None of us is perfect. Not your kids, and not you. We all mess up, lose our cool and act in ways we aren’t proud of. It’s normal to feel guilty after you blow up on your kid, but there is a path back to connection. It starts with learning how to forgive yourself.
You’ll Learn:
When moms come to me worried that they’re messing up or traumatizing their kids, it’s often because of a few isolated experiences of them losing themselves in an angry moment and acting in a way that they don't love, like shaming their kid, name calling, being threatening, acting in a way that causes fear and pain for their child. Afterward, they feel this overwhelming regret, guilt, and fear that they have done permanent damage.
But these isolated moments don’t define you as a mom. The only thing you need to do now is attune and repair. This idea is so simple, so beautiful, and absolutely true.
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When you have a rupture with your kid and you show up in a way that doesn't feel good, or you end up not connecting with them when they're doing a bid for connection, and they feel hurt and sad, you probably feel really bad. It feels existentially wrong when we cause our children pain.
You had a big feeling cycle, you weren’t calm and emotionally regulated, and mama had a meltdown.
After this happens, it’s normal to feel yucky. It’s also important to have a conversation with your child to reconnect and repair the relationship. When you repair, you’re helping your child make sense of what happened when you yelled, shamed or otherwise caused them fear or pain. It helps them to understand that the way you acted wasn’t about them. It was about you.
But before you do this, you need to deal with your guilt. If you go into the conversation feeling like a monster or like something must be wrong with you, your kid is going to feel like they have to convince you that you’re not a monster.
You can’t rely on your child’s forgiveness to make you feel better. That’s not their job. It’s your job to deal with your guilt and shift to remorse.
Guilt can be informative. Guilt is when you realize, “I’ve done something wrong.” But when we focus only on guilt, we can feel really alone and ashamed of ourselves. It is a self-centered feeling that keeps you focused on worthlessness and self-loathing.
Guilt can keep you stuck in a destructive cycle of, “I’m a bad mom,” “I’m not good at this,” or “Something’s wrong with me.” It will keep you from actually taking action to make things right.
I’m here to tell you that you are not a bad person or a bad mom. You had a moment of overwhelm. You are a human, and you're going to have human reactions.
So rather than guilt, let’s shift toward remorse. Remorse takes it a step further to, “I have regret. I did something wrong, and I don’t like that I did it.” From this place, you can process those yucky feelings and start to make amends.
The keys to self-forgiveness are to separate the behavior from your core self and to have compassion for yourself and the feelings that led to the behavior.
When you act in a way that you don't love, you are acting that way because of your own emotional needs, because of something that's going on inside of you. The temporary overwhelm, anger, resentment or frustration that you felt and acted out is not YOU. You are not a bad person, you had a bad moment. You are a human who had a human reaction.
One of the obstacles to self-forgiveness is the fear that if we forgive ourselves, we won't change our behavior. And that's just not true. In fact, the only way you will change your behavior is through this act of self forgiveness. You can’t move on when you’re trapped in a cycle of self-hatred and shame.
Before we start going through the steps, I want you to put your hand on your heart and repeat this sentence: I am worthy of love and forgiveness.
If, like me, you feel that pain in your gut when you hurt your kids, you can also try placing one hand on your heart and the other on your belly. Tell yourself that you get to be forgiven. You get to let yourself off the hook.
You can’t ask your child to forgive you if you haven’t forgiven yourself. And while it feels uncomfortable, the process is really quite simple.
Step 1: Acknowledge. Be honest about your part in the rupture, your wrongdoing. Write out what happened, what you said or did. Acknowledge what happened to your kid. What was the expression on their face? How did they react to your behavior? Lay out the facts without judgment.
Step 2: Allow. Let yourself feel the pain of remorse and regret. Feel whatever shame, anger, betrayal, confusion or self-doubt comes up. These are all temporary emotions, and they will pass. Sit in it for a little while, and be very kind and gentle with yourself.
