83. Should We Feel Guilty As A Mom? My Unpopular Opinion!

Welcome to the momset podcast, my friend. I'm your coach, Tessa Romero, and as a woman of God, an adoring wife, and a mother of three darling boys, I am passionate about giving you the tools you need to build a mindset skill set that enriches your experience through motherhood and daily life. I've had my fair share of challenges and hardship throughout my life, and that is exactly how I came to this place of finding purpose to my pain and helping you do the same. I know we can thrive right where we are at, and it's time for us to take back motherhood by being the mommy that we want to be right right now. Thank you for being here and making this a wonderful place for me to show up alongside you. Hey, my mama friend. How's it going? Getting something productive done right now? Taking a load off and resting. Maybe you're out for a walk or enjoying time with your kids. Whatever you're doing, I have this episode prepared for you, and it's going to share one of my most unpopular opinions. I know I have a lot of them. I have a lot of my personal opinions, my values and beliefs that I hold dear and true that a lot of people disagree with. And I've decided that I'm okay with that. I'm okay with people disagreeing with me. I'm okay with people misunderstanding me. And that's just a part of it, right? Like, if. If you're going to live by what's helping you the most in your life and making sure that that's your focus, you also have to accept that you're gonna be misunderstood and people are going to disagree with you. So we can actively choose acceptance of that, and that's something I encourage you to do. So I'm actively choosing the acceptance that this is not an opinion that's widely agreed upon. And it actually counters a very strong messaging that's being pushed and spread throughout motherhood right now that I feel is very damaging. So I wanted to call attention to it because it's important. It's important for us to do so. So let's take a deep breath, dive in, and get ready for an unpopular opinion. All right? I have said it before. I've said it several times that you are not your feelings. Okay. And I think that's like, once the concept is there and. And the understanding is there for. For some, then it's pretty widely agreed upon that we are not our feelings. Which just means that when we say, I am exhausted, I am frustrated, I am angry, I'm Anxious, I'm overwhelmed. I'm depressed. I am tired. That is a very inaccurate view of your emotions because it's showing the emotions as the leader rather than just the messenger of your life. Like, if you really think about it, emotions are just vibrations within you. That's it. That's all they are. They're very meaningful. They enrich our human experience. They're extremely valuable. We don't want them to go away. Like we don't want a life without emotion. And even the hardest of emotions gives us so much perspective and appreciation for the high frequency emotions and vibrations of joy and gratitude and love and belonging and excitement, enthusiasm. Like we enjoy those so much because we understand the lows of guilt and anger and shame. Okay? But they're all feelings nonetheless. And you are not your feelings. You are the conscious being that experience experiences feelings. So the first thing that I need us to focus on is just being able to differentiate who you are from how you feel. And you can do that by having a very strong I am statement that supports you through your day to day life. It doesn't mean it's the only I am statement you'll ever have. It just means that it's like your anchor in your daily life. Like, this is who I am, this is what I do, this is how I think and how I'm going to show up in my life. And it's very empowering. Right? And then when you feel a certain way, you're able to validate and recognize that feeling and help yourself through it. Because we're able to say, this is who I am and I feel tired. What am I going to do with that? Am I feeling tired because I have not been moving enough and I would feel better if I got up and moved, or do I feel tired because I've been moving so much that I need a rest? It can come from both. It can come from both, right? So being able to evaluate why you feel the way you feel and how you can help yourself because you know, you are not your feeling and you're completely capable of, you know, continuing to enrich your human experience with more feelings. The one, the one feeling you have right now is not the only feeling that you're capable of having. Okay, so have that differentiation. We want to be able to focus on that. And the common, the common wildfire spread of messaging that I've been noticing right now that I feel is such a disservice. It's pretty destructive to mothers to be adopting this perspective right now. And I, it just doesn't feel right to not call attention to it. So we're calling attention to it. Um, that is this. This feeling of guilt for mothers. And I really believe that all feelings are messengers. Every single one of them is a messenger. And when you choose to believe that, you're the conscious being of your life and you have an emotional experience, and your emotions are messengers, and you are the leader. I've done several podcast episodes on this. The feeling is the messenger. You are the leader, which means you're the one with the freaking control panels. And then you have this advisory board of emotions in front of you that you acknowledge and you listen to them. You're, like, the best leader ever. That's why I want you to think about yourself in this setting. You're the best leader ever for your team. You