You Don't Have to be Calm to be a Good Mom

If you’re an overstimulated mom who’s tired of being told to “just stay calm..." me too! We’re unpacking the Calm Mom Myth — the unrealistic pressure for moms to always be gentle, composed, and regulated, even when overwhelm & sensory overload are hitting hard.

You’ll learn why “calm” isn’t always functional for an overstimulated or sensory-sensitive mom, how your nervous system naturally moves through waves of activation and rest, and why repair and reconnection matter more than staying perfectly calm.

If you’ve ever thought, “I just can’t stay calm,” this conversation will encourage you to:

•  understand your body’s cues
•  release the guilt
• ... and redefine what "calm" really means for you

In this episode:

• The difference between being calm and being regulated
• How forcing calm can backfire for a sensory-sensitive nervous system
• How to repair after you lose your cool (without shame)
• Explore your own functional definition of calm for neurodivergent and sensory-aware moms

Perfect for:
Overstimulated moms, sensory-sensitive moms, and homeschooling moms who crave more connection and less guilt — even when the house feels loud and your life feels a little too much.

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• 🎁Get your free "calm mom" reflection guide here. Does "calm" really mean what you think it means? If you're tired of being stuck in a cycle of mom guilt and setting yourself up with impossible expectations... start here.
• Read this blog post about your body's internal sense (interoception) here.

This podcast is not meant as medical advice or a substitute for any medical advice. Please contact your health professional with any mental health or physical health questions or concerns.

Transcript

 I used to think that the best moms were the ones who never raised their voice, never lost their patience, and never needed to hide in the bathroom just to take a breath. So every time that I fell short of that ideal, I felt like I was failing. Let me give you an example because I still feel that way sometimes.

It's crazy how easy that this comparison can kick in. When we are looking at other moms, I experienced this a lot when I knew that four kids was probably our max for me to be able to be a healthy person and a close friend of mine kept having kids. And look, I know that this is a highly personal decision for a lot of reasons, but I kind of wanted more kids and I just felt that envy creep in because what did her nervous system have that I didn't have, that she could handle the chaos in what felt like a, a better way?

What was wrong with me? I don't. Know if nervous system jealousy is actually a thing, but I'm gonna say it is. And the craziest part of this story is that the comparison game affects everybody because that exact same person really thought that I was the saint of gentleness and patience, but my kids could definitely attest otherwise.

So if you've ever felt like your overstimulation or sensory wiring means that you are a bad mom, you're not. One of the reasons we can feel so stuck is because we are chasing this ideal that does not always serve us. In fact, it rarely does. Today we are going to unpack the myth of the calm mom. Where does it come from?

Why can it hold you back? And what is a more functional version of regulation that can actually support you? But before we get more into it, let me introduce myself. I am Whitney. I'm a pediatric occupational therapist turned nervous system support coach for moms who feel to out and talked out by our kids, even though we love them.

So that you can find connection and enjoy life in the middle of all the chaos. We do this through nervous system support that's targeted for you. I serve moms one-on-one in coaching and I offer the occasional workshop. You can learn more about my services@sensationalmoms.com. First of all, let's talk about where this idea even comes from.

I mean, really, this is too long for just a podcast episode, but let's go there just a little bit. Maybe it's because of the words we use when we talk about parenting words like gentle parenting. Maybe it's a response to how you. Parented. Maybe your childhood was chaotic or a little bit less than calm and you want something different for your kid.

Maybe it has to do with religion. I know as a Christian, I think a lot of people confuse self-control with being calm. I mean, let's be honest, Jesus was definitely not always calm. Should he have been so. I kind of consider calm a lazy word when it comes to how we want to be as moms. And let me just back up for a minute and say that the reason our word choice really matters is because if we're gonna criticize ourselves, let's set realistic expectations and get laser specific when we understand.

How we want to be as moms and backing up and figuring out whether calm is even the right word really matters. Because if we're setting ourselves up for an unrealistic ideal, if or if we don't really know what we mean by calm, then how will you know? When you have reached that point, so it's worth going there for a little bit, even if it feels like you might be getting lost in the weeds like Whitney, does it really matter what word I use?

Hang with me. Maybe you're not ready to let go of calm yet. Go into your imagination with me just for a short time and. Invite your calm mom ideal to come sit with you just for a little bit and see if a different name might suit her better. Do you really mean calm? Maybe you mean self-controlled, grounded, or connected, maybe at peace.

