How mum guilt & Social media can stop you living your best life - and what to do about it

Emotional Health
Written By Miranda Hodge

Mum guilt is a major factor in almost every single mother’s life in the 21st century. It seems like we are resigned to it - that this is simply ‘what we have to do’ in order to get through until we don’t feel guilty anymore.

But, really? Is this something we want - or is there more underlying this?

In this article I share an excerpt from my Kindle ebook ‘Stop Mum Guilt: How it’s ruining your life and your mental health’, which is available here on Amazon in a simple 48-page read!

I wrote this book because I have seen this crippling issue in women I coach, and also experienced it myself, until I came to the point where I realised I could either a) make a change, or b) stop letting guilt rule my mental health and decision-making, which was sometimes unhealthy for my children’s development and my own stress, emotional wellbeing & mental health.

So, read on to find out more!

How Mum guilt & Social Media can stop you living your best life - and what to do about it

 
Mum guilt

How mum guilt and working mum guilt can impact you - and what social media might have to do with it. Get intentional right now - and you’ll find some great mum guilt quotes in here too! #mumguilt #momguilt #mumguiltquotes

 

Social Media and Mum Guilt are inextricably linked

Mum mental health in the last 20 years has been impacted severely by the influx of social media, for obvious reasons. 

Seeing or reading regular posts of what other people’s lives are like causes us to consciously or subconsciously compare this with our own lives. 

Many people put their ‘perfect Instalife’ images up on social media; and we all know people who constantly post mostly sad or depressive updates on socials too. While this is completely up to them, and is often done for support or celebration depending on which case -and the problem is that it is often hard for us to tell which. 

Having a networked society means we are more connected than ever before - and this means we are more likely to have prior thought experience around topics others in our network have experienced. 

Knowing someone you went to school with who lives in Mongolia, may mean you have more insight into what it might be like in Mongolia. However, this also means you would have a different set of expectations if you went to Mongolia personally, as a result.

Consequently, watching other mothers’ experiences and comments through Facebook groups can be very empowering for those who really need it; but it’s possible that it can also create a subconscious expectation that your own situation has all the same context as someone else’s - when this would very probably not be the case. It’s also very common to see a huge variance in comments or replies according to a post - which only serves to highlight the fact that everyone is different, and all see a single event through their own experiences, expectations and habits!

Try it sometime - look through a post which you see a particular way, and see how many share your view. Then, see how many others have a differing view to yours, or highlight a different part of the post you may have missed. It’s very interesting - and shows us that this is simply another type of that ‘intruder guilt’ - the only difference being that many women put themselves out there for ‘opinions’ in this ‘safe’ space which isn’t actually safe in many ways. 

Social Media Management Ideas to stop Mum Guilt

There are a few things you can easily do to manage your own expectations and mum guilt when it comes to social media. They could include:

  • Not going on socials at all. Some mums choose this way, and it’s possible - I mean, our parents all did it - but it can be a little tricky now that Facebook especially is used for mums who are organising their own and children’s lives through this mode of communication.

  • Simply manage where you go on socials. For instance, if that group is constantly bagging out men or showing pictures of the perfect house, you don’t have to be there! You can simply follow friends and do what you want - you are in control of your own social media intake, remember. It doesn’t control you.

  • Make a point of mentally reminding yourself that social media is simply everyone’s highlight reel, not their real life. It’s simply a bunch of pictures which are being shared, often because people want to show others their kids, house, etc - because we can’t always make it over, right?

So what can you do to stop mum guilt?

So how do we go about actually making a difference? It’s not enough to just write all about mum guilt - we need to have some actionable strategies - and these are some of what I share in my book. 

Building a new ‘normal’ involves different strategies, including steps such as:

  • Building awareness

  • Taking back your power

  • Understanding why this might be happening in the first place

(And, more which are shared in the book - but these are the three top ones!)


My job as a stress and emotions coach for women involves helping women through this process, step by step. As a Christian coach, I also bring in the spirituality side as well for my amazing Christian clients - but it’s essentially the same process.

If you feel like you want to join me on a 1:1 coaching session, please find out more just here on my Bookings page.

When we are building a new normal, a huge part of the process involves self compassion.  If we do not bring self compassion into the equation, we are just adding to our stress - putting more on our plate, so to speak. 

Something else that often happens is that as we work to become aware of when we feel that guilt and elevated stress levels; we start to feel like it happens more often. This is simply because these feelings have been largely subconscious until we start making this process of becoming conscious to them. 

It’s still totally worth it though - because in the long run, the stress reduction is extremely beneficial for your health, mentally, emotionally and physically. Also, the benefits for your relationships can be that you feel more empowered and therefore can set better boundaries, and don’t feel like you are constantly needing to perform to escape the potential guilt overload you might subject yourself to.

This is where the self-compassion, and an ability to see the process as just that, comes in. Give yourself a break, so you can learn.

Work on a growth mindset, so you can learn through trial and error - which is actually a very effective way to learn, and the mindset we teach children in our schools.

So are you open to building a new normal? To being uncomfortable as you start building towards your less-anxious, less-frustrated, less-emotionally explosive, less-uptight self? If you want to follow along and create a much better understanding of how mum guilt is running your life and make a significant change, then here’s what to do:

  1. Grab the printable workbook from the Books & Resources tab, and

  2. Download the ebook from Amazon here, and you can get started! It looks like this:

 

How mum guilt and working mum guilt can impact you - and what social media might have to do with it. Get intentional right now - and you’ll find some great mum guilt quotes in here too! #mumguilt #momguilt #mumguiltquotes

 
 

How mum guilt and working mum guilt can impact you - and what social media might have to do with it. Get intentional right now - and you’ll find some great mum guilt quotes in here too! #mumguilt #momguilt #mumguiltquotes

 




Miranda Hodge https://www.thecherishmumspacecoaching.org
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