validate each one. You acknowledge them. You recognize their efforts. You're grateful for everyone on the team. You know, it's important that we're all here in order for us to accomplish our goals and for things to go well. So you value everybody there, right? So you're the best leader and your feelings are messengers. They're advisors. There's no. Really. There's no feeling that you shouldn't have. And yet there's this messaging right now that there are some things that you just shouldn't feel guilty about or guilty for as a mom. And I need you to give me an opportunity to express this if you're listening to this episode. So, number one, if you feel guilty, you should feel guilty because it's a feeling. It's a feeling. So if. If I. If I say, man, I feel so guilty that I did xyz or I said ABC or I yelled, I feel so guilty that I missed my morning routine. I feel so guilty that I did whatever. Whatever it is, I feel guilty. If I were to tell somebody I feel guilty, and they were to say, oh, but you just shouldn't feel guilty for that. I mean, does that sound nice in theory, or is that supposed to be super helpful? Does that just take the feeling away? Like. No, none of the above. None of the above. That's not helpful. It doesn't take the feeling away, and it doesn't validate the way that I'm feeling in that moment anyway. And how bizarre this is. The part that's so bizarre to me is that it's okay for people to say, you shouldn't feel guilty, but it wouldn't be okay for us to say, you shouldn't feel sad, you shouldn't feel happy, you shouldn't Feel excited. You shouldn't feel disappointed. Like, you went after this job opportunity and you got turned down for the role, for the position, and you're like, man, I feel so disappointed. And if someone were to come up to you and be like, well, you shouldn't feel disappointed. That doesn't freaking help. That doesn't feel very encouraging or validating or like. Like someone's holding space for us, like, now. Now I'm just not connecting with this person. And. And yet when it comes to the feeling of guilt, we just kind of like, some people are just laying over a nice. Brushing over it with a nice. You shouldn't feel guilty. You shouldn't feel guilty for whatever it is that you're feeling guilty about. For what you fed your kids, what time you all went to bed, what time you woke up, if you missed your morning routine, if you had a morning routine, if you decided to go spend time for yourself, which is another thing we're going to dig into in just a minute because that is a different perspective, obviously. So I want to encourage you right now that if you feel guilty for yelling, if you feel guilty for missing an important something that just means a lot to your kids and you completely forgot about it, like, I'm not saying you're like, we're not bad moms if we forget something. That's not it at all. Guilt does not mean you're a bad mom if you accept the feeling. No, it just means, hey, I'm actually willing to improve myself and get further into alignment with who I want to be. And I'm going to allow this feeling to teach me a lesson right now because clearly there's something I need to learn. And if our feelings weren't here to advise us and teach us and give us these messages, how the freak would we learn? When we're doing something that's outside of alignment with who we want to be? Feelings are so important. So if you have this idea in your head of the mom that you want to be and you're falling short of it right now and. And you're feeling guilty, let the guilt be your teacher. Let it be your friend. Let it be. It's like the honest friend in your corner, right? Like, we all need that honest friend in our corner that's willing to say, hey, you actually told me that it means a lot to you to be doing so. To be doing so and so, right? To be doing your workouts, to do your skincare before you go to bed, to drink more water. You told me that it's really important to you to spend less time on your phone. And you're on your phone right now, like, is just beyond valuable. I mean, it's invaluable to have a friend in your corner that's willing to hold you accountable to what you say you want. And a lot of us don't have that. We don't have a friend in our corner that's willing to hold us that freaking accountable. So we have the feeling of guilt. And the feeling of guilt can help you tremendously. It can be that invaluable friend in your corner that's willing to say, that's actually not who you told me you want to be. That's actually not the time you told me you want to go. Go to bed. This is not the morning routine that you expressed you want. Like, this is not the way you told me you want to handle difficult moments with your kids. This is not how you told me you wanted to handle nighttime wakings. It. It's just a feeling that holds you accountable to what you said you want. It's not coming out of fricking nowhere. Like, it's coming within you. And your thoughts create your feelings. So nobody outside of you can even make you feel guilty. If you see what some. What someone else is doing, you're like, oh, they just make me feel so guilty. No, no, you feel guilty because what you think about what you're doing compared to what somebody else is doing, and that's something inside of your control. If other people had the ability to make us feel something, oh, my gosh, the world would be out of freaking control. Like, I know sometimes it feels that way anyway. You would literally be out of control. Just literally. Like, it is so empowering to know that our thoughts create our feelings because there's something we can do about that. Somebody else does not have