Thea Jolly, Author at One of Many

Guest blog: Perfectionist or bitch?

October 15, 2020 By Thea Jolly

I’m standing in the doorway of my youngest son’s bedroom. We are arguing about bedtime.

Again.

He is standing halfway up his small ladder, his boyish face full of undisguised anger and hatred towards me. In that moment, the feeling is mutual.

I have a battle going on in my head and my body is tense, scared, pumping adrenalin, getting ready to fight.

My inner Perfectionist has turned into Bitch. Any protests from my unconditionally loving Mother are completely drowned out.

In this emotional place it feels so dangerous I choose to protect myself rather than my child. My love for him cannot speak, it’s like I cut it off, to save myself.

What makes me do that? I’m a mother for goodness sake – aren’t we meant to protect our children to the death?

This scene from 5 years ago was a fairly regular occurrence in our household and I hated myself so much for behaving like this.

Initially I could not understand how someone so kind and considerate and who loved her kids so much could flip into Bitch mode so quickly.

Even in my rational moments I couldn’t understand it. Really? In a moment of crisis I’d choose to protect myself rather than protect my kids?

But digging into it and dissecting it bit by bit enabled me to understand what was going on. Gradually I gained enough self-awareness to manage my thought processes more effectively so I could respond differently.

Disempowering Archetypes are Motivated by Fear

Perfectionists need to get things right. It’s not so much about perfection per se but about NOT getting things wrong, NOT making mistakes and ALWAYS being in control (to minimize risk of mistakes). This makes for a rather rigid set of rules and expectations, which children (and partners or colleagues) are not great at sticking to!

Conversely, situations that feel out of control, emotionally messy, or just plain wrong feel deeply threatening at a core level. It’s physiological. Our bodies get triggered by a comment, behaviour or thought and our sympathetic nervous system switches on to help us survive. We have a visceral reaction to the threat and our bodies react accordingly – with flight, fight or freeze.

When the Perfectionist feels completely out of control she often brings in the Bitch to fight. She is only trying to protect you in what she perceives as a threatening situation. She’s seen a danger of some sort (possible conflict, being taken over by negative emotions, uncertainty, chaos, being out of control) , and being unable to run away (as much as she’d love to) and too angry to freeze, she resorts to Bitch Mode.

Trigger Tracking

When you slip into the disempowering Bitch mode, there is a fear of some sort motivating this behaviour and you need to get to the bottom of it.

At One of many we use Trigger Tracking to help us understand what’s going on.

Track what triggered your Bitch to jump into action.

Were you criticised? Did you feel out of control? Are you scared of negative emotions? Did you feel like a rabbit in the headlights not knowing what to say or do next?

Then you can journal and dive deeper into the fear underneath the trigger.

Why is criticism so dangerous? What does it mean about you/life if someone criticises you?

In my personal example above, I realised that my Perfectionist was so attached to the impossible ideal of a happy, loving, smooth-running, conflict-free family life, that anything that threatened this perfect outcome was perceived as dangerous.

Emotions and conflict were on the top of the list of dangers and anything that felt like it could lead in that direction had to be squashed immediately. In these situations I would take on the role of peacemaker, an emotional-smoother-overer, diffusing the situation and trying to make sure everyone was OK. I could create harmony out of impending chaos or collaboration out of potential arguments.

But that didn’t always work. And when it didn’t, the threat level was ramped up very quickly and my Bitch came storming in to regain control.

And the crazy thing is that this fear of conflict and negative emotions actually leads to the very thought processes and behaviour that makes conflict and negative emotions more likely!

How to break the cycle

When you have got to the bottom of what triggers your Bitch, and you understand the fear or limiting belief that motivates her, it’s time to consciously choose a different response.

Firstly you’ve got to notice in the moment that you’ve been triggered, or are soon to be.

Label it: “Ah, I’m noticing my Perfectionist is scared it’s all going wrong, and has the Bitch on standby / fully engaged.”

Learn to ignore the indignation of your ego, your Bitch and your scared Perfectionist. This is only the fear talking. Don’t listen to their incendiary scripts: ‘How dare he?’ or ‘It has to be like this!’ or ‘If you let this happen, everything is doomed and you’ll be the biggest failure ever!’

Walk away & calm down: When we feel the physiological urge to fight, it’s really difficult to walk away from the situation because that’s akin to surrender. The Bitch doesn’t want to lose, let alone surrender; she needs to win the fight. But when you’ve labelled this urge as the Bitch, or the Perfectionist or Ego, you can distance yourself from what it’s saying. It’s not you.

