It’s Mother’s Day on Sunday and I wanted to use this occasion to talk about some false truths about motherhood and to uncover the reasons why so many women struggle through the early years of parenting.  

I have sat with hundreds of women over the last couple of years, and these false truths I’m about to share with you, contribute to the enormous load that so many women struggle with.

We have bought into some truths about motherhood that simply aren’t true. They are making us really exhausted, keeping us in our overwhelm, and feelings of guilt and shame are stopping us from really exploring what a pleasure filled life can look like. So, what are these false truths?

 False Truth #1

To be a good mother you need to sacrifice your life for your children.

It’s called “The Good Mother” syndrome and is the typical 1950’s housewife description. Women have sacrificed their life for their children for years because they believed that’s what they needed to do and never questioned it. Then in the 60’s and 70’s everything changed with the wave of feminism. Feminism empowered women to have it all. But what actually happened was that in addition to being a mother, women could also work, have their own business and say yes to more opportunities.

We were told that we could do it all. But no one mentioned what would happen to the caring responsibility of the children. What happened was that we just added mothering to a long list of to-dos. Mothering became another tick box that we needed to get done.

Now to be a good mother today you have to be able to not only be a domestic goddess, but you also have to work like you don’t have kids and parent like you don’t work, and often without a village around you for support.

Burnout, stress and anxiety started to become the norm and women soon realised that the idea of having it all would lead to burn out.

But that stopping and stepping back wasn’t an option because of the second false truth.

False truth #2

To be a successful woman you must be able to do it all and be superwoman and that our strength only comes from constantly pushing and being able to handle it all.

And when we have this belief running deep, we just keep going no matter what, feeling more and more depleted until something forces us to stop – we get sick or we simply break down. And then when we do finally stop, we feel like a failure. We feel guilt and shame that we couldn’t keep up and wonder why everyone else seems to manage it all and we can’t.

Before kids, my identity and self worth was completely wrapped up in my work. After having kids I had to completely rethink who I was but it took me almost 7 years to get to that point of realising that I wasn’t the same person I was before kids and I had to rediscover my new truth and reshape my identity as a woman and a mum. 

False truth #3

Motherhood comes naturally and you will love every minute of it.  

This was a core belief of mine before having kids. My expectations of motherhood of being effortlessly patient, nurturing and kind, thinking it would all come so naturally from a place deep inside was far from the harsh reality I faced as a new mother. 

Motherhood did not come naturally to me and when I couldn’t breastfeed my boys, I thought I had failed. The guilt and shame robbed me of my motherhood joy.

We often have such high expectations of ourselves and we put ourselves under an enormous amount of pressure to perform every job to the best of our ability. So when we suddenly don’t meet those expectations, our world starts to crumble.  

These false truths are stopping us from living a life that truly makes us happy. 

The real truth is that everything in our lives works better when we prioritise ourselves and we’re thriving. We feel better when we have energy, when we’re nourishing ourselves, when we’re giving from the overflow of our cup rather than a half empty cup. When we give from the overflow, we give from a place of abundance rather than resentment.

When we look at the beliefs and expectations around motherhood, we can see why it’s so hard to be a mother in the modern world and how attached we are to these false truths.

To be a good mother, we actually need to constantly be filling our own cup and we can’t do that if we have this underlying belief that it’s selfish. We would never drive our car with no petrol in it, we are constantly refilling our car tanks. So why don’t we refill our own tanks on a more regular basis?

I hear from so many women who tell me that they are completely exhausted. They are struggling in their relationships and there is a distinct lack of joy and pleasure in their lives.

Many women I speak to don’t have the basic self-care fundamentals in place because their lives are so busy and moving at such a rapid speed that there is simply no time or capacity to even fit in the basics like nourishing food, regular movement, rest and good quality sleep.

Even though we know that everything feels better when we’re thriving, we don’t focus on those things because consciously or unconsciously we have been led to believe that there is no other way.

I have spent the last few years rediscovering and redefining my own truth. I realised it was not my fault that I felt this way and trying to be worthy, and this self-sacrificing behaviour, was not the answer. The truth I like to now live by is that to be a successful woman I need to rest and soften and not to feel guilt when I say no. To be a good mother I need to prioritise my own needs on a daily basis, and when I do then everything else in my life works so much better. My ability to parent and show up in my marriage, to be present in everything I do each day and to be grateful for it all. So, I go on girl’s weekends away, I go out for coffee with friends, I meditate, I laugh, I find pleasure in the simple things, I go for walks in nature, I spend the time making nourishing foods for myself (not just for the kids), I spend quality time with my husband, I move my body with exercises that feel good, and this year I am also taking myself off to a retreat for a whole week. Because at the end of the day, this is my life, I deserve to feel amazing and I choose to make the most of every moment.

