Ever struggled with mom guilt and felt like you're failing at home and at work? Well, you're not alone. As a lawyer turned life coach and mom of five, I've been there too, and I'm sharing my personal journey of overcoming mom guilt and the four quick and dirty tips that helped me kick it to the curb permanently.
Join me in this empowering conversation as I reveal how to embrace a more intentional and compassionate approach to life, ensuring that our actions align with our values.
Listen in as we explore how mom guilt can be a signal for self-reflection and growth, and discover a helpful hack to determine if the guilt we're feeling is serving us or holding us back. Alongside my personal stories, we'll learn how to argue with and interrogate the guilt that often stops us from living our most intentional life. So, tune in and find freedom from the grip of mom guilt and reignite your passion for self-care, creativity, and pursuing your dreams.
Take the QUIZ! Discover how to use your mom superpower to reach your writing goals.
Ready to take back your time and add hours to the day so you can finally manage it all? Then you have to check out the FREE Time Audit Guide. You'll get coaching, worksheets, and tips on running your first time audit so that you can finally write your book without burning out. It's absolutely free, and it's my way of supporting and empowering YOU!
Instagram @momwritesfirst
Facebook
Website www.momfirstcoaching.com
Listen to more episodes by visiting Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your favorite platform.
Copyright 2024, Mom First Coaching
Ever struggled with mom guilt and felt like you're failing at home and at work? Well, you're not alone. As a lawyer turned life coach and mom of five, I've been there too, and I'm sharing my personal journey of overcoming mom guilt and the four quick and dirty tips that helped me kick it to the curb permanently.
Join me in this empowering conversation as I reveal how to embrace a more intentional and compassionate approach to life, ensuring that our actions align with our values.
Listen in as we explore how mom guilt can be a signal for self-reflection and growth, and discover a helpful hack to determine if the guilt we're feeling is serving us or holding us back. Alongside my personal stories, we'll learn how to argue with and interrogate the guilt that often stops us from living our most intentional life. So, tune in and find freedom from the grip of mom guilt and reignite your passion for self-care, creativity, and pursuing your dreams.
Take the QUIZ! Discover how to use your mom superpower to reach your writing goals.
Ready to take back your time and add hours to the day so you can finally manage it all? Then you have to check out the FREE Time Audit Guide. You'll get coaching, worksheets, and tips on running your first time audit so that you can finally write your book without burning out. It's absolutely free, and it's my way of supporting and empowering YOU!
Instagram @momwritesfirst
Facebook
Website www.momfirstcoaching.com
Listen to more episodes by visiting Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your favorite platform.
Copyright 2024, Mom First Coaching
On today's episode, i am sharing with you the four quick and dirty tips that I used to finally kick mom guilt to the curb permanently. Welcome to Mom First, the only podcast that teaches lawyer moms how to unlock their inner creativity while still being an incredible mom and rocking it at work. I'm your host, lawyer turn life coach and mom of five, jen Laramore. If you're a lawyer mom who wants to make space for her passion and finally nurture that creative spark deep inside of her, you're in the right place. Come with me on this journey. We'll unlock our creativity, overcome our fear, support each other and navigate this beautiful, magical world together. Are you ready? Take a breath, let's go. Hello, my friends, welcome to this week episode of Mom First. I am so happy to be here in front of the mic chatting with you.
Speaker 1:So how's your spring going? It's gorgeous. Where I am, the birds are out, everything is in that. You know, full spring bloom. I have been walking my kids to school and, honestly, it feels like a dream. It's so beautiful and lovely And, of course, because life is very much 50-50 and balanced, it's also been a struggle at times too.
Speaker 1:We've had the stomach flu, some pink eye, some viruses have come through. We're a family of seven and it seems like, in the 2022 to 2023 school year, that hardly a week has gone by where someone is not sick with something. So if you've been there or if you're there now, my hope for you is that you have the flexibility at work that you need to be able to take care of yourself and your family. On top of all of that, i am graduating this month from my coaching program. Did you know that I went back to school? Yeah, i can't believe I did it either. I thought for sure after law school I would never go back, but sure enough, i did. And I'll tell you what. I have always had some mad respect for the parents who were parenting and completing law school at the same time, but now, after having gone through a program myself, as a parent and while working, i honestly don't know how y'all did law school. I really don't. At any rate, for the last nine months, i have been enrolled and studying at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's professional coaching program. Between finishing up work and projects for that program, the illnesses and work, it has been a lot. But now summer is almost here, it's right around the corner And with everything that I have had going on.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I often get asked about is how I handle the mom guilt, and the truth is I don't. Let me repeat that because I think that kind of catches people off guard and they think that there's a trick there. But honestly, i don't do mom guilt. I used to. When I first became a mom, i was practicing law in a small firm, doing employment law and civil litigation, and I would tell myself this story that I was failing at home and at work. I would tell myself that I wasn't a good enough lawyer and that I wasn't a good enough either. I beat myself up for not having time to go to work and commute and go to all the lawyer networking events and also make it to the mommy and me play dates. It felt like I couldn't do anything right, and if I was having those kinds of thoughts, of course I would feel guilty. Of course I wouldn't feel good. But that was a long, long time ago.
