Motherhood Makes You Rethink Everything — Even What You Thought You Knew (E29)

Mom's Guide to Finding Herself
Written By Mom Identity Project

Ever feel like motherhood turned your world completely upside down? Like everything you once knew about yourself and life just doesn't fit anymore? You're so not alone. In this episode of the "Mom's Guide to Finding Herself" podcast, we explore how motherhood forces you to rethink everything, from your core beliefs and priorities to your very identity. We'll talk about navigating these massive shifts, embracing the uncertainty, and ultimately finding your way back to you. This episode is for any mom who feels lost, confused, or just unsure of who she is after having children.

The Great Unraveling: How Motherhood Changes Everything (Seriously!):

Before becoming a mom, you likely had a pretty clear sense of who you were. You probably had a defined career, strong beliefs, and a solid understanding of how life worked (or at least you thought you did!). But motherhood often throws all of that into question. It's not just about adjusting to a new routine; it's a much deeper shift that makes you question everything. Things that once seemed certain now feel uncertain, and your professional identity might not fit the way it used to. The skills you relied on in your career might not translate to this new, often chaotic, world of motherhood. This can be a tough pill to swallow, especially if your career was a big part of your identity.

Shifting Priorities and the Search for Meaning (What Really Matters?):

Motherhood can cause you to completely rethink what success means to you, and what truly matters in the grand scheme of things. The goals you once chased with passion might no longer feel important. Your priorities shift dramatically, and this change goes far beyond just your career; it affects your entire sense of self. It may feel like you've stepped into a completely new version of yourself, and you might not even recognize the person you were before. The foundation you built your life on might feel shaky, and that uncertainty can be overwhelming. It's a totally common experience for moms, as motherhood can turn everything you thought you knew upside down.

The Pre-Baby Self vs. the Mom Self (A Constant Tug-of-War):

The struggle is real: it's all about maintaining a sense of self when motherhood challenges your beliefs, priorities, and identity at every turn. You had a whole lifetime of experiences and knowledge that defined who you were. Maybe you had a clear career path, strong personal beliefs, or a solid understanding of life and parenting (again, or so you thought!). But after becoming a mom, all of that knowledge, confidence, and certainty can suddenly feel irrelevant. Parenting is unpredictable, and what you once knew to be true about your life is now being constantly challenged. Your values, core beliefs, and priorities shift, sometimes dramatically. This can be incredibly unsettling. You might start to question your professional worth, your parenting choices, and even your identity. This self-doubt comes from trying to reconcile the person you were before kids with the amazing, but sometimes unrecognizable, new version of yourself that you are becoming.

Navigating the Shift and Embracing the Unknown (It's Okay to Not Know):

It's so important to recognize that these changes are a natural and expected part of motherhood. It's okay, even normal, to rethink everything you thought you knew. It's a sign that you're evolving and growing. Embrace the messiness of motherhood, the chaos, and the incredible opportunities for personal growth that come with it. Be open to new possibilities, whether it's shifting your career focus, adjusting your parenting style, or discovering entirely new passions. Being open to new ideas and approaches is absolutely key to finding fulfillment and rediscovering yourself. You are creating a new identity that includes the wisdom and experience that motherhood has brought you. This doesn't mean losing who you were; it's about figuring out who you are now.

Letting Go of the Old You (Making Space for the New):

You need to give yourself permission to say goodbye to the things that no longer fit. Don't judge yourself based on what your "old self" would have thought or done. You are a new person with new experiences, and you can't hold yourself to the standards of a you who didn't have this wisdom. Letting go of what you thought you knew isn't about losing yourself; it's about uncovering the deeper parts of you that are still there, waiting to be recognized and nurtured. Embracing change allows you to grow into a more resilient and adaptable version of yourself.

Key Takeaways (Remember These!):

  • Acknowledge the Change (It's Real!): Recognize that everything has changed, and that the feelings you're experiencing are completely normal.

  • Embrace Growth (It's a Good Thing!): Accept that rethinking your beliefs is a sign of growth and opens doors to new opportunities.

  • Let Go of Perfection (It's a Myth!): Stop trying to maintain the illusion that you have it all figured out (nobody does!).

  • Be Open to New Possibilities (Explore!): Explore new interests, career paths, or parenting styles. You might surprise yourself!

  • Don't Judge Your New Self (You're Amazing!): You've evolved, and your old self's opinions don't need to define you anymore.

What's Next? (Don't Miss It!)

In the next episode, we'll hear from a labor and delivery nurse and birth educator who shares what she wished she knew before she became a mom. It's packed with valuable insights!

