The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Motherhood

Here I am again. Day three of feeling like the worst mother, even though somewhere deep down, I know I’m not.

After a morning of intense energy between my six-year-old son and me, with my period right around the corner, I am completely drained. And yet, the anger has built up so much inside me that I know I need to move it through my body.

So, after the kids head off to co-op and my amazing mother-in-law comes to take my youngest, I choose movement.

First, I walk up and down the street. But it’s not enough. The anger is still there, sitting in my body, asking to be moved. So I get on my bike, ride for thirty minutes, and leave as much of it as I can there on that bike.

Now I’m sitting in my sacred box, the infrared sauna, waiting for the deep sweat to come. Waiting to release whatever is still lingering from this morning. Waiting for a moment to breathe, reset, and begin again.

And as I sit here, I find myself thinking about mothers. About motherhood. About the sheer weight of it all.

The stories we tell ourselves. The stories society tells us. The expectations we carry, often without even realizing we’ve picked them up.

But here’s the thing: they’re all just that. Stories.

And what I find so powerful is that the more honest we become about our stories, the more we realize we aren’t alone in them.

Somewhere out there is another woman experiencing something remarkably similar. Another mother who feels the anger, the guilt, the overwhelm. Another woman who is afraid to say any of it out loud because she worries about what people might think of her if she does.

What if we stopped pretending we had it all together long enough to recognize one another?

When I sit with everything that’s been unfolding over the last few weeks, especially with the full moon approaching, I can see the threads that keep finding their way back to me. The things asking to be witnessed. The patterns asking for my attention. The places where I’m being invited to look a little deeper and figure out how I want to move forward.

And if I’m going to be honest and open with you all, then I need to tell you what’s real for me right now.

I have a massive control trigger around food.

What fuels our bodies. What nourishes us. What we put on our plates.

And my kids? They trigger the absolute fuck out of me when it comes to food.

Even as I sit here trying to write about it, I can feel the wall going up. I can feel myself wanting to bite my tongue, to soften the truth, to leave out the parts that might make someone uncomfortable.

Maybe I’m afraid of being judged. Maybe I’m afraid someone will misunderstand what I’m trying to say.

But I think there’s something else, too.

When I write, I don’t want advice.

And I know that might sound strange, especially because so much of what we do as women is wrapped up in helping, fixing, advising, and taking on one another’s emotions. We want to make things better. We want to offer a solution. We want to help someone find their way through whatever they’re experiencing.

But ladies, let me be clear: it is not our job to fix one another.

Sometimes we just need to be witnessed. Sometimes we need to say the thing out loud, without someone immediately telling us what we should do about it.

Sometimes we need a space where we can be honest about the parts of ourselves we’re still figuring out.

So here goes.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been noticing this thread around food. I’m trying to understand it, to find the balance, and to get curious about what’s really happening underneath my reactions.

I get angry when my kids clean out my fridge of the good food within two days. And underneath that anger is the thought of having to make another trip to the grocery store. The reality of our limited grocery budget. The mental load of constantly planning, preparing, and trying to make sure everyone has what they need.

There’s a very real, practical side to this.

But there’s also something deeper.

I want to teach my kids to listen to their bodies. I want them to understand nourishment. I want them to grow up knowing how to care for themselves and make choices that support their health.

And yet, here I am, getting angry when they don’t make the choices I think they should.

I get frustrated when they carb-load instead of building what I consider a “healthy” plate of proteins, fats, fruits, and vegetables.

I even went as far as designing a printable plate with different food options to help guide them toward more balanced meals.

And, as kids do, they followed it for about a day before essentially saying, “Fuck you, Mom. I’m going to do what I want.”

And it drives me absolutely nuts.

I can laugh about it now, sitting here in my sauna, but in the moment? It brings something up in me that feels so much bigger than what’s actually happening on their plates.

Because when I really sit with it, when I follow that thread all the way down, I find fear.

