This weeks topic is a favourite of mine and something so many of my clients struggle with on a daily basis.
Mum Guilt!
One of my favourite sayings ‘ MUM GUILT IS BULLSHIT’
And it is. Some say the guilt can help us refocus and identify what is or should be important. And I get that, to a certain extent.
However…
An article I stumbled across on Wikipedia recently read:
“ Guilt is an emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realises-accurately or not-that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated universal moral standards and bear significant responsibility for that violation.”
This was a lightbulb moment for me and made me realise the guilt we feel is because we think we have ‘compromised our standard’.
But these standards are not written out by us or for us. These standards are absorbed through observing.
Observing social media, news, Reality TV. Watching influencers and celebrities. We take on these standards just by seeing what others are doing and thinking ‘we should be doing that’ then we feel guilty when we don’t or can’t.
We think we should be fitter, healthier, more attentive, more nurturing, more organised, more loving, more considerate, more supportive because @mummyisamazingwith5kids is showing us how amazing she is at being a mum. We are setting our standards based on what we are seeing RATHER than what we feel, know and need.
We know ourselves, our families, our kids. So we should be actively making our own achievable standards instead of comparing our lives to others instead of the (mostly) superficial standards we perceive they are setting.
First step to achieving a mum guilt free live is to be conscious. Be aware when you are observing others. Once you have done this, the rest is easy.