When mom guilt takes over, it's hard to feel like the calm mama you want to be. In this episode, guest Jessica Tomich Sorci shares why moms feel bad about themselves, along with mindful parenting tools to break the cycle. Learn how self-compassion isn't selfish; it's the foundation for confident parenting and real emotional connection with your kids.

You’ll Learn:

• How to have a better relationship with yourself as a human, a woman, and a mom
• What being an empty-nester looks like for me right now
• What I like to say to myself when I’m feeling anxious
• Ways to love all the parts of you - even the challenging ones
• What surprised me about my Mom Parts assessment

Jessica Tomich Sorci is a licensed marriage and family therapist, as well as a specialist in Internal Family Systems (IFS). Her focus is on maternal mental health. She’s here today talking about her new book, When Good Moms Feel Bad: An Empowering Guide to Transforming Guilt, Anxiety and Anger Into Compassion, Confidence and Connectedness, which she wrote along with Rebecca Gushuri.

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Resources/Previous Episodes:

• Episode 183: Internal Family Systems (IFS, part 1)
• Episode 184: Finding Your SELF (IFS, part 2)
• Episode 185: Being What Your Kids Needs (IFS, part 3)
• Episode 197: Freedom From the Good Mom Myth with Dr. Angele Close
• Episode 198: Letting Go of Mom Shame with Dr. Angele Close

Free Resources:

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Toolkit!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Toolkit here

Connect With Darlynn:

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

Connect with Jessica Tomich Sorci:

• Take the Mini Mom Parts quiz (and listen to the full podcast episode to hear Darlynn’s results!)
• Get the book - When Good Moms Feel Bad: An Empowering Guide to Transforming Guilt, Anxiety and Anger Into Compassion, Confidence and Connectedness
• Follow Jessica on IG @jessicatomichsorci
• Learn more on her website: https://www.jessicatomichsorci.com/for-moms

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

life and parenting coach. And I just had the best conversation

with Jessica Tomich Sorci. She's a licensed marriage and family

therapist and also a specialist in internal family systems

ifs, which we've talked a lot about on this podcast and we'll

link all those past episodes into the show. Notes. But she wrote a book

called When Good Moms Feel Bad, and I love the

title alone, because I know that anyone listening to this

podcast is a great mom. And I know that you

often feel bad that you're not doing a great job at

being a parent or being a mom, especially if you listen to this podcast because

you're trying to get calm, you're trying to get regulated, you're trying to

show up in a healthy way as a parent. You're reparenting

yourself. You're healing from trauma, you're healing from the way you were parented

and have a lot of anxiety and overwhelm and stress and all

of that. And in this episode, we really normalize all of the

things that you're going through and give you a really great

tool. How to connect with the part of you that's overwhelmed and

part of you that's stressed and how to calm that part of you

using this internal family systems model. And it's

very accessible. It's an easy way to connect with yourself.

It's like, like in the calm break, I teach move your body,

move your mind. This episode really gives you some

practical, easy to access tools on

how to move your mind, how to have a better relationship with

yourself, how to have a better relationship with yourself as a mom, with

yourself as a woman, as a person, so that you don't feel

so overwhelmed and you don't feel so frustrated and you can drop

some of the guilt that you have going on for you. And. And so I

think this is really beautiful. Also, at the end of the episode, I kind of

dive deep into how I'm experiencing being an empty

nester right now. So if you want to stay to the end, there's some juicy

stuff in there for sure, what I've been going through lately. So that was

kind of a tangent, but it also was interesting, so I decided to leave it

in this episode. I think you'll like it and I really hope you enjoy this

episode and that you buy Jessica's book, When Good Moms Feel

Bad. Good morning. Hi, Jessica.

Hi. Yeah, I'm Darlyn. Nice to meet you. Thanks for

having me. Yeah. I'm excited about our conversation.

Me too. And I love your images in the back. Thank you.

It's so funny because lately I've been feeling like I shouldn't have a

baby's butt in the background. Let me see if I can even see the baby's

butt. Oh, no. It's so hard to see,

like, every. The other stuff going on really makes

it work. That's funny because I just recently. This isn't going

to be on YouTube, but I started to record video

for my podcast, and I was like, I don't know if I should have

a butt in the background. Maybe if it

was, like, not a baby's butt, it'd be a different conversation.

Exactly. This is a mom podcast, so I think we're. There you

go. Welcome to the podcast, Jessica. It's so nice to have

you here and introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about

you, and then I want to talk about your book and how it relates to

the moms that listen to Become My Calm mama. So welcome.