Then, get curious about those feelings. What are they teaching you? You can even talk to yourself about what’s coming up, like “Hey, girl. What the heck is going on? What do you need right now?”
Step 3: Accept. Accept what happened as an experience that took place in the past. You can feel badly about it, but it was only one event in the history of your parenting. It doesn’t define you, your family, or your child. It is just what happened.
When you’ve acknowledged the situation, felt your feelings about it, and accept it as something that happened in the past, it’s time to let it go. Here are some phrases that might help:
This is the most important part - saying to yourself, “I forgive you.” That’s it. We think we have to be punished before we can be forgiven, but forgiveness is there for you whenever you need it.
In next week’s episode, we’ll talk more about the 4th step - Amends. This is where you have the repair conversation with your child and make things right.
Mama, you are going to mess up. Your child is going to have moments where they don't feel safe and secure, where they feel worried, where they feel fear. That's normal. Your role is to let them know that that really did happen. They get to feel scared, hurt, or mad at you. And you get to let them know that you’re sorry and that you’re working on it.
You forgive yourself so that your child can forgive you. And through this process, you also teach them to forgive themselves when they make a mistake.
Of course, the more regulated you are, the easier it will be for you to pause and reset before you react. This means that you need to take care of yourself and your nervous system on a daily basis (that’s why CALM is the first step of the Calm Mama Process).
As you get curious about how you need to take care of your body, mind and emotions, you will learn to grow the length of your pause. Your fuse will become longer, giving you more time between the trigger and your reaction.
I want to leave you with this final thought: Every day, I am becoming a more compassionate version of myself.
We are all becoming, healing, and growing. We all have moments of dysregulation, times when we have to go back and repair. We are all becoming calm mamas.
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Welcome back to become a Cal Mama. I'm your host. I'm Marilyn Childress.
Speaker:I'm a life and parenting coach. And last week on the podcast, I
Speaker:talked about the concept of attunement. And it really is this
Speaker:process of connecting with your kids and
Speaker:coming alongside, seeing the world from their view.
Speaker:It's a part of the comm mama process that I teach all the time.
Speaker:I call that connect, and attunement is one of the tools
Speaker:of connection. So, the
Speaker:reason why I brought that up last week is
Speaker:because I often hear moms talk
Speaker:about how they're so worried that they're, like, traumatizing their kids,
Speaker:that they're scarring their kids, that they're fucking up their kids, that they're ruining their
Speaker:kids' lives. And they feel really worried about
Speaker:that. And most of the time, they bring that
Speaker:up to me because of a few isolated
Speaker:experiences of them losing
Speaker:themselves in an angry moment and acting in a way that they
Speaker:don't love, like shaming their kid, name calling,
Speaker:being threatening, acting in a way that causes
Speaker:fear and pain for their child. And then they have
Speaker:this overwhelming regret, overwhelming guilt,
Speaker:and they feel afraid that they have done permanent damage.
Speaker:And I was talking about this with Tiffany, my best friend, who I've
Speaker:talked about on the podcast many times. She's been a guest. She's
Speaker:been an interviewer of me in the, podcast where I
Speaker:talk about recovering from trauma. I think that was
Speaker:episode 100. So, anyway, Tiffany and I were
Speaker:talking, and I was we're just we both raised kids together, and we were talking
Speaker:about how moms often say I'm so worried I'm gonna traumatize my kid or I'm
Speaker:gonna fuck them up. And then she said this sentence that was so
Speaker:beautiful. She said, the only thing you need to do is
Speaker:attune and repair. And it was so
Speaker:simple and so beautiful and absolutely
Speaker:true. If you want to raise kids that
Speaker:don't experience trauma, attune to
Speaker:them, connect with them, support them in their
Speaker:emotional journey. Right? Doing that gentle parenting, that
Speaker:connected parenting work that we've talked about a lot on the pod.
Speaker:And when you don't do it, repair. Help
Speaker:your child make sense of you acting crazy.
