Mindful Awareness for Parents

The Foundation of Parenting with Gratitude©

During the pandemic, I kept a journal to keep myself from loosing time—I’m sure you can remember the days running into one another. Each day, I jotted down my supplements, my mood, and a list of things I was grateful for. What surprised me most was how nourishing that gratitude list became, even amid such hardship at home and all over the world. How could my gratitude grow stronger in the face of so much struggle? This question led me to realize: mindfulness and gratitude are intertwined, and together, they offer a way not just to cope but to thrive as a parent.

Mindfulness in Action: Redefining What It Means

Mindfulness often gets a bad rap. You may think it requires complex routines or dedicated meditation practices. But mindfulness is simply noticing life. And in the context of parenting, gratitude becomes mindfulness in action. When we actively look for what’s going well in our lives as parents—despite the messiness and chaos—we naturally cultivate greater awareness of the present moment.

For example, think about a time when your toddler was on the verge of a meltdown. Maybe they were furiously frustrated and about to throw their favorite toy. If you’ve ever caught yourself marveling at how adorable their tiny scowl is—even possibly holding back a laugh—you’ve experienced the duality of life. Parenting exists in an “AND” world: the toy is about to fly across the room AND your toddler’s sheer determination is endearing.

Mindful awareness helps us live in this duality, where both positive and negative emotions coexist.

Defining Mindful Awareness

Mindful awareness involves being fully present in the moment, acknowledging and accepting one's thoughts and feelings without judgment. It allows individuals to experience life as it unfolds, fostering a deeper connection with oneself and others. - Paul T.P. Wong

Practicing OCEAN: The Traits of Mindful Awareness

Mindfulness consists of five key traits, according to Daniel J. Siegel in The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being (2007):

• openness

• compassion

• empathy

• acceptance

• and nonjudgment

These are collectively referred to as the OCEAN framework. These traits create a foundation for mindful awareness and provide parents with tools to navigate the duality of parenting moments.

Negative emotions—like anger, frustration, or fear—are evolutionarily loud and often lead us to react without thinking. But in every moment of parenting, we also have access to the aspects of OCEAN from openness, to compassion, to empathy. The key is learning to leverage these quieter traits. It takes practice, but with time, they can become as natural as our initial emotional responses.

For instance, when my teenager snaps at me for asking if his homework is done, I could easily react to his tone. But instead, I’ve learned to say, “Hey, I’m noticing your tone feels a bit harsh. We’re just talking logistics—there’s no judgment here.” This small, mindful acknowledgment gives him the space to pause, breathe, and recalibrate. It also allows me to respond with compassion rather than escalating into conflict.

From Gratitude as a State to Gratitude as a Trait

Looking at life through the lens of parenting with gratitude© is an intentional, daily choice. It means seeking out the good and looking for what’s going right–even on the hardest days. Over time, this practice evolves gratitude from a fleeting temporary state into a lasting trait—a consistent way of seeing the world.

This evolution changes the way we interpret our mistakes. As parents, we all mess up. But when gratitude becomes a trait, we know from past experience that the good we’ve cultivated far outweighs the bad. It creates a deep self-trust in the overall balance of our parenting journey and reinforces our sense of self-efficacy and agency.

Parental Agency: Trusting What’s Already Within You

Practical Ways to Build Parental Agency

Notice small moments of connection with your child, even during tension.

Reflect on three parenting wins each day.

Practice self-compassion when parenting feels overwhelming.

Mindful awareness and gratitude reinforce my belief that I have everything I need within myself–and you do too. When we choose to see the good and embrace our parenting wins, we tap into a reservoir of self-trust. This process builds self-efficacy—or the confidence that we can navigate challenges—and helps us reclaim our power in a world that often tells us we’re not enough.

Connecting More Deeply: The Surprising Benefits

The practice of mindfulness and gratitude doesn’t just impact how we parent; it also deepens our connection with our children and ourselves. When I’m not caught up in reactive emotions, I can meet my kids where they are, with all the compassion and acceptance they deserve.

Even in moments of tension—like when my son is being driven by hormonal surges he can’t fully control—I’ve found that offering understanding instead of judgment transforms our interactions. This doesn’t mean I ignore bad behavior; it means I choose a mindful response that leaves room for repair and growth.

A Foundation for Parenting with Gratitude©

Mindful awareness is the foundation of parenting with gratitude. By cultivating traits like openness, compassion, and acceptance as outlined by Siegel, we learn to see parenting not as a series of battles to be fought but as a journey filled with unnoticed moments of grace and growth. And as we practice gratitude, we shift our perspective to one that recognizes not just the challenges of parenting but also its many benefits.

When we parent with gratitude, we don’t ignore the hard stuff; we simply choose to see the good alongside it. Over time, this duality creates a resilient, mindful approach to life—one where gratitude becomes a trait, not just a fleeting state. And in doing so, we discover that everything we need to thrive as parents is already within us. - Stef

Hope as Your Anchor: Navigating Modern Parenthood with Optimism

Let’s get real for a moment about this wild ride called parenting. It is an ever-changing, sometimes overwhelming job, where the rules seem to be constantly rewritten. That's where Pragmatic Hope comes in - it’s not just hope that is a pipe dream, or pretending everything's peachy. It's about finding strength in the real, the messy, the everyday chaos of parenting our little ones and being deliberate in our plans.

I’ve navigated the ups and downs of parenting young children for over two decades. The days are long, the nights can feel endless, and those early mornings... well, they come way too soon. Choosing hope over helplessness is a decision we have to make every. single. day. because the realities of parenting are overwhelming. We can give up or we can choose to look towards the future.

Of course the future may need a bit of a refreshed perspective: Instead of striving for the elusive 'perfect parent' status, why not aim for something more realistic and kind to yourself? Harnessing pragmatic hope helps us to set achievable goals and find joy in the little victories, all while being gentle with our progress. As Rumi wisely said, "Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder."

Now, let’s sprinkle some of this hope into our daily routines with three simple, gratitude-filled exercises:

1. Kick-Start Your Day:

Before the day sweeps you off your feet, jot down three things you’re thankful for having in your life. It could be as simple as your kiddo's infectious laugh or that much-needed cup of coffee. This will set a positive tone for your day and remind you of the good amidst the whirlwind.

Role of Hope: Starting the day by identifying things to be grateful for is an act of hopeful anticipation. It fosters a mindset that, regardless of the day's challenges, there are always elements of positivity and potential for good. This practice cultivates an optimistic outlook, encouraging you to face the day with a hopeful perspective.

Impact on Parenting: By beginning the day focusing on positive aspects, you are more likely to approach parenting challenges with a hopeful and constructive attitude, expecting positive interactions and outcomes.

2. Pause and Observe:

Amidst the daily hustle, take a moment to just watch your child. Whether it’s during a meal, playtime, or those rare quiet moments. Observe them, breathe in, and silently express gratitude for these precious moments.

Role of Hope: Mindful observation of your child is an exercise in hopeful presence. It is about seeing the potential and beauty in every moment with the child, even in routine or challenging situations. This practice is underpinned by the hope that these moments contribute to the child's growth and the deepening of the parent-child bond.

Impact on Parenting: Engaging in mindful observation helps parents appreciate the journey and maybe even dip into the unique feeling of "parental gratitude”, fostering deep meaning and purpose to one’s day.

3. Reflect and Reset in the Evening:

As the day winds down, think of one parenting challenge you dealt with and see if you can find a positive takeaway. Then, set an intention for the next day, something to help you and your kiddo thrive which is rooted in your hopes and dreams for them.

Role of Hope: Reflecting on the day's challenges and setting intentions for the next day is a practice of hopeful resilience. It’s about acknowledging that while not every day is perfect, there is always the hope and possibility for improvement and growth. Setting positive intentions is an act of looking forward with hope to what can be achieved.

Impact on Parenting: This practice encourages you to not be defined by the day's hassles but to maintain hope for better days. It helps to instill a growth mindset, where challenges are seen as opportunities for learning and betterment.

"Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder." -Rumi

Our kids offer us a daily chance to grow, to embrace our current selves. They allow us to see that there is good even when the world feels frustrating and even a little bit rigged.

Remember, this journey is about practice, not perfection. It’s about setting intentions for our daily lives, and finding gratitude in the everyday.

Do you have an intention? Transform your parenting style into something more fulfilling by giving hope a place in your routines. You've got this. - Stef

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#MomLife Unfiltered: 5 Essential Ways to Keep It Real

“Gratitude serves as a foundation for nurturing connections with other parents and broadening our perspective. It empowers us to embrace our parenting mishaps as integral parts of our journeys, ensuring they do not overshadow our achievements.”

Have you ever found yourself scrolling social, comparing your parenting journey to those seemingly perfect families online? Or perhaps you've tried a 'quick and easy' toddler activity only to find it took hours to set up?

You're not alone. As mothers, we often wrestle with the pressure of high expectations, whether it's the quest for the perfect family photo or the desire for our little ones to embrace every meal we prepare. Just as Shakespeare once said, 'Expectations are the root of heartache.' These unattainable standards can affect how we view our success, self-worth, and even our daily interactions with our children — and they have a lot to do with just how loud our Mom Guilt can get.

The pursuit of high expectations and the desire for life to be a “certain way” are not new, and neither are their resulting negative consequences. They can lead to apathy, stress, and anxiety. These “high standards” can impose rules on our lives that feel so solid and unbreakable—until you start to notice they don’t have to be.

Here are five ways you can adjust your worldview and ground your expectations. Grounded expectations are not about letting things go or even going with the flow; instead, they are rooted in curiosity. What will happen when I try this new baby sleep routine? Or when I substitute sweet potatoes for carrots in this toddler meal? They allow room for growth through experience - and yes, even for mistakes.

Let’s get grounded:

1. Self-Awareness

Take the time to learn more about yourself as a parent. Explore your strengths and areas where you might need support. For example, you might discover that your patience and creativity make you excellent at finding fun toddler activities. Alternatively, you may realize that you thrive in a more flexible daily routine, and that's okay too. We are all unique parents, and what brings happiness and fulfillment can vary greatly from one parent to another. Getting to know yourself better is the first step in making parenting choices that align with your true desires and your child's needs.

2. Social Connection

Seek social connection and support from other parents. It's that reassuring feeling of 'Oh, it's not just me,' like when you discover that the struggles of motherhood are common to us all. This expanded viewpoint helps to balance and validate our personal experiences in realistic ways. For example, when you connect with other moms who have had success introducing toothbrushing, you can gain valuable insights that may help your personal toddler struggle. Through social support, you can establish parenting expectations grounded in real information (It took 6 months!), ultimately offering a more balanced approach to setting expectations for your family's future.

