164 | Why Mom Guilt Follows You Everywhere You Go

Hey Mama!

So you're helping with homework, but your mind is on the work that isn't getting done. You finally sit down to rest, and all you can feel is how behind you are. No matter where your body is, your mind is somewhere else, and the guilt just follows you from room to room.

Maybe you keep quietly asking, "What should I be doing instead?" You love being a mom, but the dreams sitting on your heart make you feel guilty too, like choosing one means you're failing the other.

Here's the shift: you're not struggling because you're a mom. You're struggling because you've been living life divided. Motherhood in one box, your goals in another, everything quietly competing against each other. But God never designed your life to be split apart. He designed it to be woven.

In this episode, you'll find:

• Why guilt grows in a divided life, and how nothing really changes except the location of the guilt
• How an identity anchored in Christ (instead of performance) quiets the constant pressure
• Why slow does not mean failing in the season you're actually in

If you constantly feel torn between motherhood and the things on your heart, take the Breakthrough Mom Guilt Quiz to uncover the specific pattern keeping you stuck. 

More FREE Resources:

Take The Quiz: Break Through Mom Guilt Quiz

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FREE Community:  Break Free From Mom Guilt

Instagram: @_restoredmind

Email: carolinethao@restoredmindllc.com

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It's time to become to the mom you want to be. You can do hard things!
"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me"- Philippians 4:13

