah. I'm one of the few people who hasn't just moved here in the last five years.

Are you just overwhelmed by that? Are you like, who are all these people? What is going on in Nashville?

It's pretty crazy. It's like there was a secret message that went out all over the country that said, move to Nashville and Austin and everyone went, okay.

So it's crazy.

Oh, my gosh. That's hilarious. I'm actually looking at the bookshelf behind you, which is so funny. I am seeing a lot of Mickey ears and a very cool disco ball.

Do you have a big love for Disneyland? Is that what I'm seeing here?

I love Disney. I go maybe eight times a year, so I take my team twice a year. I take a group of coaching clients twice a year. The kids and I go. I love it.

But I'm also a roller coaster enthusiast in general, so if there's ever an off time for me, you can find me, like, screaming down a giant roller coaster. So I'm ridiculous. I raised five boys, so they rubbed off on me.

Oh, my gosh. I know. I saw that. You are a boy, mom. You love roller coasters. That's crazy. I would never get on a roller coaster with you.

A lot of people say that. But here's the thing. Millions and millions, tens of millions of dollars have gone into making sure that no one can get hurt. So I would.

I would sit on a roller coaster where I can't affect the outcome negatively. But if you ask me to, like, run down the block or ski or ride a bicycle down a hill, I am 99.9% sure I would injure myself or others.

So for me, strapped into roller coaster is the safest thing for me.

You're banking on the fact that they're checking these machines regularly. I love that you love Disneyland. Are you Disneyland or Disney World?

I'm Disney World.

Two camps. Okay.

Yeah, I'm Disney World. Annual passholder. Disney World. I just went to Disneyland for the first time last week. My oldest son's 27.

He moved out to LA for work, so we went to go visit him, and I was inducted into the fandom of Disneyland. And I think Disneyland's delightful. Yeah.

Well, so we're located in the Pacific Northwest, and so we have a lot of Disneyland over Disney World fans here. They just think it's, like, more quintessential Disneyland.

But then I hear Disney World is like, you could be there for weeks on end and never run out of things to do. So. So cool. Well, hey, we didn't have you on to talk about Disneyland, but I love that I'm seeing, like, your bookshelves and hearing about your life.

You mentioned raising five sons. So you're in a house with a husband, you've had five kids, and you have written several books. It looks like five books and counting.

And one of the books that you wrote is called Remaining you While Raising Them. I love that title so much. Can you tell us what inspired you to speak into this topic?

Yeah. So much of my work involves coaching women, life and business coaching. And when you're co. When you're business coaching, you're also life coaching.

And whether it's conversations with my clients or my audience that's written in or just my girlfriends. So something happens to moms where we kind of know we sacrifice everything when kids are little. Right.

We're just trying to keep our kids alive, you know, because kids are climbing on things and they're crazy, and they're always trying to put 18 grapes in their mouth at the same time, whatever it is. And so we stay in that. I'm just gonna put myself on the shelf and do everything I can to get through this stage.

And that stage is amazing and hard and all the things.

But what I realized and a lot of My friends realized is we never got out of that completely sacrificial stage where we were doing everything for them and kind of letting ourselves dry up on the vine, so to speak. So so many women, when their kids get into high school, kind of have a little bit of a crisis going. Wait a minute, I've.

I've ignored myself for the past 10 years. I don't even know what I want out of life anymore.

And so all of these conversations kind of gave rise to me thinking about how do I write a book for moms that's not a parenting book. Because honestly, we don't need another parenting book. But it was a book.

How to care for yourself, how to figure out what you need, how to break out of the cycles that keep moms feeling like they're lost, like they're not doing a good enough job so we don't wake up in the middle of the night and go, oh my gosh, I'm ruining my children. And how do we actually enjoy it?

There's so many things I want to ask you about this.

How do you feel like the mom experience is unique compared to the dad experience when it comes to this great tendency to sort of put our own stuff on a shelf and say, we'll come back to that later?

Well, yeah, dads just don't do it. I mean, yeah, they just don't. I mean, that's not that, that's not what men do.

I mean, it's like it's not in their DNA, but it's what we do, you know, for better or for worse.

I don't say that with any judgment, but, you know, I know my husband never walked around and was like, let me make sure that I don't ever think about myself. And I, you know, I'm catering to the whims of these children. That's what I did. That's not what he did.