Speaker:Right? Giving them a narrative to help them
Speaker:understand that it was about you and not about them so that you
Speaker:can shame free that moment and norm not
Speaker:normalize that you're yelling at them, but normalize that, yes, it
Speaker:doesn't feel good. It's a yucky feeling. And that's because I,
Speaker:as the parent, was not emotionally regulated in that
Speaker:moment that a mama had a temper tantrum. You know, mama had
Speaker:a meltdown. Mama had a big feeling cycle, and I caused
Speaker:pain and harm to you. So next week, I'm going to
Speaker:give you a practice of repair and how to
Speaker:do that work with your kids and, like, how to actually have those
Speaker:conversations with your child. I'm sure I've talked about the pod.
Speaker:We'll connect the previous episodes to this one in the
Speaker:show notes. But I was thinking about
Speaker:doing that. Like, I was like, I'm gonna do a 2 part series of attunement
Speaker:and repair. And I realized that
Speaker:we actually need to talk about the guilt that you
Speaker:feel when you do something, when you
Speaker:show up in a way that you don't like as a mom and as a
Speaker:parent, and how if we don't
Speaker:deal with the guilt that we feel
Speaker:and we bring that into our conversation or or, like,
Speaker:our repair conversation with our child, our
Speaker:child isn't going to be completely free to
Speaker:experience their feelings and process their emotion with
Speaker:you because you will be bringing in your own
Speaker:guilt. When you're looking to your child to
Speaker:forgive you, but you haven't forgiven yourself yet,
Speaker:it is going to be difficult for that conversation to be
Speaker:centered in the child's narrative. It will be
Speaker:be centered in your narrative. Now
Speaker:I'm gonna talk about how to center a
Speaker:repair conversation in your child's narrative more next week,
Speaker:but I wanna talk now about your narrative.
Speaker:What happened to you?
Speaker:And what do you do with that guilt that you feel?
Speaker:So when you have a rupture with your kid and you
Speaker:show up in a way that didn't feel good
Speaker:or you end up not connecting with them when they're
Speaker:doing a bid for connection, like, you missed it or whatever and they feel hurt
Speaker:and sad, you can feel really bad.
Speaker:Right? It's like hurting our children,
Speaker:it feels existentially wrong. We're like, this is my child
Speaker:that I would take a bullet for, and yet here I am hurting
Speaker:them. Right? It's just feels something very, very
Speaker:wrong. And then it's so easy to make
Speaker:it about us. Like something must be wrong with me
Speaker:because I did this to my kid, because I yelled at them, because
Speaker:I grabbed them harshly, because I name called them, because
Speaker:I screamed in their face, because I shook their body, because I tossed
Speaker:them on the couch. Like, these behaviors make you
Speaker:feel like a monster. And if you're thinking,
Speaker:I am a monster and you go into the conversation of repair with
Speaker:your kid, your kid is gonna feel like they have to convince you
Speaker:that you're not a monster, and that's not their job.
Speaker:So instead of going into a conversation with
Speaker:guilt, I want you to go into the repair
Speaker:conversation with remorse. So let me break
Speaker:remorse and guilt down a little bit.
Speaker:So guilt, like, it can be informative. Right?
Speaker:So shame is something's wrong with me. Guilt is I've done something wrong.
Speaker:But a lot of times we confuse shame and guilt and we get
Speaker:caught up in it. Remorse is a little bit
Speaker:more externalized than even guilt. Remorse is I
Speaker:have regret. I have remorse over an
Speaker:action I took. I did a thing, and I
Speaker:don't like I that I did a thing. And we wanna try to
Speaker:make this conversation with ourselves as
Speaker:far apart from our core self as possible. We wanna be
Speaker:able to externalize our behavior and have
Speaker:compassion for the feelings that are inside that
Speaker:led to the behavior. When you act in a
Speaker:way that you don't love, you are
Speaker:acting that way because of your own emotional
Speaker:needs, because of something that's going on inside
Speaker:of you. And we wanna have compassion
Speaker:and love and acceptance for your emotional
Speaker:state of being. Right? If you feel overwhelmed,
Speaker:we wanna have compassion for that overwhelm. Yes. You
Speaker:behaved in a way that you don't love, but I want you to separate your
Speaker:behavior as much as you can from your core self.