3. Practice Gratitude

Practicing gratitude is a valuable skill, and yes, it can be challenging in a world driven by constant comparison. But it is an essential component of grounded expectations in the world of parenting. Gratitude serves as a foundation for nurturing connections with other parents and broadening our perspective. It empowers us to embrace our parenting mishaps as integral parts of our journeys, ensuring they do not overshadow our achievements. This website is a treasure trove of gratitude ideas - jump in!

4. Cultivate Optimism

This is not about being happy all the time; it's about nurturing the inherent goodness in our parenting journey. Martin Seligman, often regarded as the father of positive psychology, encourages us to view our inner dialogue as a simple way to cultivate optimism as a parent. He emphasizes that 'changing the destructive things you say to yourself when you experience the setbacks that life deals all of us is the central skill of optimism.’

5. Practice Mindfulness

Practicing mindfulness, which involves noticing without judgment, is essential for avoiding getting too wrapped up in what 'could have been.' Overcoming our natural thought patterns takes practice. Mindfulness can take the form of a quick breathing exercise or simply taking a moment to be present with your little one. The key is to leave all judgment on the sidelines.

Remember, in the messy journey of motherhood, embracing your authentic self and grounding your expectations can lead to a more joyful and fulfilling parenting experience for both you and your little ones. After all good enough is GoodAF in my book - Stef

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Finding the Energy: Balance Amidst the Chaos

You know that feeling when you have SO much to do and NO energy to do it?

Or that rare feeling like: “Wow, I finally feel energized but have no idea where to start!?”

Mismatched moments like these make us feel unbalanced, stressed and overwhelmed.

And we when we have an inbalance in our lives we generally feel off. Look at the “Invisible Load” of motherhood — it doesn’t feel good like: “Wow! I’m a great Mom for doing all these things” (even though it should) because of how imbalanced the load is. This feeling of “too much to do and too little time to do it” is an emotional state that brings up negative emotions like shame (I should be able to do it all) and anxiety (how will I do it all and its neverending) and withdrawal (there is so much to do I am not going to do anything at all).

Somatic Mindfulness is a simple way of purposefully focusing our attention to discover our emotional state without getting into the emotions of it all — and then matching that energy level to an equally demanding task.

The skill at the root of somatic mindfulness is noticing.

Yep, just paying attention. Now that feels doable doesn’t it? And we can break it down to something even more simple. Like a sort of somatic self-care - or paying attention to the state of our body. How our body feels can be an basic gateway to a broader awareness of our state — or how we feel emotionally, physically and mentally in the moment. Directing our attention to rest on our body is the “somatic” peice. It takes thinking out of the equation and only focuses on sensations in the body. It takes a little practice because our bodies throw up road blocks, in simalar ways that our minds distract us with planning and examining when we self-reflect. Just keep that in mind!

Let’s use an example of filling the dishwasher after dinner. While on the surface this may seem like a simple task, but after the juggernaut that is cooking dinner for a household of small hangry people who don’t really enjoy your cooking, you’re exhausted. Your energy level is low. However your partner is working late and the dishes have to get done, so you put a movie on for the kids, and dig in.

The sink is full, you will probably have to run the machine in the AM again just to catch up. As you start to load the dishes your youngest comes in complaining about her brother sitting in her couch seat, so you stop to deal with the argument. (Wet hands and all.) You’re running out of patience and the overwhelming emotions you usually have a handle on are starting to come to the surface…not your best work with the kids - but you’re back to the dishes. Trying to be fast, you break a plate on the way to putting it in the dishwasher. This is the last straw. And you begin to cry. It’s just too much. What should you do now?

This is where somatic mindfulness can step in. Noticing the state of your body is less cognitively taxing than stopping and examining why you are crying - that’s way more complex and takes a lot more time and energy. Could you just for a moment shut off the water, and stand there among the broken chards of ceramic and feel into your body? When you do this it will almost feel like gift, the gift of attention. A simple example of a somatic exercise is a body scan but you don’t even need to do that in this situation. Just stop, breath and feel. What does it feel like in your chest, your arms, your face, behind your eyes? How are you holding your hands?

This curious looking requires that you drop any opinions. Nothing that your body is doing is right or wrong - it just is.

This is mindfulness in action - the looking around without judgement. Now once you have taken the moment, go ahead and sweep up the broken plate pieces. Check on the kids and then it’s time to take a moment to relfect. What is your body telling you? Is this the right time to be taking on this task? How much energy does your body have to offer? How much energy does the task demand? (Keep in mind you are also parenting at the same time.) If you body is tight and your heart rate elevated this may be a sign that you need a reset - a break mama - and how long that break will be depends on how tight and stressed your body is and how much energy the task you want to finish requires. It may not be a break that you need either, it could mean a lot of things like you need to put music on or laugh a little. You will build up your toolkit over time as you learn more about what works for you.

When we do this consistently we get to know the cues our bodies provide us at every stage of our routine (including before we break the plate). Maybe tonight was a night where you needed to sit on the couch with the kids for 10 minutes in between the dinner chaos and the clean up one. Or maybe if you checked in with your body and you found your energy levels were still pretty good, maybe tonight was the night that you could handle teaching your oldest to help you load the dishwasher.

Practicing mindfulness is not only about noticing our habitual thought patterns or emotional reactions. It is also noticing our somatic state or what messages our bodies are trying to share. And noticing them with kindness and compassion will lead to us to our next steps no matter the state we are in. With this knowledge we can balance our tasks with the energy we have available to us and even maybe get more done - whether that’s the dishes or self-care.

No matter where you find your balance, don’t ever forget you are a GoodAF mom. - Stef

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How to Stay Grounded Amidst Parenting Chaos

Cultivating Equanimity: Finding Emotional Groundedness Amidst the Chaos

Understanding Equanimity: The Key to Overcoming Overwhelm and Anxiety

Equanimity, a word not often heard in everyday conversation, is simply learning the skills of emotional groundedness and non-reactivity. Cultivating equanimity can be a transformative practice in the whirlwind of motherhood and its overwhelming moments. In this blog post, I will get into the concept of equanimity, explore its relevance to motherhood, and uncover practical strategies for embracing it amidst the chaos. Let’s learn more about equanimity by understanding what it is not. We can learn to navigate the storms of motherhood with grace, resilience, and a sense of calm if we also understand the different states of overwhelm many mothers experience.

Motherhood presents us with two distinct forms of overwhelm. The first pops up when we feel saturated and like we have NO choices. We get caught in a sensory overload or a whirlwind of emotions. We freeze, feel stuck, and powerless. The second type emerges from uncertainty and anxiety, where our minds fill the void of "not knowing" with so many horrible possibilities. We spin our wheels, consumed by worry and indecision. Both forms of overwhelm can leave us feeling trapped and emotionally drained.

Weathering the Storm: Equanimity as a Powerful Tool for Stress Management

Motherhood, particularly in the first five years, is filled with constant stress activation. As stress researcher Dr. Elissa Epel emphasizes in her book, "The Stress Prescription," everyone has a unique stress starting baseline. This “baseline” determines how much additional stress we can handle. When our baseline is already high due to the challenges of motherhood, unexpected events (insert toddler playing in the toilet) can cause it to spike even higher. And since we carry a higher baseline during this part of our lives, developing equanimity becomes essential for maintaining balance amidst the chaos.

Imagine motherhood as a house you've built on a beautiful piece of land. The weather that comes and goes represents the ever-changing nature of children—sometimes sunny, other times stormy. Some days are delightful, while others bring destruction and chaos. However, much like the weather, we cannot control our children's behavior entirely. Instead, we must focus on responding to the storms they bring and finding equanimity in the face of challenging moments.

Building Equanimity: Practices for Grounding and Regulating

To develop equanimity, it is essential to engage in grounding/mindfulness practices regularly. These practices allow us to find emotional stability amidst the storm. The one I always start with is getting outside to take a walk and deliberately noticing the awe-inspiring elements of my surroundings. A simple walk around the block, focusing on gratitude for our community, can bring a sense of calm to both ourselves and the toddler will bring along.

Interacting with pets is another great source of grounding and regulation. If they let you, taking the time to brush the family dog or engaging in playtime with cats helps anchor us in the present moment. Animals possess a remarkable ability to offer comfort and regulation, even during chaotic times.

Unveiling the Power of Equanimity: How Mindfulness Transforms Parenting

Ok, and finally, utilizing moments of calm and sunshine to practice mindfulness allows us to experience the present moment fully. A body scan is a simple practice where we explore each part of our bodies while expressing gratitude for their contributions to our well-being. It can be done anywhere you find yourself sitting. You can also practice mindfulness by active listening. While your preschooler tells you his story for the nth time, stay in the present moment, notice your thoughts, and let them pass. Allow your attention to rest completely on the content of their story. Ask questions, and engage only when they finish their run-on sentences.

These seemingly simple grounding exercises lay the foundation for cultivating equanimity. And they can be practiced when things are GOOD, not out of control.

Empowering Yourself with Equanimity: Cultivating Emotional Strength and Perspective

It is important to remember that equanimity does not overwrite or replace big emotions or challenging situations. Instead, it allows us to navigate them confidently, free from excessive reactivity or resistance (even if it’s just 10% less reactivity). By embracing equanimity, we acknowledge that stressors come from outside of us, but trigger internal responses. Cultivating this relationship with stressors empowers us to respond thoughtfully rather than impulsively.

Embracing Grace and Equanimity: Finding Peace amidst the Challenges of Motherhood

As mothers, we often blame ourselves for the chaos and self-doubt that can accompany parenting. However, it is important to recognize that these challenges are not our fault. Embracing equanimity means offering ourselves grace and accepting the realities of motherhood without judgment. Through this self-compassionate lens, we can find peace within the storm.

In the journey of motherhood, cultivating equanimity is a valuable practice that allows us to weather ups and downs with grace, resilience, and calm. By differentiating between overwhelming states and the groundedness of equanimity, we can develop strategies to find emotional stability amidst the chaos. Remember, even with all the messiness and challenges, you are a GoodAF Mom. - Stef

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Blank Memories: Embracing Unforgettable Moments

Have you heard about the Taylor Swift concert amnesia that's been going around? It's pretty wild! You spend way more than you should on ticket and are so excited for what everyone is calling a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You're expecting to remember this forever, but when you finally get home, you realize you can't remember a single thing. Can you believe it? You invested your time, money, and energy into this experience, and now it feels like a blur — OMG.

