061 - Mama Guilt and Self Care
- A special series: May is for Mamas -
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Show Notes:
Mom guilt. Just saying those words might conjure up a whole lot of feelings in you. Today, I just want to say: I'm with you, I have felt it, it's real; but I also want to say, that is no way to live out our days as mamas.
We have got to do something about this mom guilt epidemic and the mom guilt we feel in our hearts and in our guts, we need to identify the root of it and ultimately be freed from it so that we can be the guilt free, confident mama leaders of our family that God intends for us to be.
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Oh man, mom, guilt. I want to be so tender to this because some mamas listening might be on the edge of tears. And I know because I have been that mom. But today, together, I want us to take a deep breath and step aside from those emotions that can be so overwhelming with mom guilt for just a few minutes. I just want to talk about and kind of debunk this whole thing that I really feel like the enemy uses against us all the time.
I want to start with the definition of guilt:
Guilt is the fact of having committed a specified or implied offense or crime.
Guilt as a verb is to make someone feel guilty, especially in order to induce them into doing something.
That's harsh. And then you pair that with mom guilt and the things that we feel guilty about with our children and we quickly realize there's a disconnect between actual guilt, like we have committed a crime, and mom guilt. Now I'm going to read the definition of mom guilt for you that I looked up on the internet by a semi-reliable source (I just Googled mom guilt and this is what came up):
Mom guilt is the feeling of guilt, doubt, anxiousness or uncertainty experienced by mothers when they worry they're failing or falling short of expectations in some way. And for many moms, particularly new moms or working or single moms, the variables that contribute to this phenomenon are numerous and intense.
And like I said, when we started this episode, it's real and I felt it and it weighs on you, but we have to realize where this is coming from. Now, I think it comes from a couple of different places:
First of all, I think a lot of times we do it to ourselves just by playing the comparison game, scrolling Instagram, looking at other moms, we just start to talk down in our own minds and our own brains, and it’s usually just us. And let me just say it right now, we have got to stop. If it means just throwing down our phone or taking more breaks from Instagram or social media or whatever it is.
If it is robbing you of the freedom of being a mother who is satisfied and free in your role as a mother of your kids, we just have to stop.
I think it's important to just realize maybe our own habits or our own thoughts, maybe it's not even habits, maybe it's just your thoughts that you need to kind of take control of and submit them to Jesus and get out of that constant feeling that we're doing something wrong.
The second thing is there is an enemy that's after us. Y’all, he is real and he comes at us primarily with the voice of shame and guilt. That is not the voice of the Lord. I want to kind of encourage you to take a minute if you're living in a lot of mom guilt.
If there's a lot of mom guilt in your mind and your heart and your life and you feel like you can't break free of it, I want to ask you two questions:
One, is it the enemy? Are you allowing the enemy's voice to just kind of reign and you need to shut it out and you need to say no and take back your authority as a believer, authority on the name of Jesus and just say, you can not have that real estate in my mind anymore and just take captive those thoughts. That might be it, that we're just kind of complacent and allowing him to kind of come in and tell us what to think and bury us in shame and guilt as mothers.
Two, is there something bigger going on? Is there a guilt that is kind of more of like a check in your spirit? I don't want to sound like super spiritual here, but it's like the best way I can put it where there's something that's like, "No, something's got to change." Is that it? So is the mom guilt in your life the voice of the enemy that you need to just take authority over and shut out, or is the mom guilt because there's a bigger thing under the surface, like an unsettling in your spirit?
If it doesn't go away for a really, really long amount of time and you just aren't happy as a mom, I want to encourage you take that opportunity to do some searching and pray about it because that’s what happened with me when I closed my business. When I first had my first baby and my second baby, I had no plans of closing my business and I loved working and I loved being a mom. And sure there was tension. Sure, there was a balancing of trying to figure out how to be a new mom and how to run this business and how to have a team and how to do it all. And there is a lot of growth in me that took place during those years.