Keywords: Mom Identity, Motherhood Journey, Rediscovering Yourself, Self Care for Moms, Mom Support, Balancing Motherhood, Personal Growth, Shifting Priorities, Identity Shift, Embracing Change, Letting Go, Uncertainty, Self-Doubt, New Identity, Postpartum Identity, Motherhood Changes, Finding Yourself After Kids, Growth Mindset, Resilience, Adaptability.

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For Your Binging Enjoyment…

29 Audio

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Motherhood forces you to rethink everything, even the things you thought you knew for sure. We need to embrace the fact that change is not only okay, it's a sign of growth and new opportunities. In this episode, we'll talk about how motherhood can make you rethink everything, your beliefs, your career, your values, everything you thought you knew, and how painful it can be to realize that everything is changing in new ways that you never expected.

Welcome to Mom's Guide to Finding Herself, where we share stories of side hustles and surviving while parenting young children. I'm your host, Krissy Bold. Let's make motherhood less lonely and help you find joy in being you again.

I used to feel so sure about who I was and what I believed in before I became a mom. I had a clear sense of direction. My professional expertise gave me confidence. My personal philosophies felt [00:01:00] solid. And I had this underlying certainty about how life worked. But when I became a mom, all of that started to unravel in ways that I was not prepared for. It wasn't just that I was learning to care for a baby or navigating the endless list of new responsibilities. It was deeper than that. I started questioning everything I thought I knew about parenting, about life, and even about myself.

Things that had once seemed so certain now felt uncertain. My professional identity, which I'd worked so hard to build, suddenly didn't fit in the way that it used to. The skills and knowledge that I relied on in my career didn't seem to translate to this new world of motherhood. And that was a tough pill to swallow.

For example,

the skills and knowledge I relied on in my career didn't translate to this new world of motherhood. And that was tough. My career had always been a huge part of how I defined success. I knew where I [00:02:00] was going and I was proud of what I'd accomplished. But after becoming a mom, I found myself rethinking everything.

What did success mean to me anymore? What truly mattered? And how was I going to show up in the world now? Suddenly the goals that I had been chasing didn't feel as important anymore. And I had to come to terms with the fact that my priorities were shifting and it wasn't just about my career, right? It was about my whole sense of self.

It felt like I had stepped into a new version of me, but I didn't know what happened to the person that I had been before. The foundation that I had built my whole life on suddenly was like, gone.

It was super shaky, and uncertainty was totally overwhelming. I know that so many moms experience this. That moment we become parents, everything we thought we knew, Just gets turned upside down, right? It's not about adjusting to a new routine or learning to juggle responsibilities. It's about figuring out the [00:03:00] life that we have now and what happened to the life that we had before with this reality that motherhood brings.

That's what I want to talk about today. The struggle of maintaining your sense of self when motherhood forces you to question your beliefs, your priorities, and even your identity. It's a conversation about navigating these shifts and learning to embrace the uncertainty while finding a way back to you.

Now let's talk about the life you had before kids. Before becoming a mom, you had a whole lifetime worth of experiences and knowledge that defined who you were. Maybe you were an expert in your field and you had a clear career path, or maybe you had these strong personal beliefs about life and parenting.

Like that's a joke, right? The beliefs that you have about parenting before becoming a parent. You had a clear sense of who you are, regardless. You had hobbies, you had passions, you had a sense of direction, but then you became a mom. And suddenly, all of that knowledge, [00:04:00] all of that confidence, all of that certainty.

It doesn't matter, right? Parenting is unpredictable. The things that you believe to be true about your life, your professional expertise, even your ideas about parenting, are now being challenged. And what you once knew with certainty has been replaced by a constant reevaluation of your beliefs and strategies. Like, constant. And you don't expect this.

The shift is so surprising. You don't even know it's coming. You're left feeling surprised and disoriented. Things that you once believed to be true, whether it was parenting or work, or how you should live your life, it no longer feels useful, or even accurate. The expectations you had before becoming a mom don't match the reality that you are facing.

And it leaves you unsure of, like, where to go, how do you move forward? Your values shift, your core beliefs and priorities are changing, and [00:05:00] it's unsettling. You may have held certain values about career success, about productivity, or even your approach to parenting. And it's no longer in line with what feels right to you anymore.

You aren't being productive anymore. So what does that mean about you? As a person, if you're not being productive, then what are you? Right? If you're letting your kid watch TV and you said that TV and screen time was something you were never going to do, what does that mean about you? Right? To me, this new chapter has created so much confusion.

and self judgment. As these beliefs shift, it can lead to you judging yourself. You can start to question your professional worth, your parenting choices, your identity, all of it. This self doubt comes from trying to reconcile the person that you were before kids with this new version of yourself that you're becoming.