And I think that, like I said, in some seasons it's really necessary when kids are really little. Like, that's just what we do.

But when we don't break out of that cycle of putting all of our focus on our kids and not on ourselves, it leads to long term enmeshment or the kids will want to pull away. And the moms are like, ah, we can't pull away. I remember this isn't a mom story. It's a story about women not advocating for themselves.

When I was 8, I went to Christmas at my great Aunt Shirley's house. I'm going into great Aunt Shirley's house. Everything Seems great. We're. We're hugging, you know, it's great to see you. It's Christmas.

Everything's going to be great. It's Christmas Day. Massive amounts of food. And Great Aunt Shirley had been cooking for three days. How did I know?

Because she told everybody she had been cooking for three days, you know, and. And the guys were all watching TV, the women were all moving around. And at 8 years old, I didn't know what was wrong, but I knew something was wrong.

And I didn't find out until I was older what was happening. Cause I remember being at that table going, I don't know why things feel bad, but when I grow up, I don't want it to feel like this.

But when I was an adult, I found out that Great Aunt Shirley never wanted to cook. She never wanted to host.

She was resentful about it, but she never felt comfortable enough to raise her hand and go, hey, how about we switch off my house one year? Your house one year? Or how about everybody bring a dish? She thought to be a good woman, to be a good mom, she did everything.

So she burned herself out. She never spoke up for herself. And she ended up, over the years, growing really resentful and bitter about it.

And that Aunt Shirley behavior is kind of in me, and it's kind of in everyone else I talk to, because everyone goes, I'm Aunt Shirley. I'm not Aunt Shirley about hosting, but I'm Aunt Shirley about this.

So I think remaining you while raising them is a great way just to start a conversation with women to go, we can love our kids, but God's also called us to take care of ourselves. If we live our lives where we let ourselves just dry up on the vine all the time, we will be bitter.

Over time, our children will only be as emotionally healthy as we are. Like, we're kind of the lid while they're living with us.

So we can't not take care of ourselves and lead in a great example for our kids to be like, here's how a healthy woman lives her life. We have to actually do that for ourselves. And what happens is we have to overcome the fear of being selfish.

And the thing that I have said for the past few years to all moms, when they go, what if I become selfish? If I think about myself is, I go, the people who worry about becoming selfish will never become selfish narcissists.

Like, we're already doing too much to just take, like, 1% and go, let me see how I feel today. Let me make sure I Drink water so I don't get a headache. Let me make sure I get enough sleep and take care of myself.

We're still going to be loving moms, but we're actually going to be a lot happier, too.

So I recently just became an empty nester. So I'm just finding myself running into all these empty nesters.

And there's so many women who are terrified of their children leaving the house, terrified of that season coming to an end, lost as to who they are, what they're called to do. And so I'm curious, as you are coaching women for.

For people listening who maybe have lost themselves in the parenting game, what are some indicators that you could give them? Like, I don't know if there's a list or something, or you can mention some of them.

Some indicators for someone listening that I might have lost a bit of myself in this parenting game in a way that I should probably pay attention to.

Yeah, I think there's lots of little ones.

But the thing that comes to mind right now that I feel like I'm supposed to share is if there is a woman listening right now who just feels numb and she doesn't feel a joy at life like nothing excites her. A lot of that is because we've lost ourselves, because we've spent too many years, too many decades, never even checking in with ourselves.

I mean, I have this thing in the book I call the magic question. And the magic question is, what do I need right now? And I had to put right now on it because to ask another woman, hey, what do you need right now?

Ask yourself that. What do you need? Women will be like, I haven't asked myself what I needed in a decade. I have no idea what I need. So it's just a baby step.

Like, what do you need right now? Do you need to go have lunch with a girlfriend? Do you need to drink more water? Do you need an extra hour of sleep? Do you need to go get a massage?

You know, whatever.

It is like giving ourselves permission to take care of ourselves in the same way that we've always taken care of our children, because we always take great care of our children. But for us, we're like, I don't know. I'll survive on this petrified chicken nugget from the back of my car.

And I'll just, you know, I mean, I remember the high school years. I still have one in high school.

