Mom Guilt- What causes it?

So yesterday we started looking out for the feeling of Guilt. It comes after we think a thought about what we did (or didn’t do) that we wish we hadn’t done. All feelings come from thoughts. What?! If you didn’t ever consider that before, take a second to soak that in. I used to not know that. I thought that emotions just came out of nowhere. And that other people were usually to blame for how I felt. When I learned that my feelings are caused by my own thoughts, my mind was blown!

So where does mom guilt come from? It’s not actually from what we did or didn’t do. And it’s not our kid’s fault. Guilt is a feeling so it comes from our thoughts. Thoughts like “I shouldn’t have done that”, “that was a terrible thing to do”, “I can’t believe I did that again!”, etc. When we do something out of alignment with our values, we feel guilty. And that’s not all bad. We want to be alarmed when we are not behaving in the way that we think is best, but most of us have our guilt-ometer a little too out of wack. Which we will discuss why and how that has happened in the next few days.

But just for today, the next step after awareness of feeling the emotion is to slow it down and see if you can pinpoint the thought that triggered that emotion. So for the next day, keep noticing the guilt and see if you can figure out what the thought is exactly that caused it. When you can own that your own thoughts are causing your feelings, you get all the power back in your life. You don’t have to blame anyone or change anyone in order to feel better. You keep all the control in the one area that you actually can control: your own mind! You’ve got this! We can take control of our own emotional lives by recognizing what is going on in our own brains!