Thank you so much, darlin. I'm a marriage and family

therapist and a perinatal mental

health certified person. And let's see, I'm an

IFS therapist, which means I specialize in internal family

systems, which is a particular kind of

psychotherapy that looks at the different parts of us as being really

healthy and normal and adaptive. Yeah. And I wrote this book,

really, with the goal of helping moms discover a path to

trusting themselves, respecting themselves, reclaiming some

empowerment around what might feel

crazy, what might feel out of balance, what might feel

unlikable or untrustworthy within ourselves.

I think having a. A way of working with our parts

gives us a direct line to. To really

reframing all of that and understanding our complexity

in a way that we have a little bit more dominion or

sovereignty with. Yeah. Yeah.

I think when I think about the moms listening to this podcast,

they are moms who are

really intentional about becoming parents that.

Who show up for their kids in a regulated way. That's the whole

become a calm mama part. They want to

heal their own backgrounds, their own traumas, or

the way they were parented or social dynamics that they experienced.

And then they show up with these high expectations of

themselves, of how they're going to be as moms. And then the

reality of raising actual humans,

being an actual human ourselves. Yes, Being a human. Human to human,

Immature human. You know, a person, a little person who can't quite

regulate their nervous system. They're firing all the time in

a way that it feels out of control for them. And then we feel like

it's out of control and we get dysregulated and we react. And

any tool that I can offer to the moms listening to help

them understand that they're normal

and there's hope. And so I love the title of your book.

Book. It's called When Good Moms Feel Bad. And then

you have a subtitle, but just the When Good Moms Feel Bad.

I find guilt to be, like, so pervasive

in mom world and just never feeling like we can measure up

or do it well or do it right and then feeling

bad about it. And so you have this book, an empowering guide to

transforming guilt, anxiety and anger into

compassion, confidence and connectedness. And

I just love that. Now, just to give you background on the audience, we have

gone through internal family systems several times on the

podcast. And so I'll link

ifs previous episodes to

it. But share with us a little bit what you mean

about mom parts and how you

think about them in your unique way and

how you've presented them in the book. And then we'll talk about dealing with those

mom parts in this episode. Yeah,

well, I love that you're talking about regulation. And I think

that word has become part of our kind of. It's in

the zeitgeist right now. Moms know what that word means. We feel a lot of

interest in. In being able to regulate ourselves.

And when I think about what regulation is, we

can look at it from a few different angles. We can look at the physiology

of regulation, what it's like to be in a calm

nervous system. But I look at it more from, I guess,

the psychological place of what's going

on dynamically inside. What's the story we're telling

ourselves, what's getting reactive? What are we reacting to?

What is that reactivity trying to accomplish

in order to regulate us? I think we're probably always

striving for regulation, for some sort of control,

for working and dealing with the threats that we experience,

even if they're kind of benign threats, like threats to

our sense of being respected or cared for.

So I think when we look at our reactivity

and what's bubbling up inside of us from this

perspective of parts like, what part of me

just did that yelling? What part of me is

feeling threatened? When we can start to look at it

that way, we can actually get curious and bring

a different energy to that reactivity,

to that difficult experience we're

having. And ifs talks about that in Terms of a U turn, like

a Y O, U turn. I always picture the energy. It wants to

go out, like to the kids. Stop it. Can you just be quiet? Get your

shoes on, you know, and bringing that

energy back, making a U turn and getting curious,

saying to yourself, what's going on inside of me right

now? What part of me is

reacting? Oh, it's a part that's angry or resentful

or irritated or scared. You know, anxious.

So once we can start to notice that as one part doing one

job, maybe like the big energy job, then we can ask

that other question of, well, what's it afraid of? What does it think would

happen if it didn't do this? Right now we can start treating

these parts like people. And when we start to

separate it out and kind of parse it out like that,

we can see that there's like a protective part, maybe that

angry part or that anxious part that's trying to do a job

on behalf of something that feels vulnerable

and maybe scary inside.

A part, another part that thinks, if I don't do

this, something really bad is going to happen. This kid

is going to get hurt or

not turn out well, have a bad. We're going to be late. Like,

you get your shoes on as the example. And

what that means is so little about

the shoes that we make it mean a lot about, well, we're going to

be late. And then what? And then what? And then who will that be? And

how will that come across? Or what will I be modeling? Or who will they.

Will they never learn to be on time? I mean, it goes so deep

with just one moment of parenting. Like, time

is representative of a lot of our identity, like being late. And

then we don't want that identity to be,

you know, thought of as bad, tarnished. And so. Yes.