He's a junior, but he doesn't play sports, thankfully, because I spent like a decade just sitting in my car Waiting for practices to be over. You know, I mean, that's what we do as moms. But at the same time, when it's over, it does lead if we have lost ourselves to such a season of sadness.

But it can be an opportunity to get to know ourselves and to lean into what God has for us in the next season of life. Because, I mean, I'll tell you, I'm 49. I may be the most excited woman in the world to turn 50.

Cause I'm like, let's go in the 50s, in the 40s, I finally felt like I knew what I was doing in life. You know what I mean? Now I'm like, oh, let's see what God has for me in the 50s. Let's see what God has for me in the 60s.

With the way they're going with medicine, I'm going to feel great in my 70s. It's such an exciting time.

But I think for too long we kind of live by the cultural ideas that once a woman hits midlife, like once a woman hits 40, it's just a slow fade. But this is a time for women to wake up and kind of rekindle what makes you passionate and lean into what God has for us. It's a really exciting time.

Well, I love the reframe of. This is an opportunity for you to get to know yourself. And you know, you bring up asking the question, what do you need right now?

And that requires paying attention, you know, permission to have some like, self awareness and for what you need to actually matter. And I think so many of us just put everybody in front of us and you know, we put the husband, the kids, the pets, the whatever.

And then it's like, oh, I didn't have five minutes to go to the gym or drink water or take my supplements that my naturopath has me on or whatever. So I'm curious what your advice is for women who are in the thick of it. Like they have kids in the house still, they're in the thick of parenting.

And there's this weird thing where, you know, on. On this huge level, it requires this huge sacrifice of giving up every day for these kids.

How do we sacrifice and invest in these kids and yet hold on to who we are at the same time? What's the trick?

Yeah, I think it could be really small. I think we can take as little as 15 minutes a day and kind of ground ourselves in truth, who we are in Christ and lean in.

One thing that works really well is like, lean in in prayer and always ask what do you want me to know right now? What are you calling me toward? Because especially when you're. If you're in the thick of it and you're raising little kids and that's your job. That.

Cause I was a stay home mom for 10 years and that's your job. It is physically exhausting, but it's intellectually unstimulating.

Like, you can only have conversations about Play DOH so much before you feel like your brain is turning into play doh. Like, take, take 15 minutes a day and learn something new.

Like, it will be easy to try to numb out and just scroll on social media, but that isn't going to change your life. Take 15 minutes and read a book or listen to a podcast. Like, keep your brain going. Don't, don't, don't use your downtime just to scroll.

Use your downtime to pour into you and let God plant those seeds of what he has for you next and your next calling and your next mission. Because we kind of have this idea that our calling in life is one thing, right? But our calling, I believe, looks different every decade of our lives.

My life in my 40s is so different than my life in my 20s. I can't wait to see what my life is going to be like in my 70s, like I said.

So we always want to carve out little spaces where God can plant seeds of what the next calling is going to be. We can enjoy where we are, but he always has more for us in every season of life. So I think just remembering that.

But you know, I would say the number one danger for women right now, honestly, is social media.

The more time we spend on social media, the worse we feel after we do it. So we think we're relaxing, but we're actually really stressing ourselves out. So we have that.

But on top of all that, because social media is a highlight reel, we are seeing the best of the best, the best vacations, the happy family.

I mean, if social media were around in this way when my kids were young, I would have lost my mind because I would have opened up my phone and seen pictures of perfect families dressed in all white and even the dog is smiling, and I'm like, cleaning dog vomit off the carpet, and my kids are going crazy, and I would have wanted to throw my phone across the room. So I think social media can be great. It can connect people.

But we need to handle it like something that can be really dangerous in large doses, because that is really affecting women's mental health right now.

When you talk about doing some of these things, and some of them you've mentioned are very basic. Like, you've mentioned, you know, make sure you're drinking a glass of water.

And as basic as that is, women actually don't take time to drink water, but also take time to pray and remind yourself of truths. You mention these kinds of things. You talked about the fear of being selfish.

I think sometimes we think, oh, man, If I take 15 minutes to read a book or an hour to listen to a podcast and there's a pile of laundry and there's field trip forms, and I haven't, you know, done homework with my kid, and I have, you know, there's all these lists of all the things we haven't done. Where does that fear of being selfish come from?