Transcript

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Does mom guilt ever really go away? Or is motherhood always going to feel like being pulled in two different directions, wanting to fully show up for your kids while also feeling pulled towards the things that's sitting on your heart? Because many Christian moms are stuck believing that if they pursue one, they're automatically failing the other. But what if the real problem isn't motherhood? What if it's the belief that your life is supposed to be divided in the first place? Let's talk about it Welcome to The Restored Mind, biblical wisdom for Christian moms who are tired of guilt, tension, and feeling divided. Here, we build a woven life with peace, growth, and connection. I'm Caroline Tau. Let's do this If you constantly feel mentally torn between motherhood, responsibilities, and the things on your heart, take my breakthrough Mom Guilt quiz. It's linked in the show notes for you. It's going to help you uncover the specific guilt pattern keeping you emotionally stuck, so you can stop living under pressure and start responding from truth instead of guilt All right. Welcome back, mama. I'm so excited that you're here. If you're new, hello, my name is Caroline. So glad to meet you. So at the very beginning of this episode, I asked a question: Does mom guilt ever really go away? It's a question that I used to ask myself all the time because there was a season where I was genuinely thinking that I was gonna be stuck forever, and it was gonna be with me for the rest of my life. I couldn't see an end to it. And I remember feeling frustrated because I do love being a mom, I truly do, but I also couldn't ignore the things that was sitting on my heart. So like the ideas that I had, the dreams, the goals, and really the things that I wanted to build out. And instead of bringing excitement, those desires actually started making me feel incredibly guilty. And I felt like I was always being pulled into different directions 'cause a part of me wanted to pour everything that I have into motherhood, and the other part of me wanted to pursue the things that wouldn't leave my mind alone. And no matter what I chose, I felt like I was failing somewhere else So what I did was I focused on my kids, and I thought that that was the right thing to do, but I felt guilty about everything else. And honestly, I thought that that was normal because I was doing the right thing. I was focusing on my kids, raising them, and trying to be this mom that I aspired to be. And then, of course, every now and then, I would get curious, and I would start working towards my goal, but then I would feel guilty that I wasn't spending time with my family. It's like when I spent time working towards that goal or that dream, it's like I was, quote-unquote, "wasting time." And really, no matter where I was, my mind was just gonna be somewhere else. And looking back now, I can see something that I couldn't see back then, which is God, in His wisdom, in His grace, His love, and His mercy, was actually revealing something much deeper. Because many years later, I realized I was not struggling because I'm a mom. I'm struggling because I was living my life divided. I thought motherhood belonged in one box, my goals in another, relationships in another, and church belonged in another box. And honestly, everything just felt separated. And because everything felt separated, everything felt like it was competing against one another. So today, I want to introduce you to something that I call the woven life, because understanding this changed the way that I viewed guilt, motherhood, and the responsibilities or the gifts and talents that God has entrusted me with. And it's been life-changing. And my hope for you in this episode is that it's also going to help you break free from mom guilt, all right? Because mom guilt grows in a divided life. And I think many moms unknowingly believe that motherhood and the rest of their lives are competing against each other. So they live with a constant sense of tension, and this is what it looks like. When they're at home with their children, they're thinking about the work that is not getting done, but when they're working, they're thinking about what they should be doing at home. And then when they're resting, they're thinking about everything that they're behind on. And so the body is at one place, but the mind is in different places, and it's just a loop that continues to cycle itself over and over again. And eventually that creates this mental fatigue. It's like this emotional exhaustion that happens over us. We feel overwhelmed. We feel maybe irritable, and that's probably something that we can all relate to, where we're just lashing out at our, our kids, our husband, and we don't really know where this overstimulated feeling comes from And it doesn't help either that we're constantly feeling behind and feeling divided because we keep asking, "What should I be doing instead?" So the divided life constantly compares one responsibility against another, and because of that, guilt is always going to find a place to grow. I see it all the time, and I hear the moms in my coaching program talk about it. A mom is helping her child with her homework, but then feels guilty because she's not working on her business, for example, 'cause that's something that I have experienced in the course of the school year. I'll be working on something, and my daughter would just walk into my office, and she'll want help with her homework in the middle of my doing something, and it breaks my concentration, and that can be frustrating. And the thing is with me, when I was working on my business, I felt guilty that I wasn't spending time with my daughter as she wanted to work on her homework or read a book together. And so if this is something that you can relate to, just know that nothing changed except the location of the guilt. Because the problem was that we just believe that those two parts of our life were competing. And so when it comes to the woven life, it honestly begins with identity, this is one of those things that we uncover inside my coaching because if identity remains rooted in your performance, meaning the things that you do or how much you're able to do, guilt will always find a way back in. And Jesus talks about this in Matthew 7 when he describes the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish man who built his house on the sand. he talks about how the storm comes for both, and the difference was the foundation. Performance or the things that you do can be unstable ground, and the achievements that you get from the work that you're doing are also possibly unstable ground. Because when your identity is rooted in performance, guilt gets the final say-so, and it speaks pretty loud. It's going to feel like failure. It's gonna tell you that peace depends on the productivity or that your freedom is just one more task away. But everything rises and falls based on what you've accomplished that day. However, when your identity is rooted in Christ, it's completely different. Because motherhood is not going to compete with work, and your work is not going to compete with you serving in your community in whichever capacity you want it to, and it's not going to compete with your relationship. None of it competes because every part of it flows from one an- from one another. Because every part of those things flows from the same foundation. So yes, the activity or the thing that you're doing might change, but the identity doesn't. So it's not multiple lives fighting for your attention. It's actually this anchored life, and that's the beginning of a woven life because it embraces the season that you're in. One of the biggest places that moms experience guilt is when the reality doesn't match the expectations, and that's kind of those things that my husband and I talk about, like, what's the expectation versus the reality? An example that I have is when your kids get sick. It's not something that you plan for, but when it does, it changes your plans. Maybe it shifts some schedules around, and then there's these unexpected needs that arise. And then suddenly, whatever progress you've made, it just feels slower than expected, and it's not as satisfying. And many of the moms that I talk to interpret these slower times as failure. And I have to say, I've said it to a mom before and I'll say it again, that slow does not mean that you're failing, because our God is incredibly intentional. And when we walk with the Holy Spirit and we keep in step with Him, movement is not always fast. Sometimes faithfulness looks like it's gonna be slower than expected. It could also look like we need to adjust some things in our lives, in our schedule, whether it be for a week or maybe for a month or for a whole season. And of course, sometimes faithfulness means we are caring for what is directly in front of us. The tension comes from resisting the season that we're actually in. So we're trying to live in a season we wish we had instead of realizing what is actually in front of us But peace begins when we stop fighting reality and start asking, "Okay, what is God asking me to faithfully tend to right now?" Because presence honestly matters more than the frantic pushing or striving,. And this is why I love the story of Mary and Martha, because Martha in Luke was busy. She was serving. And Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, And the thing is, when Martha asked Jesus to have Mary help her, he did not condemn Martha for wanting to serve. He said Mary chose the good portion, which would not be taken away from her, but does not condemn Mary for wanting to serve. Because serving still matters. But it was her striving that pulled her away from the source of what she needed, and I think many moms can relate to that. We're trying to manage everything. We're trying to stay ahead and, you know, we're trying to make sure that nothing falls apart, and eventually we begin living with a constant sense of internal urgency. It's kinda like we always feel like we're gonna somehow fall behind if we don't do the tasks that we are telling ourselves to do. It could happen in our work, in our home. We can feel behind in our goals, maybe in our relationships or how we are growing spiritually. But I really love how Jesus says, "One thing is necessary," because the invitation is not to stop serving. The invitation is to remain connected to him while we serve instead of working out of performance as our foundation. Because guilt grows when you are continuing to keep every aspect of your life separated into these boxes, as I like to describe them. But I also love that the woven life gives you that freedom to say that you don't need to have these different parts of you competing. You can be helping your child right now, and that can look like faithfulness. And then of course, later you can work on a project, and that would look like faithfulness. And you know what? Tomorrow when you rest, that could be what looks like faithfulness. The responsibility or the focus ends up changing, but faithfulness remains. So the question is, does mom guilt ever really go away? And truthfully, I think that guilt will still try to knock on the door from time to time because we're human, But I don't believe that guilt has to remain in control because the more your identity becomes anchored in Christ, the more you stop treating motherhood and the rest of your life as competing categories. And the more that you embrace the season God's placed you in, the quieter guilt becomes. Because again, you're not drawing from a place of having to do all the things. You know that you're being anchored in Christ, and so what you're doing is sufficient for the day Mom guilt didn't begin because you became a mom. Mom guilt grows when you believe that your life is supposed to be divided. But the thing is, God never designed us to have this divided life. He loves relationship. He wants us to have a life of unity with each other and with Him. And so when He designed your life, He designed it to be woven together through Him. So your identity, the foundation in which you operate, your life, and when you begin living from that place, guilt no longer gets the final say because you're no longer living divided. You are living woven. And I know that you're taking these faithful steps to become the mom that you want to be, and it can be incredibly hard at times. But as I always say, you can do hard things Thanks for spending time with me today, mama. If this episode encouraged you, would you share it with another mom who needs it too? And don't forget to hit follow so the next time a new episode drops, it's waiting for you. Until next time, go in peace