Yeah. And. And so I love how you're saying,

I think it's so valuable to. It's not

necessarily externalized, but to separate you from you. Right. And

that's what internal family systems is so great because we have this inner

self and this inner self who is

actually us. And then there are these parts that

respond to the environment and are reacting to, you know, their

fear and their worry and their behaviors are showing that.

And I like how you say what part of me

is. And so I think talk about a little bit more about

how to catch yourself. When I teach regulation,

I use a tool called Calm Break. And one of the M

is move your body. Move your mind and

body is to regulate. Sorry, the M is move your body and

that's to move, you know, that nervous system and like re. Regulate through the body,

but then move your mind is really about trying to figure out where the

behavior is coming from. And that curiosity. Yeah. So I think

using the language of what part of me

did that is so powerful. So I noticed on your website

you have an assessment and you kind of help people find

their four primary mom parts. That's right. I wondered if you could

share with us that. I just took it as 10 questions. It's kind of funny

to like answer those questions about yourself. Yes. See what kind of

mom part. So tell us a little about those four primary mom

parts. I'm trying to remember what those four are. The controller.

I'll tell you because I just looked it up. Controller, angry part,

caretaker part, anxious part. Yes. Those are four

very common parts that show up in mom. I did the assessment and I

saw that I. I run from an anxious part.

Yes. How about I read that to you? I've got, in

my book, I've got a description of each of the parts

that is meant to. To bring to moms this

paradoxical idea that your part that's anxious, like most of us don't like

that part. We feel like it's always revving us up. Our kids

are sick of it. Our partner is like, really, could you just relax? You

know, and we're always trying to make it go away. But the book is

written to introduce us to the idea that that part's here really trying

to help you and that there's something you can trust about it and

a way to soften toward it and bring some curiosity. Would

it be okay if I read you a little blurb about it? Yeah, please. I

want to. I want to know about my anxious part. Yes. Your

anxious part is designed to keep you and your dependents on

alive and well. It functions like a filter,

identifying and avoiding potential threats to your loved ones. And there

are so many of them when it comes to babies and children.

Your anxious part keeps your eyes scanning and your ears tuned for

any sign of trouble. And it gets overloaded with motherhood's

round the clock. Use other parts of you that crave more

ease or feel judgmental about your level of vigilance, will

hate on your anxious part and all its accompanying

adrenaline and cortisol that burn you out when the

overwhelmed protective filter becomes clogged. It needs

care and restoring, not rejection. Care that reaches

the center of your nervous system and establishes safety.

Anxious parts are often running on outdated or

generationally inherited programming that hasn't been

updated with information about your present day resources and

capacities. You have the power to give your anxious part

the update it's been waiting for. That's so

beautiful. And in ifs, this is called befriending. Right.

That's the language. Right. We're like finding a part of

ourselves and seeing its value,

befriending it, not judging it, and then offering it

new information or an upgrade, as you said.

I do know. I remember it was a while ago, but I was feeling

anxious and I said, you know what, darlin? No

matter what, you can always get yourself out of any pickle because

you have a credit card and a driver's license.

That's right. There was this part of me that always

felt growing up so unsafe. And like my audience knows all about

my history. But in because I had a

very high ace score. Nine ACE score. So

a lot of trauma and no adults, really

caregiving. And so that part was really

important at a certain point to keep me safe

and move my life forward. And I'm so grateful. Right? Yes.

But then when she gets revved up and scared

and sometimes she doesn't know what to do with all that fear and then the

says like, basically you're going to be okay because

you have a credit card even you don't have any money. You have credit card.

Like you don't. It's so funny. You don't even.

I always talk about the credit card. I don't have to have actual cash. I

just have to have access to some kind of credit. You've got

a driver's license. Yeah. That I can like get

myself anywhere I need to go and get myself out of danger. And, and

I love ifs in this way. Even though I'd been doing all that

internal work before I knew about internal family systems, but

having the naming of that like self energy and

being able to tap into self energy and you

kind of call it in the book like your inner mom. That's right.

Yeah. And it's such a

beautiful conversation that your part is having

with something else. And we don't

really have great language for it. Some people think of it as God.

Yeah. You know, some people think of it as their divine

self or their, you know, their inner

self. And I think it's really great for this conversation to talk about

inner mom. Yeah. Who. Who's talking to who here

in this. Right. Like when you're, when you're moving your mind, when you're

asking these questions, who's asking, who's answering, like how do you define

that. How do you describe that? I'd be curious. Yeah, you've. You've touched on a

lot of these concepts that IFS uses to describe that

when we notice a reaction inside. And we'll

use like anxious, because that's when we're talking about, oh, my gosh, I'm

so anxious right now. I'm so anxious because my kid is walking on a sidewalk

ahead of me, close to traffic, but out of my reach,

feeling it in my body, being able

to, number one, notice that. Who's noticing it?