Well, sometimes the fear of being selfish is internal, but a lot of times the fear of being selfish is the fear of being seen as not good and not loving. You know, a lot of women who grow up in the church say, well, this is the way women should be.

And then I will say, well, who at church actually said that to you? And they'll go, oh, no one. But, you know, it was just how we should be.

And so I think we put a lot of things on Christian culture that aren't explicitly said. We just feel them, and we put so much pressure on ourselves. And it's.

It's not actually people outside of ourselves saying, you have to be perfect all the time. You have to do all this stuff. Like, we're actually bringing that from ourselves to us. Right.

I remember talking to a therapist as I was writing the book, and I said, I have so many moms saying that they're afraid of being selfish. And she said, good moms are afraid of being selfish. Bad moms never worry about it. Like, let that be a plumb line.

If you're worried about being selfish, you know, you're a good mom. Because the bad moms never worry. Bad moms don't care. And as a little push to, like, take that 15 minutes to care for yourself, if we don't.

If we don't have good inputs with the amount of output that we're Doing as moms, we will turn bitter and we will turn resentful and we aren't going to be happy. And those kids are going to feel it and our spouse is going to feel it and everyone's going to feel it.

I mean, how many times have you been around a woman and through gritted teeth she smiled and been like, we're going to have a great time. Right. We don't want to be that person. I've been that person many times. Right.

But we will be that smiling, gritted teeth woman telling everybody that we're about to have a great time if we don't have enough positive inputs to balance the output. So 15 minutes of reading, drinking enough water, getting a sitter on a Saturday afternoon so you can be left alone, those are positive inputs.

Because if it's all output without input, we're going to be gritting our teeth and everyone's going to be hiding from us. Or at least that's the way it was in my house.

It's so interesting because I think, you know, in on some level you're talking about modeling that you're worth it. So they know they're worth it. And you know, I have so many people who are like, how do you, how have you done it?

How have you done full time ministry and being a mom? And I was a stay at home mom for eight years and then, you know, went back into full time ministry. But yeah, is it crazy? Is it a juggle?

Is it hard to balance? Absolutely, 100%.

But there also is something like when I have been away from my kids or I have brought my kids along to serve, to see what God is up to do, to be a part of blessing other people, to sacrificing.

Now I'm seeing them in their young adult lives and they're living lives of service and they're living lives where they're like, how can I be used by God today to bless people?

So I think there's something where when you model that you still have a calling, you still have a health that matters, a body that matters, a career that matters, you're inviting them to also believe that for themselves.

So I'm curious, like when you, because you've done all this coaching work and writing books on this topic, who are the women who you see doing this really well? Like they're remaining them while raising their kids. Like, what are some stories that you have for us of like, oh, these women are getting it.

Oh, that's a great question. I have so many friends who have gone before me and Just have been great moms and now they're great grandmothers.

So I get to, I watch them as their kids were older. One worked full time in a church, one ran her own company, Julie and Carol.

And it's been so fun for them to share stories of this is what I did right, this is what I did wrong, this is what I wish I could have done.

And now to get to watch them with their grandchildren is really special because they all whisper, they both whisper to me and say, I messed this up with my kids, but I'm going to fix it with my grandkids. Or, you know, I remember my mother in law, I think I had three little kids at one time. I was at her house and she was so happy.

She got up early to make breakfast for us and she was in such a good mood. And I said, you know, when I imagined being a mom, I imagined waking up early and being a really good mood and being really happy, but I'm just not.

This is really, really hard. And is there a secret to be more like you? And she said, oh, I wasn't like this when I was raising the kids. No, I was raising the kids.

I'm like this now because I'm not raising the kids. So I think the, I think the lesson is just like you said, when we model for our kids, that we have value because we are children of God.

We're teaching our daughters that this is what it looks like to be a woman of God. And we're teaching our sons that women are valuable and that women aren't created just to serve and to be mistreated.

Even if it's us doing the mistreatment of ourselves. It's important. It's really important. And I think it's a great lesson to share.

I mean, it's a real thing to have regrets and to sort of question like, am I doing this well, and feel like you're failing in some ways or you know, not doing it as well as other people that you're looking at. That's like all real feelings.

But what does it look like to hold onto a sense of confidence as a mom even though you're a human mom that makes mistakes?