Speaker:So guilt, it can be, it can
Speaker:make us feel really alone and ashamed of
Speaker:ourselves. It can keep us, focusing on our
Speaker:worthlessness. It can keep us in cycles of self
Speaker:loathing. It's a very self centered feeling,
Speaker:guilt is, and it can be very destructive and keep us
Speaker:stuck. And that's not gonna be
Speaker:what like, having that guilt isn't gonna get you
Speaker:to a new state of action
Speaker:because you're gonna feel stuck in the cycle of I'm a bad
Speaker:mom. I'm not good at this.
Speaker:Something's wrong with me. Those thoughts are
Speaker:gonna spiral you and you're not gonna be able to take action. Even if you
Speaker:tried to do repair, even if you tried to have a conversation with your kid,
Speaker:you would end up making them feel bad for you
Speaker:and seeking their soothing of you. Right? You
Speaker:would be like, please forgive me. I'm so sorry. And you would feel you're coming
Speaker:from a needy place. So before you go to get
Speaker:forgiveness from your child, I want you to practice self forgiveness.
Speaker:How can you ask your child to forgive you if you haven't forgiven yourself?
Speaker:If you, again, if you look at your child to make you
Speaker:feel better, if you need something from your child, that's a
Speaker:codependent relationship. That's not a healthy
Speaker:parent child relationship. As a parent, I am
Speaker:an, like, an an internalized
Speaker:organism. I can take care of myself within myself.
Speaker:That is what it means to be a leader in your family, to be a
Speaker:strong parent. Now, of course, you can get support from peers. You can
Speaker:get support from your coach, from me, from your mom, your
Speaker:family, your sister, your friends. Of course, I want you to
Speaker:get support and help bring these
Speaker:conversations to a place where you can feel peace. But I don't want
Speaker:you seeking that support from your child. I don't want you to look
Speaker:to your child to that you need their forgiveness.
Speaker:We want to invite your child to forgive you because it will feel better for
Speaker:them and they'll have better connection with you. And I don't want you
Speaker:to be, coming to that conversation from
Speaker:this self centered, woe is me. I'm a bad person.
Speaker:Please tell me I'm okay. Not being
Speaker:okay until your child forgives you is
Speaker:codependency, and it's not good for your kids. You
Speaker:wanna be able to self regulate
Speaker:even after you do something wrong to go back and soothe
Speaker:yourself. Okay? Self forgiveness, it
Speaker:also releases that shame that we're talking about, that mental
Speaker:spiral of, like, I'm a bad mom and getting
Speaker:stuck in that place. If you forgive yourself
Speaker:and you go through this process that I'm gonna walk you through these four parts
Speaker:of self forgiveness, if you do that,
Speaker:then you can release the shame. You don't have to identify with the
Speaker:behavior. It doesn't have to define you. You can see
Speaker:that temporary emotional state you had of overwhelm,
Speaker:anger, resentment, frustration, whatever that
Speaker:feeling was that led to your behavior,
Speaker:you can separate the 2 externalize. I
Speaker:acted away not because I am away. I acted this
Speaker:way because I felt this way and I didn't know what to do about it.
Speaker:That is how you unshame
Speaker:yourself. Seeing that
Speaker:when you, when something's wrong with you, if you
Speaker:think that something's wrong with you at your core, you're bad, That's
Speaker:a fixed state. That's part of your essential core self. That's
Speaker:your self-concept, and that can feel really hardened
Speaker:and rigid. And it can if you feel that
Speaker:way about yourself, if you think that way about yourself, it's gonna be
Speaker:very hard to make change. How can you change
Speaker:something that's permanent? That's part of your core self.