Psychologists are saying this post-concert amnesia is quite normal. It happens when we go through intense experiences filled with heightened emotions. And you know what? It got me thinking about something a bit hazy in my own memory: the newborn weeks. Remember those? But really — how much of it do you really remember? I find it fascinating to compare the two because, like with the concerts, the newborn years were a rollercoaster of emotions. It was a whirlwind, from stress and exhaustion to moments of pure euphoria and gratitude.

Now, I wish we could go through the newborn years multiple times, like attending different concerts (do I?). But here's the thing: we can apply something from the concert experience to help us cherish those intense moments in parenthood. Studies have shown that accumulating stuff doesn't bring us lasting happiness. It's the experiences that truly enrich our lives. And you know what's amazing about experiences? It's not just about the moment itself; it's also about the anticipation and the memories we create.

Let me share something I learned from Dr. Laurie Santos, a cognitive scientist and researcher on happiness. She explains that experiences bring us joy because we savor them before and after they happen. It's like having a delicious appetizer and a satisfying dessert surrounding the main course of the experience. We look forward to the event, talk about it with excitement, and plan what we'll wear, who we'll go with, and what songs might be played - that’s the pre-savoring. And afterward, we relish in the memories, sharing stories and discoveries we made during that time - that’s the post-savoring.

So, when I think about the Taylor Swift concert amnesia or even the hazy memories from my newborn’s first months, I realize it's not about recalling every little detail. It's about treasuring the entire journey. Sure, you may not remember the exact songs Taylor Swift performed but think about all the moments leading up to the concert. The anticipation, the conversations with friends, and the excitement of picking out your outfit. Those are the moments that matter.

And yes, when it comes to the newborn years, we may forget some specifics, but we remember the love, the tiny outfits, and the feeling of our little ones moving inside us. It's the pre-savoring and post-savoring that truly make an experience meaningful.

If you want to dive deeper into the practice of deliberate savoring as a form of gratitude, I highly recommend checking out this link. You can also listen to the podcast episode on savoring to explore how it can enhance your well-being.

So, Mama, remember that it's the journey that counts, whether you're attending a graduation, visiting Disneyland with your family, or simply cherishing the everyday moments of parenthood. Embrace the pre-savoring, savor the experience itself, and relish in the memories afterward. That's where true well-being is. And even if you forget some of it all, you are still a GoodAF Mom - Stef

Mindful Parenting: Finding Balance in Self-Care

So let’s talk about something we never do on the blog - meditation. But don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you should meditate - because I make it my personal mission never to make you feel overburdened (like you need to add new things to your to-do list). The activities I suggest can usually be incorporated into what you are doing already - rocking babies, driving kids to soccer, loading the dishwasher, etc.

I acknowledge that we are all on different chapters of the book of motherhood - some that are more time and energy-demanding than others.

I stay away from meditation because I don’t want you to think it’s the ultimate solution - because it’s just not true. Everything we discuss in this blog concerns accepting who we are, where we are right now, and what we can focus on.

And I never say - “this practice is mandatory for all mothers' health.” I offer what I know, rooted in positive psychology and behavioral science, and I let you try it on for size. 

But I always want to be completely honest with you too. Do I meditate? Yes. I meditate six days a week. And I have for years now. My kids are 11 and 14, so that allows me the time and space to stop and be still - but I have also been meditating since they were around 5 and 8, which is a very different age brackets. I practice every weekday morning after my gratitude routine, and I leave the house two nights a week to meditate in a group setting and at yin yoga. And it works for me.

Depending on your motherhood stage, you may be able to include meditation in your healing journey. And if you don’t feel like you have the capacity, then go ahead and skip to another post. But… if you tried it a few times, it didn't work, and you gave up, which is why you don’t do it - then I would probably stick around.

I’m here to tell you that yes, you can meditate – and parent, and work, and sleep, and breathe, and pay bills….and it’s not called ‘doing it all’.

The practice of self-reflection, which often serves as the foundation of meditation, is straightforward and free self-care.

And I get it; we are not encouraged to meditate as mothers — because we are busy, and it won’t solve the bigger societal issues causing moms stress.

But dissing sitting quietly to notice how you feel, makes me uncomfortable — in reality, what we are talking about is taking a moment for self-reflection, for self-care. That could look like sitting for 5 minutes and focusing on your breath, or it could look like walking around the block without a podcast or your phone in the presence of nature alone. Self-reflection CAN help with parents’ problems because it takes the focus off the hectic world we reside in and brings us back to our core, our self, and where we are psychologically.

NO AMOUNT OF SELF-REFLECTION WILL FIX OUR WORK-OBSESSED, “PRETEND YOU DON’T HAVE A FAMILY” CULTURE — BUT IT’S NOT GONNA MAKE IT ANY WORSE EITHER.

In addition to not noticing our burnout or stress, we use distraction and indulgence to ignore or withdraw from bad feelings as they try to reveal themselves. Some of us spend too much money online, watch too much TikTok at work, or maybe drink too much – and yes, I have certainly done all these things too.

Whatever they may be for you — these coping mechanisms, while protectors in themselves, also keep us from discovering when we have hit our mental health wall, and boom! we are in a full-blown Mom Tantrum and don’t know how we got there.

Meditation is not a chance to zone out and “be calm” — and it’s certainly not an escape. Meditation is just a simple practice of self-reflection, and it’s an opportunity to train your brain to notice your state - good, bad, or ugly. Your state is just your mood or fleeting emotion you may be experiencing.  And once we can notice our state, we can attend to our needs before s$*& hits the fan. And when we do, it leads to more customized self-care: like, Wow, I feel lonely — maybe I will chat with a friend, or Wow, am I mad - time for a walk outside.

@parentdifferently We've heard it all: you can't pour from an empty cup, put your oxygen mask on first, and you can't care for others if you're not caring for yourself. But do we listen? Self-care is so important for moms because the better we feel the better we can serve our kids. #GoodAFMom #MyDolceMoment #selfcareformoms #parentingexpert #momslifebelike #momentsinmotherhood #mommymode #perfectlyimperfct ♬ what happened in 2022 - Hendrix Beckitt

That’s what our “never slow down” culture takes away from us — choices. Insights from a broadened perspective, and our curiosity too. We’re just so exhausted and are lulled into the false notion that we have to go to work and be perfect there and go home and be perfect there, too. We forget to question any of it. 

Perfection does not need to be your truth because it can’t be, you’re a parent, and s#%T happens.

And I know, in a state of exhaustion, looking within can feel like a trap, like an unwinnable bargain you will make with the devil. After all, what will you find, and does it matter? But it does. Because you matter. Hustle culture keeps you in motion precisely so you WON’T stop and look within. But that’s where all your answers will lie.

So I would say YES, learn to notice your emotions and moods, and more and more, you will discover all the choices available. How can you do this? Well, it comes from mindfulness. There are many ways to learn mindfulness that we have discussed on this blog - you can try the practice “Hello Moment!” where I talk about Practical Mindfulness or this post where I explain how mindfulness can lead you to the Juicy Pause. 

And sitting quietly for 5 to 10 minutes daily can be another way to teach yourself mindfulness.

When you sit, be gentle with yourself, notice thoughts as thoughts, and allow them to come and go. It helps if you have an anchor, use something easy to return to once you notice you have drifted off. I use my breath or listen for my cat, who loves to meow and bump around the room while I sit. Getting distracted doesn’t make you a bad meditator - all meditators get distracted by thoughts; that’s part of the gig. It’s about being kind to yourself or neutral when you notice you have slipped off.

The culture isn’t going to change overnight. The only person that can change overnight is you - and if it were me, I would start with the self-care of a daily moment of reflection and try meditation.  Because there’s only one way to find what works for you: to try it ALL. I know you will find what works for you and give it every effort before walking away - because you are already a GoodAF Mom. - Stef

What to read next…

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How Can I Grow as Mother?

A fresh take on motherhood can follow these steps: reflecting, remembering, and reorientating, which can lead to new growth.

• Reflecting on what you need.

• Remembering the statistics of being a human.

• Reorientating our mindsets to focus on what we can control.

Reflecting on what you need (i.e. what is working, and what is not).

Do you have enough time to reflect at all? Are you resting enough? What are you loving about your days? These are the areas that need checking from time to time. I believe that the simplest form of self-care is self-reflection and no amount of “me time” is going to cut it if I also don’t look inside and listen to the messages contained within.

For most of us, scheduling time for rest and reflection is actually at the very wrong end of our to-do list. It’s a thing that we try to squeeze in here and there on weekends and vacations. And when we do that, it’s giving the message to our brains that it doesn't matter that much to us - it’s an extra. Instead, the message our brains receive is the things we choose to do every day before we rest are actually what’s most important.

Remembering the statistics of being a human…at all.

Have you heard of Gary Vaynerchuk? He’s a marketing guy turned motivational speaker. I have been following Gary Vee since 2008, and I read his book called Crush It because I wanted to learn how to navigate the growing social media world and get it in front of more moms. 

He has this thing he says about being alive - that is straight existential gratitude in action and something I think we need to think about when turning over a new leaf.

He says:
“400 trillion to 1, those are the odds of becoming a human being. You are more likely to win the lotto 10 times in your life, then actually having a life… So no more dwelling, no more complaining, right now, wrap your head around this ridiculous gift you were given, it’s called life.”

I think about this a lot when I am feeling low, and even though gratitude has a way of putting everything into perspective, sometimes I need a dose of the strong stuff, existential gratitude – and it never fails to stop me and shake me out of my “not good enough” trance. We are lucky to be here at all, let’s start there and hold ourselves accountable to this one special life. 

Of course, that also feels like a lot of pressure too. So let’s break that down. It’s not about valuing your life as sacred and being so careful with it you dont make mistakes. For me this mind-opening exercise is about reminding myself to notice life, to allow myself the opportunities to feel emotions deeply instead of avoid them, and to stop placing blame on other people for what may be going wrong.

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Reorientating our mindsets to focus on what we can control (and not on what we can not).

The average adult makes 35000 decisions a day according to research, and delegating can be important to lightening this load but what you are really doing when you delegate is simplifying your decision-making throughout your day. When you no longer have to decide whether to do laundry before you head off to work or when you get home your world gets a little lighter - and clearer!

We can do this by establishing more rigid routines and cutting stupid decisions and power struggles from our lives - like if he wants to wear his PJs to target let him. Another option is to habit stack tasks, so when you fold the clothes, put the ones for tomorrow on top of the dresser as you put the others away so that you don’t have to think about what to wear for at least one or two days a week. 