You know, that's a good question. And then what if you get curious about

it, meaning a genuine interest in

what is that energy? Why is it here? What purpose is it

trying to meet or accomplish or have?

And then, like, why? What story does it have about my

history and what happened to me as a child? When you bring that

curiosity in, you end that noticing. You already

have done some unblending, which is sort of of a

compliment to befriending. It's this way of getting enough

distance from your reactivity, from that energy

in your body, that you have separated from it a tiny bit.

Maybe even more than a tiny bit. As soon as we do that,

there's a degree of regulation that has already

occurred in our bodies. Then the befriending is kind of

a bigger aspect of that that I think takes some time. Like, when you're

doing the walking on the street and your anxious parts here and your kid is

20ft ahead of you, you probably can't do the befriending. In that moment.

You might be able to do some unblending and notice my anxious

part's here. So now there's a me separate from my

anxious part. That me I like to call the inner mom. Because

I think we all at, you know, a few weeks into motherhood, have

already become aware that we're pretty freaking incredible,

that there's something on board that maybe our parents just

didn't feel like. We didn't feel like they provided it for us enough. There's

something in me that I've been needing all my life

that's here for my kid or kids,

but maybe it's also here for me. And I think that's a place where most

moms don't go, that that's pretty easy to

turn to and start to harvest,

and we just need a little, like, direction. So, yeah,

walking down the side, down the street, getting that anxious part up, getting

curious about it, and some of the curiosity is like,

what does it think is going to happen if I'M not anxious right now.

I'm asking that from my inner mom. Sweetheart, what do you think is going to

happen if this anxious part is not

activated, if it's not running the show and the anxious part will then

say, your child's going to get hurt. You know, it's going to

run in the street. You're going to be left with no child

and it's going to be your fault. You're also going to be a failure in

some way. Okay, now I can validate that.

That's so legit. It's a real fear. It's a real

fear. What mom who's like connected to her kid and is

responsible wouldn't care with some energy

behind it. That validation between inner mom and.

And part is another layer of regulation.

Still anxious? Yeah. It's being your own compassionate witness. It's being,

being your own friend at that

moment, you know, listening, you know, the mom that you wish you

had that you can kind of be for yourself.

And I do agree it's tricky when

you're in the moment to do

that, but you do get better at it. It's faster, it's easier.

You know, you create a pathway of relationship where the anxious

part shows up and it's like. And then someone goes, okay.

And it's like almost an immediate soothing with the more

you're tapped into that. Self energy. Yeah. Or

inner mom energy. Yeah. Huh. The

difference being that I think because we have so much

maternal know how, again, even just a few weeks into motherhood,

we, we already have a lot of maternal know how. There's

such a skill set there that we should take advantage of.

Self energy in, in generic ifs is not about

a skill set. It's kind of this field of

calm, curiosity, connectedness, courage,

creativity, all these C words that every single human

has innately. And it gets kind of blocked when we're all in protective

mode. And that's true for moms, obviously, but I think we

can tap into it in

more skill driven ways and it benefits us. And that's, that's

a little veer off from traditional ifs. Like use the skills

you're using all the time with your kids for yourself.

Yeah. Because we are attuning. Right. We're

attempting to figure out what's going on. Why are they

crying? What do they need? Do they like this shaking? Do they not? Do they

like me when I sway? Oh, you know, she's already

been fed. You know, you're telling other people she doesn't like that,

you know. Right. You have all of that

intuition or, or just a fast

paced experience like on the job training. You know, you're really gaining

a lot of skills and you're right. We can just turn those into,

into tune those back into ourselves. Yeah, the U turn

with some care and some patience and

offered to ourselves. I mean we get so little of it. You get

so little of it. Especially if we had a rough childhood ourselves. It's like

what if we took that kind of delicious,

interested patient care of our. Of our own

parts that are in pain. So the book is really about

ways, I'm hoping to spark some

inspiration and curiosity for moms to, to move

closer to the parts of them that have been causing a

lot of trouble. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about the

other parts and how they might show up. And I was going to say about

anxiety. For me it's fun. This is like totally

tangential but I think some of the moms listening will relate. I have,

I don't have a lot of anxiety around physical stuff. Maybe because I

was raising boys. I don't know. I just like the

anxiety is so much more relational anxiety or

perception or opportunity.

It's like a little more nuanced. So what happens to me is my

anxious part looks like a controller.

