Have you ever had a thought like this cross your mind..."Good mothers don't yell at their kids." "Good mothers don't have kids who get bad grades." "Good mothers aren't divorce." "Good mothers aren't away from their kids 50% of the time." "Good mothers are there to tuck in their kids at night." "Good mothers don't make mistakes."
If you answered yet, then this episode is a must listen. This episode peels back the layers of societal expectations and the self-judgment that burdens mothers, especially when parenting alone. I'm going to teach you how to embrace your imperfections and redefine what it means to be a good mother; accepting your authenticity, giving yourself compassion, and knowing that perfection is unattainable.
You'll be challenged with new thoughts and ideas about what it means to be a good mother - even a great one - and how to adopt those new thoughts into your own life to create deeper connection with yourself and with your kids and other relationships moving forward.
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Grief and trauma are the two biggest struggles women deal with as they go through their divorce. It's highly likely that you are experiencing both and don't even realize what you're feeling. I'm here to tell you that it's okay for you to grieve your marriage (even if it was shitty) and it's normal to be experiencing some kind of trauma (which is essentially a disconnection from yourself - your mind, body and soul). I can help guide you through the grief in all of the forms it shows up so you can heal. I can also teach you how to ground yourself in healing so you can ease through the trauma. Schedule your free consult by clicking here.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome back to Becoming you Again, episode number 162. I'm your host, karin Nelson. Welcome to Becoming you Again, the podcast to help you with your mental and emotional well-being during and after divorce. This is where you learn to overcome the grief and trauma of your divorce. We're going to do that by reconnecting with yourself, creating lasting emotional resilience and living a truly independent life so that your life can be even better than when you were married. I'm your host, karin Nelson. Good morning my lovely ladies. I am so happy that you're here today.
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Today I'm doing kind of a themed episode because in America, in about a week is Mother's Day and I don't know that I've ever actually done a super themed episode. Sometimes around the holidays I'll do something that sort of fits holiday stuff, but I was really wanting to do one especially for Mother's Day. I've been thinking a lot about the role of being a mother lately, and my own mom especially lately, because my dad passed away earlier this year and this will be the first Mother's Day that she has had without a partner right next to her. And then I was thinking about myself and all of my clients and anyone close to me who is divorced and has already experienced in some small way, that idea of having a Mother's Day, or many Mother's Days without a partner by their side, which then led me down the rabbit hole of thinking about parenting, mothering, single parenting, solo parenting in general, and how hard we are on ourselves as parents, as mothers, when we take on this role as solo parent in a divorced situation, and I wanted to just kind of talk about that a little bit today. Much of my coaching with my clients revolves around the parenting aspect being a solo parent, being a mom who is trying to show up as their best self, and how hard we are on ourselves when we don't do it perfectly, when we don't get it right.
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How hard we are on ourselves when we look at this idea of divorce and we judge ourselves so harshly on divorce being the thing that is going to ruin our kids lives, or divorce being the decision that was made, or maybe not even if it wasn't even your actual decision, if it just being the situation that they were put in because of you that is going to create hurt in their life, that is going to make your kids feel a certain way. And so I do a lot of coaching with my clients around emotional intelligence, around the subject Because, yes, it is true that our actions will affect in some way people in our environment our children, our ex-partners, our family members, our friends, people on the street, people we meet in the grocery store. Right, our actions affect other people. They do, and we can't control how anyone else much of my coaching with my clients makes meaning out of our actions, how anyone else accepts the consequence of our actions. All we can do is work to create an environment that is full of as much love as we possibly can come from, that is full of good intention, and when we make mistakes, own our mistakes and work harder to show up differently the next time.
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We will never do anything perfectly in our lives. We will never show up as this picture perfect human being that we've been fed, this idea of, that we should be. That will never be a possibility in our lives. Because we are human, because we have agency, because we have choice, because we make mistakes and there is no actual perfection that we can get to. But we so often judge ourselves and are so hard on ourselves and tell ourselves that unless we reach this idea of perfection and show up perfectly in every situation in our lives including not ever getting divorced, including being good enough every time, including always making the right choice, then there's something wrong with us. We're doing it wrong, we'll never get it right. We've completely ruined our kids' lives and we use that judgment to just pound ourselves down to a pulp. We are so mean to ourselves. We tell ourselves that we'll never get it right and our kids will never have or find happiness in their life because of what we've done to them. My friend, this judgment, first of all, all of those thoughts are not true and this judgment is creating a perpetual cycle of continuing to show up in shame, in anger, in guilt, in hate, in blame, and in not being able to show up as the person that you want to be, as the mother that you want to be. So, this Mother's Day, if you've been showing up with a lot of judgment, if you've been showing up with this Saturday morning chore list idea of what it means to be a good mother and you're trying to check off those boxes Like, a good mother doesn't get divorced.
