Why do so many women choose to hang a noose around their neck, label themselves with a guilty verdict and live with a life sentence of mother's remorse?
Because, instead of focusing on their goals, many women get overwhelmed by the negativity of focusing on what they want to escape. In the end, the negativity takes over, the journey seems too great and their anxiety becomes ‘real’ fear resulting in a need to avoid change at all costs. At this point, most women give up, settling for a life of quiet desperation and the guilt that goes along with it because they are too scared to change, to shake up the status quo.
Emotions are not random states that take us by surprise. We consciously choose to DO every emotion depending on which needs we wish to fulfill and our past experiences and choices. These emotional states either empower us to take action such as gratitude, love and forgiveness; or disempower us and keep us stuck such as guilt, anger and despair.To say you will take that first step when you have more confidence, more time, more money, less responsibilities, more of this or less of that… is the ‘story’ you are choosing to tell yourself to keep you safe because the truth is that most of the time you will find “fear” at the root of your paralysis.
But fear is an illusion and you have a choice whether or not to listen to and validate those fears as well as choosing how to respond to the fear. Unless what we fear actually threatens our lives or the lives of our loved ones, it is simply a feeling based on a story we have chosen to tell ourselves about a particular situation.
SO why don’t we change the story? Because our desire for certainty and significance overrides everything without exception! We are constantly seeking safety from our fears, and attempting to look good as we try to get it right! It’s true, many women fear taking action because of how they may look to other people. But trust me when I say that you would not worry so much about what other people thought of you if you knew how seldom they did! And there is no certainty in life, even in Mother Nature perfection doesn’t exist, so why do we expend so much energy trying to achieve certainty in our lives?
Let’s look at this a little deeper shall we? Mother’s Guilt is a useless and disempowering emotional state based on the perception of unreal expectations, the ideal of the ‘perfect mother’, a form of perfectionism which is just another strategy of procrastination. As I’ve just highlighted above perfection is a fairy tale and holding onto your need for perfection as a mother is simply fueling an old underlying fear of not being good enough which, in turn is feeding an overactive ego caught in a cycle of drama and negatively impacting your self esteem. The end result is ultimately giving yourself permission to do nothing and avoid responsibility for your happiness, health and life success.
A woman choosing to live with guilt is reacting to external influences for what happens in her life. She may believe she has no choice and is wrapped up in her story and the drama that goes along with it. She will have a multitude of reasons as to why she does not have the results she deserves in her life. Often she will experience feelings of failure, victimhood and fear, with a general belief that life is hard. Her reactions are heavily clouded by emotion and you will hear a lot of phrases from her such as: “I can’t, I don’t, I won’t, No, It’s hard, I never, Nothing ever…, I don’t know, I should, I could, I would, I wish, Why me, I shouldn’t, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, But, I’m scared, I’d hate to”. Some women will even go so far as to defend and justify the very behaviour that is holding them back because the self-sabotage is so strong.As I said in my last post, once I started to focus on me and what I could BE, I started choosing more empowering emotional states to play in and began doing things that a guilt-free, happy, healthy and balanced woman would do and guess what happened? I began bringing more of the haves into my life – more time, more balance and even more money with reduced stress and no more excuses.
As a mother, your actions and best intentions will be good enough, every time, without fail!
Giving up the need for drama and the ideal of perfectionism are two of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, because it frees up your energy and time to focus on what really matters. In 2012, commit to changing whatever isn’t working in your life and replace perfectionism with what you really want – then choose an empowering emotion, step up to your fear, set realistic and measureable goals and take action. Decide, right now to stop putting something off until you have time to ‘do it better’, don’t procrastinate, BE accountable; give up your need for perfection and watch the feelings of guilt and remorse fade away! 