I’m afraid I won’t be able to give my kids all the nutrients they need to grow up healthy.

I’m afraid they’ll end up in my situation. That one day they’ll be diagnosed with cancer, too.

I spent so much of my life thinking I would never end up like my mom, who died of breast cancer when I was eighteen. And now, here I am, navigating my own cancer diagnosis.

It’s hard not to let that fear seep into the way I mother. Hard not to look at the choices my kids make and wonder whether I’m doing enough to protect them from a future I know all too well.

But there’s a difference between wanting to nourish my children and feeling responsible for controlling every choice they make.

And I’m beginning to see how easily those two things can get tangled up.

I want to give my children the tools to care for themselves. I want them to understand the beauty of real food, the importance of nourishment, and the relationship between what we put into our bodies and how we feel.

But I also know that fear is finding its way into this process. And when fear takes the lead, something that comes from love can begin to feel like control.

That’s a hard thing to admit.

Especially when your intentions are good. Especially when you genuinely believe you’re trying to do what’s best for your family.

And then there’s the other side of this that I’ve been noticing.

I’ve become so strict with myself around food during this detox that I’ve taken some of the pleasure out of eating.

Physically, my body feels great. But mentally, I’m feeling the toll.

Food has become something I think about, plan around, restrict, and try to get right. And I’m realizing that nourishment has to be about more than just checking all the right boxes.

I want to feel good in my body. I want to support my healing. I want to give myself the best chance I can.

But I also want to enjoy my food. I want to experience pleasure. I want to share meals with my family without every bite carrying the weight of whether or not we’re doing it right.

I want balance.

And maybe that’s the thread I’m being asked to follow right now. Not how to get everyone to eat perfectly. Not how to control every variable. But how to make room for nourishment without letting fear take over the table.

I don’t have the answers yet. I’m still sitting with it all.

And maybe that’s enough for today.

Because I imagine there are other mothers sitting with their own versions of this. Maybe food isn’t the trigger for you. Maybe it’s screen time, school, money, your children’s behavior, the state of your house, or the endless feeling that you’re somehow falling short.

Maybe you have your own set of fears about the future, and without even realizing it, those fears are shaping the way you show up in the present.

And maybe, like me, you’re trying so hard to get it right that you sometimes lose sight of the very thing you’re trying to protect.

So, to the mothers who don’t have it all figured out: you’re not alone.

And if someone tells you they do, well… I don’t know. I’d probably raise an eyebrow. LOL.

We are human beings raising human beings. We are carrying our own histories, our own grief, our own fears, and our own hopes for the people our children will become.

We are going to have hard days. We are going to lose our patience. We are going to get things wrong. And we are going to have moments when we look at ourselves and wonder what the actual fuck we are doing.

What matters, I think, is that we keep showing up. That we keep getting curious about our own patterns. That we learn to recognize when our reactions are about what’s happening right in front of us and when they’re about something much deeper.

And that we give ourselves the same grace we so desperately want to give our children.

We also need to ask for help.

Lord knows it takes a village.

And yet, somewhere along the way, it feels like our villages have gotten smaller and smaller. We are raising children, managing households, navigating our own healing, and trying to hold everything together, often with very little support.

We weren’t meant to do all of this alone.

So maybe rebuilding our village doesn’t have to start with some grand plan. Maybe it starts one person at a time. Saying hello. Inviting someone over. Being honest about how we’re actually doing. Letting someone see the messy parts instead of waiting until we’ve cleaned them all up.

Maybe it starts with being the woman who listens without trying to fix. The woman who can sit beside another mother in the middle of her mess and say, “Me too.”

Because what if we created spaces where women didn’t have to perform, prove, or pretend?

Spaces where we could lay down the weight for a little while. Where we could be held, replenished, and nourished by one another.

Not because we have everything figured out.

But because we don’t.

And maybe that’s exactly where we begin.

To building a village where women can finally exhale.

In Peace, Love and Service,

Rebecca