And so I wondered if you could talk a little bit about the controller because

I think mama who is overwhelmed and reactive and

yelling and stressed and frustrated, all of those things

underneath that is with the intention of

protection and love. And you know, it

looks like anxiety, it looks like high control, it looks like anger

and. But it's, it's not. So I don't know if you wanted to add some,

like some nuance around that or some text, contextualize those. Oh

my gosh. Yeah. I mean we have to first

recognize that when a mom is

responsible becomes responsible for a helpless non

verbal creature 247

who she doesn't know either. She doesn't know this baby.

It's an immense responsibility and

moms feel that all the way down, all the way down.

Like nervous system psychology, everything is

holding this immense responsibility.

So our parts show up to help because it's a big effing job.

It's like almost impossible. You know, you're having to regulate

yourself and now a whole other nervous system. And if you have another child or

two, you're in a partner and maybe a partner who's hopefully

regulating themselves. But these little ones are

on you. Yeah. And they really are on you. That's something

that we've measured, you know, that babies replicate in some

Way from our nervous system. So we feel that

responsibility. We're going to try to control. We're going to try

to bring in some managerial prowess

to keep things in line so that

really bad stuff doesn't happen and that our kid turns out.

Yeah, I think. Keep thinking of the word rigidity. Like, it's like, no, we

have to have them eat this time or nap this time or they have to

have their socks on or their, you know, whatever it looks like. And I was

like, relax, relax. That's like another voice inside. Come

on. Right? Or literally, your people in your life are like, relax.

And Right. If, if. So how does. How do. Would you

recommend someone who has that rigidity, who has that

intense, like. No, you guys don't understand. If they don't

sleep now, if they. Or they don't eat now, they're not going to sleep, and

then they're not going to sleep. And then tomorrow. I remember feeling that

way. Yes. Around nap time or. Oh, my God, yes. You know, the

schedule, the structure, it's like I. I struggled

with trying to trust that, like, I could handle it if

it wasn't, you know, predictable. I also

felt like I was. Be a bad mom. That's right. I didn't. Like, if my

kid had a meltdown, that means I did something wrong. So I better not do

that, do anything wrong. I don't. It's just. Oh, my God, mom

brain is so crazy. So crazy. I mean, two nervous systems,

one of which has zero sophistication or

skill or development. And then there's yours, which may have

some. You've presumably grown up, but you still

got stuff you haven't figured out yet in terms of regulation. So you're

doing two. And that one, that's completely

dysregulated and completely not, you know, solid

yet is. It's a loose cannon, you know, that this

is wisdom. So I think the first thing when we have big, anxious,

controlling parts as moms is to. To really

trust that those anxious, controlling parts have

wisdom. And there's something going on for those parts that really

needs validation and curiosity.

Starting. Starting point. I think so many of us, including our

partners, our medical helpers, you know, come in

like there's something wrong with us. Like this is pathological and it needs to

go away. That is going to turn up the volume way more

because then no one is listening. Like, they're not there. Real. I'm the

only one with my eyes on this kid. If everyone is

telling me I'm, you know, being ridiculous. It's like you're gonna double

down. Okay. You don't think this is serious? Let me show you. I mean, it

gets even more heightened. So that validation is so important, but it

can feel patronizing in some. In some ways

sometimes, you know, where people are like, don't worry about it.

No, that's not validation. Right. That's actually minimizing.

Yeah. Minimizing or dismissing. Yeah. So it needs to be. Okay.

Anxious part or controlling part? Let's. Let's get to

know you. And I'm curious. I'm open hearted.

I want to know. And including. What story are you telling?

Because we might start to notice this is a story about my childhood.

So this is like the. The really exciting kind of portal

that opens up for moms around deep, deep healing of our

own history. Because it is often

our story. What other story would we be referencing? You know, we're

bringing our knowledge of dependency and vulnerability

to our children. We're loaning it out. That's such a gift. Like,

I know what it was like to be a baby. I'm going to

assume it's like that for you. If we have histories

of neglect or abuse, then we're bringing that onto

our children where they don't have that experience yet.

So it's. There's a mismatch. And we get to start to see, like,

wow, I'm really scared, or I'm really

irritable, or I'm imagining. I'm feeling like I used to have this with

my daughter. I'd feel like when she was protesting or sad

or whatever you want to call it about me leaving and she's little,

that it meant the same thing as my nervous system knew it to mean.

My mom actually left. And so I. I could

really kind of loan her that level of tragedy.

You're thinking she's feeling it as deeply as you had felt it,

or that maybe you didn't even understand how you should have been feeling

about it. That's right. That's right. So then it felt

like, well, shoot, I can't go anywhere. No. Because she's gonna be traumatized. She's

gonna be traumatized. Even though it's not traumatic. Yeah.