Speaker:Mama, you are not a bad person. You had
Speaker:a moment of overwhelm. Recently, a mom was talking to me. She
Speaker:has 3 small children, and she was trying to get, like,
Speaker:the baby to bed. And then the older 2 were playing, and they
Speaker:kept disrupting her. And she just was like, how do I meet
Speaker:all these people's needs? And she felt really overwhelmed, and she acted in
Speaker:a way she didn't love towards her kids. And it's like,
Speaker:yeah, it's overwhelming to have small children,
Speaker:to have teenagers saying fuck you to you in your face or whatever they do.
Speaker:Right? That's hard. And you are a human and
Speaker:you're going to have a human reaction.
Speaker:Now, of course, the more regulated you are, the better
Speaker:you take care of yourself day to day, the easier it will be for
Speaker:you to pause and reset and take a break
Speaker:and kind of get curious. What do I need? How do I need to take
Speaker:care of my body? How do I need to take care of my mind? And
Speaker:give yourself permission to reset the whole situation.
Speaker:But if you have a very short trigger and
Speaker:you have, you know, something that happens and then you respond to it,
Speaker:that we wanna grow your pause. Right? We wanna grow the length
Speaker:of time between the thing and your reaction to the thing. Now
Speaker:some of you are really good about not reacting right away. You're like,
Speaker:I was calm for so long, and it was like 30 minutes of
Speaker:meltdown, and then I just lost it. Like,
Speaker:okay. Excellent. During that 30 minutes, my guess is
Speaker:that you weren't actually self regulating, and my guess is that you
Speaker:probably weren't coregulating. You probably weren't making
Speaker:attempts at attunement with your child. Maybe
Speaker:you were and they weren't like, your child wasn't accepting
Speaker:your attempts, and that's fine. That happens. But then in
Speaker:that process, what did you do to reset your nervous system? How aware were you
Speaker:that you were starting to lose it? That's all I'm wanting to build
Speaker:for you is awareness of yourself, and part of
Speaker:that is through this practice of self forgiveness. Looking
Speaker:back, reflecting on your behavior.
Speaker:In the call mama course, I have this
Speaker:exercise called what the fuck just happened. And it really is a
Speaker:step by step, like journal prompt to help you
Speaker:go back and figure out what was that all about. How did I
Speaker:act? Why did I act that way? What did I need? Asking yourself these
Speaker:questions. So when you do this practice
Speaker:of self forgiveness, it really is self reflecting.
Speaker:That way that you can prevent
Speaker:future ruptures. If you
Speaker:forgive yourself for today's rupture and you make a little plan and you go
Speaker:through a process to figure out like, get get curious and find out the
Speaker:wisdom of that moment, like, what what did you need
Speaker:or what could have helped you in getting curious instead
Speaker:of having condemnation for yourself, having curiosity, having
Speaker:compassion. When you are able to find
Speaker:the wisdom in the past moments, then
Speaker:you can prevent future ruptures.
Speaker:But you won't get there if you are in a cycle of judgment
Speaker:and condemnation and meanness.
Speaker:Right? Okay.
Speaker:So hopefully, you feel clear of, like, yeah, I need to do the
Speaker:self forgiveness thing. I understand why. And,
Speaker:I'll revisit it again next episode a little bit more,
Speaker:you know, just to remind you of what we talked about. So how do you
Speaker:actually forgive yourself? I love
Speaker:the practical steps. Like, I'm such a step person. I
Speaker:want you to tell me, like, first I do this, then I do that, and
Speaker:then I do this. And I think those of you who listen to this podcast
Speaker:are probably a lot like me and want that too.
Speaker:Right? You kind of like, I get it. I like it, darling. I
Speaker:like that you're telling me self for forgiveness, but I don't know
Speaker:how. Okay? It's actually not that complicated, but
Speaker:I'm gonna give you a how. So the first thing I want
Speaker:you to do when you see that you are
Speaker:having a that you had a hard moment, that
Speaker:you didn't act in the way that you wanted to act, that you showed up
Speaker:in a way that hurt your child or your teen.