And the two aren't the same. They don't necessarily match up. So this is [00:06:00] why you're so disoriented. This collision of your old identities and your new identities, it forces you to think about your pre baby self in totally new ways and who you are now is not necessarily someone that your pre baby self would have thought highly of.

Right? You may have had a professional or personal identity that doesn't feel like it aligns with who you are now, and you don't know how you feel about that. You feel like a beginner again, right? Despite all of these years of expertise, you were an expert in so much. You were an expert in showering, right?

Now in motherhood, it feels like you're starting from scratch. Like, where do I even fit this in? This identity shift is so uncomfortable, but it's also an opportunity for growth, right? even if you're afraid of losing yourself in there. Because let's be real, you have, right? You are not that person anymore.

And that is scary. You have to let that go and [00:07:00] like, go where? Go to what? Embracing the change of losing the person that you were before and this identity that you worked so hard to build leaves you feeling like, what's next? Who even am I? Where do I go from here? But holding on to that old identity, right? Maybe you did try to hold on to it. Maybe you tried to hold on to that person you were before having kids and thinking that if you could just keep doing the things that you were doing before, everything would stay the same and everything would be fine and everything would go back to the way it was.

Or maybe you start over committing to your old beliefs. Like you may have doubled down on things like your career or your parenting philosophies. You're trying to keep up with what you thought you knew, even when it no longer works for you or your family.

Or maybe you're ignoring these changes, like pretending they didn't happen. Like you might have brushed aside that discomfort, right? That change isn't really there. And you're trying to power through without acknowledging this fact that your whole [00:08:00] world just changed. Your worldview changes with it. It shifts.

But the key to this, the key to figuring it out and getting beyond it, is to move forward. Is to embrace that growth. Right? You need to recognize that everything did change. Understand that. The changes that you're feeling are a natural part of motherhood. It's okay and expected to rethink everything you thought you knew.

It's a sign that you're evolving and growing. It's accepting the wisdom that you're earning and gaining because you're earning it through experience and hard work. It's about learning to let go of that perfection, right?

Stop trying to maintain this illusion that you have it all figured out. Instead, embrace the messiness of motherhood, embrace the chaos and the opportunity for personal growth that comes with it, because through all of this chaos, you are growing, you are evolving, you're becoming something incredible. Be open to new [00:09:00] possibilities, whether it's shifting your career focus, right?

I decided to let go of my career and focus on my children and become a stay at home mom. Or maybe it's about adjusting parenting styles. I definitely did that too. Being open to new ideas and approaches is key to finding fulfillment and rediscovering yourself. You have to be open to things that you never thought you would be open to before.

Because you are in the process of creating a new identity, and it is so scary, right? It's intimidating, but it's a chance to build a new version of you that includes this wisdom and includes this experience that motherhood has brought you without losing the essence of who you are. Right, that doesn't mean losing who you were, it's figuring out who you are now.

You're going to say goodbye to all of those things that don't fit anymore. All of those ideas, all those beliefs, like those are gone. You don't need to judge yourself based on what your old version of you would have thought. [00:10:00] You are totally new. Think back to becoming an adult from an adolescent. You can't go back to that.

The kid who you were, what would they think of your 20 year old self, your 25 year old self? They might not have thought too highly. You weren't eating ice cream for dinner every night like you thought you might as a kid, but that's because you learned and you evolved and now you have wisdom, right?

You're brushing your teeth every night, or at least you should be. When as a kid, maybe you thought, when I'm a grown up, I'm not going to do this. Right? Just the same thing is happening now. You're a totally new person with totally new experiences and you can't judge yourself based on the you that didn't have this wisdom.

And that's important to move on from because letting go of what you thought you knew isn't about losing yourself. It's about uncovering the deeper parts of you that are still there, right? The true core of you, but also the parts that are waiting to be recognized and nurtured, right? Embracing change allows you to grow into a more [00:11:00] resilient and adaptable version of you.

And that's amazing. That's exactly what you need to thrive as a mom and as a person. That's exactly what you need to figure out what brings you joy and what makes you, you.

In the next episode, we'll hear from a labor and delivery nurse and birth educator who shares what she wished she knew before she became a mom. Until then, take a moment for yourself and remember you are an amazing mom, just as you are. I would love to hear how this episode has helped you. Scroll down to the comments or reviews and leave me a note there. This will make a big impact in helping moms like us find the show. Make sure to click those five stars and follow so you can join me on this journey of finding ourselves.

Mom Identity Project https://momidentityproject.com
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