When You Really Don't Want To Be A Mom

A couple years ago, I was going through a writing course as I began to write my story. I have a folder full of stories that I wrote, and never shared with the world - they were just for me. For my own healing.

But as I go through them, I’ve realized that some of them need to be shared. Because when you are going through postpartum depression, you feel so alone in your pain.

You think there’s something wrong with you because you don’t feel the love and joy that you thought you would feel as a mom - and thinking that there’s something wrong with you leads you to that spin of not knowing what to change or if you even can. Which is a complete and total lie.

So this post is for you - the mom who doesn’t want to be a mom, and wants to know what to do to love her life again.

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Sometimes I just really don’t want to be a mom.

And not like, I’m just tired of motherhood. But like I really don’t want to be a mom anymore.

I want to just rewind the years, and remake that decision somehow. To somehow not fall in love with my husband. To change the course of my life right in that moment – no wedding day, no babies.

This is something that I don’t share lightly.

Have I told anyone this?

I’ve said so to my husband, but I think he just brushes it off as me in the heat of the moment. The emotions rushing high, words said that aren’t meant.

And maybe this is just that thought error, the thought from my depression that seems to play on repeat. Like a stuck record. Life goes on, but then it comes back to this same thought again.

I really don’t want to be a mom.

I wonder, do any other moms feel this way?

Am I the only one?

I wonder if it’s because of my depression that I have these thoughts – are they normal or is this another relapse?

I’ve always thought that I’m not as happy as I should be in motherhood, partly because of the depression but partly because of these times when I just don’t want to be a mom.

When I feel like I could happily become a non-mom again and life would be amazing.

At which point I always feel the need to insert “but YES I LOVE my kids. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I know if they weren’t here I would be pining for them.”

Why the need for the qualifiers?

I feel less than.

I feel that my love is somehow flawed. Not enough.

That I don’t love my kids as much as other moms love theirs.

And when I think these thoughts and feel these feelings, I proceed to prove them true.

I don’t act like a loving mom, snarling when the office door gets flung open in the middle of my writing.

I don’t treat my kids with patience or with love as they fight over legos.

I cut myself off from them, distancing myself in mind, in heart, in body.

I sulk in the kitchen, doing yet another mindless task. Blocking my heart from the pain that I’m creating for myself with these thoughts.

I resist the hurt. The hurt of denying myself the love of my children, the love of myself.

I use these thoughts against me, to spin in them and prove how bad of a mom I am.

Somehow it turns from I don’t want to be a mom, to I don’t deserve to be a mom.

To my kids would be better off without me.

The same story, told again and again.

Becoming an ingrained path in my brain, one that is so easy to follow.

So again, I remind myself – thoughts are simply sentences in your brain. Neither true nor false. Simply a sentence that your brain is offering you because it’s the easiest one. One that you can choose to believe or to let go of.

And with this reminder, I feel the load lift.

My shoulders feel lighter, removing the slump in them. The weight that was on my chest begins to lighten and I can breathe deeper again.

That fog that came over my brain begins to thin, and I begin to think clearly again.

Yes, sometimes I am a mom that doesn’t want to be a mom.

But can I love myself through these thoughts anyway?

Can I recognize that these thoughts are also just thoughts, and even though I sometimes choose to believe them, they don’t mean anything about me?

Can I see that I am still worthy of my love, of my children’s love?

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Can you see that you are still worthy of your love, of your children’s love?

Accepting and receiving love is one of the most challenging things we do in our life - which, if you look at it logically seems kind of silly, no? Like who wouldn’t want more love in their life?

But the truth is that it can feel like a very scary and vulnerable place to be - especially for those of us with an insecure attachment style. It’s something that we want most, and yet we feel afraid to open ourselves up to it because of what might happen after.

The biggest thing that I want you to walk away from this blog post with, is knowing that you are not alone and that there are things you can do to become the mom you always thought you would be. This is what I help you do inside of Operation: Happy Mom, and you can join the group of incredible moms doing this work right here.

How Life Coaching Has Changed My Life

Does this sound dramatic? Maybe.