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A good mother doesn't yell at her kids. A good mother is always kind, is always a parent who wants to be around her kids every moment of the day. A good mother has kids, who always obey and always follows the rules and never gets an F or does poorly in class. A good mother is married and has a partner. A good mother is a great cook, is always home for dinner, is never away on a business trip for work. A good mother knows how to help with homework. A good mother is always there to put her kids to bed at night and anything else that you might want to add to the list that you've been judging yourself against.
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I want you to remember this. It's okay for you to redefine what being a good mother means, or a good parent means. A good parent sometimes gets it right and sometimes gets it wrong. A good parent is sometimes kind and sometimes yells. A good parent isn't trying to show up as perfect. A good parent will sometimes be working late and sometimes be able to put their kids to sleep. A good parent is trying their best, even when it's hard.
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When I say that a good parent can sometimes show up as their worst and sometimes show up as their best, I want you to go inside and question yourself and ask yourself how would you show up differently if you allowed yourself to believe that, instead of believing that a good parent never loses their cool, or a good pet parent is never away from their children, or a good parent means that divorce is not part of the equation. How would you show up differently in your life, with your relationship with yourself, and in your life with your relationship with your children, if you allowed yourself to believe that a good mom sometimes shows up at her worst and sometimes shows up at her best, that a good mom can be a divorced mom, that a good mom isn't the definition that you have been fed or seen in movies or read about in books your entire life, that a good mom can and is exactly who you are right now. How would you show up differently? Does it give you any hope for the future, for your future and for your kids' future? Does it let you off the hook a little bit in feeling so much pressure to show up as perfect in every situation, knowing that that's not ever even possible? What if I told you that right now, today, you are a great parent, you are a great mother, exactly as you are?
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Are you open to even accepting or believing that idea? Why? Why not write it down? Figure it out? Get to know the answers to some of these questions, so that you can create a deeper connection and a deeper bond with yourself, which is truly where everyone needs to start when we want to create change in our lives. If you want to show up as a parent who is loving, who is giving and who is kind, who creates an environment where we're not making things harder for our kids in as many ways as possible, then you need to start understanding yourself, where your beliefs lie, and accepting who you are right now. Accepting the person that you are recognizing when you make mistakes and intentionally deciding, moving forward, how you want to be, who you want to be, what actions you want to take, what feelings you want to feel, and being the person that you want to be moving forward.
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I want you to try on this idea. Your divorce will not ruin your kids' lives. Your being a solo parent does not make you less of a parent. Sometimes you'll get it right and sometimes you'll get it wrong, and that's okay. Try on these ideas, figure out. If it feels resonant and if it doesn't, ask yourself why. Why it doesn't, what words are you using against yourselves to tell yourself that you are not good enough, that you're showing up incomplete, that you are doing it wrong, and what thoughts can you take a look at to create acceptance and love of yourself right now, in this moment, to be able to show up in a more accepting and loving sense of yourself moving forward, which is also going to help you show up in a more accepting and loving sense with your kids moving forward as well?
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Mamas, I know that it's hard being a divorced solo parent. I get it, I totally understand because I've been there, I've done it, and yet I am learning every step of the way to accept myself, to accept myself when I make mistakes, to accept myself when I get it right, to celebrate those moments and to not beat myself up when I get it wrong, to just look at it with curiosity and try to show up with some understanding and question and explore what was going on. What was I feeling, how could I have done it differently? What could I try next time? Instead, it's when we show up in this way, really trying to look at ourselves in a slightly different way, really trying to accept ourselves in a more loving, kind, compassionate way that allows us to show up differently next time, if we want. That allows us to recognize when we're showing up as our best self and when we're showing up as not our best, and also knowing that that's part of the process, that we'll never get it completely right and when we don't get it completely right, maybe nothing has gone wrong. Maybe that's part of the human process and that's okay. We can always try differently next time, by taking a look at the person that we are accepting and loving and moving forward from there, deciding how we want to move forward from there.
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I hope that you have a beautiful Mother's Day this week. I hope that you will give yourself some grace and some compassion and recognize that right now, in this moment, whether you're divorced, you're thinking about divorce, you're going through a divorce or you're somewhere in between you are a great mom and you can accept that. You can believe that, and if you aren't there yet, you can take my belief and use it as your own until you build your own belief. Thank you so much for being here. As always, I will talk to you next week.
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Take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life with weekly coaching, real life practice and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to karinnelsoncoaching dot com. That's wwwkarinnelsoncoaching dot com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts and for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married. Make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.
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