You Don't Know Who You Are Since Becoming A Mom - Now What? (E20)

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

Ever looked in the mirror and asked, "Who am I anymore?" If motherhood has left you feeling like a stranger to yourself, you are so not alone. In this episode of the "Mom's Guide to Finding Herself" podcast, we're diving deep into the common experience of losing your identity after becoming a mom, and I'm sharing actionable steps to help you reconnect with you. This episode is for any mom who feels like the person she was before kids has faded away.

The Struggle is Real (and You're Not Alone)

So many moms experience a profound sense of identity loss after having children. It's a feeling that can be incredibly isolating, leaving you feeling empty even when surrounded by loved ones. This isn't just about being tired; it's a deeper feeling, like your own needs and wants have become secondary, even insignificant. You might find that the things you once loved no longer fit into your life, leaving you feeling lost and confused. This is incredibly common, and there's absolutely no shame in feeling this way.

Why Does This Happen? (It's Not Your Fault)

Motherhood brings massive changes. Your priorities shift, your schedule is completely upended, and your relationships evolve. On top of that, your brain chemistry, hormones, and body undergo huge transformations. It's no wonder you might feel like a completely different person! It's not that you don't love your children fiercely, but the constant focus on being "Mom" can cause other crucial parts of your identity to fade into the background. It's frustrating when it feels like no one asks about you anymore, only about your kids.

You're Not Alone in This (Seriously!)

Connecting with old friends might feel different now. They might not fully understand your new life, and you might not relate to theirs in the same way. Making new mom friends can feel impossible too, especially when you're spending all your time chasing after little ones. The struggle to find even a few minutes for yourself is real, and the guilt that often comes with wanting that time can be overwhelming. I get it.

Reconnecting with Yourself: Practical Steps (You Can Do This!)

Here are some things you can do to start feeling more like yourself again:

  • Simplify: Let go of the pressure to do everything. Focus on what truly matters to you right now. Give yourself permission to say "no" to activities that don't feel right, even if they were a big part of your pre-mom life.

  • Reclaim Your Time (Even Small Pockets Count): Find those little pockets of time for you. Instead of mindless scrolling, grab a coffee by yourself, take a short walk, journal, organize photos, or do something that feels personal and purposeful.

  • Build Your Tribe (Find Your People): Look for support beyond the usual places. Connect with neighbors, join online groups with moms who share your interests, or strike up a conversation at the playground. Even a quick chat with someone who "gets it" can make a world of difference.

  • Reflect (Tap into Your Past): Think about the things that brought you joy before motherhood, even small things you enjoyed back in high school! Try to weave some of those elements back into your life, even in small ways.

This is a Journey, Not a Sprint (Be Kind to Yourself)

Remember, this is an ongoing process. You won't just magically "arrive" at your new identity overnight. Give yourself grace and celebrate the incredible transformation you've undergone. This is about finding a new version of yourself – one that embraces both motherhood and your individual needs and interests. We are in this together!

What's Next? (Stay Tuned!)

In the next episode, we'll explore why you might feel like a completely different person since becoming a mom, and why that's not necessarily a bad thing!

Key Takeaways (Remember These!):

  • Motherhood is transformative, and experiencing an identity shift is completely normal.

  • Reclaiming your time and focusing on what matters to you is essential.

  • Building a supportive community can help you feel less isolated and more like yourself.

  • Rediscovering yourself is a journey, not a destination.

Keywords: Mom Identity, Motherhood Journey, Rediscovering Yourself, Self Care for Moms, Mom Support, Balancing Motherhood, Identity Loss, Motherhood, Postpartum, Support Network, Reclaiming Time, Mom Brain, Postpartum Identity, Motherhood Changes, Finding Yourself After Kids

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For Your Binging Enjoyment…

20 Audio

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After months of interviewing moms about their journey to motherhood, I've come to realize something. Almost every mom eventually wakes up and says to herself, wait a minute, who even am I anymore? In this episode, we'll talk about this common phenomenon and some steps you can take to reconnect with yourself.

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.

Today on Mom's Guide to Finding Herself, we're tackling a topic that is so close to my heart, losing your identity after motherhood. I'm Krissy. I'm a mom of two little boys who are 19 months apart. And when my oldest was about nine months old, I got pregnant again. So there was no time in between these babies for me to truly come out of survival mode.

But the second time around, right around that nine month mark, I felt it happen again. I was exiting survival mode and felt this [00:01:00] emptiness. I knew I didn't want to have another baby, but I didn't know what I did want. All of the things I used to enjoy just didn't seem to fit anymore. I felt so alone and definitely had no idea that this feeling was so, so common.