But when I got pregnant with my third baby, something shifted in my spirit. When I had my first two babies, if I had mom guilt, I knew that it was coming from the enemy and maybe my own comparison game or my thoughts. And I just had to say, "No, I am doing the assignment God's given me to do. I know I'm where I should be. There's no guilt in that. I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm just giving my best every day." But when baby number three came along for me, it was this greater unsettling in my spirit that I knew I had to just dive in and ask the Lord, what do you want of me? What is this coming from? It's something more.
And after a year of praying about it, God really spoke to me: “It's time to close Nancy Ray Photography,” the business I had run for 12 years. And so if your mom guilt, doesn't go away for a really long time, I just encourage you to take it to the Lord and ask him about it. Because the bottom line is there is therefore now no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Jesus does not speak mom guilt over you. He doesn't speak condemnation or guilt or shame. If you are doing the best that you can for your family, there is no condemnation. If you're following God's assignment for you as a stay at home mom, as a working mom, as a business owner, as a part time working mom, as a mom who volunteers a ton in ministry, there's no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus. But if you need to take some sort of unsettling in your spirit, because you think maybe something has changed to the Lord, you need to take that to the Lord and ask him to guide you. He will guide you.
Now I want to jump into six ways that we can kind of walk through freedom and live in freedom of mom guilt, freedom from mom guilt.
1. We need to decide what we want.
Just define your desires. What kind of life do you want to live, and what kind of mom do you want to be? I think a lot of our guilt comes from the fact that we just don't really know what we want and we feel guilty because we don't know if our choices are right, or if the mom next door, if her choices are right, or if the mom I just talked to in the preschool line, if her choices are better because we haven't taken the time to just quiet ourselves and get quiet and really think about what do I want? What do I want with my life?
You're the only one who knows how you're gifted. You're the only one who knows what are the things that really fill you up. How are you wired? What are the things that will bring you the most joy? What are the things that are going to keep you healthy as a mama? Because your kids need you as a healthy mama, mentally and physically. What are those things? And I want you to just think about that, get quiet, pray about it. Talk to your husband, like really what's the desire of your heart? What do you want?
2. Pause and really factor in the season that you're in.
When I decided to close Nancy Ray Photography, there were so many different things. But one thing that became abundantly clear is I am about to have three children three and under, and that's just a lot. And that is a season and it won't be here forever. But I certainly had to factor that into my work decisions and my life decisions. What is important to you right now about the season of motherhood that you are in? Because this season is going to go and a new season will come and this will always be changing. And guess what? Your desires might change with different seasons.
Mama's of little kids, I'm speaking from my heart because that is where I am in my season. But there is a reason they call it "in the trenches." We are in it right now and I'm not going to sugar coat it, it's tough. It's exhausting. At the very end of May, you're going to have the chance to listen in on a conversation I had with Sally Clarkson, and she said it beautifully when she said,
“This has been God's design for every generation of women from the beginning of time.”
We were talking about how hard it is when the kids are little, and she said, “You know what, no mom is exempt from that. We all have to go through that really hard season when they're little, this has been His design from the beginning of time.” There's comfort in that, that we're not alone in it. There's comfort in that it's for a season. So just be fully present in the season you're in. What do you want? What's important to you in the season of motherhood that you are in?
3. Have so much grace with yourself and allow yourself to change your mind.
Allow yourself to change your mind because you are human, you're a woman, you're a mother. You might be a business owner. The most important work that you can do is in your heart and in your marriage and in your family. And give yourself grace and allow yourself to change your mind. Because what you want in this season of motherhood is going to look pretty different than what you want five years from now.
4. Ask for help.
Oh goodness, this is the toughest pill for me to swallow, I'm going to be honest. So this one, I'm talking to you wherever you are listening to this podcast episode, but really I'm just talking to me. This is something I think I'm going to learn over and over and over again. I have to ask for help. I have to. And when I get turned down by someone, because they're not available, I have to keep asking. And then I have to just keep asking. And then I have to ask someone else. When three or four people can't do it, I have to just keep asking. It's hard. It's humbling. It makes me want to give up and say, I can do it myself.