the remote control to decide what we do, how we feel, what we think, and what we're gonna do next and how we're gonna live our life and what things are gonna look like. You could decide right now that you're changing, that you've had it with the way you've done things, and you can make one freaking choice right now that changes your entire life. You could do that right now because you don't have to wait on somebody else. You don't need somebody else's permission to feel empowered. You don't have. You don't need somebody else's permission to feel full of hope and inspired and accountable and excited to hold yourself to these new standards. Like, you don't need anybody else's permission to change your perspective of guilt. Sometimes we need some inspiration. Sure. We need new influences in our life. Absolutely. Because we're social beings and we're influenced and we're conditioned. Like, for sure. We're just not controlled by other people. Influences play a big role, and we even play a part in who those influences are in our life and how much access we give them to us and. And us to them. Like, we have that ability. So when you feel guilty, let's say you yelled at your kids, it was a really freaking hard moment. And that's so valid. I've totally had those moments. Like, gosh, like, they just. They just kept crying and crying, crying. And everything you tried wasn't working. You just felt so frustrated. And you got to that point, you're like, ah, like, please just stop crying. I told you I'm getting it right. And we had that moment that we yelled and we felt guilty. Is it helpful to tell ourselves, oh, I just shouldn't feel guilty for that? No. Because it's basically like, permission to do it again instead of learning the lesson of, like, all right, let me reevaluate what happened. Let me just. Let me deconstruct where things felt like they became too much and how I can proactively approach this next time. Because let's just imagine it's going to happen 88,000 more times. Let's just imagine that this is going to happen again. And excusing my behavior, justifying what I'm thinking about my kids and giving myself a free pass to do whatever the frick is convenient and most easy and comfortable for me in that moment isn't getting me very far. So I. I wanted to call out this idea of moms shouldn't feel guilty, because that's literally the same thing as saying, moms shouldn't feel sad. They shouldn't feel disappointed, they shouldn't feel overwhelmed, they shouldn't feel exhausted, they shouldn't feel angry, they shouldn't feel excited, they shouldn't feel proud. They shouldn't feel loving. They shouldn't feel gentle, nurturing, caring, compassionate. They shouldn't feel this way. Saying that about any feeling is insane. Like, to me, it's just. No, that is a failing, failing approach. Because telling somebody you shouldn't have that feeling doesn't take it away. And it certainly doesn't teach them what to do with it. And they're gonna have the feeling again. So now not only are they experiencing the feeling, they're also thinking that they're Crazy for having the feeling, which is the last thing moms need right now. The last freaking thing we need. What we really need is Jesus. Let's talk about that. We need Jesus. And we need to know that we're having a normal human experience. We're valid in the way we feel and how we feel is different than who we are. And I get to decide who I am. And even if I have a feeling that's difficult for me to navigate at some point in time, that feeling also has a valid message to give me, a valuable message for me to be able to interpret and learn from and run with in the future. What I want to do is feel angry long enough, just long enough for anger to teach me the lesson, to give me the message that I can comprehend. And then once I've got that message, oh, yeah. Thank you, anger. You're dismissed. I'm headed to joy. I'm headed to gratitude now. Thank you. I'm headed to appreciation. Yep, I'm going to start there. I'm going over to compassion. Like I. We. We have this ability, and I want you to feel so empowered to use it because you get to decide who you are. When your nervous system gets dysregulated, guess who the best person is to regulate it Again. You. When you're feeling angry, guess who the best person is to validate that feeling and help yourself through it. You. When your child feels dysregulated and they're feeling angry and furious, guess who the best person is to to model how to validate a feeling and regulate the nervous system. You. You are the best teacher. You're the best role model, and you're the best source of peace and empowerment and inspiration and hope in your life because you're. You have to be the one willing to experience those feelings. And that's a whole nother episode for another day. And I feel like I say that quite often. So we have a lot of episodes to come. And this is one other thing that I wanted to expand on with this feeling of guilt, because I know it's. It's not as often that maybe you tell somebody, oh, my gosh, I yelled and I feel so guilty. Versus I went and spent time, like, getting my nails done. I just feel so guilty that I even left. Right. It's more likely that someone's going to tell you, you shouldn't feel guilty for that because you went and got your nails done versus you saying that you yelled. Like, it's more likely that they're going to say, oh, you shouldn't feel guilty about that when you get your nails done compared to if you tell them, oh, I yelled, they may not respond. I mean, maybe they freaking will. They may not respond with, you shouldn't feel guilty for yelling. Maybe you have a friend in your corn