Mum Guilt

Poppy O'Neill shows us how to turn down this powerful emotion

When you become a mother, it’s really easy to start putting yourself last. Despite our best-laid plans, our children are physically and emotionally dependent on us, and this makes caring for ourselves a lot more complicated. Coupled with a society that teaches women and girls that we should put other people’s wellbeing and comfort before our own, you have a recipe for guilt and selfneglect.

From very early on, girls are taught in a hundred different ways that saying no and putting ourselves first is selfish and unfeminine. We carry these messages into adulthood, where they manifest in many different ways, including impostor syndrome, people-pleasing and guilt.

This is why we feel uncomfortable when we set boundaries in order to care for ourselves. But this doesn’t mean you always have to be at the back of the self-care queue.

It’s worth remembering that just because you feel guilty doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong - it just means you’re doing something that feels unfamiliar, perhaps risky. Developing skills to calm your feelings of guilt or anxiety will help you act in your own best interests, even when it’s hard.

Here are a few tips for letting go of guilt:

Speak kindly to yourself

If your inner critic has a field day every time you go to a kid-free yoga class or buy yourself a coffee, it’s worth remembering that this harsh, critical voice is just one of many ways of looking at the situation. Experiment with tuning into a kinder, more generous and supportive voice - even if it feels strange at first. It’s very difficult to be too kind to yourself, and an encouraging inner cheerleader will help coach you towards a better balance between taking care of others and taking care of you.

Remember perfection doesn’t exist

Nothing any of us do is ever going to be perfect, so consider this your permission to stop trying. We are all simply doing our best in an imperfect world, and any guilt you feel about how tidy your house is or how wholesome your kids’ eating habits are is misplaced. It’s impossible to get everything right, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything to perfection without running yourself into the ground. Let some things fall off your to-do list so that you can make space for yourself.

Take deep breaths

Guilt is a powerful emotion. It’ll make you spend time you don’t have doing things you don’t like, and saying yes when you really, really want to say no. None of us get to choose whether we feel guilty or not in any given moment, but we do have the power to learn to tolerate feelings of guilt that come up when we put ourselves first. Taking deep breaths is a simple but effective way to pause before you make a decision based on guilt. Just a few seconds’ pause to let the intensity of the emotion pass is enough to gather your thoughts, remember that you matter and stand up for yourself.