This gives you enough space to choose to walk away and calm yourself down. Even if you don’t know how to solve the situation, you can physically take yourself away from your child, partner or colleague (if appropriate – or keep silent if not) and start soothing your nervous system with breathing exercises or shaking the fear out of your body.

I know, it’s hard! I’ve been there! But if I can gradually learn to do this, so can you.

In the early days of implementing this, some nights I had to walk out of my son’s room 8 or 9 times to calm myself down before I could eventually put him to bed.

Use the Women’s PowerTypes: When you feel calmer you can ask yourself which Powertype to use instead of Bitch.

Will your colleague respond to a boundary setting Queen intervention?

Do you need to tune into your Lover energy to resolve a thorny issue with a partner?

Do you need the energy of the Warrioress to fight for what you know is right at work?

Or do you need to step into your Sorceress and trust your intuition, your colleague, or the Universe to provide solutions?

Can you allow your Mother to feel the compassion and unconditional love for your precious child who is hurting too?

When I was asked to write this blog and saw the title I laughed out loud and said “Hell Yeah!” My inner perfectionist has been a big part of my life and is good friends with my Bitch. I know the nitty gritty and the pain of this human response.

The message I want to share is that it IS possible to change your habitual response, so that your Bitch is no longer your first responder. You can train yourself to react differently to the trigger, to the threat response and to the ‘threat’ of negative emotions and conflict. Do the inner work, experiment, build your self-awareness and mindfulness skills and you can completely transform your relationships.

That’s what I’ve been able to do and it’s made a massive difference to our family, and especially my relationship with my sons. Does Bitch still appear? Of course she does. I’m human and get tired, stressed, and triggered occasionally. But when she does come out she’s not as mean and nasty as she used to be and I’m quick to put her back in her box. I know in my bones now that she doesn’t actually help me get the result I want. And I also know that the threat she was responding to isn’t real.

About Thea

Thea Jolly is one of our Certified Women’s Coaches, and is an in-house coach on our Lead the Change and Living the Change Programmes.

To find out more about Thea, click here. Or for a taste of her work, join her Perfectionist Mother HQ Facebook Group or take the free Are You A Perfectionist quiz by clicking here.

Guest post: 7 daily strategies to reduce overwhelm

August 13, 2019 By Thea Jolly

This article is by Thea Jolly, one of our Certified Coaches and part of the coaching team on our Lead the Change and BePowerful Programmes.

Modern life is often busy, chaotic and overwhelming. If you struggle with a tendency to take on too much or hold yourself to impossibly high standards, you might well feel overwhelmed from time to time. Many of us live in our heads too much, doubting ourselves and ruminating on the bad stuff – what we’ve got to do, what we should have done, and how we wish things were different.

How to reduce overwhelm – day by day

In my Daily Drops of Calm video series I offer simple techniques that can bring some peace, calm and perspective to our daily lives at work and at home.

Here are seven simple practices that can quickly take you from frantic and frazzled to calm and centred.

1. Start your day in Peace

When my kids were very young, mornings could be difficult. It got to the point where I’d had enough of being woken up by a loud ‘Mum!’ in my ear, or worse, being hit on the head, and starting the day off in pain, engulfed by the fear reflex or just plain grouchy.

Toddlers get up very early – but I had to come up with a better way to start my day. I made a conscious choice to change my daily routine so that I could start my day in peace.

Sometimes, I’d set the alarm for 5.30 but mostly I was able to wake at 6 and have at least a few minutes to myself before one of them came padding in. And as my husband was commuting into London everyday he made me a cup of tea before he left at 6am. I could sit in bed, sip my tea and wake up in peace.

Some days I would only have a couple of minutes, but on other blissful mornings I would get to enjoy a whole hour to myself before I had to get up. It made a massive difference to how calm and in control I felt throughout the rest of the day.

Even now, when my kids are teenagers who sleep in for hours, I love that feeling of waking early and reading, meditating or journaling, and it seems to set the tone for the coming day.

Is there room in your schedule to allow yourself to wake up more gently, and do something just for you before the rest of the day’s activities begin?

2. Press the Pause Button

Do you have days when from the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed you feel busy, busy, busy and you don’t have a moment to yourself? What often happens is you go through the day on automatic pilot, responding and reacting to what’s happening to you in unconscious, and often reactive and unhelpful ways.

It doesn’t feel good does it?

I’ve found that getting into the habit of taking just five minutes from a busy day to stop and pause really helps me.

Try this by giving yourself a few minutes with a cup of tea – preferably outside, or by a window – to press the pause button and be still.

Let your thoughts wonder lightly without getting caught up in any particular train of thought.