Even if that piece is inside of you and not always visible on the outside of you, I can't answer that for you personally, but it's worth sitting with that question for a while. So I've actually created a free journal reflection guide about this myth of the calm mom to help you figure out more helpful language for yourself.

Figure out what you really mean. If you say that you wanna be a calm mom, be sure to grab yours at the link down below in the show notes because what is calm anyway? So as if wrapping your head around what calm means for you is not challenging enough, it's important to remember that for many of us, whether we have a DHD, whether we're autistic, have sensory processing differences or maybe just a nervous system that can run a little hot.

Staying calm really is not just about your willpower despite what you have told yourself or what you've been told. A lot of it really comes down to your capacity and word choice put aside, does. It always make, makes sense to be calm, right? There are certain situations where being activated and having high energy really makes sense and is most appropriate.

For example, I know that when I have personally felt really disconnected from myself, um, and really dysregulated. Chronically than even like having a high alertness level when you should, like when you're gonna get hit by a car or, uh, I can think of a certain instance where a deer was about to run out in front of the car and I was in the passenger seat and my husband was driving.

And in that situation, um, maybe not yelling, but a loud voice to get attention that says, Hey, there's a deer stop. It totally have made sense, but I could not muster that level of activation, and we almost hit the deer because my voice was just so chill and laid back. It did not match the situation. I did not need to be calm.

Then Calm is not always functional, so is it really the most accurate word to use? Is that really what you are wanting is to be calm all the time? Probably not. Now, before we go on, let me just be crystal clear that I am definitely not saying that your emotional regulation doesn't matter as a mom, right?

I mean, you probably don't think that either, because if that's what you thought, you wouldn't be listening to this episode. You might be listening to an audio book or something. But yes, your emotional regulation definitely impacts your kids. It impacts their emotional regulation development. You probably know this and that might feed into the guilt cycle and why you want to be the calm mom anyway, but um, I am gonna cite some research down in the show notes for you to check out if you are a science nerd like I am, that you can read a little bit more about that.

But it's just important that you know that a regulated nervous system is not always calm. A healthy nervous system can ride the waves, as I have said before, of activation and then returning back to a balanced state instead of remaining calm all the time. So you can kind of think of it like a rubber band, right?

That it's going to be able to stretch and then come back to baseline without snapping. So before we go on, jot this question down and come back to it later. When do you feel the most expected to be calm? And if you go back to that moment, what's happening in your body? When you feel that pressure to stay calm, do you feel tension?

Do you feel at ease?

So let's talk about why calm is not always functional. In fact, distress to stay calm all the time can definitely be counterproductive. If you tell yourself that you have to stay calm, you're probably going to be suppressing feelings, masking reactions, and disconnecting from your body, which actually increases tension.

I mean, come on, don't gaslight yourself. Stress actually makes a lot of sense sometimes.

As an aside, did you know that the Guinness Book of World Records no longer allows sleep deprivation records because of the negative health effects? You can look it up. Uh, look up the Gardner trip sleep deprivation study from the 1960s. It's fascinating stuff in that it would definitely would not fly in modern times with the a PA, and yet motherhood is basically one lifelong study in sleep deprivation.

Some cases are more extreme than others. Yet we continue to hold ourselves to really high standards of being that calm mom. Still after a night of really poor sleep after a week or a month, or in my case, years of really poor sleep. And don't get me wrong, moms are capable of a lot of magic, but. That magic comes to an end.

We are humans. Back to the idea that you can mask your frustration and the emotions that you consider negative emotions and have that calm mom appearance, that disconnect can be really, really dysregulating. Anxiety provoking for a lot of our kids, especially if you have a highly sensitive kid that is extra sensitive to mom's emotions, kids are able to pick up on that dissonance, and especially those kids, if you have one of those kids like I do, maybe that's why you're listening to this podcast then that.

Feeling of needing to have that calm facade no matter what is probably just making things worse. So remember, your nervous system does not always stay at baseline. It is meant to cycle. Activation comes and then regulation is riding that and returning back to that baseline. Maybe you're not feeling calm, but you're grounded.

Maybe you're not quiet, but you're steady. Maybe the mark of good motherhood isn't that you never raise your voice, but that you can come down back into yourself and into connection with your kids when you do. Because the goal is not constant calm. Its functional regulation, making sure that you can show up.

Repair and connect. So I'm just gonna call out the elephant in the room here. If you go to my website, sensational Moms, you're gonna read about calm, and that's because that is often what we want as moms, and that's what draws us into learning about our own self-regulation and emotional regulation and ways to support ourselves.

