Why I’ve finally let go of the mum guilt

mum guilt
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I remember in the early days of motherhood, I used to feel guilty….almost constantly. I’d feel mum guilt at the thought I wasn’t mum enough, or doing this motherhood thing right. I was eaten up with mum guilt when I had to return to work and let someone look after my baby instead of me. Later on I would beat myself up when I couldn’t make pretty cupcakes for the school bake sale, or Pinterest worthy looking craft. I would berate myself if I had snapped and felt in a foul mood that day. Or if I was too tired to cook from scratch that evening.

The stories we tell ourselves

But then I realised, the stories we create around mum guilt in our head are totally ridiculous! When we let all these things build up in our mind, they can seem a lot more serious than they actually are. When you say them out loud, or even write them down, you realise that your ego is trying to do one over on you with the mum guilt!

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I soon cottoned on that the best thing to do if I ever felt guilty about anything was to tell someone what I was feeling. Getting it out of your head and out there into the real world suddenly made me realise that the mum guilt I was feeling was not only totally toxic, but also very pointless.

Mum guilt is just a big old bully

You see the thing about mum guilt is that it is an incredibly dis-empowering emotion. But I eventually trained myself to acknowledge that emotion, and question it. And as soon as I questioned it, it would pretty much shrivel up and retract into a corner. Much like a bully when you confront it.

So I guess that mum guilt was just a bully I learned to stand up to. I would stand tall and confident in its face, tell it I didn’t like what it was doing, and sometimes even mock it. But always, I would walk away from it, before it could entice me further into its lair.

Soon my attitude towards mum guilt became a habit, and these days I rarely feel it….although I am certainly not immune to the odd relapse. One of the reasons I am so happy to have let go of the mum guilt is because this: It is a good lesson for our children too.

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Ditching the mum guilt helps us be better role models

Not submitting to mum guilt is not only good for our self esteem but also helps us not to pass on the baton of negative self talk in our children too. And considering that good self-esteem is the foundation for every happy child, then surely that is the best reason of all to finally ditch the mum guilt.

Do you struggle with mum guilt? Do leave a comment because remember, talking about it makes everyone feel a whole lot better!

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