Let the worries go and be still in that moment.

Notice what you see and what you hear and allow yourself to step back into the present, in your senses, into yourself.

It’s like a drop of calm in a busy day and instead of taking a precious five minutes away from you, it gives you the sense of having more time, energy and control than beforehand.

3. Your thoughts are not true!

Do you go about your day believing everything you think? Do you take everything you say as the gospel truth? I used to – before I realised that thoughts are often automatic and just because they are in my head doesn’t mean they are true.

Learning to notice and label your thoughts is extremely powerful. For example, when you next notice that you are feeling stressed or upset, stop and pause. Tell yourself that what you are thinking is just a thought and it’s not true. Start questioning and standing back from your thoughts instead of taking them to be the gilt-edged truth.

When my children were younger I used to get irritated when they messed around at the table because I thought that it would inevitably lead to an argument or get out of control. When I realised that this thought was not true, it was just one of many possible interpretations, I could choose whether to listen to it or not. OK, I’m not saying it’s always easy, and it’s a practice that builds into a habit over time.

In this case, I decided to label it as my ‘messing-around-always-leads-to-arguments’ story and when it triggered me I took responsibility for that triggering.

I could choose to walk away, soothe myself with deep breathing, and sometimes even join in the silliness!

I know that when these thoughts are attached to strong emotions, they feel completely true and it’s hard to disbelieve them, but they are only one interpretation of what’s going on.

You can decide whether they are helpful or not and whether you are going to heed them.

4. Stop “Shoulding” yourself.

It’s time to eliminate the word should from your vocabulary. Many of us use it all the time, piling unhelpful pressure and guilt upon our shoulders. How often do you say: I should, I must, I have to, I need to as you go about your day?

And how does that make you feel? Do you spring into action joyfully? Probably not.

What if you used the word ‘could’ instead?

I could make those phone calls now. I could visit my mother. I could finish this document today.

Notice how much lighter this feels, and how much more likely you are to do The Thing when you are using could instead of should.

So, next time you are feeling stressed or fearful notice the words you are using. Stop shoulding yourself and start coulding yourself instead.

5. What do you need right now?

When you are rushing around, dealing with the demands of life, do you put other people’s needs before your own? At work, at home, or with your family and friends?

This drop of calm is to stop and ask the question, what does my body need right now?

Do you need more sleep, a glass of water, do you need to get outside in the fresh air?

Do you need to stand up and move away from your desk for a few minutes before getting back to work? Do you need to get an eye test? Do you need an evening on the sofa with your partner or kids to watch your favourite box set? Or do you need some alone time?

Get into the habit of asking yourself: What do I need right now? What does my body, my soul, my mind need right now? And if you listen carefully, you might be surprised by the answer.

Learning to tune into yourself and your body like this means you are able to manage your energy far more effectively. Managing our energy helps us deal with all the day to day activities and demands with more patience, resilience and balance. What’s not to like about that?

6. Experiment with Trust

Many women grow up deciding that to be safe, get stuff done and be approved of, they need to be in control of themselves, the world around them, and even other people. We become control freaks, needing to micro-manage everything to make sure that things run smoothly. This awareness of what’s going on around us, this hypervigilance to what needs doing, what we need to control is a big drain on our energy. Can you relate to this?

Furthermore, when things don’t go the way we wanted or planned, we get anxious, stressed and sometimes downright stroppy. We end up acting in reactive ways that we later regret.

Instead we could start believing that everything is going to be OK. I know this is a massive change for many of us, because our whole belief system that needs to shift. But we can start with five minutes at a time and slowly bring back a sense of trust and faith in ourselves. And ironically, this very letting go of control, gives us a different, but I would argue, more powerful sense of being in control. (You’ll have to believe me until you’ve tried it a few times!)

To experiment with trust, take a deep breath and let go of your need to be in control. Ask yourself: “What if, in the next five minutes I could trust that everything is going to be OK?”

Breathe and trust that you have the competencies, skills, courage and resources to deal with whatever comes up.

You are just one person with one of many interpretations of the best way to do something, and in reality you don’t always know best.

Sometimes the chaotic way children do things, brings about a more positive result (if we let them).
Sometimes trusting that a lastminute.com colleague really can get that task done on time without your direction will bring positive results that you hadn’t even considered.
Sometimes, letting go of the responsibility for everything means you can focus on what’s most important. It could be life-changing.

Go on, give it a try, and start with just five minutes a day.

7. What did you do well today?

As humans we tend to focus on the negative. It’s what has kept us safe for so long; scientists call it the negativity bias. To counter this, a good habit to get into is to take a couple of moments to really appreciate what you did well today.