Yeah. I will tell you, I once surveyed my audience, thousands of women, And I think 98% of them said that they felt like they were failing their kids.

Great moms, amazing moms. So I think you're right. That's kind of the feeling that does connect all moms.

But to me, a woman who tells her children she loves them, a woman who cares for her children. A woman who prays for her children and has God guide her is a great mom and knows she's doing a wonderful job.

Because God did choose us to be the moms. God knew exactly every unique, special, wonderful way we were going to screw things up. And we screw things up all the time because we're humans.

But he put that child with us, knowing the little puzzle pieces of where we would mess things up and where that child would learn from our mistakes would fit together perfectly. God is not in heaven going, I cannot believe that woman got that child. Man, what a mistake that was.

Like, we're all perfectly placed together, and our kids are amazing. But if we hold ourselves to some crazy, super human standard, we are going to feel like we're failing all the time.

But we want to mess things up while our kids are in our house. We want to be able to be like, do you see how I did that? I really blew it. Here's how I blew it, right? Like, we need if.

If our kids grew up with a perfect mom who never did anything wrong, Imagine growing up with Wonder Woman as your mom. Like Gal Gadot, right? She doesn't make mistakes. She wakes up amazing. She's always perfect. She flies you to school in her car.

Can you imagine what that would do? That would destroy a kid to have a perfect mom? Because the kids are always making mistakes, right? So it's actually, you're kneecapping your kids.

If you do everything right, if you're a perfect mom, that's actually not helping your kids. You want to be a mom.

That's a real person that you're teaching them that this is real life and we make mistakes and we dust ourselves off and we get back to it.

That is the best lesson we can give our kids, because we're teaching our children resilience and trust in the Lord and going, I'm just a flawed human. I'm doing the best I can. Let's get back up and go again. That's a great lesson for kids.

So good. What's your advice for people who are not doing well with the balancing act of everything?

They feel like they're just completely getting toppled by juggling all the things.

Yeah. That is a case for needing to say no to figuring out what. What needs to be done. Like, what are the most important things in life.

And normally that looks like the family and putting food on the table and keeping a roof over everyone's head. Right. Everything other than those things. And going to church on Sunday, of course, we're not going to leave that up.

Everything other than that is a negotiable. And sometimes in a family, especially if there's a season of crisis where, like, we've had a lot of illness.

My husband has a chronic illness, One of my sons has a chronic illness.

We've had seasons where we've had to retract and been like, I can't make three dozen brownies for my plumber's cousin's niece's birthday party tomorrow, or, I'm not the woman that's going to be volunteering in this season, or, you know, all of these other things that I said I was going to do, or all of the things that could pull our family in different ways, we need to kind of shrink in and take care of us in the middle of a crisis, because in every family, we're going to have a lot of crises through the years. But I think giving women permission to go, hey, you don't have to be superwoman all the time.

Sometimes you really can circle the wagons and take care of your family. And then when things are a little bit easier, expand out and do some of those other things.

But it's not failure and it's not weakness to start giving a gracious no when it's time to take care of things.

Have you had an experience yourself personally, Alli, where you felt like your identity at one point was getting carried away and you were sort of losing who you were because you were raising your kids? And how did God meet you in that season?

That's a great question. There's a funny story.

Yes.

On the identity part, but I want to start with when I was a young married woman, maybe married a couple years. We had one son at the time. I got some book on how to be a good Christian wife. I don't remember how I got it.

There was the Amazon back then, and my husband would come home from work, and I noticed he would kind of pick fights, and we didn't normally fight. And finally, after two or three weeks, I was like, why are you always trying to fight with me? I'm trying to be nice here.

And he goes, you're just so vanilla and so boring. And I was like, I got a book on how to be a good Christian wife. And he goes, you already were. I need you to go back to you.

And we still laugh about that. Like, I'm just trying to be a good Christian wife without us being too vanilla.

I think that it's a great example of how we have it in our head that we should Be a certain way. Like, to be a good mom, we should do everything this way. To be a good wife, we should do everything this way.

But it's just some rule book that somebody else made up or you're just following the example of someone else. So when we go, like, for him saying, well, you don't need to read a book to tell you how to do that. You were already that.