You can make your car a no-decision zone too - keep water, snacks, diapers, and wipes in your center console, have a separate pair of sunglasses that live in there versus the ones you constantly lose in the house, and keep a sweatshirt or two for the park as well.

Basically “Type A Mom” is the s#%t out of your life. And that sounds like a nightmare - don’t do it. Find another way to limit your daily decisions instead. Fewer choices mean faster decisions and a happier life Mama.

Finally, when we chose gratitude each day, we choose to focus on the positive over the negative in our lives. No this does not mean the negative will go away, in fact, it will still be there but we can choose to focus our mental energy on the good in our lives which ofter goes overlooked because the negative is so loud or heavy. And I hope that you start by reminding yourself you are a GoodAF Mom - Stef

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New Year, Same Me

I know it’s February but I still feel the energy of a new year personally so 2023 here we come! New Year, Same Me! And yes this year I am saying – New Year, Same Me – because it goes directly against the grain of New Year, New Me.

Why would I want a new me? 

I mean, in the past, I have been like: I’m sick of you and ready for a fresh start sure.

But the desire for a new self happens because we are unhappy. It could be with a specific part of our lives, like our parenting or maybe it’s a general malaise we feel around something not feeling quite right with our lives, like a nagging feeling of unfulfillment. Either way, we automatically think that with a new year in sight, now's a good time to fix or change ourselves to make it all better. 

This is a fixing mindset - the same one that makes us think that we need to improve or change ourselves in some way to feel better about our children’s behavior or the chaotic state of our house or our moodiness – but that is just not the case. In fact, everything we need to be happy is already inside us.

What gets in the way is mindset or the lens through which we view our lives and the world. Mindset is not 100% under our influence, our survival instincts, societal pressures, upbringing, and cultural backgrounds all significantly influence our mindset. But our mindset is not totally fixed or stuck either - you can easily experience this flexibility during a busy week where one moment you think that your work is crap or your house is full and cluttered - and then the next day you can look at it with joy and gratitude instead. 

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Learning how to nurture a more positive, compassionate mindset is our task. And something that can certainly contribute to our long-term well-being (and improve our relationships with our kids).

Just like our mindset is not totally fixed. 

Who we are, is different from who we identify to be. 

I will say that again.

Who we are, is different from who we identify to be.

Sure I am a “Type A Mom” who keeps the trains running on time. I use morning and afterschool checklists to keep my kids accountable, and my work day is planned down to the minute. I find a great deal of identity within the label of Type A Mom, just like you may identify as a Hot Mess Mom or a PTA Mom or a Chill Mom – and you have even learned to take pride in it too. 

But who you are is different from who you identify, or label yourself, to be.

Say you were to ask your friends to name a few adjectives to describe you - what would they say? Hot mess mom? Chill Mom? I don’t know if they would start with those labels per se… I did this exercise once and my bestie actually said things I would have never guessed like loyal and that I was a good hugger. And that I was giving too. These things I would have never thought of at first as ways to describe myself.

I don't identify myself as a good hugger. I don't particularly hug people all that often to be honest, but if I stop to check in with myself I can feel how much being a good hugger matters to me. It means that I am a loving and kind friend, one who is ok with being vulnerable and open enough to share a good and lengthy hug with.  

That’s who I am for sure. 

Who you are is different from who you identify as. And of course, you can be both – no one’s saying Type A Moms can’t be good huggers - I just overlook parts of myself when during reflection I go right to my identity label. At the beginning of the year, saying New Year, Same Me will help you stay open to new ideas of who you are right now without having to change a thing - and that’s a pretty awesome way to start a year I would think. And no, it doesn't mean staying stuck in old ways of thinking - in fact, it's just the opposite. 

I think we need to focus our gratitude practice on becoming grateful for who we are, not who we need to become  - because we are already whole, we just don’t see it all. We don’t see the things that our friends see - the who of who we are. 

I hope you ask a friend to tell you a few things that make you, you. And celebrate them because nothing can stand in the way of your happiness in 2023 when you look inside and discover the resources you already possess – and remember you are a Good AF Mom. - Stef

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Navigating the Inner Mom Dialogue

Gratitude does not function in a vacuum, so when we are ready to look at our mistakes, we must cultivate A gentle voice to allow these growth opportunities to teach us what we need to learn without shame.

So I would ask you to listen carefully during your morning gratitude practice or any moment of stillness for what I call your Loving Anchor. It’s the future-leaning, heart-centric voice that is always there.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is for your inner dialogue to swing negative, where you go right to complaining and resenting and reliving mistakes? Well, that is thanks to the Inner Critic or that other more judgmental and cranky voice that’s always there too.

Using a neutral moment to reflect offers us the chance to learn a new language that can counter our stress response and its overlord; the Inner Critic. We can begin waking up from the “you suck” chant and discover it distracts us from the insights our beautiful inner world offers us. 

Now ask yourself: Who would you be if you put down some of the habitual thinking your Inner Critic provides? What if you were exactly the way you are at this moment – perfectly imperfect – and with nothing to fix? If you combine your gratitude practice with the diligent and purposeful work of self-inquiry, you can find yourself on the path to lasting change.

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Running counter to our Inner Critic is something that tells you, “It will all work out,” or “You’re doing great,” or even “this feels off or not right” I call that voice/feeling our Loving Anchor. My Loving Anchor is the voice that gets talked over by my Inner Critic, but she is still there. Some may call it our inner wisdom, ring of truth, or authentic voice, but we all have it. It is our forward-looking, hope-filled dreamer of beautiful things. 

Unfortunately, over time it gets overshadowed by our Inner Critic. Learning to listen, notice and even separate who is saying what is just another step on our healing journey. When we stop to listen we can discover that we don’t have to believe everything we say to ourselves. Instead, as a psychologist and spiritual teacher Tara Brach says, “We can love ourselves into healing.” 

Before we learn more about the Loving Anchor, I want to make sure it’s said that our path forward is not in destroying or ridding ourselves of the Inner Critic – it is an evolutionary reflex. Shutting it completely up really isn’t the best option - why? Well, let’s learn about some mice.

In a study focused on learned habits, a team at MIT had mice run a T-shaped maze. Each time they reached the split in the maze, a different tone was played, which told them to go right or left. 

Each option offered a reward (chocolate milk or sugar water), but only one was available based on each tone. They did this routine for a long time to establish a true habit in the mice. They kept this up to the point where the mice still turned correctly at the appropriate tone, even if the reward was not offered.  Then the researchers took it a step further and offered the same chocolate milk to the rats, lacing it with a chemical that made them slightly nauseous. 

Did they keep drinking the chocolate milk when cued to turn? 

No, their survival instinct kicked in there...but that did not stop them from turning. So even though they knew they were turning toward something that would make them sick (and they were determined not to drink it) - they still turned out of habit.

Are we mice? No. But I use this study as a simple example that shows that our path is not towards destroying the Inner Critic - it is an evolutionary reflex or the tone that tells us to turn. We are always going to turn. But what’s important here is we can learn not to drink the milk. We can choose not to accept the content of the criticism, which starts right where we are now, with healing and acceptance. 

I am ready to stop drinking the milk, are you? I feel like quieting my Inner Critic would be awesome. And yes, it will always have something to say; I would just love for it to say it in a quieter voice and also without so much emotionally draining energy. But of course, first, we need to notice the milk is making us sick. 

This is where we can add our Loving Anchor to the mix. Like I said at the beginning, something in us knows when we are being mean to ourselves. Something tastes the poison in the milk. It’s our Loving Anchor. The simple act of noticing the negative things you are telling yourself can offer a peek into how our brain tries to keep us safe regularly.  Once you start to listen, though, you may discover what your Inner Critic has to say can be so out of whack with how you want your future to go - even if it was initially designed to keep you safe. Well, that’s when we can deliberately ask our Loving Anchor to step up. To be brave and overcrowd the bully we were genetically programmed to rely on. 

You can find examples of how to teach your Loving Anchor to speak up everywhere around you. In fact, friends can be the best teachers of this kind of caring dialogue.  My friend Lane always loves anything I do. She is ten years older than me and acts almost like my fairy godmother in many ways. And she just loves it when I make mistakes –  even more so when I share the wisdom of those mistakes with her. (Come to think of it - my therapist likes that too!) 

I agree that it is amazing to watch someone learn from their mistakes. I observe my children daily, hoping to catch a glimpse of this moment myself. It’s refreshing to watch them detach from the sticky negative residue and choose to find the wisdom inside their experience instead. The maternal gaze of your Loving Anchor is confident that we will succeed, and it’s baked directly into its soul. The future is full of possibilities, and we will find our way toward them.

When I take the time to go to my loving anchor for soothing, I discover she is kinder than necessary, patient, and accepting. She reminds me that one day is a drop in a vast bucket of a lifetime. She also shares with me that future me will benefit and survive! She fills my heart with love. She doesn’t let my Inner Critic off the hook either. She keeps it on notice: “Just because you have a bad day doesn’t make you a bad person!”

So, what inner voice are you listening to at any given moment? 

And is that the one you are going to let drive the bus?

Bonus Activity:

Think of a challenging situation you recently had to deal with or are even in the midst of - maybe it was last night’s bath time battle or the screaming fit you sat through as you drove home from Target. Ask your Loving Anchor to do you a favor. Since she mainly lives in the future in a world where things work out or don't - ask her to send you a quick note on her take on the situation. What would she have to say if she was an older sister or just you in 10 years? 

My guess is that maybe at that moment in the car or on the wet floor of the bathroom, your Inner Critic won’t let you off the hook –  but I would bet 1 million dollars that your future self does not see it that way.  Once you have your Loving Anchor’s words, write them down. They will be your GoodAF Mom Pep Talk. 

Your Loving Anchor is your innate wisdom – the voice that cares for you no matter what and already knows your heart’s intention – even if you may not!  You are imperfect and still learning, and each day that you notice the conversations going on inside your head instead of riding through on cruise control is another day you add to the pile of compounding change.  - Stef

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Gratitude Practice: Stop Signs

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I am excited to share another gratitude practice I find super valuable — I think having many different ways of practicing gratitude regularly Helps boost your brain’s rewiring, but I’m not a Neuroscientist!

I do know from experience, that noticing our body states, acknowledging when things are difficult, and labeling our emotions all contribute to becoming O.K. with making mistakes and skipping the Mom Guild on our way to a more grounded and healthy life.