Alongside all the ‘shitty stuff’ that you want to change, there are many little things, and a few very big things that you’ve done well today.

Have you kept your children alive?
Did you take time to speak to a colleague when he was upset?
Did you pay that bill on time?
Did you smile at a stranger?
Did you drive your children to school, or ask about their day?
Did you move over when you heard the police car siren?

I know life is not all gold stars and awards, but we have stopped noticing all the important daily things that we do well.

Next time you tie your shoelaces notice how fast, nimble and amazing your fingers are.

Next time you go to bed feeling like you’ve failed your children go through the day and count all the ways you’ve loved and supported them. Yes, you may have done some things or not done some things which make you feel bad, but that number will be far less than all the good stuff.

Trust me on this.

If I could visit you in your head I would be able list over 100 things you’ve done well today and there will only be about five that we could call ‘negative’. Stop focusing on the five negative ones and savour all the other things you are doing.

All these ideas take less than five minutes a day, and by experimenting with them you can find out which work best for you. With practice they could become powerful tools for a calmer, happier and more fruitful life.

Want more daily drops of calm?

Thea Jolly is one of our Certified Women’s Coaches, and is an in-house coach on our Lead the Change and Be Powerful Programmes.

For more daily drops of calm, and to find out when Thea releases her weekly video, click here to visit and like her Perfectionism Coach page on Facebook.

Subscribe directly to her You Tube channel by clicking here.

Or to find out more about Thea, click here.

Our intention is simple. To support professional women to handle the day-to-day so they can unleash the bigger impact they feel called to make in the world.

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Guest post: What to do when emotions take over

February 13, 2019 By Thea Jolly

This article is by Thea Jolly, one of our Certified Coaches and part of the coaching team on our the Lead the Change and BePowerful Programmes.

Last week, things suddenly spiralled out of control. It happened as I was explaining to my son that he couldn’t play on the xBox because of his behaviour the night before. It can be so hard when emotions take over. You’ve probably experienced it yourself at some point – whether at work, when talking to your partner, or as a parent – can you relate?

I could feel it happening but I wasn’t able to stop it.

My emotions suddenly jumped into crazy ninja warrior mode.

They took over the words that come out of my mouth and added that tone of voice that we all recognise: the I-can’t-take-this-anymore, the-world-is-going-to-end, how-can-you-do-this-to-me, overwhelmed and exasperated mother.

I knew that this mental and emotional hijack usually spells doom for any conversation, but I couldn’t force myself to walk away.

Proceedings went downhill rapidly, and after I stormed off (I know!) all I could think was:

Why can’t I control myself and my emotions?

Why can’t I manage to say the right thing?

What could I have done differently?

What should I have done?

How could I have left my love and compassion locked up inside of me when my son and I needed them the most?

All I could feel was deep despair and disgust at myself for acting so emotionally.

But why?

When emotions take over, why are we so hard on ourselves?

Feeling strong emotions is just a normal human reaction, after all. Sometimes we just lose our sh*t.

And that’s OK.

How we recover from that is the most important thing.

Yes, we can look after ourselves, get enough sleep, set effective boundaries, learn to manage our thoughts and emotions better, all the things we learn to do at One of many, but even so, there will still be occasions when we lose control and let it all out!

I admit, it’s not pretty, but hardly reason for such self-hatred.

Learning to handle emotions, even strong ones, requires us to develop our emotional resilience.

Emotional resilience is not about bad stuff never happening to you.

It also doesn’t mean you never feel bad, make mistakes or lose your temper.

It’s about riding the ups and downs of life with more optimism, equanimity and compassion.

Instead of beating yourself up for being human, here are three ways to increase your emotional resilience.

3 ways to increase your Emotional Resilience

1. Choose to adopt an optimistic explanatory style.

Many of us get into trouble because we tend to react to every thought and emotion as if it were the only truth; that this situation or emotion is going to last forever and that it will affect every single part of our lives. We think in terms of things being very personal, all-pervasive and permanent.

As psychologist Martin Seligman explains, this “explanatory style” is linked to learned helplessness, the very opposite of optimism. Our explanatory style – how we explain our experience – makes a big difference to how we interpret and cope with events, feel about our life, and therefore how resilient and happy we are.

How do you speak to yourself after making a mistake?

“I wasn’t paying enough attention today. It didn’t help that I have so much on at the moment. I can do better tomorrow. It doesn’t mean that I’m a bad person.”

Or do you say something like:

“That was so stupid! I always mess up! I’ll never learn. Everything in my life is going wrong.”