Is it true? Yep.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I had postpartum depression after my first baby was born. It didn’t look like I thought depression would look. I made it mean that I was a bad mom – I believed that my depression was me. I didn’t see it as a sign that I was struggling and needed to reach out for help, I saw it as a failure.

Since that first big collision with depression, my mind so easily falls back into that pattern. It can be the smallest thing that sets me off, and suddenly my brain is telling me “What kind of a mom are you? Maybe your kids really would be better off with someone else.” And down the spiral I go. Negative thought after negative thought, all piling on top of me, weighing me into the ground.

Sometimes I would be in this downward spiral for a month, sometimes a few days. Through these ups and downs I would wonder, “Am I depressed? Is this normal? Do I need help? Am I normal?” I didn’t know if everyone had bad days as bad as mine, or if there was something wrong with me.

What I’ve learned though, is that it doesn’t matter if I get the diagnosis of depression or not. What matters is how I live my life, and what I do with these depressive times. Do I allow myself to believe these negative thoughts about myself and my life, and then use that as evidence that I truly am not worthy? Or do I do my best to be aware of where my thoughts are headed, and if I’m not strong enough in that moment to redirect, do I love myself through it anyway?

The more I put this work into practice, the better I get at staying on top of my thoughts and emotions. My days now are much more aligned with who I truly am than they used to be. Coaching, and self coaching, has changed how I show up in my life. How I treat myself, my children, my husband, my friends, our home – everything. It has helped me to take all of the personal development concepts that I’ve learned and actually apply them. Applying them is where the magic happens.

I have often thought that if I had continued living the way I was, I would not be a happy, believing mom today. My faith is the most important thing to me, and when I believed my depression, I did not live how I want to.

So yes, coaching has truly changed my life. If something in my story resonates with you, let me show you how it can change yours.

How To Be a Happy Mom

When I was first struggling with postpartum depression, I would google this over and over. How to be a happy mom. How do I be happy? I was hoping for a book, an article, something with a step by step guide that I could follow to just be happy. I thought it would be easier for me to climb out of the darkness with someone showing me the way.

What I found were many stories on endless forums of moms just accepting that they don’t like to be a mom. That they won’t ever want to be a mom. These of course aren’t very encouraging to read, but I also didn’t want to accept this fact. I knew that there had to be a way to enjoy being a mom more than I was.

I also found articles on learning to have fun again, of making sure that not all of your interactions with your kids were negative. To get down on the floor with them and play even for five minutes. Of taking time for yourself and doing whatever it is that fills you. Yes, I thought, this is what I need. But how??

I would start the day with great intentions of taking time to play with my kids, to cross items off my to do list while also setting aside time to paint or sew. Some days I accomplished some of these, but many days I found myself crawling into bed at night wondering where I failed. Why didn’t I have the energy, the motivation, the patience to do these things that I so wanted to do? I also knew that if I did them, I would feel better, so why wasn’t I doing them?

The problem my friend, was this: I was trying to change my habits, my actions, my behaviors, without changing my thoughts. I’m sure you’ve heard that saying that goes along these lines - “what you think becomes your actions. Your actions become your life.” But have you ever actually stopped and thought about that?

Our thoughts create our life.

Literally. What we think and believe shows up in our relationships, our houses, what we do and don’t do with our time – it shows up in everything. So, it’s as simple and as complicated as that: In order to be a happy mom, you need to change your thoughts. This is a list of a few “how to’s”:

1.       Create new thoughts to think that are in alignment with the life that you want to live. Now this isn’t just think positive all the time! This is becoming aware of which thoughts are creating results in your life that you don’t want, and finding a new thought that you believe to think instead.

2.       Accept the 50/50 rule for emotions. You will not be happy all of the time – not only is it not possible, but you actually wouldn’t want to be. About half the time you will feel good, and the other half you will feel not good. Being a human means feeling all of the feels. Some of them aren’t enjoyable, but guess what? It’s life.

3.       Quit beating yourself up when you aren’t happy. Quit feeling bad about feeling bad. Did you know that when you feel crappy, and then you feel crappy about feeling crappy, you feel even more crappy? Right? So if you feel bad, tell yourself that it’s okay to feel this way. The emotion will pass, you won’t stay there forever I promise.