that would say that. I don't know. I'm just saying it's not very helpful. It's just this idea of trying to rescue you from the feeling rather than challenging you to just experience the feeling and learn from it. And we need more coaches and challenges in our life that, that encourage us and empower us to experience the circumstance, experience the feeling, get deeper into those thoughts and figure out where they're coming from, why this is happening, what we can do with it, what they're trying to teach us, what pivot we need to make, how to best navigate it. Like, we need more coaches and challengers that, that see how freaking capable we are rather than trying to either rescue us from what we're going through and how we're feeling, or persecute us for the way that it in the first place. Like, we need more. And I hope to always be just a coach and challenger in your corner that sees you as a creator of your life. And that's what I want for my life, too. So let's say you go spend time with your. Go spend time for yourself. You get out of the house, you tell your husband, you know, babysitter, family, whoever, I'm going to go have couple hours to myself, I'm going to go get my nails done, I'm going to go get a coffee, whatever, and you go do that. And while you're out doing that, you're feeling guilty. You're feeling guilty that you're out doing that. While you're out doing that, right? And you tell a friend about it, and the friend says you shouldn't feel guilty for going, getting your nails done. That sounds like the time that we would really hear it. So number one, just consciously choose because you could still. This is the thing. Just because we change our perspective doesn't mean everybody else's. There's a lot of people that will not agree with this opinion. It's my opinion, um, and I am a strong believer that all feelings are meant to be felt. That's why they're called feelings. So someone simply saying you shouldn't feel guilty or afraid or angry doesn't actually do something effective. It's not actually helpful or empowering for us. So if you have someone in your life that con that just constantly says this to you don't expect them to change. Don't expect the world to just grow with you. You just have to decide to grow. You have to decide to change. You have to decide to. To show up as who you want to be, to heal your past and have acceptance that the world and everybody in it is going to be who they want to be until they want to change, just like you. And sometimes we want to change before they want to. Sometimes we want to have this new perspective, have these new feelings, have these new habits in our daily life before other people want to. And that's just part of it. So you have to accept that. And maybe you choose to stop telling that friend when you feel guilty, because how would she tell you not to feel guilty if she doesn't even know that you're feeling it? There's a lot of control that you have in this, right? So let's go to that example, though, because I want your mind on board for this perspective. If it's meant for you, I know it will land well. And that is like, if you feel guilty when you go out, regardless of what anybody else is saying to you, if you should or shouldn't feel guilty, blah, blah, blah. Like, let's just imagine you go out, get your nails done, grab that coffee, you're out for two and a half, three hours, and you're like, I just feel so guilty while I'm out here. Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I'm spending this time to myself. I really. I should be back home with the kids. I feel so guilty that I'm doing this. I feel so guilty I'm spending money on myself. I feel so guilty that, you know, I'm. I'm getting the pink color when, gosh, my son really wanted me to get dark blue. And I just feel so guilty. Like, you're experiencing a lot of guilt from a lot of different places. Let's imagine that the feeling of guilt may not actually be because you're out taking care of yourself. Because what's more true than you shouldn't be out taking care of yourself is you serve everybody else better when you care for yourself, when you prioritize the morning routine or you prioritize your workout that day, you made sure you went out on a walk, you made the meal plan, or you're cooking at home, you. You have screen limits on your phone, you're going to bed earlier, whatever it is, you're drinking more water, you take care of everybody else way better when you are cared for. So this idea that Going out, taking care of yourself, having time to yourself, spending a little bit of money on yourself. Like, is what's causing the guilt. I think that is the easy answer. I think it's the. The, like, the. Oh, this must be it, because it's what I'm doing right now instead of sitting with the guilt a little bit longer and asking it why it's here. Hey, guilt, what are you trying to teach me right now? What do you need me to know? What's really important that you need me to know right now? The likelihood of it being. You just shouldn't be caring for yourself because it's. It's so selfish to be out here spending two hours to yourself a week. You need to spend 247 at home. Like, that's not going to be the answer. What's the answer going to be? Maybe the answer is going to sound something like, you know, I'm just not completely satisfied with the type of quality time that I've given my kids this week or today. Gosh, I just. I really wish I would have taken the time to be slower this morning with my kids before I went out here and spent time on myself. I really, man, I really wanted this to be an experience that I leave the house feeling like, man, I did such a great