We live in a world constantly begging for our attention, pulling us away from our bodies and from what we are feeling at that very moment. When we live inside our phones, we have stepped out of our bodies — if we are looking at quotes that lift us up, well then phew, but if we are scrolling through clean house after gorgeously clean house - then it’s a setup! This out-of-body experience can make it seem like the present moment is not important. 

And even if we aren’t on our phone, maybe we are walking the dog or driving down that same stretch of road, our mind is a BUZZ with ideas and thoughts about landscaping designs or that annoying way our neighbor parks his car.  After all, sometimes it feels really relaxing to think! At least for me, my imagination has always been a place to let my thoughts run wild and free, but when our thoughts become judgemental or repetitive or stuck in “planning” mode - they have officially taken control of our moment AND of our life’s story, which is made up of moments upon moments. 

My 9-year-old son just recently said to me: “Mom, when I am in class, sometimes I can’t stop counting like I will count to 1000 if I let my brain do it!”  Wow - what a machine we have at our fingertips. And sometimes it feels good to count or to plan a big event – to give our brains something to do. To be out of our body, to not feel the sticky emotions left from a tough morning or week - yes, please! However, when we settle into that cozy thought pattern, we are not in control things like cultural expectations, parental modeling, habitual thinking, and survival instincts well they take the reins so to speak.

But being in the present moment is your greatest ally as a parent. 

Noticing how we feel, where we are, and what our expectations are, immediately makes parenting a solvable puzzle. It boils down to how we think, feel and behave. 

How we feel in any given moment can be the key to unlocking new and more beneficial habits. It can be the key to feeling satisfied in a world that keeps telling us we aren’t. 

Noticing how we think also accesses the same out-of-body skills we already have when we zone out –  just for good instead. We can rebrand this zone-out time as awareness time because awareness is something you have already. It’s just noticing. You are aware of where your phone is right now, right? How about your toddler? (fingers crossed...) How about when the dog has to go out next? Hopefully, that too. You have the awareness to know you are reading this and if you wanted to you could become aware of your right foot or nose right now, yep they’re there.

If this is your first practice post, I will get back to the basics here. We can notice things as pleasant and unpleasant or neutral. We can bring a soft mindful touch to those moments and they in turn can keep us rooted here in the present. Why exactly would we want that?

Because another name for when we freak out or lose ourselves to yelling or other things that feel like inner betrayals - is what neuropsychologist, Rick Hanson, Ph. D. calls “Reactive Mode”. This is a mode of living in which we spend all our mental and physical energy coping and nothing is left for healing or growth. 

This mode of living causes us to lose control over our actions and get caught in the cycle of our learned behavior and habitual/primal responses: like if we hear a crash in another room instead of running to our child and scooping them into our arms to make sure they are ok  – we yell “What happened!!? What did you do!?”

Living in this constant reactive mode can lead to an overload of both our physical and emotional systems. The stress of it may lead to a seemingly permanent shift in our perspective (like everything is always wrong) and in turn, cause the strong urge to self-medicate to soothe our guilt (mommy wine time anyone?). And if we live in that reactive mode for too long Dr. Hanson says there are risk factors for depression and other mental issues that may begin to occur. 

When it comes to our physical health I’ll let Hanson share the bad news:

“The reactive mode assumes that there are urgent demands, so its not concerned with your long-term needs...bodily resources are depleted while building projects such as strengthening the immune system are put on hold, adrenaline and cortisol course through the blood, and fear, frustration and heartache color the mind.”

I live with both anxiety and depression as many of us do these days. I am very aware of the diligence it takes to keep myself from slipping into suffering, whether it’s due to the past or the future at any given moment. I have grown tired of the days lost to depression, the loneliness of living in the future worrying about it all, and so mindful awareness is not just a practice anymore, now it's a way of living. 

Teaching my brain to be more mindful and present helps me to stay out of reactive mode, and I can respond to my children instead. A consistent state of mindful awareness helps me to notice when I have taken the first steps toward rumination or fearful anticipation. Sometimes it’s just noticing that I have fallen into a depression on the first day it hits versus after a full week or so - but wow I will take it.

Typically mindful awareness is introduced with meditation. Take 5 minutes and notice your breathing and watch your thoughts go by like clouds. I think there are many things we ask of parents in this day and age and taking 5 or 10 minutes to meditate just feels like one more big “Ask” I’m not willing to request. I know that what you get out of these podcast episodes is that time to look inside and ask yourself the tough questions you need to ask. 

And if you meditate already - yes it’s amazing and you know the benefits. You understand the levels of calm and ease that can come from sitting still. You may have even discovered some things lurking under the surface that needed to be felt and released. These are all the good parts of meditation. But if you are stressed out because you can’t even pee alone then just forget about it for now. 

So we find ways for you to build this muscle without having to squeeze in another 10 minutes by waking up earlier or taking over your precious naptime.  This is the true self-care - when you can care for your children by first caring for yourself - for valuing your life so much that you choose to live it in the present. 

So our mindful self-care for today is an exercise that I like to call: Building In Stop Signs

Let’s be clear, pressuring yourself to be “mindful” all day will make you miserable. You will not notice enough, or you will be too conscious of all the negative emotions, etc, etc. No. The key to beginner's mindfulness is to build “Stop Signs” into your day. And the second key is using gratitude to give your mind a job to do while you reflect.

We all shuttle our kids to and from music classes and school and sports, no matter what age they may be, so car time offers a great opportunity for us to weave mindfulness into our day. I love to drive and used to take huge long road trips alone before I had kids. This was pre-podcast so I would listen to books on tape or NPR for hours on end, but what I was really doing was thinking, letting my mind go wild! I would drive for 2 hours and not even notice how far I had gone. The car was not a very “aware” place for me. So making a place where I checked in with myself felt like a steep climb at first, but it wasn’t. 

I didn’t realize it at first, but I have a place on the highway I tend to arrive at that breaks me out of my car-driving stupor. It's the mountain near my house. The largest thing on the horizon so it’s tough to ignore and when I reach it I am typically woken up from my thinking trance. At first, it was an innocent “oops, I forget I was driving for a minute” realization. But it has grown into a purposeful “Stop Sign” now. 

When I get to the mountain I use it to check in, to notice different things about my present moment. Any number of inquiries can run through my head at that point pulling me back into my body and the world around me:

• Oh man, was I zoned out the entire time I went to grab takeout? 

• How are you doing Stef, what’s your body like right now? 

• Can you think of one thing to be grateful for right now?

• Have you noticed the song on the radio? How does it make you feel? 

• Look at the light on the mountain, isn't it gorgeous today? 

You get it. The more I do this, the earlier on the highway I can catch my zone out and look around and, more importantly check-in. This Stop Sign is usually the place where I discover I have been carrying a headache around all day. I can unclench my teeth and let the realization seep in that the pain most likely contributed to my mood or feeling a little off or impatient around my kids that day. And I allow myself to release a bit of tension.

Seeing the mountain sometimes inspires me to dive into what makes me happy. I'll finally notice the song that is on and do some deep listening, finding each individual instrument in the background, following them as they weave in and out of the melody. Or if it's a day that I need a release, I will crank it up and sing so loudly that the part of me that wants to yell is freed — before I get home. 

And so, I would encourage you to find your Stop Sign this week to incorporate more noticing and gratitude during the day. We can put our noticing skills to the test here, asking ourselves (sometimes multiple times a day) what we are grateful for. And remember, this is not an opportunity to criticize or even change what is going on - I can’t fix my headache in the car, after all, I notice it and accept that, yep I am in pain, and it sucks.

Choosing to notice the fog around the mountain or if you choose folding laundry as your Stop Sign — then the soft texture of a towel as you fold it — may seem small, but these are the compounding practices that make a big difference to our brains rewiring. So even if the stresses of parenting send you to places that you have no choice to go, you still have a choice: you can simply notice the present moment use your gratitude anchor to find something good, and allow the rest to just be - because a bit of reactivity or a lot of reactivity doesnt make you a bad mom, it makes you human, and I know you are Good As Fuck.  - Stef

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Gratitude Practice: Love and Kindness Body Scan

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Let’s do a ‘parenting with gratitude exercise where we focus on our bodies. Every few posts or so, I try to give you another gratitude exercise to try because I want you to have that moment when things click, that you say, “Oh yeah, it’s so simple I just have to breath” or “Damnit I AM a Good AF mom — that’s right.” 

I think it’s important to offer a variety of options for you using the catalyst of gratitude - we have done regimented practices like lists and alarms and more creative, fast-paced ones like rapid-fire gratitude and family fun – but we haven’t dropped into the body - that grounding place we carry with us at all times. 

Focusing on our bodies and their experiences during our changing emotional states is called a somatic approach. Yes, some of the exercises somatic therapists use involve breathing, dance, or meditation – but hang on with me a bit if that is too woo for you. What I am suggesting is not some ecstatic dance; I am interested in helping you to tune in with the messages your body is trying to tell you when maybe your brain just wants to keep you nice and busy. 

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For example, when I am feeling sad, and I feel it in my body, it feels like a deep dark hole in my heart, and anxiety, well, that’s a really somatic emotion where we can feel tight or vibration or agitation that rips through - that one is hard to miss. And yes, these are the more obvious and uncomfortable emotions, but I also feel gratitude in my body, like a warm light shining from my heart.  

And there are so many more - everyone has their individualized body sensations. When we are busy, not paying attention, or just caught up in modern parenting life, we can miss the more subtle cues our bodies are trying to tell us, like - “That doesn’t feel like the right choice” or “I dont really like talking to her.” And these missed moments can contribute to our feelings of uneasiness in our lives or just general dissatisfaction. 

Typically in these practice articles, I share exercises that work for me to self-reflect, contribute somehow to my long-term healing, or offer self-compassion — all using the prompt of gratitude — and since I feel like I have skipped the body up until this point, I started to sort through my days and experiences to see if I could offer a few somatic options.

A real basic and something we haven’t talked about much on the blog is a body scan, and as soon as I thought of it, I was like, duh, Stef – because I wrote an entire book for kids based on a body scan called The Middle of the Night Book.

A body scan is the perfect example of a somatic exercise you can do to check in with yourself and see just where your body is at. And a body scan is something you can do with or without having to experience a significant and possibly crappy emotion coursing through it. I love the extra attention it gives to the different microclimates of my body and the curiosity and openness it requires. In Buddhism, they call those microclimates feeling tones and typically label them as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral to take some of the mind triggers and judgment out of the process. 