It's not trauma. Put another layer on that story. Yeah.

So. So getting to know my scared parts, my sad parts, my

grief, my grief from my own life, not her

story. And, you know, so bringing that curiosity and starting to

flesh it out and give it some time and space with my

inner mom, and I use my therapist as a. As an

outer mom, too, was just a game Changer

and really helped the differentiation of like, oh, my daughter's got

a really different story. This is so interesting. She

doesn't have a mom who abandoned her and she never will.

Yeah, she won't know. I had a friend once say to me,

I'm quite covetous of my children's childhood

and there's many layers to that. But I actually

really appreciated hearing it because I remember thinking,

yes, because we know we're not going to do that to them,

whatever that is. Like, I, I

didn't feel jealous. I felt grateful for them or,

you know, happy that they could have

the trust, that they could have a secure attachment that they could have their needs

provided for. But yes, there's definitely a grieving

process. If we haven't come to terms with our own story,

we're going to layer that on. We're going to create it enmeshed dynamic where

we're putting stuff on them that's not there. Or it could

be underlying resentment. Like, you shouldn't. You don't even know how bad you have it,

like, or what, you know, you think you have it so bad. Kid. I didn't

even have a mom. Like, you know, if we haven't come to terms with our

own story, it can really show up in parenting in so many

ways. So many ways. And when I hear that about the, the

coveting and jealousy, I think that's just our

own inner babies. Inner, inner child saying, hey, I still

haven't gotten my needs met. Yeah. And the reality is, once

we're adults, the only person who can meet those needs

is ourselves. When there's grief, when we

didn't hit the mark with our kids, which there's always going to be something. Even

when we've shown up in all the best ways we knew how, there was

going to be some way that our kids felt like they weren't really seen

or supported 100%. Because now with young

adults, this is when you start to reconcile like in your early 20s of what

your life was like. Like. And it's a very interesting space to

be in with my own kids, which is a totally another conversation.

But yeah, I'm like, huh? Yeah.

I could see that from your perspective that, you know, because I

was coming from my parts. Yep. Even though

I've done so much work, we still are going to

show up in wounded spaces and wounded ways. And

especially early parenting, you know, is really in this anxious energy,

this controlling energy is angry energy.

That's right. And then that created effect on them.

Yeah, but, but it couldn't really be any other way, because you,

as a human being, have a right to your own developmental

trajectory. Like, how. How were you not gonna

bring in what you brought in? How were you not gonna continue

to work with that material in motherhood? That's what you had. And I

really want moms to start to accept that that can't deliver

perfection. We. We're not meant to. There's no requirement.

Our kids are entitled to have their own

wounds, their own story, and we got to let go

of. Of wanting a perfect grade, of this being about a performance,

a perfection show. We're really just working on our own

wounds. And I think if we take that up with a lot of sincerity

and some honesty, that's the very best thing we can give our kids.

Show them how we're. We're encountering and

contending with our unfinished business. The parts of us

that are scared and that hurt and that don't know, that

haven't been brought into the light. Show them how we're doing that,

because they're going to have their own. Anybody who incarnates onto earth

has their own. This. This is a tough place. You know, spiritually, I think this

is a tough place. And so we're not here to be perfect.

It's never going to happen. We're here to develop better

ways of loving on ourselves, bringing

compassion to the pain that we all have, and

starting to be more humane with ourselves and each other.

Yeah. Oh, so good. That alone

helps drop guilt a little bit. Like, if we can change the

standard of the grade or perfection or

like, a phrase in life like, aim for B plus

work or whatever. And I'm. You know, it's still, like, that's still kind of

good, you know, like, b, it's really kind of good. So

sometimes I'll try to say, do. Do this

parenting philosophy, you know, 80% of the time, like,

50% of the time, 2% of the time, like, it doesn't matter how

often you show up in a regulated state, in a connected

space. You know, your boundaries are solid. That's

great. And as often as you don't, it's an opportunity for

growth. It's like, you're gonna be who you are. I love how you said,

like, how else were you going to show up? This is your inherited

narrative. One of my foundational principles about parenting is it's my

opportunity for growth. Yeah. And while you were talking, I was thinking that means I

had to start from, like, immaturity if I'm going to go to

growth or not. Healed. In order to go to healed. And

if I start at, say, zero and my kid's zero, which I got my

kids late because I adopted them. So I start at 1. They already brought their

baggage. That's right. You know, I start here.

And then they are six. I've got five years of experience.