Speaker 1:Sometime around the birth of my fourth child back in 2016, i figured some things out And I realized that mom guilt, even though it's sold to all of us as something that's just totally natural and always there, was actually totally optional, and I realized that a lot of what was driving the mom guilt for me and for those around me was based on totally outdated expectations and ideas that weren't even consistent with the values and believe that me and my partner had. My partner and I decided well before we had kids how we were going to raise a family. We were very intentional with our choices. We knew what kind of a family we were trying to create And Momguilt and the ideas underlying it didn't have a place in that. And once I realized that, to be honest, once I worked through it in my mind, a lot of the Momguilt kind of melted away For the most part.
Speaker 1:Of course, there are always times when it rears its head like a zombie coming back from the dead. It happened initially with the pandemic and the lockdowns for me, and sometimes it still bubbles up in a time of a big transition, when I'm really on the precipice of something really big or a huge change in my life. But for the most part, on the daily, i really don't deal with Momguilt anymore, to the point where every time I'm asked about it I wonder wait, is Momguilt still a thing? And I know it is. I know Momguilt is a reality for so many of you. I know it eats you up inside. I know how awful that feels If Momguilt is your reality right now.
Speaker 1:I want you to know that I see you, that I feel you, that I'm here for you, that I'm sending you all of the love in this world, and what I want to do today is surround you in that light and in that love and compassion and let you know that I see you. I want you to know that that feeling, that you have that feeling of Momguilt, can actually be a very sacred thing. It's a signal, a beacon, a sign that you have something that you need to work through, a sign that there's something there to process, a sign that maybe you're living out of alignment with your values. A sign that maybe there is some social conditioning or programming that you're not quite aware of yet that is trying to determine how you're going to run your life and live your life, and so it's an opportunity to bring more consciousness, more intentionality to what you're doing, and I want you to know that when you do that, then you can have the freedom and peace of mind that comes with not having Momguilt too. Here's how I got there.
Speaker 1:First, i learned that Momguilt is often a sign of scarcity thinking, a fear that there's not enough time, a fear that you're doing something wrong. Scarcity thinking tends to come up when we're afraid of something. So how do you get past that fear? You move towards love. A lot of times. That means love of yourself. Give yourself some grace, some kindness, some love, some compassion. You're an incredible mom.
Speaker 1:The second way to get past it is to treat Momguilt as a signal. I just alluded to this a few minutes ago. Momguilt can be a sign that something that we're doing is not aligned to our values. In this way, it's a signal. Use it as such. Check in with yourself and look around at your life and ask yourself where am I aligned And where am I unaligned? Where am I misaligned? Sometimes you're going to find that you aren't really living in alignment with your values. When that happens, you go at just accordingly.
Speaker 1:I've seen this pop up for people when they overwork, when they buffer, when they do it to distract themselves from something that's very uncomfortable. I've seen it come up when we people please and we don't send boundaries, especially around work, particularly when it comes to our time and our calendars. When that happens, momguilt is a helpful signal. It's like, hey, pay attention here, make an adjustment and move on. Now, when you look at your Momguilt and you check in with yourself and you say, hey, wait a minute, i actually am pretty aligned with what I have going on, but I'm feeling guilty anyway, that's the deal.
Speaker 1:That's when it's time to get skeptical about that mom guilt. You need to be a little bit curious and you really need to push back a little bit on it, and I know all of my lawyer moms out there they're gonna love this, because this is where you get to argue with your mom guilt, doubt it a bit, test it. This is actually kind of fun. Here's your permission to interrogate and cross-examine all that mom guilt that's going around inside your head. Because, honestly, what I think that you're going to find quite often is that the mom guilt crops up in an insidious way to actually stop you from living your most intentional life. Here's what I mean.
Speaker 1:I've seen moms use mom guilt as a reason to not take care of themselves, to not follow their dreams, to not pursue their passions, to not give life to that creative spark inside of them. Can you relate to any of this? How often have you not taken the time to take care of yourself? How often have you prioritized folding laundry over your run or your yoga class? Have you stopped all creative pursuits and hobbies? because, as a lawyer mom, you just don't have any time. But yet you still signed your child up for another dance class, musical instrument, athletic team, you name it, they're in all the things I mean. Do you even have a hobby? It's so ironic and unfortunate, my friends, because we would never want our children to go up and have that kind of an experience.
Speaker 1:As an adult, i don't want my sons or my daughters to stop dreaming, to stop chasing their dreams, to put off all the fun and fulfillment because the laundry needs to get fold, because the floor needs to be swept, because the meals need to be prepped. I don't want them to stop taking care of their body's physical needs, to deprive their bodies of that joyful and healthy movement just so that they can declutter. If you want them to have a fulfilled, beautiful, happy existence, it's your job to show them the way. You have to lead by example. That means you've got to let go of that mom guilt, put it aside and do what you need to show up as a healthy, happy, joyful, creative mom. If you want a fulfilled and creative life. There are going to be times when you don't devote 100% of your time and energy to your child, and I want you to know that that is 100% okay. It's actually really good and healthy. And especially if you want to create anything in this world, there are going to be times when you're going to be spending time creating that thing, whether it's a business, a book, a podcast, a piece of art, a meal, whatever it is. Again, that's a good thing. Think about it like this Mom guilt is an extreme and unfair way that moms stop themselves from taking care of themselves.
