How you might be beating yourself up as a Millennial christian mother - and how to stop yourself! — Peaceful Living with Miranda

Christian women can often been seen as male-dominated, submissive types who sit in circles and pray quietly.

Or, you may have seen or have experienced a Christian mother as a judgemental, all-knowing type who wants to tell you why God doesn’t appreciate whatever it is that you feel led to do. cringe

Let me preface this with an apology - in my opinion God doesn’t require us to be like that. And, in my opinion, God would want us to love the people He created - which includes every single human upon this planet - rather than pass judgement on them. Because that’s God’s job, not ours.

However, many a Christian mother spends just as much time as most other mothers, mentally trying to better herself, to understand why she overreacts, why she yells at her kids when she’s been pushed to her limit, and also, why she just cannot stand the amount of pressure that is currently being applied to her.

In fact, as women and regardless of faith, we all struggle with very similar things. Because motherhood is a community, a collective but individualised experience - especially for millennials and the surrounding generations.

This article will cover some ways a Christian mother can struggle mentally and emotionally - and how you can work towards stopping it, starting today!

How you might be beating yourself up as a christian mother - and how you can stop yourself

A Christian Mother can feel overwhelmed - even if she agrees that God brings Peace

If you are a mother with a faith, you might feel awkward about your inner feelings of being overwhelmed by the demands of motherhood in our world. We are still held by the demands and expectations of our culture to a degree - and if you’re like me and don’t want your children to miss out on everything their friends do, this can be a tricky path to walk.

We experience overwhelm as a result of having too much on our plate; and this can be a result of people-pleasing, the expectations of other women and men in our lives; and also our own expectations of what a ‘good Christian mother’ might actually be capable of in a day or week.

I felt overwhelmed for years with my family of 3 kids - and it still gets overwhelming sometimes. Because, while God helps us, we are still human - and taking on a lot of responsibilities, which many of us do as a matter of habit - always gets overwhelming at some point.

I’m a believer in that God uses the overwhelm, self-inflicted or not, to actually teach us stuff - like more reliance on Him and our relationship with Him, too.

God can bring us peace - and in fact, He already has, if we learn how to lean into it and experience it - and share our hardships with Him as our heavenly parent.

Need some help with this? My smallest package (2 sessions where we can talk, pray, share strategies and dig a little deeper on some of those habits and beliefs and expectation overwhelm that many of us Christian mothers experience) is available by clicking here to go to my Bookings page!

A Christian mother can feel embarrassed for her actions

This is universal! Many mothers are now operating in the ‘conscious parenting’ arena, and this is viewed differently from most people you meet. It can be embarrassing when you lose your cool at your kids - especially when you are trying to demonstrate God’s love to both them and the others around you.

You might feel embarrassed about how you act, or emotionally overreact, in front of your child - because however hard you try, you are worried that you are not demonstrating the ‘good Christian mother’ persona to your child, like you always wanted to.

As a Christian Life Coach and emotional/stress coach for women, this is something I encounter regularly in the women I coach - and not something to beat yourself up for. Change is what we’re after, and doing better as you learn better, is the only way to improve. Prayer changes things, too - God cares about you and your feelings, just as much as He cares about what you are showing your children.

Kids can be difficult to manage - and being a God-follower doesn’t necessarily make this easier to manage in the physical, at least. However, there are ways to learn how to manage your emotions better as a Christian mother - and any mother - and to teach your children emotional regulation skills at the same time!

Don’t forget to grab your free printable emotion-script checklist right here, and have something to say when your kids - or yourself - are emotional!!

Many Christian mothers feel like they are failing - and the mum guilt is real!

As an emotional and stress coach, and also a Christian life coach, nearly all of my clients feel this way to some degree. Many Christian mothers feel like they are failing - and that they are failing not only their kids, but God, as well.

Do you feel like you are failing as a mother? Remember, nowhere in the Bible does it say that women must be perfect - only that we have faith in Him. So, if you want to be the best Christian mother you can be; building your faith in Him is a surefire way to work towards building more peace and gratitude rather than dealing with crushing mum guilt constantly.

The thing to remember is that we are being made perfect - not all the same. God knows you - you are not a surprise to Him!

(I got this quote from Joyce Meyer - check out some of her books here on Amazon. I regularly listen to her podcast too - but just a word of warning. Every person God uses is just that - a person. We are not God; so remember to check everything you hear, Joyce or not!)

Ways to stop overthinking and beating yourself up as a Christian mother

The question that needs to be asked in this area is all about your expectations of yourself - and what you feel others’ expectations of you are. If you are expecting yourself to be the perfect Christian mother, you will be disappointed in yourself at some point - just as if you expect your husband to be the perfect Christian husband, you will be let down at some point.

We are human. We all fail - but it’s not made any better by mentally beating yourself up for this reason!

First thing to remember is that God can do anything. Do you believe that? If so, why wouldn’t He want to help you with your own mindset?
Start committing your failures to God in prayer, accept yourself - not just your failings, but the amazing things you can do - and breathe in, before trying again, after asking for His help!
Journal. Gratitude, daily prayer journal, and start looking for what you really feel about yourself and why. It doesn’t come from nowhere!
If you feel like you can’t be the woman you want to be, you might have someone share Bible verses with you to encourage you, or chat to your pastor or a friend.
If you make a mistake when it comes to your kids, ask for their forgiveness and start over. It’s not a bad thing to teach them, right?

It’s OK to admit - after some thought - that you were wrong, and you need to build strength in that area of emotional regulation.

Kids need this just as much as us; and it’s often a relief to them that you are not perfect after all (as long as they feel safe with you!)

Something to remember as we finish this article, is that while (again) God can do anything, in my opinion He can use people, both professionals and those around us, to help us move through different seasons and emotional healing processes in our lives. Would you agree?

I obviously do - because I felt led to focus my life in this area! I have experienced this myself in many areas of my life; as well as God healing me in my own personal study, too.

So, if you are a Christian mother, millennial or not, who wants to feel like you are not failing, like you are in fact glorifying God through your life and motherhood - and feel like you want to enjoy life more, feeling more peace and less overwhelm? Let’s chat!

Learn more about 1:1 zoom sessions with miranda

How you might be beating yourself up as a Millennial christian mother - and how to stop yourself!