Speaker:Do you guys hear my dog barking? I want you to
Speaker:start with this sentence. I am worthy of
Speaker:love and forgiveness. That's it.
Speaker:I really want you to put your hand on your heart. I'm doing it right
Speaker:now. And taking a deep breath
Speaker:and then exhaling
Speaker:and then saying, I am worthy of love and forgiveness.
Speaker:If you saw my hands, one of my hands is on my heart and the
Speaker:other is on my belly because I feel that
Speaker:pain when I hurt my kids. I feel it in my stomach. I
Speaker:feel it in my gut, in my core.
Speaker:So putting your hand on your heart, putting your hand on your
Speaker:belly, putting a little bit of pressure and
Speaker:saying, I am worthy of love and forgiveness.
Speaker:You have to tell yourself that you're you get to be forgiven.
Speaker:You get to let yourself off the hook. I was just thinking of,
Speaker:like, one of the obstacles to forgiveness, self forgiveness
Speaker:might be that if we forgive ourselves, we might be afraid
Speaker:that we won't change our behavior. And that's just not
Speaker:true. The only way you will change your behavior is through this act of self
Speaker:forgiveness. So giving yourself a moment,
Speaker:I am worthy of love and forgiveness. That's
Speaker:the foundation from which we're gonna move through the next few
Speaker:steps. So the first step in self
Speaker:forgiveness is acknowledge. Acknowledge
Speaker:being honest about your part in the rupture,
Speaker:your wrongdoing, really saying,
Speaker:yep. I yelled fuck you really loudly to
Speaker:my child, or I said you're a
Speaker:goddamn moron or what you know, like, write it out
Speaker:and write what you said. Like, look at it. Like, actually
Speaker:kind of acknowledge what happened.
Speaker:I love to also acknowledge what
Speaker:happened to the kid, Like, acknowledge your behavior
Speaker:and then their face, their reaction, what you saw in
Speaker:them, what they said. Just kind of being honest about the
Speaker:scenario, kinda laying out the facts
Speaker:without going into a lot of judgment. Just what were the facts?
Speaker:What happened? What did you say? What did you do?
Speaker:I this helps us externalize what was going on there.
Speaker:Then allow yourself to feel the
Speaker:pain of remorse and regret. You might feel
Speaker:shame. You might feel anger. You might feel a sense of betrayal. You might
Speaker:feel confusion. You might feel self doubt. All those things
Speaker:are temporary emotional states, and they will
Speaker:pass. When people say feel your feelings, this is what they're talking
Speaker:about, allowing your emotions that come
Speaker:up when you look at what you did.
Speaker:I'm embarrassed. I'm really sad.
Speaker:I've I, you know, feel I feel angry,
Speaker:feel resentful that I'm, had to do that by myself.
Speaker:Whatever comes up, I want you to allow some room for you to
Speaker:experience your emotions. You can
Speaker:also get curious about the emotions. Like,
Speaker:what are they teaching you? Right? Acknowledging you have
Speaker:you have some shame about what happened. You also maybe wanna acknowledge,
Speaker:and allow for sort of some of that resentment
Speaker:towards your kids, freeing yourself from that
Speaker:feeling. There's a lot of
Speaker:wisdom in how you acted.
Speaker:And so when you are bringing up all those feelings that come
Speaker:from, like, your shame or your guilt, your remorse,
Speaker:and your regret, You can also start to allow
Speaker:for a little bit of curiosity of, like, you
Speaker:know, what is this behavior showing me?
Speaker:Instead of just criticizing yourself for the feelings that you
Speaker:had, you can get curious about what happened.
Speaker:I'm always like, hey, darling. What the heck is going on?