When we get overwhelmed by emotions we can easily fall into a state of helplessness. We react not from a place of power but as a victim, buffeted about in the wind.

So instead of letting your inner critic in with its personal, pervasive and permanent statements of ‘truth’ choose an optimistic style instead.

Don’t take things so personally. Instead of blaming yourself for something, acknowledge the part played by other people, your energy levels, luck, or circumstances.
Don’t allow one event or mistake to contaminate the rest of your life. Just because you burnt the dinner doesn’t mean you are rubbish at everything in your life.
Don’t get fixated with how it is now. Remember few things are permanent. Yes, you failed your driving test, but that doesn’t mean you’ll never pass it in the future.

2. Practice viewing life with equanimity.

The Mirriam-Webster Dictionary gives the following description of equanimity.

“Equanimity” ….. means “with even mind.” English speakers began using “equanimity” early in the 17th century with the now obsolete sense “fairness or justness of judgment”

I like this description because it explains the core of resilience – that to be resilient we need to have an ‘even mind’. Or in other words, we need to treat everything that happens to us and in our life equally, with fairness and good judgement.

After an emotional episode like I had last week do you ever think, only a few hours later: “Wow? What was all that about? It’s wasn’t even that bad.”

Our emotions don’t last forever. And actually, if we let them, they pass quite quickly. When we allow them to, our bodies and minds come back to their equilibrium naturally.

Learning to distance yourself from your emotions – and treat them with an even mind – in the moment is really important.

To help you do this try my Resilience Script:

1. Notice the feeling and label it: “I’m noticing that I’m feeling …. angry/hurt/rejected etc.

2. Accept, validate or soothe yourself (while taking deep breaths to calm your body): “…and that’s OK. I’m human and this is normal”. “I’m just being triggered by something and my Inner Critic trying to protect me.” “It’s OK, this is just an emotion/thought. It will pass”

3. Choose how you want to think and behave instead: “I’m going to walk away and respond when I’m calm’” or “How can I keep myself calm here?” or “Which Powertype would be useful here?” or “How can I be curious here and allow the emotions to pass?”.

But sometimes, as happened in my experience last week, I noticed I was angry and I couldn’t use the resilience script. I often use it and it works well, but last week it didn’t.

So, what do we do then?

3. Stop Judging Yourself

Just because you feel bad doesn’t mean there is anything ‘wrong’.

Last week I felt like my emotions were all wrong. I told myself that I should have done so many things to stop this happening, or to get out of the feelings faster.

But really, my biggest mistake was to judge myself so harshly, which such high expectations of robot-like consistency. Instead, I could have been more even-minded and compassionate to myself.

How I reacted to what happened was neither right or wrong – it was a normal human reaction.

What happened also had no implications for my worth as a person, wife or mother. Emotions are simply feedback.

We have a sign in our kitchen that says: “Love me when I least deserve it because that is when I need it most.”

Applying this to ourselves is really hard, because we live in a culture which punishes people harshly and shames them when they do things ‘wrong’ and make mistakes.

But in reality when we are struggling with our own imperfections and vulnerability, judging ourselves harshly for these human traits is the worst thing we can do. It is like added fuel to an already raging fire.

Instead we need to recognise what is happening and be our own protector. We need to wrap ourselves up and look after ourselves. Then we need to reach out and speak to others. Using words, music, nourishing things, we can reconnect with our equilibrium and our equanimity.

Sometimes this takes longer than others, and that’s OK.

My son said to me later, when we’d apologised and had a cuddle: “Let’s put that all behind us, Mum.” Wise words from a wise soul. We could all take a leaf out of his book.

Thea Jolly is one of our Certified Women’s Coaches, and is an in-house coach on our Lead the Change and Be Powerful Programmes.

To find out more about Thea, click here. Or for a taste of her work, take the free Are You A Perfectionist quiz by clicking here.

Our intention is simple. To support professional women to handle the day-to-day so they can unleash the bigger impact they feel called to make in the world.

Become One of many™ women creating strong, meaningful connections in our community.

How to get rid of self-critical thoughts for good

October 23, 2018 By Thea Jolly

This article is by Thea Jolly, one of our Certified Coaches and part of the coaching team on our the Lead the Change and Be Powerful Programmes.

Thea’s mission is to help women feel at peace with themselves – because only then can they make their biggest and boldest contributions to their families, communities and the world.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if you knew how to get rid of self-critical thoughts for good? Can you imagine how serenely you could float through your day without the self-doubt, self-criticism and rumination that normally goes on inside your head?