To do a Love and Kindness Body Scan you don’t have to be lying down or in a meditative state - you can simply be sitting in the school pick-up line or feeding your baby a bottle, and you bring your attention to specific body parts. Start from your feet and move part by part up your body, and at each part, you pause and say something kind like Thank you for your support feet, or I send you love and warmth legs - yes, it may feel cheesy but trust me your body does not care. Take your time and go all the way up your body saying these kindnesses and gratitudes – and once you are done, you can offer that baby you're holding the same love and kindness, or if you are alone, then the world - may all beings everywhere be loved and at peace.

This is a simple way I give myself the attention I so deserve. And you deserve it too. Using this type of preventative self-care is vital so that when you do feel a deep and wide emotion like grief or anger, allowing it to be there will be your first step, noticing it and then offering it kindness - I see you deep dark hollow in my chest, I am not going to run away this time. I offer you love and kindness, and respect the messages you may bring up.

We are complex beings who sometimes get stuck inside our heads, I sure do, and the messages up there are hit or miss. The body never lies. It will tell you just what you need to know - it’s just whether or not you take the time to listen. - Stef

Gratitude Will Save Your Motherhood

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Gratitude will save your motherhood - it saved mine.

Inside each of these blog posts, I hope you find something that resonates with you and helps you feel like a GoodAF mom - because you are! Maybe it’s gratitude, maybe it’s help with caregiver burnout, or maybe it’s mindfulness, I know you will find what works for you.

No matter the method, I know that checking in with ourselves is the simplest way to start any amount of healing.

So if you are unsure what to do next - I would start with self-reflection. And if you are looking for the next step after that, I would try offering a small piece of self-compassion - like “Wow, that is hard” or “Yeah, that’s unfair.”

But if you are looking for a system or a step-by-step path to follow, day after day, you can give gratitude a try.

I like to call that system parenting with gratitude. Why does gratitude matter to parenting? Well, I have been parenting for 14 years. And in the past 14 years, I have felt Mom Guilt, shame, isolation, resentment, burnout, self-doubt, and the list goes on.

And underneath it all lived another issue - right? It was a self-worth issue. A not-good-enough issue. It was rooted in the idea that I was a bad mom. And that issue clouded over everything I did - it was a mindset.

Every time I walked into a room, I brought that mindset with me - the mess on the floor = somehow my fault, the leaky faucet = should have dealt with it this weekend, the breakfast no one ate = I should have listened to what they wanted. I was looking through a cloud.

But as soon as I deliberately started practicing gratitude, there was no argument that I was a good mom because I started to notice all the good things I did every day. I hadn’t been noticing them –  I was just focused on all the mistakes and failures that I was making. Because of that low self-worth cloud.

Parenting with gratitude is not only about looking at the good and being complacent; it’s about realigning your mindset to focus on the good so that you can clear out all that negative self-worth talk, and you can say, “Ok, I am starting from a place of good parenting. I am a good mom who makes mistakes” and then you can go from there.

Gratitude builds upon itself from one day to the next –That’s why I like it so much. Using a daily system, I notice the effects of my effort more quickly - and when I do, I want to do more!  I want to notice more good things, and I want to do more good things for my kids and for others! I notice that I am a good mom, and I have great kids!!

I hope it works for you too! - Stef

Read Other Posts on Gratitude:

Listen to this post as Podcast - and more!

Buy the book that started it all:

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Building Blocks to Parenting with Gratitude™

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Since the focus is so heavily on gratitude during the month of November, we are going to shift a bit to talk about skills that we can use year-round for parenting with gratitude™. It’s not just during November that you can layer support upon a daily gratitude practice and add some real punch to your self-growth journey.

If you have read my Gratitude Cheatsheet, you know I have a list of habits I try to practice that build upon my intention for a grateful life. That list was made with the blood, sweat, and tears (well, not really blood) of my own trial and error as I figured out just what worked when supporting this new life filled with gratitude. What new skills could I learn during this process that would set me up for success? 

Well, there are many! Let’s read the list again:

• Wake up a bit earlier, nothing crazy, just like 5 minutes earlier. Write down 10 things you are grateful for - this trains your brain away from the negativity bias. (Gratitude)

• Remind yourself your children don’t know your past traumas or the emotional burdens you may carry. (Equanimity)

• Then remind yourself that they are new to this planet. (Empathy)

• Go through your day and observe your children with the same awe and wonder they observe the world. (Joy and Delight)

• Start saying out loud the nice things that are already in your head. (Affirmations)

• Begin noticing when you’re upset and what your expectations are at that moment. (Mindfulness)

• Before you go to bed, go into your children’s rooms and look at their sleeping faces. Wish them well, and feel your love for them intensely throughout your whole body. (Compassion)

• Mentally list 3 things you're grateful for as you get into bed. (Courage)

• Remind yourself of one thing that went well during the day. (Self-Reflection)

These steps are some of the ACTION components to our well-being equation - which is:

Intention + Attention + Action + Repetition = Results 

And they are also rooted in positive emotions that take advantage of Barbara Fredrickson's Broaden and Build cycle. And if you want to know more about the magic of the broaden and build cycle listen to Episode 13 of the podcast.
Today I’m excited to dig into three of the ideas that center around our children, and they are:

• Remind yourself that your kids don’t the emotional burdens you carry. 

• Remind yourself that they are new to this planet. 

And 

• Before you go to bed, go into your children’s rooms and look at their sleeping faces. Wish them well, and feel your love for them intensely throughout your whole body. 

To do this, we need to talk about Professor Robert Emmons's ARC Model of Gratitude. He says that gratitude does three things as we become more accustomed to its role in our lives. It Amplifies, Rescues, and Connects or ARC. Gratitude amplifies the good in our world. It helps us to see MORE of it all around us and then expect more of it as we live our everyday lives. And over time, that mindset builds and grows. 

Gratitude rescues us from the negative-leaning aspects of our minds. Have you ever felt stuck in a cycle of forgetfulness or laziness? Yep, that’s your mind at work - keeping you safe but also keeping you pretty cramped and grumpy, always looking for the next thing to go wrong. In addition to our mind’s natural tendency towards the negative, we are influenced by our environments where negative news gets more attention and the louder you yell on social or, the more salacious you act, the more ‘likes’ you get.

It’s exhausting! As Professor Emmons says it, gratitude rescues us from the negativity trap, “rescues us from the thieves that derail our opportunity for happiness, and gets us back on track to contentment and inner peace.”

And finally, gratitude connects! Once you are out of that ‘funk’ and you notice all the good around you, even the most challenging relationships may feel like less of a threat to you. In fact without gratitude, our society would crumble. We would not be connected in the ways we are to people that are outside our family unit. But when you look up from your phone and say “Thank You” to your barista an automatic link is formed between you both, and the world is better for it. 

Using the ARC model, we can take a closer look at our relationship with our children. The first system I use is to amplify my gratitude. And I do this with a series of reminders. You can write these down on a post-it and put them in your car or make a reminder that pops up once a week on your phone or you can simply reflect on them from time to time, but again they are: 

• Remind yourself that your kids don’t the emotional burdens you carry. 

• Remind yourself that they are new to this planet. 

Why do these amplify my gratitude? Well, first off, thank goodness that when I snap at my son, the only thing he sees on his end is me snapping - not my Mom Guilt or my Inner Critic telling me to hurry up or do a better job - he doesn’t need that crap it’s bad enough his mom is mad. And when we cut through the drama and simply see it as “snapping” it’s much easier to notice. Noticing when we act out of alignment with our goals is the first step towards what I call the “Juicy Pause,” or allowing for a longer and longer pause BEFORE the actual mistake. Maybe we breathe instead or use a gentle parenting phrase. But there is no pause without first noticing the unwise action – and there is noticing the unwise action when it’s covered up with a story filled with suffering, “You have to be better” - “You need to hurry up, or you will be late” - “You have to finish this report in total silence or it won’t be tight enough for presentation tomorrow.”  You know the scary voices. So reminder #1 - Your kids do not know your emotional burdens.

Reminder #2 - Your kids are new to this planet. Maybe you have a 2-year-old. That means they have been here for 24 months. That’s it. Total. Of course, they are gonna be a mess they literally just learned how to use their limbs. And sometimes they can talk like you but a lot of the time they can’t! My son, who is 10 - he’s new here! Sure he’s been around the block a few times, but he has not experienced nearly as much as I have or his brother, who is 14. He still hasn’t learned to regulate his emotions or sit still for more than a half hour - and that’s fine! I am grateful for the chance to guide him along the way - the empathy from this type of mindset shift helps us to see just how much effort they are putting in each day to grow and just to learn the lingo and the neighborhood. Would you consider someone who moved into your neighborhood three years ago a local? Or maybe they still have a few things to learn that, if asked you would be happy to teach them.

Empathy also rescues you from the ruminations of parenthood, the 100 times you need to tell them to bring their backpacks in from the car or stay away from the dog’s water dish. Remembering their new here can rescue your mind from the negative places it wants to go like impatience and frustration and bring you back to the present where it’s all one big adventure, and you just happen to be the loving tour guide.

So there are the reminders that amplify and rescue, and then there is the nighttime routine which helps to Connect. But here’s the best part especially for those of you in the throws of toddlerhood moodiness…You do it when they are asleep.

Try this for a week: Before you head off to bed for the night, sneak into your children’s rooms and look at their sleeping faces. Wish them well, and feel your love for them intensely throughout your whole body. Savor it. They aren’t awake, so they can’t talk back. You want to think about the most positive aspects of your relationship. If you want, you can list three things that you love about them in your head or write them down and leave them as a morning note. 

If you do this for a week, you will feel a deeper connection grow with your child, and sometimes we need this so that we can access the empathy and mindfulness needed to notice.

As James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, famously says, “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” And just like our GoodAF Mom Intention these ideas are not just a “try it once and let it go” activity. I offer them up as routines that you can incorporate into your parenting - they are the building blocks of what I call Parenting with Gratitude™. Just little tweaks you can make to your normal life that over time will have a big impact. We don’t need to wipe the slate clean, only amplify what is already here and true, rescue our minds from habitual thoughts and reactions and connect with the humans around us. So give it a try and I hope you know – You’re a GoodAF Mom. - Stef

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More posts on Gratitude:

How to Avoid Toxic Positivity while Remaining Grateful

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How can we remain grateful while also staying away from toxic positivity?