I wonder what being a good mother and a successful woman means to you and how much these false truths influence your choices and the way you live your life? 

Overwhelmed by feelings of busyness, we wake up at 2am and remember something important that needs to be done the next day, worried that we’ll forget we get up and quickly add it to our ever growing to do list. In conversations with others or while spending time with our kids, we do our best to stay present, yet our mind wanders off to the next thing that must be done.

On those busy, distracted days, time spent relaxing, enjoying ourselves or anything that doesn’t feel like we’re being productive, can feel wasteful or irresponsible and lead to feelings of dreaded guilt.

Being busy is addictive.

It has become part of our identity, sometimes to the point that we fear being not busy might also mean that subconsciously we feel we’re not worthy or important.

So much has happened in our world over the last two years, in some ways we have changed the way we live and work with less commuting and staying closer to home. But we have still managed to find ways to keep ourselves very busy. At the very least, we have become very good at maintaining a busy mind.

Keeping busy allows us to stay distracted from our feelings and emotions. It keeps us safe from feeling anything negative and we keep a safe and comfortable distance to the issues in life that are sometimes hard to look at. We’re not comfortable being still with our own thoughts because we’re afraid of what might surface when we do.

Busyness has shaped much of my life. I was so addicted to doing and achieving that even though I climbed that ladder pretty successfully, I was only until I realised my ladder was leaning up against the wrong wall. Despite my successes, I was miserable. I felt disconnected to myself and everything that was important to me. Constantly chasing success and happiness outside of myself and feeling the pressure to always keep up, juggling all the balls and afraid that if I dropped any of them that I would feel like a failure.

When I left my 9-5 career and became a health coach, a healer told me that the source of happiness had to come “from in here” as he pointed to my heart. From that moment I decided to dedicate my life to redefining myself, how I valued myself and get clear on what was really important. I started to get very curious about this “busy” phenomenon and why we get so busy looking for happiness outside of ourselves.

Recently I have discovered a term to desribe this busy addiction.

Action addiction, a condition caused by a chemical imbalance in our brain. The hormone dopamine is the key player in keeping us busy and is a highly addictive reward-drug that gives us a short-term sense of enjoyment, relaxation, and gratification. When we’re busy we become task oriented and ticking things off a to do list, going shopping or scrolling social media feels good in the moment, then that feeling passes and the brain craves another kick. More action needed. And over time we’re caught in a vicious circle of action and reward and that addicted feeling of needing to be busy.

A mentor once said to me that busyness is a choice. We may have lots on in our life, but we get to choose whether we become action addicts or just mindfully observe the experience of having lots on. It’s a choice. And the ability to make that choice comes from developing a clear and present mindset.

Nowadays we tend to all be busy, overextended, stressed and anxious. It’s part of our identity. If we’re busy, we are important. If we’re stressed, it’s because we’re hard working. It´s part of living in a very busy and distracted modern world. If we’re not busy and stressed, we mustn’t be trying hard enough and we fear being called lazy.  

Why it’s important for us to heal our need to be busy.

Keeping busy stops us from seeing the bigger picture. When we’re stuck in the daily, often mindless tasks and ruminating thoughts of our mind, we lose touch with what’s truly important and we miss the beautiful moments of life. We risk missing out on all those things that bring us love, joy and happiness.

In Chinese, the word “busy” consists of two syllables, one meaning heart, the other death. Keeping busy slowly kills our heart. The busier we get, the more energy flows to our head and away from our heart. The busier we get, the harder we are on ourselves to keep up, the less love, kindness, and compassion we have for ourselves, and we build a wall around our heart to help keep us safe, and we also tend to distance ourselves from those we love in the process, we become resentful because we literally have no capacity left to give.

Get more done by slowing down

To avoid slowly killing our hearts and allowing ourselves to reconnect with compassion, love, joy and happiness, we must learn to slow down and start to prioritise more stillness in our days.

The key to slowing down while being addicted to busy, requires a series of very small consistent habits to calm a busy mind.