No stressing over meeting your work deadlines, no beating yourself up for saying the wrong thing, no recriminations for that parenting fail – again! And no sick feeling of shame as you reach for the bottle of wine, the chocolate or Netflix boxset at the end of a hard day when you promised yourself you wouldn’t.

And no wondering why you can’t pull it all together like other women can.

Let’s get real here: all of the women I know, including me, and including all the wildly successful ones we see on social media, have a head full of doubts, shoulds, oughts, disappointments and feelings of failure. Not all the time – but pretty much every day.

All humans have self-critical thoughts – they have been fundamental to our survival as a species. To ensure we stayed within the security of our tribe our brains evolved to prioritise social connections, fitting in and working together.

That is why our brains spend so much time and energy analysing and prioritising fitting in – it’s how we measure our safety. Which explains why how many likes you get on Facebook feels so important!

So the first thing for you to do is to acknowledge this. There is nothing wrong with you because you have self-critical thoughts. It’s perfectly normal and human. In fact, it would be more worrying if you didn’t have these thoughts: sociopaths and psychopaths spring to mind.

So our task is to manage these thoughts so that they stop affecting us so much. It’s all a matter of awareness, attitude and attention. Training your mind in these areas will lead to a more confident, emotionally resilient and happier life.

1. Awareness

One of my favourite sayings is: ‘Knowledge is Power’. The more we know and understand about ourselves, the more control we have over how we think and behave.

To reduce the frequency and power of self-critical thoughts we need to get curious about them. It’s time to get up close and personal, get dirty and involved in what’s going on in your head. Be a detective, take notes and ask questions. Like Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple notice, notice, notice. If you have to wear a fake moustache or pastel cardigan to get into the part then do so!

The questions to ask include:

What are you actually saying to yourself?
When do these thoughts come up?
What is the story you are telling yourself about your situation, other people and yourself?
What are you making assumptions about?
What emotions are you feeling?
Where do these emotions come from?
What fears or beliefs are underneath your self-critical thoughts and feelings?
How are these self-critical thoughts affecting your behaviour, and your relationships?
Can you notice any patterns?

The more you find out and understand about yourself, the more power you take back.

2. Attitude

Your attitude while you are noticing what’s going on is crucial. Self-critical thoughts are judgemental and harsh. You have to step aside and be the observer of these thoughts from a non-judgemental, compassionate and accepting place. Don’t get sucked into them.

We wear judgement like a pair of sunglasses that we’ve forgotten to take off. Everywhere we look is tainted by our fears, hopes, preoccupations, likes, dislikes and unconscious beliefs. Again, this is normal; it’s what our brains do, but it’s not conducive to a meaningful and happy life.

Compassion and acceptance are equally important here. Without self-compassion and an acceptance of how things are now, we can’t bring sustainable change into our lives. Being motivated by fear and judgement only gets us so far. Our creative problem-solving abilities are shut off when we are in threat mode, so we have to use compassion to bring those parts of our brain back online. Without compassion our ancient emotional impulses run the show – which is why we end up behaving in ways we know aren’t who we truly are.

One word on acceptance: many women don’t want to accept themselves as they are. They think that acceptance means never changing or growing. The paradoxical result of accepting yourself, is that you can change more effectively than when you are beating yourself up.

3. Attention

When we are conscious with our attention – what we are focussing on in any particular moment – life seems to slow down enough to allow us to make more mindful choices.

When you are aware of what is going on – with yourself, with your children, with your co-workers – without judgement, you can act with so much more integrity and compassion.

Furthermore, if you are aware of situations that challenge you, you can intentionally put your focus on your thoughts and choose to talk to yourself in a more helpful, compassionate and empowering way in those situations.

Putting it into Practice

The critical thoughts you are noticing are just thoughts. Nothing more.

The emotions you are noticing are only emotions, nothing more.

You can notice them without attaching judgement to them, without adding a further emotional reaction to them (as much as possible) and without needing to act to change them.

You are simply there to notice what is going on, like watching a scene in a drama.

Things you could say to yourself are:

‘Ohh, that’s interesting…’
‘Mmmm, I’m feeling …… And that’s OK.’
‘I’m noticing I wish I wasn’t so impatient/angry/annoyed/tired. I can feel the judgement here and the desire for it to be different, and that’s OK. I’m human. I wonder why it means so much to me to be more patient/calm etc?’
‘I am noticing that this feels awful and I want to cry/shout/run away. And that’s OK.’
‘I’m noticing that I’m calling myself a bad mum/fat/useless again. Why did that come up now?’
‘What’s the story I’m telling myself here? Oh, yes, I’m worried about my work deadline and am taking it out on my children. Deep breath, it will get done. I want to focus on being connected to my children instead.’

