Mindful Motherhood: Simple Strategies to Reclaim Your Peace of Mind

Life can get messy—there’s no denying that. Motherhood often feels like a constant juggling act, with endless demands pulling you in every direction. If you find yourself overwhelmed, exhausted, or just feeling like you’re always a step behind, know that you’re not alone.

If you’re nodding along to any of this, it might be time to pause and reconsider how you’re navigating your day-to-day life.

Mindfulness offers a path to step back, slow down, and reconnect with yourself, helping you bring meaning back into your work and joy back into the small moments.

The Challenges of Motherhood

Motherhood can feel like a marathon without any finish lines. It’s the one job that doesn’t come with sick days or vacation time, and the worrying doesn’t stop, even when your kids are grown. While they say it takes a village to raise a child, many moms today are navigating this journey with limited resources.  Physical and emotional distances from family, busy schedules and differing parenting philosophies can make support feel scarce.

I get it.  Sometimes it feels like there’s no break in sight, right?  Wondering if you’re getting it all wrong, the constant feeling that you’re missing something – I’ve been there.

Many of us juggle multiple roles—mother, spouse, housekeeper, cook, teacher, employee, friend, daughter, sister, and so on. Trying to give 100% in every category can leave you feeling like you’re falling short everywhere. The truth is, expecting perfection is the quickest route to burnout. While it’s hard to let go of unrealistic standards, self-compassion can help us navigate the messy, imperfect realities of motherhood.

Losing Sight of Yourself

It’s easy to start with the best of intentions and then get bogged down by daily struggles. Life can feel like a never-ending to-do list that keeps growing, even as you check off tasks. Over time, your own needs get pushed further down that list. You may feel guilty taking time for yourself, seeing it as selfishness. This mindset leads to neglecting your essential needs—skipping meals or relying on quick, unhealthy snacks, ignoring thirst in favor of caffeine, and sacrificing rest in a misguided attempt to be productive.

Even your downtime often doesn’t really provide relief. Scrolling through social media or catching up on the news may leave you more stressed and anxious. Instead of finding a peaceful moment, you go to bed with even more worries swirling around in your mind.

Listening to Your Body

Our bodies are more intelligent than we often give them credit for. We frequently focus on the things we wish were different about them instead of appreciating our health and the complex systems that keep us alive day in and day out. Do you know how to make your heart beat? Of course not. But your body does, and it knows a lot more about how to take care of you if you stop to listen.

A mom acquaintance of mine recently suffered a stroke after years of pushing herself to extremes mentally and physically. For me, my lifelong struggle with anxiety escalated into a two-year battle with panic disorder. I learned the hard way that ignoring our bodies’ signals can lead to significant consequences.

My Journey

My struggle with panic disorder grew from a lifetime of carrying shame, facing loss, and neglecting my own care and needs. In my youth, I experienced an unplanned pregnancy, and my son was born with a heart defect. His short life was a whirlwind of overwhelming fear and love, and when he passed away at just two months old, the grief was suffocating. I didn’t have the tools to process what I was going through, so I turned my grief inward, blaming myself for things beyond my control—a habit I’d practiced my whole life. I became determined to be the best mom possible for my future children. Years later, I became a mother again, but my roadmap for motherhood was shaped more by “what NOT to do” than by a healthy understanding of what to embrace.

Like many, I filled my days with endless busyness—cleaning, cooking, teaching, and playing—yet felt increasingly exhausted and trapped in a cycle of harsh self-talk: “Do more. Be more. Why can’t you have a better attitude?” I pushed myself to be the reliable, responsible, everything-for-everybody person I believed I needed to be. But when I hit a breaking point, I finally realized I wasn’t doing myself or my family any favors. Does any of this sound familiar?

When COVID hit, my anxiety escalated, and panic attacks became constant companions. They began while I was driving, eventually making it feel safer to stay home. Over the next two years, the attacks intensified until every outing brought on major episodes, filling me with dread. Living with panic disorder feels like a single, unending panic attack that only ebbs and flows in intensity.

This constant state of panic wasn’t a choice I was actively making, but I knew I had to make a conscious decision to find a way out. My anxiety was impacting my ability to be truly present for my daughter during a pivotal time in her life. I had been so focused on what I was doing for her that I lost sight of the example I was setting in how to be.

Whether we like it or not, we often inherit our emotional patterns from our parents. I believed I could counter my own mother’s struggles with depression through sheer action, but, despite my efforts, it eventually caught up with me, too.

I realized that if I truly wanted to help my daughter lead a better life, it wouldn’t be through the things I did for her, but by demonstrating how to face life’s challenges with resilience and courage.

As much as I wish “Do as I say, not as I do” were enough, our children tend to mirror our patterns, as those are often their only consistent examples. Maturity takes time, and by the time we start questioning our behaviors, we’ve likely been at them for a long time. 

If you’ve ever thought your kids don’t pay attention, think again. Have they ever turned around and snapped back with your exact tone, complete with the same sour look on their face? Or had a meltdown that seemed all too familiar in moments of frustration? They’re listening and watching more than we realize. No one wants a wisdom lesson from a fool. If we want to teach lasting values, we have to start by practicing them ourselves.

The Power of Mindfulness

Mindfulness has been key to reclaiming control over my mind and body. It’s not about forcing peace or relaxation; it’s about accepting things as they are and responding with intention. When we can recognize our discomfort as just that—discomfort—instead of seeing it as a full-blown crisis, we can manage our reactions better.

For example, if you’re stuck in traffic and tell yourself this shouldn’t be happening, insisting that you “can’t stand it,” you may start to genuinely believe that you can’t tolerate the situation. Your body perceives this as a threat to its survival, reacting by flooding you with adrenaline, causing your heart to race and blood to rush to your muscles as if preparing for battle. The trouble is, all that adrenaline is useless in a traffic jam; it only heightens your discomfort, reinforcing the belief that you “can’t stand it,” while, in reality, you are indeed enduring it.

Next time you find yourself stuck in traffic, in a long line, or waiting indefinitely at the doctor’s office, try this: Acknowledge that you wish things were different and that you dislike being held up, but accept that the situation is as it is for now. Use this time to practice some breathing exercises and focus on your surroundings. Once you’re free from the situation, reflect on how you feel after taking this mindful approach compared to how you normally feel when you’re caught up in the frustrations of traffic or waiting.

Over time, this perspective of accepting things as they are—rather than how you believe they should be—will become automatic. You’ll find your mind freer to consider how to navigate the situation at hand instead of rejecting it outright.

I had previously avoided mindfulness because I didn’t see myself as a spiritual person. I assumed that practicing mindfulness would require me to engage in activities that felt foolish or forced, that I would have to pretend to be someone I’m not. That was a total misconception. There are countless ways to practice mindfulness, and you don’t have to adhere to any method that doesn’t resonate with you.

I’ve read many books on the subject and have set a good number of them aside. The key is to explore what feels right for you. Don’t give up after listening to one meditation that felt too “woo woo.” There’s a wide range of approaches—find what works for you.