And so for so many moms who are going, I just want to be a good mom. Let me work harder, let me do more, let me prove it. You already are a good mom. Your kids are loved, your kids have a roof over their heads.

You know, you're doing everything right. Is every day kind of a disaster when they're young? Yeah. I mean, that's just. It's chaos.

I remember after my third son was born, I was like, I will never be on time and the house will never be clean again. And it wasn't for like 15 years. But it doesn't make me a bad mom.

You know, everyone, everyone gets to play the, the game of being a good mom and enjoying their family in a really unique way. And when we try to cookie cutter it, that's when we get in trouble.

That's when we turn into me as the, the vanilla woman trying to put myself in a mold of what's a good Christian wife.

I love it. You're like, I'm not vanilla. I'm spicy today. What's your advice for moms when there's a season of transition coming?

And I think about, as I look back over the course of mom life, I mean, of course there was going from, you know, working and then having a baby and being a stay at home mom, which is not something everyone does. But I'm just saying that was a transition for me.

And then I remember, oh, I did that for a while, and then the transition of my kids go to kindergarten, and all of a sudden, you know, there's new opportunities for me and change and then there's middle school. There's all these different sort of seasons. Right.

What's your advice for moms who are like, there is a season of change coming, and it can be, I don't know what the word is, but you can almost kind of like lose your grounding or your confidence because now all of a sudden, you're in this new season. It means new things for you and your kiddos. Yeah.

I think that generally when we think about a new season coming, it's really scary. Right. And we think about all the things that can go wrong. I mean, you know, someone can get hurt or they're gonna go away.

I mean, the worst is, you know, a kid going away to college is terrible. I think I cried off and on for a month before boy number four went to college this fall. But we always go. We always go to the negative.

We always go to all the ways that'll be terrible and the things that can go wrong because we just do. We're moms. It is a great thing about moms. Cause we will find the worst case scenario and we'll make sure it doesn't happen.

Cause we have to protect those kids, right? But knowing, hey, I'm going to worst case scenario, this is a new opportunity for my kid.

It's a new season for my kid, but it's also a new season for me. And again, stay prayerful and ask the Lord, what do you have for me next? Because like I said, God always has new things for us.

We just have to be open to hear it. I believe that we are in an era right now thanks to all the opportunities online, especially for women for learning.

Like, there's books to be written, there's businesses to build, there's hobbies to have, there's. I mean, there's adventures to have that we just haven't wrapped our brains around because normally we've been in a season with our kids.

And the thing about having kids is there's not a season that isn't hard. You just pick your hard. Like when you have.

For me, I remember thinking one day, like, having all these kids is so hard, but it's the best hard I could have. This is a way better hard than having freedom and not having meaning or purpose, you know, I mean, I loved it. So a new season's coming.

There's going to be a different kind of hard, but there's a new excitement to it, too. And just kind of leaning in and going, okay, Lord, what's the new exciting thing that you have for me?

Because I guarantee he has something sometimes we just haven't been asking

so good. You know, Alli, I know we're going to come to a close here.

And I just have this feeling that there are moms listening who are struggling with severe mom guilt for whatever reason. And I'm wondering if you could give them a word of encouragement. Okay.

If someone is dealing with mom guilt, I want you to think about it this way. I want you to think about the thoughts that go through your head and one I want you to identify.

If the thoughts that you're hearing in Your head about the way you're mothering and all the ways that you're not doing a good enough job. See, if that is something from your past, Is that something you heard in childhood? Is it. Did your mom talk to herself that way? Is this.

Are these messages that you've heard outside of you that you have internalized? Because that is super common.

I mean, one of the things I work with my clients on all the time is they'll tell me the thoughts going through their head, and I'll go, when did you first hear it? And they'll be like, oh, my first grade teacher. Or I just talked to someone today and she was like, oh, it was my dad.

And once we realize that we've just internalized an external voice, we can take that to the Lord and start the process of healing, normally with a good counselor. But if it's something that you can't track down, these messages of you're not good enough, you're a bad mom, all these things.

And it's something that is bubbling up often. I want you to think about, is that message the voice of the Lord in your head or is it the voice of the enemy?

Because the voice of the Lord is never going to be shaming. It's never going to be something that leaves you feeling bad. It will be convicting, but it will be convicting to lead you to growth and to love.

It's always a kind word for.

