The holiday season is here, it is the month of the year when mother nature wants to slow down and hibernate as she goes into winter, and the consumerist culture of America is saying, ‘shop, entertain, give your kids tons of gifts, show up for your family!’ Do you have mom guilt coming in, keeping you from setting healthy boundaries and keeping you from taking care of yourself? This is the time to think one month ahead to January 2022, a whole new year, to join an amazing and supportive circle of humans (many of them are moms but not all) to be supported to take care of you and drop the mom guilt. 🙂 I invite you to take a moment to think about mom guilt and taking care of you, and explore the program, Be Rooted in Your Truest Self through practice and energy awareness, starting January 21, 2022.

Mom Guilt- when does it start? Probably as early as pregnancy, yet this is also often a time of extreme self-care.

Being pregnant is a great reason and excuse to take care of yourself (or an excuse to eat a lot of soft-serve ice cream like I did because “the baby wants it”). It is a time when you know you are growing another human inside your body. What you do, what you put into your body, the emotions you have, the baby feels. The baby is swimming in your body and part of YOU for 9-10 months. So many women are inspired to take better care of themselves when pregnant. They stop drinking alcohol, they eat healthier, they practice prenatal yoga, maybe even start going to the chiropractor. This pregnancy time can be a time of extreme self-care- because what mom does directly affects the growing human inside her womb. And unfortunately the mom guilt may already be beginning as you take care of yourself because baby is inside.

Then the baby is out. And what happens? Much of the time, the self-care stops or drastically slows down. Because, yes, survival. And, babies need a hell of a lot of attention- some more than others. If a mama breastfeeds, she will often continue to pay close attention to what she is putting into her body because, now the baby is eating what this mama’s body produces. But often sleep, meditation, yoga, exercise, even showering, slows down. The first few years are tough. Yet, many moms, especially in our culture, put our babies first. Sacrificing our own self-care. And it often continues…

We want the best for our children. We want them to have the best life possible. We want to show up for them. To be there. No matter what.

Unfortunately, too many times, moms forget about themselves, forget to take care of themselves, and get so practiced at putting their kids first, if they do want to have self-care, they get the MOM GUILT.

I was once a doula and postpartum doula, leading supporting women and helping them accept support and community as new moms. Now, as a Reiki teacher and practitioner and creator of the 10 month program, Be Rooted in Your Truest Self through practice and energy awareness, I still get to work with many moms. It can be really hard to put ourselves first as moms.

As a mom, I have practiced a lot of self-care, even when my daughter was young, and I credit the practices I started before and during my pregnancy, like regular meditation, yoga nidra, and learning and practicing Reiki. My graduate school program, which I started 2 years before I became a mom, emphasized daily practices and mind/body awareness. This was a transformational time for me when I learned, practiced, and implemented new ways of being and practicing life, and I am grateful to be sharing all of this with my daughter. I now bring these practices to the Be Rooted community, teaching and practicing Reiki as the daily practice that supports self-care, while releasing the mom guilt. I love sharing these practices and ways of being with moms, no matter how old their children are. It is never too late to practice self-care and lose the mom guilt. Below is a short video about Mom Guilt and letting it go to say yes to joining Be Rooted in Your Truest Self (starting January 21, 2022). I think this video is kind of amusing, and hopefully inspiring, as a message to the moms out there who are having mom guilt keep them from fully committing to their self-care. 🙂