Therapy for moms in La Grange and throughout Illinois
You try hard to be a different mom than the one that raised you.
And yet you see her worst qualities show up in you and now it is affecting your parenting and marriage.
This is some high stakes shit
You feel like you’re running against the clock. You want to get this figured out before your kids are old enough to start remembering how you handle things. Before you were even pregnant, you remember wondering how you would parent your own kids. Telling yourself you would do it differently. But just thinking or the desire to show up differently isn’t working because this feels so…automatic.
You go between the calm, nice mom who is happily caring for her kids and then something snaps. You are irritable, yell, and lose all patience.
You wonder if your kids see the difficult moments in your marriage. You and your partner will go from passive communication to little digs, criticizing-defensiveness, all out arguments, and then back to the beginning again.
You find yourself constantly meeting everyone else’s needs and even sacrificing your own well-being to manage everything. You logically know asking for help isn’t weak or wrong, but part of you can’t seem to get on board with this logic. You do believe that doing things on your own or your way is the best.
On the outside, everyone else sees the put together mom who’s always on top of everything. From the doctors appointments, playdates, and school spirit days you are aware of it all and make sure your kids' needs are met.
Mistakes are not welcome here
What the outsiders don’t see is how hard you are on yourself. The inner critic and guilt that consumes you if there is a potential to mess up or if a mistake is made. You can’t let it go. You replay what went wrong and beat yourself up. This quickly switches in anger or resentment towards your spouse as “they never help” and if they did maybe you wouldn’t have to do everything. But quickly you’re back into the same pattern as before.
It’s time to be the mom you’ve always wanted to be.
What if you were able to…
Let go of the fear that you are going to mess up your kids and be okay with learning and growing as a mother
Learn to regulate your BIG emotions so you can help your kids with theirs
Still have awareness of the day to day needs without the hypervigilance and worry that are present now.
Ask for help and actually get it when you need it
Release the inner critic that has walked alongside you and let go of the guilt that plagues you
Therapy for Moms can help by:
Connection and building rapport in the supportive, therapeutic relationship: you aren’t doing this alone.
Validate that this is difficult and you aren’t alone in struggling with it.
Challenge ways you’ve learned to manage and cope that aren’t working.
Change the future for yourself, your kids and the following generations.
Therapy for moms can help you…
Explore how generational patterns have influenced how you mother your own kids
Learn regulation strategies for yourself so you can help your children regulate themselves and teach them that emotions aren’t scary.
Prioritize learning about stress and burnout and how it affects your mind, body and sense of self.
Reconnect with yourself and your needs.
Identify ways to set boundaries, limits and say “no” when you can’t add anything else on your plate
Prioritize relationship with supports so you can get real help when you need it
Let go of the inner critic and guilt that is the voice of generations past.
Create a relationship with your own voice that’s been waiting to be heard
Frequently asked questions about therapy for moms
FAQs
-
It depends because it’s more about fit between us vs. needing to check an identity box. While I specialize in working with women clients, not all of them are mothers when we start working together. I have worked with countless women who have the desire to have children, but need to work on themselves first. I will say that the majority of my most ideal clients tend to be mothers or have the desire to enter motherhood at some point in their life, but not always. If we go through the consult and we decide we click, but you aren’t a mom, that wouldn’t stop me from working with you. Just like a woman who is a mother isn’t automatically an ideal client because she holds that identity.
-
You are a huge part of that equation and you really are the only thing that you have control over in the relationship. Once you learn the role you play in the relationships, it becomes easier to take a step back and come from a more neutral place. In our work together, we look at generation patterns and themes and once you start to see things tie together, you can’t unsee it. Avoidance and going along with that pattern is more difficult. Your personal change has the potential to reach beyond yourself and impact your biggest relationships.
-
I agree! This is really important. I’m glad the urgency is high for you to work on this. But high urgency doesn’t always mean a quick fix. The work needs to start happening now even if you won’t see results for a little bit. This doesn’t mean you need to be in therapy for years to experience change. You will start getting new information and taking things away from the sessions right away. Some of the problems might still be there but your perspective on them will be different.