You know, they're ten. You know, I've got whatever. Ten years. It's

like I really am constantly learning and growing as a

person, doing this work of mothering and being in

this stage of motherhood. And of course you're not going to do it right. In

the beginning. It's, like, not possible.

Yeah. And what a crazy idea that we thought it was, that we

thought the first day of our. Of a. The hardest job ever again,

like regulating a second nervous system that we don't know.

Yeah. That we would come out of the gates knowing how to

do it and not make any mistakes. I don't know. We have such high expectations

for it. It's probably hope, right? It's like, yeah, you

get your baby and you're like, I don't want to do

them dirty. Like, I was done dirty. You know, it's like,

I'm gonna do this one right. I'm not gonna. They're not gonna get hurt.

I'm gonna protect them. I'm gonna. I'm gonna do it. And like, you have to

believe. Right? Yep. That's like a good mom. That's what you're saying, like in your

title of your book. It's like, when good moms feel bad, it's

because you're coming to this work of parenting, of

mothering and this matrescence. Right. The stage of life

as. Yeah, I'm gonna kill. I'll kill it. I'm do great. Like, I'm

ready. And then the reality is that you gotta learn.

And you're just a person. Yeah. You're just regular.

And your kid might be really tough and you didn't expect. Oh, I had such

tough kids. Yeah. I've seen easy ones. I know they

exist. And I think that is incredible because whatever.

Whatever that mother needed to learn or heal or how

she needed to move through the world, that's the right kid for her.

And I think, like, if you've got a tough cookie, that's because

you're going to wrestle through this experience, but you're going to grow from

it in. In totally different ways. Oh, my gosh.

Yes. I think it's so cool that we are trying

to figure out how to be good moms. And

yes, that. Well, your idea of hope, you know that

I love that. Yes. Moms show up with so much

hope and fantasy that really is. Is like

this projection of our own unmet needs or our own

story that we're bringing in. And that hope is

kind of like the fuel that we bring to our good

mothering. You're right. Isn't it, like,

poignant? I mean, so many words we could

use that I think motherhood often really needs to

pierce that hope and help us let it go.

Right. Like it is when we let that hope go that

we actually allow our kids to be who they are and start

coming from a much more real place. Because

the hope is a little bit fantasy based. Yeah, it

does. But you have to be. It's kind of like when you get married, you're

like, we're gonna love each other forever. Yeah. And you kind

of need to have that delusion in order to do it.

Yeah. To take the. What? My husband always says, having

a child is so courageous. But you don't know that. No, you

don't. You have to think, I can do it. It's gonna be great. I remember

learning that parenting is hard. Adoptive parenting is harder. When I was going through my

training, and I remember telling somebody that, and then they

said, I would never want to put that on anybody. Why would I

manifest or why would I say that parenting is hard? I was

like. But I was already a parent by this point. I'm like, because it's really

hard. Yeah, it's. Sure. If you know how hard

it is, maybe you wouldn't go into it, you know?

Right. But if you really knew, you wouldn't do it. But

you. So you need to not think that. But the truth is, once you get

there, we need to be honest that we're all struggling behind closed doors.

We all have jack in the box kids at bedtime. We all have kids

who won't wipe their own bottom or refuse to brush their teeth or won't get

in the tub and won't get out of it, or scream and kick the back

of our seat while we're driving. All of us have that.

And that's what it is. When you have a human that's not

regulated very often. That's right. Yeah. I call them

randos. It's like you get a rando. Yeah. It's just such a

crazy journey. And, you know, being a mom and being a parent

and I. I'm so grateful for it. I'm

so glad that it's over, to be honest. Like, I'm So happy

to be. I love that you say that. On the other side of it, I'm

really glad I'm not raising children anymore. Yeah, I

loved raising kids, and I. It was the hardest thing ever, and

I miss it terribly. And also, I love

having young adults, even though they have revisionist history for

their entire childhood. It just. It's. My motherhood

time is over. Yes. And it's. I'm still a mom,

but I'm no longer mothering. And I'm not in

matrescence. I'm not in motherhood. I. I have passed that kind

of like, I was a young adult, and now I'm not. I was

a teenager, and now I'm not. Like, I was, you know, raising kids, and now

I'm not. So what are you. What are you now?

I think of myself as a mentor in. In my.

Is to my children. Yeah. Maybe we're just in your

developmental. Oh, where am I now? I guess the best

word is empty nester, but I don't have empty nests because my kids

are in and out all the time. So roomy or nester.

But yeah, now I get to be darlin. There you go.