Speaker 1:And I'm not talking about self-care, bubble baths and massages. I'm not even talking about a trip to the salon for touch-ups or a haircut. I'm talking about basic human self-care. You need movement, you need food and sleep, you need time for basic hygiene. A shower is a necessity, not a luxury. But when mom guilt causes you to feel like you're selfish or wrong for taking that time, it's really problematic. The same is true when mom guilt stops you from pursuing any of your own passions. Just like mom guilt is a problem when it stops us from taking care of ourselves. It also is a problem when it stops us from pursuing our passions. It's also a problem when it extinguishes that creative spark inside of us. So if mom guilt is there for you, just understand that nothing has gone wrong person, use that mom guilt to help you make intentional decisions about creating the kind of life that you want. Check your mom guilt.
Speaker 1:A quick way to do this is to ask yourself is this mom guilt serving me? Is it useful to me? I know for me that asking myself this very simple question is kind of a little bit of a hack, because, rather than letting my brain spin in mom guilt and think of all the ways that I'm doing, all the things, all the wrong ways, i ask myself this question is this useful for me to feel guilty about? It brings me back to reality and helps me move forward. So put it into practice here. Do I want to feel guilty for taking a shower? Do I want to feel guilty for making sure I prioritize my health and wellness by going for a run? Do I want to feel guilty for pursuing my passion if it means that I miss one soccer game out of all of the many soccer games that I also am attending. Do I want to feel guilty for telling my kids to eat cereal one night so that I can go write a chapter of my book?
Speaker 1:Look, there is not a right or wrong answer to any of this. The key is to be honest with yourself and look closely at your answer. Make sure that you like it. Make sure that you like it for yourself, and if you were to apply that answer to your kids 20 years from now, make sure you would like it for them. Is your answer based on your values and your choices, or is it a thought error? Is it a product of social programming? Is it based on outdated norms about what a mom should be or what a mom should do?
Speaker 1:Finally, my last tip for you today for defeating mom guilt is to watch for patterns. Where does mom guilt come up for you? I have found that a lot of mom guilt comes up for me and others because we have really unrealistic societal expectations and unconscious social conditioning. So when mom guilt pops up in the same place over and over again in someone's life, it's time to take a close look Again. It may be coming up because of a misalignment of values, but often it's because of some social programming that you might be totally unaware of. Becoming aware of the pattern is actually really helpful, because simply becoming aware of the reason behind the guilt often results in less guilt. So how can you tell if the mom guilt is due to social programming? One of the easiest ways to tell when your guilt is probably not useful and is likely the product of social programming is when your thoughts are contradictory and when you can't really win no matter what you do.
Speaker 1:So, for example, feeling guilty for having to work during my child's hockey game or piano recital and then, at the same time, feeling guilty for taking time off work and missing work during that time Talk about a real joy killer right. Feeling guilty for not returning emails while on vacation, but also feeling guilty for not being able to turn off my mind and just enjoy the vacation. A kind of a monster cannot sit and chill at the beach. How about one more? feeling guilty for having to cancel meetings at work when I'm ill, but also feeling guilty for getting sick and coming to work anyway. How about this? feeling guilty for making too much money? feeling guilty for not making enough money? feeling guilty for going to the gym and dropping my kids off at the gym's daycare so that I can work out, and feeling guilty because I don't work out, and I should set a better example for them.
Speaker 1:Our brains are so good at tricking us in all these ways and using all of this guilt against us. But here's the thing when you're having these types of thoughts over and over again, you aren't going to be able to have any fun. You aren't showing up as your true, authentic self. You're spinning in guilt. This doesn't serve you, it doesn't serve your kids, it doesn't serve your work or your clients, and it's not useful. Recognizing, though, that the thoughts that give rise to mom guilt are actually a no one situation and are just the result of some cruddy programming is the fastest way to work past them.
Speaker 1:Okay, my friends, there you have it. That's my quick top four down and dirty dips for busting past all the mom guilt. So here they are again. Are you ready? One realize that mom guilt is a sign of scarcity thinking and meet that fear with some hard core love. Number two treat mom guilt like a signal. Check in with your values and your intentions. Number three get skeptical. Be so skeptical about that mom guilt. And number four watch for those patterns.
Speaker 1:I hope that this helps you to kick mom guilt to the curb. You don't have to feel guilty. You don't have to be weighed down by that. Mom guilt doesn't need to be a thing anymore. What if we did the work and got rid of all the mom guilt so that our kids never even hear the phrase once they become parents? Wouldn't that be cool? If you want that for your children, then you got to do the work, mila, you got to go first. Okay, my friends, i hope you enjoyed this episode. I absolutely love making this podcast for you. If it resonates, i hope that you're going to come over and check me out over on Instagram at momfirstcoaching. I would love to hear from you there. See you again next time.