Breaking the Mom Guilt Myth: Why Women Carry It and How to Finally Release It
- High Value Woman
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
There’s a story almost every high-achieving woman carries — a story she didn’t choose, yet somehow became responsible for: If I’m not doing everything perfectly, I’m failing.
And for mothers, that story gets amplified. It becomes the emotional soundtrack beneath every decision, every moment of frustration, every drop-off, every late meeting, every meltdown — yours or your child’s.
This is the internal tug of war therapist Jaime Weatherholt and I explored in our conversation about mom guilt, identity, trauma, and the quiet pressure women carry even when they “look like they have it all together.”
Why Mom Guilt Is So Heavy for High-Achieving Women
Mom guilt doesn’t come from the moment you yelled at your kid or the night you ordered takeout again. It starts much earlier.
Jaime shared that many women unconsciously compare three different realities at once:
who their own mothers were
who society tells them to be
and who they imagined they would be before they became a mother
When those versions don’t match, guilt rushes in — not because you’re doing something wrong, but because you’re holding yourself to an impossible standard.
“You’re not asking for too much — you’re just accepting too little.” That includes the unrealistic demands you place on yourself.
The Hidden Roots of Mom Guilt: Trauma, Generational Patterns, and Core Beliefs
What surprised many listeners was how often unresolved trauma becomes the fuel for feeling like you’re always falling short.
Generational trauma teaches you: “Do it the way I did it.” Childhood trauma whispers: “If you mess this up, something bad will happen.” Adoption-related trauma says: “You don’t have a blueprint; you’re on your own.”
At the core of most mom guilt sits the belief:
I’m not good enough.
Parenting doesn’t replace that belief. It magnifies it — because raising a child is the most intimate mirror you’ll ever stand in front of.
Why EMDR and Brainspotting Are So Powerful for Guilt, Shame, and Overwhelm
Jaime explained that mom guilt isn’t just an emotion — it’s an unprocessed memory connected to an outdated belief.
EMDR and brain spotting help the logical and emotional parts of the brain speak to each other again, so you can release the emotional charge rather than relive it.
This creates space for dual truths:
I’m overwhelmed… and I’m still a good mom. I want a career… and I love my child deeply. I didn’t know better then… and I’m doing better now.
Mom guilt tells you to choose a side. Healing teaches you how to hold both.
The Version of You Who Needs to Be Reclaimed
For adoptees, parenting can stir a deeper layer of emotional disconnection.
Jaime shared how reconnecting with the pre-adoption self — the newborn, the child, the version of you who existed before your story changed — is often the missing key to feeling grounded and fully in your body again.
This isn’t just psychological.
It’s somatic. It’s identity-level. It’s remembering yourself.
Releasing Unrealistic Expectations
Every parent dreams of the best parts of raising a child. No one dreams of the guilt, the exhaustion, or the arguments you never saw coming.
Jaime put it beautifully: parents rarely plan for the hard parts — so when the hard parts happen, they assume something is wrong with them. But most parents are simply trying to do a little better than what they had with the information they now have.
Parenthood was never supposed to be perfect. It was designed to evolve.
When Mom Guilt Follows You Into Empty Nesting
Even when the kids grow up, mom guilt often doesn’t. If anything, it shifts shape.
Parents start to see patterns more clearly. They recognize what they didn’t know. They realize their adult children need something different from them — and that transition can bring up grief, confusion, and a renewed wave of guilt.
But this awareness can also be a portal into deeper connection when approached with presence.
Stepping Into Presence, Agency, and Empowerment
This entire episode mirrors the Magnetic Connections Pathway:
Presence
Seeing your guilt as a story — not an identity.
Agency
Understanding what your nervous system needs and what beliefs you’re actually carrying.
Empowerment
Creating relationships — with your children, your partner, and yourself — that are aligned, grounded, and deeply true.
When you shift into empowerment, you parent from clarity instead of reaction.
Listen or Watch the Full Episode
If you want to experience this conversation in its full depth, vulnerability, and emotional nuance, you can watch or listen here:
Breaking the Mom Guilt Myth – Trauma, Comparison, and the Pressure to Be “Everything” with Jaime Weatherholt, first episode of the The Magnetic Mother: Rewriting the Story of Womanhood series
Your Next Step: Break the Pattern
If this stirred something awake in you — if you’re done carrying guilt that was never yours — you’re closer to relief than you think.
And you don’t have to navigate this alone.
If you’re ready to feel grounded, steady, and aligned in your relationships — so you can create Magnetic Connections that feel like home — book a free call with me.
This call is where clarity clicks back into place and the next step becomes obvious.
Because you don’t need another strategy. You need a new pattern. And you’re the woman who gets to choose it.
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