Nothing will change if you don’t extend some compassion to yourself here.

Yes, you may have shouted at your 4 year old when he was pushing boundaries like every four year old does. But you also did a full day’s work, had to deal with a grumpy husband, fielded 500 ‘why’ questions from your 7 year old, and your period started. Is it any wonder that your patience ran out?

This is where you need to take a deep breath, and instead of listening to those critical thoughts, tell yourself it’s all OK. This is a human reaction to a demanding situation. Then you can enquire gently about what’s underneath, what’s the story you are telling yourself here, what do you and your child need to feel better, and how can you set intentions and practice reacting a different way in future?

Exploring this with non-judgemental curiosity might reveal that you feel guilty about going back to work fulltime, even if you know it’s the right thing for you. Or maybe you’re just exhausted and need a good sleep, a night out with the girls or weekend away on your own (bliss).

Maybe you are blaming your husband for not helping more, and realise you actually need to ask him for help rather than alternating between Superwoman and Martyr without actually talking to him about what you need.

Self-critical thoughts are trying to help

Our self-critical thoughts are trying to keep us safe and beyond judgement from others. This is impossible, because we can’t control what other people think of us. Knowing that it is our hard-wiring that is motivating those critical thoughts is incredibly liberating. It means we can stop taking them so seriously.

When we don’t take our thoughts, emotions and ourselves so seriously we don’t get so triggered and injured by them. When we are not so affected by them we keep our emotional equilibrium more easily, have a more positive outlook on life, and can focus on the good stuff instead.

Making the world a better place – which is the vision of One of many – starts with changing your internal world. Every person who learns to manage their automatic, fear-based critical thoughts and behaviours creates a positive ripple effect within their families and communities, workplaces and society. Self-awareness, a compassionate attitude and mindful attention are the foundations for this.

How about you?

Do you experience self-critical thoughts? Do you have any other tips or advice to share with others, or questions to ask about Thea’s process?

How to get over mother guilt

September 13, 2018 By Thea Jolly

Want to know how to get over mother guilt? Today’s article is by Thea Jolly, one of our Certified Coaches and part of the coaching team on our the Lead the Change and Be Powerful Programmes.

Thea’s mission is to help women feel at peace with themselves – because only then can they make their biggest and boldest contributions to their families, communities and the world. And today she’s sharing 5 simple ways for anyone who wants to know how to get over mother guilt.

How much time and energy do you waste feeling bad about your parenting? Do you second guess your decisions, worrying about saying no and upsetting your children, or do you try to please everyone, despite it compromising what you believe in? Or perhaps you experience a constant low-level guilt about not being the ‘Perfect Mother’ and being able to Do-It-All.

Welcome to modern motherhood – and indeed, modern womanhood. Even if you’re not a mum, the steps I’m sharing with you today are incredibly powerful when you apply them to any situation you find yourself feeling guilty about.

Often our guilt is in direct proportion to the expectations we have of ourselves, of the bar that we set ourselves. And in some areas it’s just too high.

When we are at our best we are light-hearted and happy, following our intuition, allowing life to flow and opportunities for growth and nurture to unfold. Guilt gets in the way of that.

So how do we stop? And how do we let our softer, natural, more effective Mother out to play?

5 ways to deal with mother guilt

1. Call it out.

The first step towards change is to notice what is going on. As the saying goes, knowledge is power, and self-knowledge is the ultimate power.

Start noticing whenever you feel guilty about something and instead of ruminating, say to yourself:

‘I’m noticing I’m feeling guilty about x, and that’s OK. I’m a human being feeling a human emotion.’

This labelling helps you to distance yourself from the guilty thoughts and emotions – like an observer who’s not so personally involved – which reduces their power over you.

2. Notice your stories.

Every second of the day we are interpreting the world around us, through our bodies and minds. None of those interpretations are true – they are just one of many realities that we create depending on our mood, our beliefs and a million other filters and factors that affect our neural connections.

When guilt strikes, ask yourself what story you are telling yourself.

For example, I’ve noticed that I often feel guilty about feeding my children processed pizzas. If I stop and ask myself what story I’m really telling myself the answer might be:

I’m telling myself that good mums never feed their children pizza, and that because I’m not making time to cook meals from scratch, I’m a bad mum. I’m telling myself the story that all other mums cook healthier meals than I do.

I’m painting a black and white picture where pizza is bad and no-pizza is good. I’m telling myself that my children will get obese, and develop diabetes and die early from cancer because I’m not a good enough mother and it’s all my fault.