Not only did I not feel like me, there were many times I didn't feel like a person at all. It was like my wants and needs were so insignificant that I just didn't have a right to have basic needs. This depersonalization felt so wrong. I mean, I knew I was lucky. I had these happy and healthy babies and I had this supportive and truly selfless husband, but I still felt so empty and alone. No one I knew ever talked about this. So it felt like something must be wrong with me. I vividly remember those early days of motherhood.

I felt like the person that I used to be had completely disappeared.

But here's the thing. It doesn't have to stay that way. I've been on this journey and now [00:02:00] I'm here to help you with yours.

I know how you must be feeling. There's a huge emotional toll in this shift in mothering. You're feeling like you're really just surviving. You're just getting by. You know, maybe you're not so worried about when you're going to brush your teeth anymore because your kids are just enough independent that you can at least do that.

But there are other things out there that you know you want to pursue, not just taking a shower in the morning. and you're probably experiencing a good amount of guilt for wanting that time to yourself. Or missing the parts of you from your pre mom life that you don't have anymore.

It's a lot to try to take in, like, these kids should be enough for me, but they're not. I'm missing these other pieces, like, I don't wish they were gone. I don't wish for my whole life to come back from before I had kids. But I do wish for some pieces to be here. Now, here's why this happens. Life, as you know it, is no longer the same as what it was before.

Your priorities, your schedule, your [00:03:00] relationships, everything is shifting, and they're shifting dramatically. The things that you used to do that bring you joy, might just not fit anymore. You are not the same person that you were before you had kids. So trying to put those interests into this new life don't always work.

So maybe you were an avid reader before and now you're trying to pick up a book and read and it just doesn't work. It doesn't feel right. You're finding your brain is racing or you're thinking about the next thing and you're just not settling into books the way you used to. And now you're feeling a lot of self judgment about why can't I just sit and read this book like I want to?

Maybe all of a sudden you have the time, everything's right, you've got a cup of coffee, your kids are off and taken care of and you have this moment of zen to read like you used to but it's just not making sense. Whatever that thing was, maybe it's not reading, maybe it's something else, but it's just not working anymore.

And that's just because it doesn't fit your [00:04:00] life as it is. It doesn't fit your brain chemistry right now. Will you ever get back to that? Maybe, sure. But you want an answer for now. You want to know how right now you can be a better version of yourself and you can feel more whole within you.

There's so much focus on you being a mom, that the other parts of your identity, your other roles, they just seem to start to fade away. When you go out and you're talking to your friends or other people, everyone's asking you about the kids.

They're not necessarily asking about yourself. Maybe they ask you about your work, but there's no other facets of you that seem to be really personal to you that make you an individual. And that is so, so frustrating.

You just went through this huge adjustment.

Your brain chemistry, your hormones changed, your body changed, everything changed. And now you have somebody that requires you to be responsible for them all the time. and that's a lot. Like it really is, you need to give yourself some credit for this, these are [00:05:00] big shifts. This is not something small that happened to your life. This is the biggest transformation you could have possibly gone through. And now you're coming out of the other side, but you are dramatically different.

Some things you might have tried. You might have tried connecting with your old friends, and maybe that just doesn't feel right anymore. Maybe you're on the phone with them and you're listening to what's going on in their lives, but you just can't relate anymore and they can't relate to you anymore. Maybe they're not even asking you about yourself anymore because they don't know what to ask.

They're just asking about your child and what's going on in their lives, but they don't even know where to begin with you because Right now your personality does seem to be all about being a mom and being with your child So they don't even know how to ask about you and how to prompt Conversations about what you're feeling and what you're going through.

They just can't relate. They're not in that phase of life right now. It doesn't mean they don't care about you. It doesn't mean that they don't want to support you. They're just not really sure how. They're not therapists. They're not [00:06:00] specialists.

And they don't have this big bag of tricks to help you through this phase of your life.

And then even thinking about making new friends that are in the same phase of life as you seems nearly impossible. Maybe you go to story times and if you're anything like me, going to a story time is a full body exercise.

You are chasing those children all the time. All around the library, trying to get them to sit, and if you have two like me, then one's out the door while the other one has no shoes on, so you don't know what to do. So, story times are definitely not the place that you're going to be making friends, never mind the playground.

I am just spending my entire time making sure a child is not jumping off of an edge. I can't be socializing with moms, Even the moms that we went there intentionally together, we're not connecting during this time.

This is not a social hour for moms to talk to each other.

And maybe you have made time for yourself or your friends. It's just everything doesn't seem to be right. So what can you do to help yourself reconnect with yourself? Because everything you're doing doesn't seem to [00:07:00] be working. And it is frustrating and lonely and truly depressing.