But learning what calm actually is and what you mean by calm is a really important part of your journey.

Okay, enough of the philosophical here. Let's talk about what you can do instead of focusing on the calm Mom myth. We talk about this, of course, a lot in coaching. We talk about developing your own, I call it CPR plan. So the C is for self-compassion. The P is for practicing the plan for what you're gonna do in those stressful moments because.

No matter what system and what routines you have in place, the moments are just gonna come, right? We're not always gonna be calm. So practicing your specific plan, and the R is for reconnecting and repairing because again, the moments are going to come. So not shaming ourselves for them, but knowing how to come back into ourselves and into that relationship with our kids, and process through it and grow through it.

So here are some things that you can do instead of focusing on the constant calm, that will never happen. You really need to notice your body cues. This comes from your sense of interception, which I know I've talked about before. I'm, I'm, I'm gonna find a episode to put down in the show notes or a blog, or a blog post, probably actually.

Um, but that sense of what's going on in your body, checking in with yourself on a regular basis is super important for us. So noticing. Are your shoulders tight? Are you clenching your jaw like I can tend to do? Are you breathing more shallowly? Are you noticing every little thing around you like I can tend to do when I'm starting to feel overwhelmed and overstimulated, noticing those little things about yourself.

Can be really important clues to understand when you're starting to feel overwhelmed and overstimulated, give yourself permission to not be calm. Please, please, please, if you remember nothing else from this episode, please take this massive permission slip that you don't really need to understand that you do not have to be calm all the time.

You do not have to pretend that authenticity. Accepting where you are allows your child to see that you are able to come back and reconnect after stressful moments, and that you are able to see what's going on inside of your own mind and body and respond to, to, to support yourself accordingly. But you can't do that until you call it what it is.

Repair openly. That's part of the process. So when you do blow up or you lose your patience or you snap, or whatever verb you choose to use. Having words that are authentic to you can really matter. So you might've heard of having a script or scripting, and if that helps you, then great. If not, then don't.

But it could be as simple as, I lost it. I'm sorry. Let's try again. It does not have to be complicated, but thinking through it ahead of time can be really helpful. So you have to figure out what success really is for you. And a lot of that does come down to understanding what you mean when you say calm.

Again, maybe consider a different word, but really success can look like having a shorter time to repair when you do have that disconnect. And maybe having few, having fewer, you know, times that you have to reset over the course of the day or the week, because there are ways to increase your resilience and that window of capacity to handle the overwhelm and the overstimulation.

So figure out what success is for you, because if you don't know what success is, then you're gonna have a hard time figuring out when you get there. And last, but definitely not least, create little micro regulation rituals for yourself during the day. Little short moments that are intentional because you know, I.

I think we make it a whole thing that it doesn't have to be right. Like, oh, things will be fine. If I wake up an hour before the kids and can do this 10 step routine, then everything will be fine. Well, you know, if you're sleep deprived and your kids are waking you up, uh, or waking up before you, then you know your ideal world probably won't happen.

So what are ways that you can find those micro reregulation moments? Um, maybe a little bit of movement here and there using targeted sensory supports. Um, throughout the day to help yourself. I talk a lot about this as we discussed your own CPR plan and coaching ways that you can feel supported. Because again, those overwhelm moments are gonna come no matter what.

So as we close out, I want you to know that your kids don't need you to be perfectly calm all the time, but they do need you to be real. They need you to be present, and they do need you to be willing to reconnect after those hard moments.

So if the calm mom myth is keeping you chasing something that can never be caught, then I challenge you to reframe, check whether calm is really what you need or whether it's something else. Because what your kids actually need is a mom who can feel what's going on, notice it and reconnect when you need to.

Reconnect with your children as well as yourself. So the next time you feel a little less than calm, notice it. Feel it. Don't compare yourself, and instead ask yourself, what does my nervous system need right now to support instead of pressuring yourself to be the calm mom? If today's episode has helped you release some of that pressure that you feel to be the calm mom all the time, would you share it with a mom who is tired of pretending to be a calm mom as well?

Not only would it help me to be able to share my message with more moms who need the encouragement. But it would also help shatter some of that comparison that I talked about in the beginning of the episode for us to realize that we are all on our own growth journeys as moms and as humans. Remember to grab your free reflection prompts at the link down in the show notes to delve a little bit more into what might be beneath the calm mom myth in your life.

Until next time, I wish you connection even in the chaos.