Speaker:I actually talk to myself, like, hey, girl. What do you need
Speaker:right now? So in that
Speaker:feeling your feelings, you might need to be like, what do you need
Speaker:right now to process this emotion? Do you need to go outside? Do you
Speaker:need to drink some water? Do we need to make a cup of tea? You
Speaker:know, if it's really that pain. So we're gonna sit in it for a
Speaker:little bit being very kind, very gentle with yourself,
Speaker:validating your feelings, and then the next part
Speaker:is accepting. So real quick before I go on
Speaker:to accepting, I wanna say that I have done an episode. Episode
Speaker:9 is all about processing negative emotion.
Speaker:How to feel your feelings, resetting your emotions.
Speaker:So that's episode 9. So we'll link that in the show notes or go back
Speaker:and listen to it. It is called, let me look it up, pause and
Speaker:reset your emotions. So acknowledge what happened. We
Speaker:allow our feelings about what happened, then we accept
Speaker:accept that that happened. That was in the past.
Speaker:That happened. I feel badly about it, and
Speaker:I, see that it was one event in the
Speaker:history of my parenting. It doesn't define me.
Speaker:It doesn't define my family. It doesn't find my children.
Speaker:It just is what happened, and we accept it as
Speaker:a situation that happened in the past.
Speaker:We've acknowledged it. We felt all our feelings about it, and now it's time
Speaker:to let it go. To be okay
Speaker:with what happened. So some phrases that you can
Speaker:use to help yourself with this is I
Speaker:release my past and forgive my imperfections.
Speaker:So just writing that out. I
Speaker:release my past, and I forgive my imperfections.
Speaker:So that's accepting. Yep. I did this thing.
Speaker:I felt my feelings about it, and now I'm ready to
Speaker:move on. The next phrase you could use
Speaker:is I choose to release guilt and embrace
Speaker:self compassion. I'm actually choosing to no
Speaker:longer dwell on this. I'm actually choosing to not
Speaker:beat myself up about this anymore. I'm choosing to not
Speaker:define myself by this moment. That happened. I
Speaker:had big feelings. I didn't take good care of myself, and I'm
Speaker:learning from it. So that's the last sentence you can say. I
Speaker:am learning to let go of my mistakes and forgive
Speaker:myself. Just claim
Speaker:it. Just say that happened and it's
Speaker:over and releasing
Speaker:yourself to no longer
Speaker:feeling all the shitty feelings that you had about
Speaker:them. You let yourself feel like shit. Now it's time to
Speaker:let it go and forgive. This is the most important part
Speaker:and all it really is is by saying I forgive you.
Speaker:I forgive you, darling, for saying
Speaker:that. I forgive you for not showing up for your kids.
Speaker:You're worthy of forgiveness. That's it. It's not
Speaker:that hard, but it feels so weird. Feels like it should be
Speaker:more magical or more difficult or, like, we should, like, have
Speaker:to walk through fire in order to get forgiveness or we should have to, I
Speaker:don't know, like, beat ourselves up or deprive ourselves of privileges
Speaker:and, like, get consequences and punishments like an old traditional
Speaker:model of parenting. Like you need to feel pain. And
Speaker:it's like, no, you don't. You just forgiveness
Speaker:is there ready for you. You just have to
Speaker:acknowledge what you did feel badly about it and
Speaker:then let it go, Then make amends.
Speaker:So I tried to make these easy to remember by making them all
Speaker:start with the letter a. So acknowledge,
Speaker:allow, accept, amends.
Speaker:Amends is what I'm gonna talk about next week is having that
Speaker:repair conversation with your child and
Speaker:saying to them what happened and giving them that narrative
Speaker:so that they don't feel like they're a bad kid, that they don't feel like
Speaker:something's wrong with them, that they don't have to walk around worrying about, is my
Speaker:mommy gonna blow up at any time? Is am I safe here?
Speaker:Am I loved? We don't want our kids to internalize
Speaker:our moments of dysregulation as
Speaker:permanent states of being. We don't want them to be
Speaker:afraid. We want them to feel safe and secure. You
Speaker:are going to mess up. You are gonna your child is
Speaker:gonna have moments where they don't feel safe and secure,
Speaker:where they feel worried, where they feel fear. That's normal.
