Curiosity Kills Judgement

One of the main reasons that we feel guilty as a mom is our own judgements of ourselves. If we didn’t judge what we just did as “bad” then we wouldn’t feel bad about it. So let’s go out on a limb here and question if it actually was so bad what you just did. If you feel guilty, then you for sure are thinking that what you did was wrong, but was it? What is so wrong with getting frustrated that you told your kid to stop splashing the bath water a thousand times so you finally raised your voice at him and he actually stopped. Sometimes we yell because our brain has learned from many past similar experiences, that yelling “works”. The kid “doesn’t listen until i get mad”. Of course we don’t want to yell at our kids. Or have to raise our voice. Or even have to ask multiple times. But beating ourselves up with shame and guilt after the fact doesn’t actually help us come up with a more creative and fun way to get cooperation next time. It just keeps us spinning in frustration.

So what is the solution? Curiosity. Curiosity kills judgement. So instead of judging ourselves on how we showed up and spin in guilt and shame, we can get leverage over our behavior by dropping the judgement and getting curious instead. We have good reasons for everything we do. Like we started to explore above. Our brains have learned that yelling works so of course we will go to that solution again. What else? Why was it so triggering exactly? What were we thinking? How are you feeling? How have we been taking care of ourselves? When we stop beating ourselves up with our own judgements, we can get more curious which leads to compassion and that is a much better fuel for change. Give it a try today. and feel that mom guilt drop away! 👍