4.       Take responsibility for your own happiness. It’s easy to think well if my husband did this then I would be happy or well if my kids just listened to me I would be happier. And yes I’m sure we all would be happier if our kids didn’t try our patience so much. But that’s not the point. The point is that no matter what is happening outside of your control, you are always responsible for your emotions.

5.       Know that it’s a work in progress. These are things that we need to work on every single day. This is a process that you will go through for the rest of your life. Oh, how many times I’ve wished that I could just wake up one day and have it all figured out, to be how I want. But there is no destination here, the journey is the destination. I don’t particularly like that saying, but it’s true. Quit waiting for the someday that everything will be exactly as you think it should be because that day won’t come. Instead just keep learning, and love yourself as you go.

This work of diving into my thoughts, of becoming aware of my thoughts, and of changing the thoughts that I’m thinking, has been challenging but so worth it. To work on taking out the ones that aren’t serving me in my life, and create the new thoughts that I want to think is literally life changing. It’s one thing to learn a new concept, and a whole other story to actually apply it in life.

This is the work that I want to do in the world. I want to help moms realize that their happiness, joy, contentment, whatever it is that they want to feel, is attainable through becoming aware of their thoughts. This is what I call a heart centered work. If this resonates with you, make sure to sign up on my email list to get notified of when my coaching program will be available. (The link wasn’t working for a while, so if you haven’t been getting any of my emails you will need to sign up again.)

Happiness is an inside job, truly an inside job.

It Starts With Your Thoughts

Motherhood just is. It’s a circumstance, a fact. I am a mom. I have five kids. I birthed these children.

It’s what I think about motherhood that makes it something. I can choose to think it’s hard or easy. Fun or boring. Happy or depressing. I can see it as an adventure, or something that keeps me from adventure. It’s not always easy to choose how you think about something, but it is a choice.

When I think thoughts like being a mom is hard, boring, or depressing, that’s what my experience of motherhood becomes. My brain is looking for all the ways to make those thoughts true. Have you ever noticed that when you are tired of your kids not listening to you, that’s when they really don’t listen to you? And the patience that is already so thin to begin with, gets even thinner? Whereas when you are coming from a place of love and compassion, you are able to respond to disobedience more calmly.

Our thoughts about a situation creates our emotions, our emotions create our actions, and our actions create our results.

It all starts with your thoughts. Many people will say Think positive! And it’s true, do think positive thoughts. But you need to believe those positive thoughts, or they won’t be doing anything for you. You can’t go from My life is too hard to I love my life! In one step. Find the in between thoughts that are true for you, such as I want to love my life, I am focusing on the things that I enjoy about my life, or I will find one thing today that I love.

Now I’m also not saying that we should be positive all the time; life is 50/50. Half of the time we will be feeling something good and the other half will be something not so good, that’s just how it is. But to become aware of the results that our thoughts are creating in our life is a huge step forward. Recognizing when we are being more negative than positive, and choosing to not let the negativity overrule your days.

I want you to try something today – it might sound crazy to you if you’ve never heard of doing thought work before. Let me tell you though, it works! Take five minutes to try this exercise and see if it does anything for you. WRITE IT DOWN. Thinking about it helps too, but actually physically writing it down on paper and seeing it is much better. I promise.

1.       Pick one area of your life that feels hard right now. (example: Bedtime)

2.       Grab a piece of paper and a pen, and write down one thought that you think about it. (ex: I have to repeat myself a million times before the kids brush their teeth)

3.       What emotion does this thought cause you to feel? (ex: Frustrated)

4.       How do you act because of this emotion? (ex: Impatient with the kids)

5.       And what is the result of this action? (ex: Nobody is happy at bedtime)

Notice how your original thought creates the result that you get. Want a different result? Find a new thought to think about the situation. In my example, I could change my thought to “I will brush my teeth at the same time as them, so I don’t have to repeat myself.” This thought causes me to be present with the kids, in the bathroom together brushing our teeth. Not trying to get all the other things done at the same time and expecting them to brush their teeth and get ready for bed by themselves. Which brings a much better result of being present with my kids.

I’m telling you: becoming aware of our thoughts can change how we view our lives and how we spend our days.