But here's the thing I've learned: my limitations are a gift from the Lord. I'm limited, but He's unlimited.
So I've got to keep asking the grandparents or maybe a neighbor. Got to ask my husband, I got to ask him for help. I don't know why that's hard for me a lot of days, but it is. I got to ask aunts and uncles. Maybe there's a high school student ministry at my church who wants to learn how to babysit.
I’ve got to ask anybody, anybody who can help. We have to get creative and keep asking for help. God has given you everything that you need to do everything you need to do and flourish while doing it. And sometimes that means getting creative. For me, it means getting creative with my schedule, my days, to factor in some time to give myself what I need. Sometimes that means letting go of a lot of expectations and desperately asking God to help me to get to the next day. But whatever it is, I just keep saying, He's given me everything I need to do everything I need to do and flourish while doing it.
5. Give your kids all of your attention some of the time, it doesn't have to be all of your attention all the time.
I'm mentioning this in relation to mom guilt because this is actually something that really helps my heart. When I feel really busy or overwhelmed, I’ll just go back to doing some mind-body-soul time (my number one parenting tip)—it's just 10 minutes of one-on-one time each day with each kid. And it fills up their little love tank and I give them undivided attention and I let them choose whatever they want to do. We play together and I don't do it perfectly all the time by any means, but when I'm doing that consistently, it doesn't matter what the rest of my day looks like, because I know that I have given him that undivided attention. So give them all of your attention some of the time.
6. Trust God to be omnipresent, not you.
Jen Wilkin's book, "None Like Him"—I haven't read the whole book yet, so I can't totally recommend it yet, but everything I've heard about it is amazing. This one excerpt from the book—my friend read it to me and it just hit me—when she's talking about God's attribute of being omnipresent, she says,
"No, we cannot be in more than one place at one time. When we reach for omnipresence ourselves, we guarantee that we will be fully present nowhere. Spread thin, people of divided attentions, affections, efforts, and loyalties. Better to trust that these bodies, which tether us to one location are good limits given by a good God. When we trust him as fully present everywhere, we are finally free to be fully present wherever he has placed us."
We have to trust God to be omnipresent and not try to reach for that omnipresence ourselves. He is taking care of your family when you can't be there with them, he's taking care of them. He's everywhere you can't be. Trusting him fully is the place where our mama guilt can cease in spending time with him is the best form of self care and freedom for mama guilt that we can have. God is omnipresent and we were never meant to be. We need to trust that he designed us with limitations and that those limitations are good.
Now I'm going to read that definition of mom guilt one more time, and then I'm going to follow it up with the definition of Mom Freedom that I totally made up myself. So, you’re welcome, I guess.
Mom guilt is the feeling of guilt, doubt, anxiousness or uncertainty experienced by mothers when they worry they're failing or falling short of expectations in some way. For many moms, particularly new working or single moms, the variables that contribute to this phenomenon are numerous and intense.
Okay, let's get some freedom. Let's let go of that mom guilt. And in Jesus' name, let's just receive some freedom.
Mom Freedom is the feeling of confidence, freedom, and authority that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be. I am fulfilling the assignment that God has given me. I am clear on the kind of life I want to live and the kind of mama I want to be. I give myself grace and allow myself to change my mind as seasons change with my kids, because seasons will change, that's a guarantee. I'm humble enough and confident enough in my own limitations to ask for help from the Lord daily and from others in my family and community. I'm secure because I give my kids all of my attention some of the time, teaching them that I love them while also showing them my own limitations. And when I'm not with them, I choose to trust my omnipresent God to care for them, knowing that I am limited, but he is unlimited. He is trustworthy and He is leading me and my family.
I'm going to close with words from Jodi Picoult, who said:
"The very fact that you worry about being a good mom means that you already are one."
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