Just as I find myself settling into the rhythm of school term, feeling more at ease with managing my paid work, the school run and other activities, other parents start talking about the next school holidays! They really do come around so quickly! School holidays are a wonderful opportunity to do fun things and spend quality time with your children, but if you still need to manage paid work, it can be stressful too. Your daily routine looks so different and while some things stop, others, like work, keep on going for many mothers and we have to figure out a way to manage that.  Mothers of ..read more

Worry is a chain of negative thoughts about bad things that might happen in the future (Brene Brown, “Altas of the Heart”). It is a coping strategy we tend to employ when we feel anxious because we think (perhaps subconsciously) that it is helpful. Worrying feels productive. For those of us who like to plan ahead and prepare ourselves to avoid potential problems or failures, worrying can feel like you are anticipating and thinking through those possible outcomes. When worrying is not excessive it can be productive, supporting our survival and driving problem-solving. It can help us take action ..read more

The beliefs we hold form the lens through which we view and interpret the world around us and all our experiences. They help us make sense of situations and inform our decisions and actions. This happens both consciously and subconsciously. Some of our beliefs support us in becoming the person we want to be and living life in a way that aligns with our values and goals. Others can make this difficult by causing unwanted behaviors, thoughts and other symptoms, taking us away from what we want and who we want to be.   To help us understand how beliefs impact our lives and how we can re ..read more

In this article, we hear from Rachel Preston Broughton, who has two beautiful children and generously shares with us her reflections on motherhood so far. Enjoy reading about the things Rachel wishes she had known back when she first became a mother.   As a mum of a two-year-old and a four-year-old, I’ve learned a lot since my introduction to motherhood with my first baby. Not only do we mums learn practical things, such as how to take care of our babies, what they like, and how to soothe them, we also learn a whole lot of things about motherhood, and ourselves. When I think back to what ..read more

Perfection is so alluring. We love our children so deeply that it makes sense that we would want to give them the best start to life and the best opportunity to flourish through being the perfect mum. We are parenting in a society that places excessive pressure on mothers and constantly highlights how they aren’t measuring up. Mothers are held accountable for how their children develop, behave, and ultimately turn out and while we do certainly have significant influence, other contributing factors are often downplayed or overlooked. Marketing often relies on creating the fear of not being a go ..read more

Be positive! Look on the bright side! Good vibes only! Do you feel like you should be happy all the time? Happiness is celebrated and heavily promoted in our society (just think about all the happy people you see in marketing campaigns). We adopt it as a goal to work towards, for ourselves and our children. The socially constructed ideal of the perfect mother includes being happy and completely fulfilled by motherhood. Even constant self-sacrifice and a never-ending workload don’t get perfect mum down. She enjoys putting everyone else’s needs first and juggling all her responsibilities. (Remem ..read more

Our brains are constantly on the lookout for things that might harm us and in doing so, they create a lot of difficult thoughts. These thoughts might relate to pain from the past, challenges we are facing in the present or fear about the future. Positive thinking is great and can be very helpful, but it won’t stop your mind from generating these thoughts altogether. The human brain will always work to move away from perceived threats and toward rewards. Difficult thoughts and the situations they remind us of are perceived threats (and sometimes real threats) – they can bring emotional discomfo ..read more

Overfunctioning can be simpler to understand than to spot in our lives because people who overfunction tend to be seen as very responsible, reliable, helpful, competent and caring. They do all the things for all the people. Society celebrates people who are constantly doing and achieving things and women are told they can do it all, so overfunctioning looks very positive at a glance. However, overfunctioning goes beyond what is needed, appropriate or healthy. It involves taking on others’ responsibilities, needs, feelings or wellbeing, even if they don’t want or need us to. It can involve resc ..read more

Do you wish you had more balance in your life? Have you been trying to get there but somehow can’t quite get it right? Be kind to yourself, lovely. Balance can feel like an elusive goal. When we look around at other mums on social media and in our lives and they appear to do it all, we are possibly going to feel frustrated that we can’t seem to get there ourselves. As modern mothers, we’ve been conditioned to believe successful women and mothers can do it all without complaining and without help. This ideal is deeply embedded in our subconscious minds. Even if we decide we don’t want to live t ..read more

Recently, a beautiful woman in the More to Mum community asked me if you could ever give yourself too much self-compassion. She wondered if there was a point where you just had to take accountability for what you’ve done and do better. As I listened to her describe her situation, I could feel the emotion behind the question and I know she is not the only mother who has asked herself this or silenced that self-compassionate voice in favour of her inner critic because she felt she deserved it or needed it in order to improve. When do we just stop telling ourselves that our mistakes are understan ..read more