But the enemy will get in your head and he will whisper thoughts to you of how terrible you are, how you're messing everything up, how your kids are never going to have a bright future, all of these things. And when you make a decision, are you going to listen to the encouragement and truth of the Lord?

Are you going to listen to the enemy's lies in your life? I want you to think about, are you going to make the Lord happy or are you going to make the enemy chuckle?

Because when the enemy is whispering lies about what a terrible mom you are, and your kids don't have a future and you didn't have cut the crust off the sandwiches, or you don't have enough money to buy the most amazing prom dress in the world and your daughter's life is ruined, if you listen to that and you continue to beat yourself up, you're making the enemy happy. So every day we have a choice. Am I going to listen to God or am I going to make the enemy happy? And don't make the enemy happy.

Don't take the enemy's tools and use them against Yourself. Listen to what God wants you to know. Listen to truth. Stay in the light. And when those thoughts come, act like an attorney and cross examine them.

Is this true? Is there evidence that I'm the world's worst mom? Well, there's probably not evidence that you're the world's worst mom. And really go, is this.

Is this something that God would want me to believe, or is this a way that the enemy would want to destroy me as a mother? That's my word.

That's so good. Yeah. I mean, I think there's also so much power in sharing what you're going through with other moms. I know.

I remember when I was a new mom, had my first kiddo, and I just felt like I sucked at it. I was like, I'm not cut out for this. I'm not good at this. Because I. I just didn't feel great at it.

And it was tiring and exhausting and I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't have anybody to model after as far as, like, my own mom and stuff. And so I remember looking at one of my best friends and she just looked like she was killing it. And her kid was seven months older than mine.

And I kind of broke down one day and admitted to her that I felt like I sucked. And I was like, but you make it look so easy. And she's like, oh, no. I cry in my car. I'm. I feel like I'm not good at it.

I had a breakdown in Target the other day, and I was like, what? I would have never known that. You never show that. And she's like, oh, yeah, like. And so it.

That taught me, like, wow, I'm looking at someone who's trying to look like they're put together because she thought she had to look that. And I assumed I suck because I don't look like her.

And then when we both shared it sort of normalized the experience of how difficult it is to be a mom and how mom guilt is a normal feeling. And I love that even in this interview, that's so much of what you've done is you've normalized. Like, it is hard. It is just hard. Right?

My mom used to say that she felt guilty about everything, that she felt guilty that she couldn't solve the Middle east peace crisis. Or, you know, like, she was like, I just feel responsible for everything. Everything's my fault. And feel like, mom, relax.

It's just.

It's like a rite of passage for moms.

Yeah. Oh, my Goodness. Well, thank you so much for being on Ally.

I know that there are women listening who are going to want to check out all that the Lord is doing through you. How can they do that?

I'm Alli Worthington everywhere. My podcast is the Alli Worthington Show. I have a great app that's discipleship and self care for women.

That's the Uplift community app that I think women would enjoy, too.

Love it so much. Thank you, Alli.

Thanks for having me. This was so fun.

Friend. I hope that conversation encouraged you today.

I love so much how Alli reframes some of our sort of mentalities around momming and guilt and feeling badly and being unbalanced. And she just normalizes the mom experience. It's no joke.

And my hope is that you can invite Jesus to run into your life, where you're at in this season of parenting, the one you're in right now, and that you would remember that God knows the challenges are not out of his sight. The things your kid's struggling with. He is so aware of the things you're struggling with. He's got his eye on you. He is with you.

And you can turn to him and you can tell him what you need. He even says, cast your cares upon him. You can bring your mom guilt before God and you can actually ask him, is this a guilt that is undue?

Like, is this a guilt that I should be feeling? Or is this a guilt that I'm feeling because I'm comparing myself to other people?

Or I have that internal voice that Alli talked about that's speaking to me and it's not from you, Lord, my hope is that you will hear the loving voice of God who speaks truth, who causes fruit to come about in our lives, who transforms us. Yes, changes us. Yes. But he does it so gently and graciously and kindly. So I pray that you would experience him and be encouraged by him.

And if this conversation with Alli was an encouragement to you and you know a mama who could be blessed by it, I encourage you to share this episode. That simple share will minister to your friend. Keep colliding and we'll catch you next week.