I’m also telling myself the story that it’s too hard to do anything else and that I’m stuck here feeling bad about feeding my kids pizza every Friday.

Written down, I’m sure you can see how untrue this story is. There are elements of truth – processed pizza isn’t the healthiest of meals – but the extrapolations and meanings I’ve taken from it are not true.

I won’t kill my children with pizza. There are hundreds of habits and factors that will affect my children’s health. There are thousands of moments that will contribute to my parenting, and most of them will be nurturing and positive.

Start questioning the stories you are telling yourself and make a conscious choice about whether to believe them or not.

After a while you will notice your favourite stories, and will be able to say to yourself: Ah, that’s my ‘I’m a bad mother story’, ‘I can’t cope story’, or ‘pizzas are evil story’ and let it go.

3. Know your values and boundaries

Sometimes guilt is a response to actions that occur because your boundaries are being crossed or your values are being compromised.

For example, I’ve realised that for me personally my pizza story was a sign that I wasn’t living in line with my values. I believe in fresh, wholesome food and while my family generally eats this way, I know in my heart that the balance has slipped more towards convenience and extra treats than I’d like.

And so I have to ask myself: what could I do that will make me feel more in integrity with my values around feeding my family, while also acknowledging that I’m busy and don’t always have the time or inclination to cook?

Then, because I know that I’m working towards a better balance I can reassure myself when the tabloid ‘Bad Pizza Mum’ guilt rears its ugly head.

4. Get into your Queen PowerType.

One of the biggest surprises for me when I started working with the 5 Women’s PowerTypes™ was how effective being in the Queen PowerType is for the difficult moments of parenting.

The 5 Women’s PowerTypes™ are the powerful role models we use at One of many to tap into our strongest feminine leadership, and the Queen is just one of them (the others are Warrioress, Sorceress, Lover and Mother).

A Queen just knows what to do. She leaves all the self-doubt and second guessing to others and calmly and confidently states what is needed in any particular situation.

And she doesn’t do guilt. She looks after her needs, is aligned to what she wants for herself and her family and knows what the right action is.

So when guilt strikes, stepping back and asking ‘What would a Queen do/say?’ is often enough to reassure yourself that what you are doing is the right thing.

When my children complain about not liking certain meals I cook, I can go into Queen, align myself with my values of health and vitality and calmly say ‘This is what is for dinner today.’ No drama. No guilt.

5. Let go of responsibility

This might sound weird for a mum, but honestly, if there is one thing I’ve learnt during my parenting journey it’s that we are not responsible for our children’s happiness.

As harsh as that sounds, it is not our job to manage their emotional well-being.

Obviously we do our best to be compassionate, caring, inclusive, loving, nurturing and all those wonderful qualities of Mother, especially when they are young.

We can encourage them along the way to managing their own emotions – but we only hold the space for their journey, and cannot force it to play out a certain way.

When we try to cajole, influence or control the well-being of others so that we can feel better it can be counter-productive. You can only lead with integrity, not force your family to follow you.

Next time you are feeling guilty ask yourself: ‘Is this my responsibility?’ Quite often the answer is no.

Are you simply feeling bad because, naturally, you don’t want your child to feel bad?

You are responsible to act in accordance to your highest values of behaviour (i.e. respect, love, enthusiasm, integrity etc.) and to the vision you have for your family.

How your children respond is not your responsibility, it’s their opportunity to learn and discover themselves.

My children are now 16, 14 and 11. They are old enough to know what foods are good for them and make their own decisions. I can teach, model and provide a balanced healthy diet but ultimately I have to gift them the responsibility to look after their own bodies and health.

I can also choose to acknowledge with compassion, that this letting go is sometimes scary, extremely annoying, fraught with arguments and mistakes on both sides, but that ultimately it’s what being a mother is all about.

Finally, it’s important to note that sometimes guilt is appropriate.

Maybe you’ve behaved in a way that wasn’t your best self. That’s OK. Guilt is there to prompt a response: to make amends, apologise or change a habit. But when guilt itself is a habit, linked to who you are, not to how you are behaving, it might be slipping into the arena of shame – which is not useful for parenting in any way (but that’s a whole other blog post..).

How about you?

Do you experience “mother guilt”, or do you recognise some of what I’ve described here in your life outside of motherhood? We’d love to know your experience of guilt and whether you find these strategies effective when it comes to coming past it – leave a comment and let us know.

Thea is one of our Certified Women’s Coaches, and is an in-house coach on our Lead the Change and Be Powerful Programmes.

To find out more about Thea, click here. Or for a taste of her work, take the free Are You A Perfectionist quiz by clicking here.

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