That's exciting. You know, I get to find out, like, we didn't talk about the

caretaker role, but when I was

answering the questions in the assessment, what was fascinating is I think

I would have answered them more caretaker in the past

than I do now. And I lost

myself so many times in motherhood. Just completely

swamped with all my children's and their

needs and my partner and the house and this business

that I was trying to do for all these years, and I

was constantly lost. And, yeah, no,

I would say yes to stuff that I didn't really ever know. Do I want

to do this? Like, yeah, sure, I'll join the pta. Yeah, sure. I'll be president

of the pta. I just said yes. I was so not.

I was trying so hard. Yes. Yeah,

that's right. Trying so hard. And every square inch

of your energetic being was taken up with

the work of being a mom and all the

adjacent stuff that maybe was your own, you know,

fantasy material or. Or sense of

threat. Like, if I don't do this, what's it going to mean about me? And

then when the kids grow up and start going

places without you or driving or go to college or

move out as I've got. I've got a driver and a. And a

mover outer just feeling into the new

space, and it's very different. And I think some people

grieve in that space because now who am I? My caretaker

isn't needed. And that's who I've known myself to be. That's a really

good time for the u turn. And grief is really important in

motherhood. Grief. Yeah. I've been grieving actually

recently. More the period of time.

And this is like, sorry, audience, we're gonna just

talk about it. But I just found myself really lonely

lately. And I was surprised and I was. Got really

curious about it. I was just really

like, we couldn't name it. I was just dissatisfied.

I finally named it. I'm lonely. I'm lonely from three to six

or three to seven. And I have a work job where

I work with moms. So they're pretty busy after 3 o'. Clock. So I don't

really work after 3 o' clock typically. And

I had children for 20 years. I

shifted into that mode from work into their world

and driving around and figuring out snack and

dinner and school and I don't know, all of it, you know, trying to get

to bedtime. Yeah. And now I

don't have that. I just have to replace it with something new

and interesting and blah, blah, blah. And that's what I've been trying to figure out.

But just naming that, I was like, oh, this is a new level of grief.

That my role as a full time mom is over.

Yeah, that's right. Or I think about, you know, pushing pots to the

back of the stove. Those are. Those pots are you. And now you get to

move them back to the front of the stove and clean them up and fill

them with things that interest you. But

I guess what I. What I'm loving myself is

getting interested in myself in those deep

spaces that were really paused all through motherhood.

And I watch other moms getting to do that and discovering that

they're very compelling to themselves again. And that,

that is so, so thrilling to behold.

Yeah. It's really encouraging to see that this is a.

A period of our life that's very intense and

beautiful. I've been thinking of it like motherhood is almost a

chronic state of activated stress. Like, yes,

you really, we kind of give each other, give ourselves a hard time

for being dysregulated a lot. But really what's

required to raise children does require sort of an

activated nervous system. You do need to stay somewhat vigilant and

finding the right balance of that activated state is really

hard. That's right. Because we do need to keep these

kids alive and get them to thrive and all of those things. So

Motherhood is stressful. And that means

that we have to find a space to

live within that stress that's not so activated, but it's

not going to zero. And I've been watching

myself over the last two years now,

two kids out of high school, that I think it took me one

full year to reset my nervous system. Yeah. It's like

I want moms to not feel so bad about finding it stressful, as we've been

saying, and that your nervous system is going to be heightened

while you're raising kids so that you can raise them. And yes,

we're trying to toggle within that so that it's doesn't.

It's not a runaway train where we're constantly stressed,

overwhelmed, short, wired, yelling at our children,

snapping, feeling like crap, like just can we get out of.

Out of it enough but not expect

ourselves to be Zen. And I think, you know,

really acknowledging like, that's. That's a lot for us to go

through both the. The symbiosis of being all in with someone.

We can come back to our own regulation as. As best we can

is just a huge ask of that, of the motherhood.

Arc is so much effort in it. It is so much.

We do it so that we get the phone calls at the

end of the. You know, at the end of the day and because

it heals us in the process. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Right.

And we become more whole ourselves.

I can't. I'm so grateful to my children for all of their

challenges and for everything that they have

taught me, continue to teach me. It's. I'm grateful that

the best. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's the best training. Become who I am.

Yeah. I say the same thing. Having a child taught me how to trust myself.

That's beautiful. Well, I'm so glad you were on the podcast.

Me too. I think everyone should get your book because we all want to

transform guilt, anxiety, and anger. Yes. And

confidence and connectedness. And I think that confidence piece is going to be really

helpful for anyone reading. It's like, you can handle it.

You know, you can trust your parts. Trust. Yeah. That they have good

intentions. Even your resentment. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thank you. I loved it.

I love chatting with you. Yeah. Same.