We are now in what my family calls ‘The Gauntlet’. The time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s that seems to go by SO Fast. And while it's exciting and fun, it’s also a lot. And I want to talk about that “a lot-ness” and about how we can acknowledge both the overwhelming aspects of a situation while also seeing the good - the silver linings.

When we accept that there are both shitty sides to the season and glorious ones, we can become more in alignment with ourselves, the present moment and our GoodAF Mom Intention.

And to do this you can use a visualization practice:

I want you to identify one SMALL annoyance in your life right now and focus on it. We aren’t gonna do a big issue today – but something that is still a bit stressful like a cookie exchange you committed to or getting matching PJs in time (both of these work for me actually). We are not going to make it go away – but silly enough we are going to make it into a household object - so pick something neutral like a hair tie or a coin got it?

Now think about your house. Some places are pleasant, there are places that are unpleasant (I see you, laundry), and then there are neutral places like a window sill that maybe gets good light but not great and isn't too shady. It’s just a neutral spot in your home.

Now please take that coin or hair tie or whatever, hold it close to your chest, and allow yourself to feel the intensity of that annoying situation as much as you can, and as you do so, place all of the feelings inside the object. Now that the object has been filled, place it on the window sill.

Now I want you to think of a situation around this time of year that fills you to the brim with gratitude or joy. And find another neutral object in your home that you will infuse with this feeling - maybe a pencil or tube of chapstick, nothing with a story. Hold it tightly and close, close, close, infusing it with all the good feelings this situation gives you. And when you are done place it on the windowsill next to the other one, just side by side they dont need to be touching.

Now take a step back.

What do you see? Well, two objects, right? Neither the hair tie nor the tube of chapstick has meaning when they are sitting there on the windowsill. They just are. One is not better than the other. One is not louder nor more vital to your world. But here’s the thing - the intensity you feel if you pick them up is similar. Studies show that stress and excitement exist in the same chemical makeup within the body in fact. However, it’s the story that we attach to the hair tie that makes it feel like suffering or anxiety, while the chapstick feels more like anticipation. 

OK, you can leave the items there on the shelf and come back to reality. They will be fine - in fact, as you walk away and come back to reality, you may notice that the anxiety you felt around the hair tie is actually more manageable now. You know where it is but you put it down for now.

This exercise does not mean you should cling to your over-commitments this season — if anything you should weed some out while it’s still early. But instead of talking about saying No this season (let’s save that for another week) we are going to talk about Benefit Finding today – and also how our relationship to stress either makes situations more manageable or just plain chaotic. I hope that this blog makes it clear that being positive all the time is not the ultimate goal. My overall well-being and yours is the goal - not blind optimism.

So if you’re unhappy or feel like your wellness journey has been put on the back burner — or left behind in childless life — you’re in the right place. Burning out is something that happens to us all and these days it happens even faster than before BECAUSE of the perfect parenting messages we receive and our surrounded by on the daily.

I ALREADY KNOW YOU ARE AN AMAZING PARENT.

You’re here reading this after all. I just think (myself included) that we forget to look at all the good things we do every day because the “bad” is so heavy and LOUD. When we hurt our kids it feels awful - like so, so bad. When we are tired we get triggered, if we carry uninvestigated emotional baggage or trauma it comes out, and if we are burned out we are not able to parent the way we want. But you aren’t all bad - you are a loving and kind parent whose intentions are good – you have both hair ties and you have chapsticks on your windowsill — and because of that truth I also know there are a million things you are doing right each day. Using a daily gratitude scan to notice the good we are fighting the autopilot to mom-shame or self-doubt.

When we are living through difficult circumstances like the ongoing stress we felt throughout the pandemic, if we can notice both our suffering and the silver lining of our circumstances and hold them as equally important we provide our brains the opportunity to grow what are called “benefit finding” muscles that support our overall resiliency. 

What is Benefit-Finding? The first studies on this skill were conducted with children who were in chronic pain due to illness and benefit finding referred to the process of perceiving positive consequences in the face of adversity – finding the silver lining in tough situations even ones that may cause a significant amount of personal suffering. However, most importantly the perception of a “silver lining” with an adverse event was most beneficial when derived with internal motivation and not external triggers. 

From the book The Upside of Stress by health psychologist Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.linked in show notes  says:

“To my ears, benefit finding sounds like the kind of positive thinking that tries to scurry away from the reality of suffering: Let’s look on the bright side so we don’t have to feel the pain or think about the loss.”

However she goes on to say:

“But despite my own allergic reaction, this research doesn't suggest that the most helpful mindset is a Pollyannish insistence on turning everything bad into something good. Rather it’s the ability to notice the good as you cope with things that are difficult. In fact, being able to see both the good and the bad is associated with better long-term outcomes than focusing purely on the upside…Looking for the good in stress helps most when you are also able to realistically acknowledge whatever suffering is also present.”

Tough times are not a good thing - wishing pandemic parenting on you so you can grow is insane and something I would never do. However, learning to accept that the tough times will be part of the whole modern parenting package and STILL see within them the good can help you cope with the feelings of helplessness. When you can see your circumstances as both temporary and also beneficial (even in the smallest way) you can adjust your mindset enough to regain your footing.

So things are both good and not so good - and thats’s O.K. right? We all have our hair ties and our chapsticks and we can put them down and look at them as just what they are - parts of a well-lived life. Share where you are in your journey with me - I would love to know, you can email me at parentdifferently@gmail.com or shoot me a DM on Instagram and I want you to remember that you are already Good AF Mom. - Stef

Is it bad to compare myself to other moms?

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Motherhood is full of comparisons. In this job with no training, and it just makes sense that look at what others are going through and see how it compares to our own experiences.

This helps us to grow and adjust; humans are social by nature, and it’s perfectly normal to look to other members of your species to see what is acceptable and what is not.

The problem with comparison is not the comparison - it’s what happens afterward. We see a perfectly clean playroom on Instagram, or maybe we visit a friend in real life whose house is always clean — and we immediately think of the piles on the basement floor that equate to a playroom of sorts or mildewy grout in our showers. And then we attach a story that clean is good and dirty or unorganized is terrible. This story takes a basic situation of different priorities and conditions and adds a layer of shame to the entire thing like:

Download the Mantra - I don’t have to be perfect to be me.

• Well, if she can do it, why can’t I?

• She works 40 hours a week like me!

• Or her kids are even younger than mine!

• Or my kids go to daycare, and I still can’t catch up

This blog offers up Parenting with Gratitude as a simple way to shift our parenting mindsets from Bad Mom to GoodAF. When we look at the world from the lens of Bad Mom, everything everyone else does makes us feel inferior. When we shift our mindset to GoodAF, we can look at the world with detached curiosity and wonder. Like - Wow, how does she keep her kids from messing up the pantry? I am going to ask her! Shame is the bully that keeps us from asking this type of question and connecting with the people around us.

THREE MAIN PERSONALITY TRAITS THAT KEEP PARENTS (AND HUMANS!) FROM FEELING GRATITUDE ARE:

EGO

CYNICISM

RESENTMENT/ENVY

And then a million temporary states keep us from feeling gratitude too. Some include:

• Awkwardness

• Indebtedness

• Self-doubt

• Materialism

• even surprise!

I would consider cynicism a form of comparing — but instead of being inferior to someone, you feel superior to them. You look at how they are doing things and judge it as inauthentic, not good enough, or just plain bad parenting.

In whatever shape our comparing comes, it’s still a form of “othering” or separating us from people in our communities - potential friends, other moms!

It becomes an ”I” versus “you” thought spiral. When I compare myself to others, I build a wall brick by brick, separating me from other moms. And brick by brick, I protect myself from the shame of not being good enough. And this is not a bad thing. The wall keeps us safe; it’s a protective mechanism. But it also keeps out connection PLUS all the things I could learn from other moms.

Comparison gets in the way of feeling grateful because your focus is not on enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not rested enough. I’m not compassionate enough or kind enough or patient enough, or silly enough.

Our mind tells us: “I want to be them (whoever they are that look perfect), not me.”

And when we’re looking at the world from that mode, we can’t see ALL the good we have. The positive aspects of gratitude that help us to “broaden and build” our perspective, as Barbara Fredrickson says, become lodged underneath the wall until we can say, “No, I don’t need to be like them. I want to be like me,” and the wall can come down we stay stuck.

Embracing our imperfect natures is the first wave of demolition needed to get unstuck.

This takes acceptance of what is – and what we want. My GoodAF Mom Intention is to be a happy human. I understand that perfection is unattainable, so as long as I make that the goal, I will never reach my ultimate goal of happiness. And so I strive for imperfection, which can be part of the goal and automatically achievable. Try it: “I don’t have to be perfect to be me.”

I am an imperfect parent. I am an imperfect writer. I am an imperfect podcast host. I am an imperfect partner. That’s the truth, it’s my reality, and I am ok with it.

Maybe you ARE cynical of other people’s motives from time to time, or perhaps you admire people but aren’t sure what to do next. Well, I think the first step is always to look for the good in everyone. I think it allows me to see the good in myself. If you’re cynical about the people around you and their motives, it makes it really hard to find the good in your own heart and in the good in your own behavior. And if you are shy or aren’t sure what to do after you notice a difference and don’t want to go to the shame party anymore - then what?

Curiosity is critical here. I want to remain open to the wisdom of my friends, experts in my field, and all the mothers trying their best. So I have to look inside at my suffering, at the superiority or inferiority I carry, to break down the wall that keeps me so separate. I am curious about myself first, then I am curious about them. I ask questions, am open to their wisdom, and learn! Curiosity fosters connection, and that’s what we need most as moms - to feel like we are not alone.

We can also be curious about our pain - why does it hurt so much being different from others and noticing the stories we attach to that pain. Don’t be discouraged if that seems daunting. Its something we can work towards together. It starts with that mantra you can download up there on this page. “ I don’t have to be perfect to be me.” As long as we keep the perfectionist or arrogant stories covering our pain - it’s just that it’s untouchable. It can’t go anywhere if you can’t even touch it.

Let’s be honest, I genuinely feel bad when I go to someone’s house who has the same aged kids as me, and it’s spotless. But suppose I remind myself that adding the additional story of shame to that pain separates me from my need for connection. In that case, I can soften a bit and allow for a bit more perspective - maybe they pay a cleaning crew once a week, and I choose to use that money for a massage. Perhaps they have a partner who doesn’t travel, or they eat takeout every night. Maybe they are never home because they are at soccer and piano, or the kids are only allowed to play outside on the weekends - who knows? I do know that these are the things that actually connect us once the wall is no longer there.