job this morning. And the guilt's more so, coming from the way we were at home, not going out and spending time or money or energy or attention or focus on ourselves. The guilt's coming from what happened before that. So I just want you to be able to become a master recognizer of what you're feeling and getting curious about the feeling rather than defensive with it. What the frick do you have to be? Is it just. It's a vibration within you? Why do you have to be defensive about a feeling? So what? Anger's here. So what? Like, so what? Guilt is here? Yeah, it's here. Embrace it. It's a vibration. Sit. Sit a little bit deeper into it and get curious about it. Because the more curious you can get about your feelings, the more you're gonna learn from them. And then they don't have to scream so wildly at you to try and get your attention. They just know I'm gonna raise my hand and she's gonna notice me because she's an excellent leader, and I am a valuable part of this team, and she loves that I'm here. She's not gonna try and shut me down. Nobody's gonna be able to just get rid of this. Like, she's gonna give me the Time. And when we give our emotions the time to just consider why the frick they're here, we can actually start helping ourselves and learn the lesson. And what's the lesson? We can evaluate, like, wow, you know, I. I am not satisfied with the quality time that I gave my kids this morning or I'm not satisfied with. With them before I left the house. That's why I feel guilty. So what's my plan? What's my plan? Well, now I know that doesn't align with who I am. What does align with who I am? How does who I am spend quality time with her kids? How does who I really am speak to her kids and loved ones? How does who I really am help them with their homework or plan something with them or keep them involved in what's going on in the home? That's what we need to be asking ourselves. How is who I really am? Do it and give your mind a new vision. Because right now you're just doing what you know how to do. We just have to shift the focus onto who you want to be and how she does things, how she feels, and get that vision going strong so that the vision isn't anymore. Well, I know that they're going to cry and I'm going to yell. They're going to wake up in the middle of the night and I'm going to huff and puff and roll my eyes and be really aggressive with them. They're gonna take longer to fall asleep and I'm gonna act super annoyed and say things that I regret saying and feel guilty about. Like, instead of making those predictions and living in that repetitive cycle that we are just so sick of, we're gonna just create a new vision, hold space for our feelings, be willing to learn from them. So that's. My unpopular opinion for you today, is to realize that guilt is a feeling just like any other, and it's meant to be felt just like every other feeling. And for someone to say, you shouldn't feel guilty about that, it's. I believe this is incredibly unhelpful. And I want us to be able to have a better way to approach it than that. So if you feel guilty, just decide for yourself what you're going to think about that. This is a valuable message for me to receive and learn from, and I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to learn the lesson right now. So I'm going to do that. And be willing to sit with yourself, sit with your feelings, experience them, and withhold that information from people that are telling you that you shouldn't feel that way because it's actually not helping you feel better. That's never going to help someone feel better. You just shouldn't feel that way. Okay, great. Yeah, Just one more thing I'm doing wrong. Great, thank you. That's not helpful. Right. So if you have someone in your life that's constantly telling you you just shouldn't feel guilty for that, don't tell them, tell the coach, tell the challenger of your life. That's like, wow, you know, that could be a pretty intense feeling. Where do you think it's coming from? Man, that can be really tough to feel that way. What do you think that feeling is? Just trying to let you know. What would you, how would you have rather handled that situation? Have people like that in your corner? And if you're still trying to find people like that, hello, my name's Tessa. I'm in your freaking corner. I'm so thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me. Okay, so we're making progress, friends. I'm so proud of you. Remember, the Revive enrollment is going on right now. It ends at the end of December. So you have a little bit more time to consider Revive. It's our five day retreat and it works inside of mind body alignment. So if you sign up for Revive, you also get my 12 weeks of coaching where I literally coach you deep into your identity, your mindset, your past experiences that have created this influence and conditioning in your life and how to unravel that so you can finally take back your mindset, your emotional wellness, your physical well being, and finally be the conscious creator of your life, deciding what you think, what you do and how you feel. I'm very honored to be here and I'm so grateful that I you're along for the journey with me. Even when we talk about hard topics and maybe something that pushes the boundary line of what has been accepted as the narrative in motherhood. I love you dearly and I will see you really soon. Oh, my sweet friend. Thank you for joining me on this week's episode of the momset podcast. Please take a minute to leave a review and share the show. If you loved it, I'd love to stay connected as we continue to learn and grow in motherhood right alongside each other.