1. First step is awareness. Being aware of your need to be busy.

2. Second step is to create a morning ritual that involves being still for a few minutes before you start your day. This could be through meditation, a gratitude practice or breathwork.

3. Third step is to create mindful moments throughout your day to remind your brain that stillness is a safe place to be. When we slow down and let go of the need to do all the things, we allow the brain to let go of the immediate urge for dopamine. In these moments ask yourself: Are you choosing to be busy? What’s keeping you busy? Is it worth it? Are there things on your plate you could let go of? What would happen if you let those things go? Let yourself contemplate these questions by journaling your answers. Be honest with yourself, you might be interested by what comes up for you.

4. Final step is to repeat these steps everyday. There are no shortcuts or quick wins here. Mindfulness requires a consistent commitment. Change won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. And when it does, that’s where the magic happens. 

Are you addicted to busy?

Here is a little exercise you can do to see if you suffer from action addiction.

Next time you get to your desk in the morning, or you get home after dropping the kids at school, just as you’re about to get stuck into your to do list for the day, sit down and close your eyes. Don’t do anything. Just sit in stillness and do nothing for 5 minutes.

If you find this exercise difficult and you’re challenged by doing nothing, you feel restless, perhaps a little anxious and your mind is overrun with thoughts — you are experiencing some degree of action addiction.

I hope these insights help bring more focus to the way you live your life and help you redefine your relationship with busy. Make a commitment to prioritise stillness in your days, I promise you it will be worth it.  You might just find that by slowing down, you might actually do less but get a lot more meaningful things done. 

I love you. 

Katrina x 

With so much suffering in the world right now, the events of the last few days has restored my faith in love after witnessing the power of community connection. Perfect strangers helping each other in the most extreme of circumstances. It is so heartwarming to witness this as many families around us are impacted by the current flooding event. If you are being impacted, please know that my heart goes out to you and you are being held through this.

I feel very fortunate to be connected to so many women through our retreats and I am again reminded of the importance of human connection. I feel we have been missing this connection so much over the last couple of years. 

My heart aches having had to cancel our first two retreats for the year, first to covid and then to floods. We are living in such extremes at the moment and I know how much our retreat days are needed right now. But I also know that we are also connected virtually and I feel so connected to my online community. 

My nervous system is struggling to deal with what is happening in the world right now, I have been feeling fragile for a while, so in times like this I turn with deep gratitude to my practices to help me cultivate a calm mind and a loving and open heart.

If you are feeling fragile and powerless, or looking to find some balance to your energy, here are 3 simple practices to help you.

1. Breath Meditation

Your breath is the golden key to your wellbeing. Take a moment to sit quietly, close your eyes and notice the movement of your breath in your body. Your breath is probably something you take for granted despite the fact we can’t live without it. Your breath grounds you in the here and now when the natural tendency of the mind is to focus on the past or worry about the future. Your breath can also be a monitor for your feelings. If you can sense more clearly if your breath is short or long, shallow or deep, you can begin sensing your own internal weather patterns, and then choose what you need to do to love and care for yourself through the ebb and flow of life.

Take a few mins each day to sit in stillness resting in your own awareness of your body. Explore how it feels to let go of the tendency to want things to be a certain way. Even for a brief moment of seeing how things are – without wanting to change anything – this can be profoundly nourishing to allow things to just be. 

2. Gentle Movement 

We are flooded in for the next few days so I can’t get to my regular Pilates classes but I know that moving my body in a gentle and loving way is another way to help support me during times of stress. For me right now this is gentle stretches. Even if you don’t have a regular practice, gently moving your body in any way that feels good helps to move stagnant energy out of your body.

3. Journaling 

 Journaling helps to tame my monkey mind and helps to bring things back into perspective. Sometimes negative thoughts and emotions can run on a loop in our heads. This can cause a build up of stress and start a spiral of stories to make the current situation feel worse. I like to write out my emotions and thoughts on paper, it helps me release them from my mind and reduces the mental load. When I read back what I’ve written, I can hold myself with gentle compassion and kindness. 

I am doing what I can to reduce my external inputs like watching the news as it can feed my stress and anxiety. I encourage you to find ways to reduce the amount of negative information you consume too. 

I know that we are moving towards brighter days ahead.

There has been a lot going on for some time now. Be gentle with yourself, it’s ok to feel fragile and vulnerable. Hold yourself, hug your loved ones and know that you are doing an incredible job. 

I love you. 

Katrina x