It’s when we look outside ourselves for affirmation or confirmation that’s when we get into trouble.

Look around - if you are closing yourself off from your world with those pesky walls, offer yourself grace. They were constructed to keep you safe, it was a simple way to provide a little self-care, but it’s not serving you now. Let’s release the floodgates. Allow positive emotions like curiosity, inspiration, gratitude, and joy to send those walls crashing down. We are not different than anyone else or better or worse.

We all have pain.

We all have kids who test our growth and our sanity. We all have our baggage and stories that turn that pain into suffering – and yes, that all makes us unique in our journeys – but it’s also what makes us all equal. It allows us to talk and connect and skip the comparison game. And so I hope you start by remembering how much we all have in common and that without you, we wouldn’t be the incredible community that we are - and that’s because you are a Good AF Mom. - Stef

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Yes, you can meditate

Yes, you can meditate — and parent, and work, and sleep, and breathe, and pay the bills....and it’s not called “doing it all”. Self-reflection is simple and free self-care.

I see this a lot in my social feeds: “meditating every day does not solve a working parent’s problems,” and I have to push back. I understand the sentiment of course: our culture doesn’t take care of parents, and that starts first and foremost in the workplace.

But dissing sitting quietly to notice how you feel makes me uncomfortable. Also, I believe referencing “meditation” here doesn’t make any sense - in reality, what we are talking about is taking a moment for self-reflection. That could look like sitting for 5 minutes and focusing on your breath - that could look like walking around the block without a podcast or your phone. Self-reflection CAN help with parents’ problems because it takes the focus off the hectic world we reside in and brings us back to our core, our self, and where we are emotionally.

And so I think this is an apples-to-oranges situation. What they should be saying is that a 5-minute break does not make the stress of modern parenting any better because you still need to endure the demands of a 40-60 hour workweek and no social support from our government.

No amount of Self-reflection will fix our work-obsessed, “pretend you don’t have a family” culture — but it’s not gonna make it any worse either.

How do I know? Well, it starts with the insight of a nine-year-old. One of my sons is a big afterschool talker (either you have an oversharer or a non-sharer, you’ll see). One day last year, he came home and shared that he had a bad stomachache at school, “Mom I was feeling really, really bad, like really bad. So I stopped and took a breath. And it didn’t make me feel better, but it stopped me from feeling worse!”

An adult version of a “stomachache” could be anything: anger, resentment, overwhelm, burnout, or just plain sadness. And we walk around with these aches, not noticing. And when we DO notice, it’s because things get SO bad we have to, and it’s WAY too late. We are burned out and have been stressed for days. We need the skills to notice our stomachaches earlier so we can take the necessary next steps. Instead, what does it take for us to notice? Typically it’s something we can’t ignore: we lose it on our child or our partner, or our body gives out in some way, we push good friends away, we get into a fender bender…

When I had 2 kids under 10 years old, I worked 50-60 hour weeks, traveled, and dealt with start-up hours and investors’ insane demands. One day, I lost all feeling in my left arm - my body had finally had too much. It slammed on the brakes and made me notice how out of alignment my life had become.

In addition to not noticing, we use distraction and indulgence to ignore or withdraw from bad feelings as they try to reveal themselves. Some of us spend too much money online or watch too much TikTok at work — or maybe we drink too much.

Whatever it is — these coping mechanisms keep us from discovering that we have hit our mental health wall and boom! we are in a full-blown Mom Tantrum, and we don’t know how we got there.

I know the people who crap on meditation have hit a mental health wall before — that seems evident from their determination to care for the blights of the working parent. Unfortunately, well-meaning or not, they have got it all wrong. Meditation is not a chance to zone out and “be calm” — and it’s certainly not an escape.

Meditation, or just a simple practice of self-reflection, is the opportunity to train your brain to notice your state - good, bad, or ugly. Your state is just your mood or fleeting emotion you may be experiencing. And once we can notice our state, we can attend to our needs before #$*& hits the fan. We can use this self-reflection technique as simple and accessible self-care. And when we do it leads to more self-care: like a walk outside or chatting with a friend.

I have lived the “Start-Up” life, my husband worked 12-hour days, too, add in that we also were living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, of course, we were exhausted. Until I started to take care of myself, it only felt like it was going to get worse — but as soon as I started taking care of myself, I didn’t get better right away but it stopped getting worse. And I realized that I had choices.

That’s what our “money-as-success” culture takes away from us — choices that come from a broad perspective — and it takes away our curiosity too. We’re just so exhausted and are lulled into the false notion that we have to go to work and be perfect there and go home and be perfect there, too. We forget to question any of it. Perfection does not need to be your truth because it can’t be, you’re a parent, and #&$% happens: your kid gets lice the night before a three-day business trip, or your boss tells you that you need to add another responsibility to your list with no additional pay, or one of your arms becomes unusable and in severe pain (these are all real things that have happened to me!!).

When you are in a state of exhaustion, looking within can feel like a trap, like an unwinnable bargain you will make with the devil - after all what will you find, and does it matter? But it does. Because you matter, and hustle culture keeps you in motion precisely so you WON’T stop and look within. But that’s where all your answers will lie.

So, of course, five or 10 minutes of self-reflection daily will not solve the demands of modern work culture. These two things have nothing to do with one another — yet if you fix one, the other becomes a little more manageable. And you begin to notice what parts of work you like and don’t.

So I would say YES, learn to notice your emotions and moods, and more and more, you will discover all the choices available. How can you do this? Well, you have got to dig yourself out with your own two hands. The government isn’t gonna come save you, and your boss isn’t gonna come save you, and the culture isn’t going to change overnight. The only person that can change overnight is you - and if it were me, I would start with the self-care of a daily moment of reflection. ✌️ - Stef

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Parenting with Intention

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My family and I were walking home from dinner on a very chilly night this spring and my youngest and I kept stopping to look at this or that along the way. Noticing that we were behind he immediately would yell to his brother and dad ahead of us - “Wait Up!” but they couldn’t hear him.

“Let’s run and catch up to them,” I said, and off we went. Well, apparently he does not see me run very often because all of a sudden he’s there right beside me yelling, “Look! Mommy’s running, Mommy’s RUNNING!!!” squealing with delight.

Then his brother is jumping and laughing and squealing, “Look, Dad!! Look!” and I’m dying laughing because it's all so obvious - of course, I can run. I mean we all can run. I just choose not to because I don’t really like it, not to mention, what grown woman runs in heels with her kids? But boy was it fun to run with him - to laugh and connect and warm our bodies in the cold air.

The honest truth is I have often chosen not to run with my kids, choosing to avoid what may end up being joyful and fun, for many years. Instead, I have chosen to strategically to stay on the sidelines and keep watch with my critical eye:

Did he just dismiss that kid? 

Why does he have to always be so mean to his brother?

Was that a good way to intervene when they were fighting? 

That mother handled that situation so much better than I ever will.

Why are there some parents who seem so happy and then there’s me?

Am I the only one who wakes up each morning just waiting for the other shoe to drop? Listening for children arguing down the hallway as I dress, or stepping on yet another lego they refused to clean up cursing my weakness as a parent all the way to the coffee pot. Yes, it's my first instinct to think things are not going well and that it’s my fault. 

In this parenting story presented by my brain, now featuring!: Kids who are destined for therapy! And who will hate me when they were older! And forget the present - they will never listen to you no matter what you say!

If I were just a little bit better of a mom, if I just read one more book on parenting, then maybe things would line up and I would achieve mom greatness.

And so (fueled by endless amounts of caffeine) I became obsessed with child development. 

I became the parenting-expert you were lucky to live next door to, the "Super Nanny” your friend bragged that she had snagged. And yes, I could pretty much tell you what was going on with your child if you asked. Totally helpful for my career as a nanny, not so helpful after telling my son “I love you no matter what” and his comeback was: "No don't you love me all the time - not when I'm sad or you're mad - I don't believe you.” #tearmyheartout

Determined to keep this hurt (this failure) from stopping me - I kept reading. Book after book after book, searching for clues. And every day I struggled to hold on as I tried “tips and tricks” and failed.

I lived in this cycle for years! My kids did something, I reacted. I immediately then treated myself like a failure and went looking for external help, clinging to workshops and expert advice and when that didn’t work immediately I would lose my sh*t again - which perpetuated the cycle. 

The more I read about their little brains and their development, the more empathy I developed for their struggles. I also discovered just how hard it was to play catch up as their brains and bodies grew through substantial leaps and I pretty much stayed the same. 

Here I was arriving each morning with the same baggage from my childhood traumas: my negative self-worth and self-talk, my thirst to be the "Perfect Mother”. And all along I was constantly looking outside myself longing for the perfect solution to my Good Mom/Bad Mom cycle.

The struggle was indeed real, and it was even happening to me - the Super Nanny. 

The books had failed me, they never addressed my experience, only what my children were about to go through. The goal of being a perfect mother is not reachable and I didn’t realize I had been trapped inside my good intentions all along. I wasn’t the perfect mother and I was never going to be. 

We all have childhood stories that make us different from other people, partners who have different styles then we do, interfering yet well-meaning family members, and friends who make it look easy. 

Parenting is a constant and evolving process and you need to decide what you want out of the relationship. As the Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield says at baby blessings: “You now have a live-in Zen Master - they are here to help you grow”. It’s never going to be over, your kids will always be your kids and every day they offer you an opportunity for deep and reflective self-growth.

I have come to look at it as a practice in true authentic self-care more than anything else. At the beginning of this self-care practice, I softened my intention to be a “Perfect Mother” to just becoming a better parent for my kids. But now after many years of practice, my intention is to just be happy.  

And most days I am. I surprise myself with how far I’ve come every day and I stand in amazement - really in awe - at how good it feels to be ok with imperfection.

Don’t expect to come to my house and see me interacting with my kids like some magical Mary Poppins because that will be very far from what you see. We have plenty of days where we argue and I yell and things are really hard. But the difference is that those days don’t define me anymore. I can brush off a “You’re so mean”. I can meet my children where they are and support them in a way that sends me deeper into the circular practice of gratitude and contentment.

My intention to be happy is stronger than my intention for perfection ever was because I look for the good in every day and I reflect on what went right and not on what went wrong. Because there is a difference between wishing things would change and intending to make those changes within yourself.

My goal is to help you to begin the process of shifting the type of parenting that you do now to something a little bit different, something that may result in your being a little bit happier. It may not be better right away, but we all learn through experience, growth doesn’t happen overnight. So what is your intention - what are you ready to stop wishing for and make a practice instead?

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