One thing moms struggle with is feeling bad about their progress in becoming calm and showing up calm with their kids.

We all know we aren’t at our best when we’re stressed, overwhelmed and reactive. But knowing how to calm down in the moment isn’t always as easy as it sounds.

You’ll Learn:

1. Why you become reactive and yell, threaten or ice your kid out
2. Three steps to pause and get back to calm
3. Clues you need a Pause Break
4. What to do after you’ve reacted in a way you don’t love

I’m walking you through my 3-step process to catch yourself, pause and get back to feeling calm.

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All moms experience really tough parenting moments. Moments when you’ve been stuck in what I call Mad Mom Syndrome

You know what I'm talking about.

1. Moments when your child is a bit off track and you get upset and all of a sudden you are yelling, threatening, and lecturing, followed by guilt and rushed apologies.
2. Moments you are worried that the behavior you see in the present is a predictor of the future, so you act super strict and controlling.
3. Moments when you are frustrated and say a snide or mean remark to your kid.

Then, when you have a mad mom episode and act in a way you don’t think you should, a lot of criticism, guilt, and doubt pours in. You feel bad that you aren’t calm or think you should be getting there faster.

But here’s the thing…Becoming calm is a PROCESS. It’s a PRACTICE. It’s something you work on over time. Some days it’s easy, and some days it isn’t. All of that is ok.

These types of moments are a clue that you are in your stress cycle and feeling emotionally overwhelmed.

Your brain is convinced that the circumstance is an emergency. Then, the brain activates a BIG, INTENSE STRESS RESPONSE.

You become super reactive and respond to your children with stress, anxiety, frustration or anger.

Then they escalate their stress behaviors and the next thing you know you are in a chaotic argument with your kids.

Becoming Calm is a process. It takes time. Be gentle with yourself. When you feel yourself spiraling, CATCH YOURSELF AND PAUSE. This is simple but not easy, and it comes in stages.

Stage 1 - The AFTER. When you’re first starting out, you may only catch yourself after you've yelled or gotten upset.

Stage 2 - The DURING. After a while, you’ll catch yourself while you are yelling or acting upset.

Stage 3 - The BEFORE. Eventually you start to catch yourself before you yell or act out your frustration/overwhelm. This is the goal that you’re working towards.

No matter what stage you’re in, to get out of Mad Mom Syndrome and get back to feeling calm, you need the Pause Break.

There are also 3 steps to the Pause Break:

Step 1: STOP

Don't Talk. Don't Engage. You can stop yourself at any point when you notice you are in your stress response and are seeing signs of Mad Mom Syndrome.

Step 2: DELAY

Don’t decide. Don’t act. Don't do anything about the situation (unless it’s a true emergency). Give yourself time to think and get calm.

Step 3: RESET

Actively do something to calm your stress response. During a "Reset", you will move your body,

In this episode I’m sharing with you my definition of CALM and giving you my go-to strategy for getting to calm using a tool I call The Pause Break.

You’ll Learn:

1. Why Mad Mom Syndrome happens
2. Why your kid’s behavior triggers such strong feelings
3. How your stress response influences your actions
4. The 3 simple steps of The Pause Break that you can do anytime, anywhere

The Pause Break allows you to access calm, even in the middle of a moment when you feel overwhelmed or angry.

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Before we get to that, let’s talk about what the absence of calm looks like.

I know you’ve been there, and so have I.

Showing up when you aren’t feeling calm looks a little different for everyone, but you might find yourself:

1. yelling
2. saying mean things
3. making threats
4. rescuing
5. bribing
6. being rough with your kid's body
7. giving in to your kid's demands
8. feeling exhausted
9. lecturing
10. talking a lot
11. shutting down
12. not following through on consequences
13. not taking care of yourself
14. sleeping poorly
15. grumpiness that you can't shake
16. escalating things when your kid gets upset
17. shutting your kid down

…generally acting in ways you don’t love.

When you have a mad mom episode, it’s easy to beat yourself up and tell yourself things like I’m a bad mom or I’m messing up my kids. Which makes you feel guilty, embarrassed, ashamed, frustrated and confused.

The more negative thoughts you have, the more defeated, discouraged, and guilty you will feel. And when you feel bad, it’s hard to change your behavior.

So you end up yelling again.

I call this Mad Mom Syndrome, and it is a vicious cycle of negative thoughts leading to negative feelings leading to negative actions and then back again.

So how do you break that cycle?

That’s what we’re diving into for these 30 minutes.

The Pause Break is the single most important tool I teach. It is where all of your personal growth happens. It’s the space where change occurs.

If you only take one thing away from this podcast episode, I hope it’s this: You can always take a PAUSE BREAK. It’s the first, and most important, step towards CALM.

Listen to the full...

Today, I’m getting pretty personal about things I experienced in my childhood and how trauma informed my parenting. We’ll also talk about some ways to feel better and heal from traumatic experiences in your past.

You’ll Learn:

• How trauma in your childhood can impact your parenting
• My story of childhood trauma and healing
• How learning the language of feelings is like talking about water
• Why healing your trauma and taking good care of your nervous system is so important for your kids
• How to start your own healing journey

Please note, this is a really emotional episode, for me and possibly for you listening. If you feel stressed, embarrassed or overwhelmed at any point, please stop reading or listening, and take care of yourself.

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My best friend, Tiffany Howsam, is here with me today. Tiffany is a licensed marriage and family therapist, as well as a certified life coach. We’ve been friends for almost 20 years, and she has created a safe place for me and been a big part of my healing and parenting journey.

When my son Lincoln was 4 years old, he was having major meltdowns, getting in trouble at preschool and being aggressive. And I was screaming all the time.

There were times that I felt like a victim, like I was being abused by my son. When I told Tiffany this, she explained that it was not normal to feel this way and that I didn’t have to continue feeling this way. That is when I realized I needed some help.

One of the first parenting workshops I attended was also my first experience with inner child work. I realized that when Lincoln was being aggressive, I felt like I was in danger, being attacked.

As a result of my adverse childhood experiences, I never really felt safe in my body, environment or relationships. Everything always felt dangerous, so I was constantly seeking security and a sense of control.

I tried to find the rules of how I was supposed to live, and it often showed up as perfectionism. I wanted to crack the code on everything - figure it out so I could do it “right” and be safe.

This trauma also showed up for me in the form of eating disorders, people pleasing and a high sense of vigilance,

When I had kids, there were so many decisions to make, and I didn’t feel like I knew the right answer to any of them. And when it came to behavior, I didn’t know how to not yell at them. So I’d yell. Then I’d feel ashamed and beat myself up, tell myself that they were bad. When you don’t have good parents, you actually don’t know what else to do. There’s no template to follow.

As parents, we can have the best intentions. Then, we’re triggered and an old wound or stress response comes back up, and we’re in it, doing the thing we don’t want to do.

There are so many things I went through that I wanted to protect my kids from. I made their emotional health my #1 parenting goal, which meant that I lowered my standards in other areas. I just wanted them to feel safe and held and cared for.

There are several choices I made and strategies I used over the past 15-ish years to help me out of the trauma response, overreactivity and toxic stress.

A lot of my childhood stress came from growing up in an unpredictable environment. When I was a kid, I never knew what was happening. There was so much confusion, and nobody talked to me about it.

As a mom, I became really focused on not having chaos in our family. I wanted everything to be simple and flow smoothly. When my kids were young I was doing a lot of healing work, and I needed routines...