Speaker:And your role is to let them know
Speaker:that that happened. It really did. I really did yell
Speaker:at you and you really did feel scared and
Speaker:you that's a normal feeling and you get to feel scared. You get to
Speaker:feel mad at me. You get to feel hurt. You get
Speaker:to feel worried. And I get
Speaker:to to let you know that I'm sorry and
Speaker:that I'm working on it. And that when I have a big feeling,
Speaker:I'm gonna take care of it and I'm gonna grow from
Speaker:this. So please forgive me. That's it.
Speaker:So you forgive yourself so that your child can forgive you.
Speaker:So your child can forgive themselves. When your child
Speaker:makes a mistake and they come to you and they say, I'm so sorry.
Speaker:I stole the cookies or they get caught with, you know,
Speaker:their friends, like, necklace from their house or
Speaker:whatever it is. We wanna be able to model to them
Speaker:forgiveness, self forgiveness, and forgiveness. Yep.
Speaker:You made a mistake. That's normal. There's
Speaker:no problem. Now your job is to make it
Speaker:right. Return the necklace or
Speaker:buy new cookies or pay for the damage for the
Speaker:broken, whatever it is. So we want amends
Speaker:our words and actions. So you are having
Speaker:this repair conversation with your child, and I'm gonna teach you that next week, and
Speaker:you're making a commitment to change. So I love this
Speaker:phrase that I wanna leave you with today is every
Speaker:day, I am becoming a more compassionate version of
Speaker:myself. When you make your
Speaker:amends, I want you to be committing to
Speaker:growth. You do not need to beat yourself
Speaker:up in order to grow or change. You just need to
Speaker:commit to become a calm mama. That's
Speaker:it. That's why this podcast is called become a calm mama because we're
Speaker:all becoming calm mamas. Right? It's not called I am a I am
Speaker:a calm mama. I'm also becoming a calm
Speaker:person, becoming a calm woman, becoming a calm human.
Speaker:All the time deeper and deeper levels of equanimity and peace
Speaker:and, you know, healing inside of my soul and,
Speaker:you know, I have, of course, moments of dysregulation and
Speaker:then moments of co regulation or self regulation, and then I
Speaker:go have to go back and have to make repair. This happens.
Speaker:It happens less and less, to be honest, as I,
Speaker:go deeper into the work and I do better at forgiveness and better
Speaker:at, taking care of myself and better at boundary work and
Speaker:better at, you know, making my life what
Speaker:I want it to be and, creating lots and
Speaker:lots of pockets of peace. I don't have as much dysregulation.
Speaker:It's pretty cool. But it is
Speaker:challenging, especially when you have other humans
Speaker:that are around all the time that are extremely needy of
Speaker:you. So every day, I am becoming a
Speaker:more compassionate version of myself.
Speaker:Every day, I am becoming a calm mama.
Speaker:Alright. If you wanna be a calm mama in the calm
Speaker:mama club, join us. It's $30 a month. You can sign
Speaker:up on the website, calm mama coaching.com. You can talk to me about
Speaker:it. Book a complimentary consultation with me about 30 minutes,
Speaker:40 minutes. We chitchat about you, your life, see if it's a good fit.
Speaker:If you like me, Zoom, you get to meet me, which is fun. I
Speaker:get to meet you, which is especially fun for me.
Speaker:And, yeah, mamas, you're gonna blow
Speaker:it. You just are, and there's nothing wrong with you. And I
Speaker:love you and you are worthy of love and forgiveness.
Speaker:And I forgive you even though you've done
Speaker:no harm to me. You are forgiven and
Speaker:you can forgive yourself. That is
Speaker:what is necessary before you can ask forgiveness from your
Speaker:kids. And next week, I'll help you figure out how to
Speaker:do that, which is so cool. Alright. I hope you have
Speaker:a great week, and I will talk to you next time.