One thing that you can start with right now is trying to simplify. You don't have to do everything. Focus on what matters the most to you right now. You might be feeling all of this pressure to be trying all these other things, to be doing, you know, reading if that's something that you used to do or crocheting or knitting if that's something that was a big part of your personality before.

But if it doesn't fit and it's not working and it doesn't feel right, put it aside. You can come back to it in another phase of life, but simplify. Take those shoulds and those I feel like I must be doing this or I really should get back into this. Put those to the side and let's really try to dive into what you're into right now.

Let's also try to reclaim some of your time. Now, it's really hard to think about time alone when you're a mom. Thinking about the burden that you're putting on other people just so you can get some time to yourself. There's a lot that goes into it that [00:08:00] puts your brain in a total twist. Like you get into a total funk, just even thinking about it. thinking about the burden that you need to become on somebody else just to get some of your time back. But there's little things you can look for. Maybe you have some time to scroll on your phone aimlessly.

I'm going to challenge you, instead of scrolling on your phone, maybe do something like go out and get your coffee by yourself. Just run down the street to get a coffee or run Run down the street to fill up your gas tank, something that involves you leaving the house for just five minutes or so and then coming back by yourself, just getting out and coming back.

That's a good place to start. Just reclaiming those pieces, reclaiming that time. Maybe instead of scrolling on your phone, you do a short journaling session and that doesn't have to be pencil to paper if that doesn't work for you. That could be audio, you could make a recording, you could do a video, you could do some voice to text notes in your phone, organize some photos, do something that's more personal, right?

Instead of scrolling through somebody [00:09:00] else's videos, scroll through your own videos, but with a purpose. Maybe you're looking at them to organize them or to delete some of them, or maybe make a photo album, something that helps you organize all your pieces or share with your family and friends. friends.

That feels like it has more of a purpose and you're going to leave it feeling like you've accomplished something. So look at those little pockets of time that you have here and there and try to think where could I accomplish something in there and feel like I actually did something today. This next one is tough.

It's important to build a support network. And this doesn't have to look like what you're automatically thinking. You might be really frustrated and feeling really isolated and alone because you feel like you don't have a village. And that might very well be true. I'm not trying to discount that. It might be impossible for you to get together with your friends right now.

You might not have a family that you can lean back on. But let's think outside the box. Take your kids outside and play in the front yard and talk to the neighbor when they're walking by instead of just waving. Say hello, strike [00:10:00] up a conversation.

Or, if you're like me, you could be walking down the road and be a real creeper and have your kids play with the lawn ornaments on your neighbor's lawn. Chances are they're going to see your kids playing if they're home and they're going to come outside and want to talk to them and if your kids are like me, they're not going to talk back, but then they'll have to talk to you, so there's some socialization, there's some support.

You're not necessarily going to find somebody that's going to watch your kids so you can take a shower, but it's somebody that you can now talk to and feel like a person again.

Look online for a support network, maybe join a Reddit group or start an Instagram page and start reaching out to moms that have similar interests to you. Find some small accounts in your areas of interest and talk to them. Maybe it's your kid's activities and going on to activity pages and leaving comments or sending them a DM about how you thought that what they did was really cool.

Or maybe it's something that you are more interested in on a personal level. So if you were somebody who was a crocheter or a knitter, go on some of those pages and talk to them and maybe you [00:11:00] don't want to actively crochet and knit right now, but you can still talk to them and be a part of the community.

Finding other people who can offer you encouragement and reminding you that you are in fact a person outside of being a mom can be very helpful as you make these next steps into finding who you are again.

And then it can also be really helpful to take some time to reflect. So maybe this is something that you do in that reclaimed time where you're journaling. Think about the things that didn't bring you joy before being a mom. I'm not necessarily talking about the big things that were a huge part of your identity.

If you were a runner before and it's just not fitting again, don't spend your time wallowing in, Oh, I wish I could go back out and run again. Dig deep. Think about things that brought you joy before you became a mom, maybe back in high school. Maybe you really enjoyed writing and that's something that you never pursued as an adult, but it's something that you could do again.

Maybe you played an instrument and that's something that you could pursue now. Think back to things that made you happy deep down, not just the big [00:12:00] things, all of the little things, and let's try to see if we can bring even a small piece of that back into your life. I know it's tough. Trust me. I am right here with you. Not only have I been there, but I'm still going through it because this is a project. This is not something that you just accomplish and move on from. So we are in this together. I know it's tough, but stick with me and we will help you get back to you.

In the next episode, I'm going to tell you exactly why you might be feeling like a completely different person since you became a mom and why that's not necessarily a bad thing. 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. [00:13:00]

Mom Identity Project https://momidentityproject.com
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Why You Feel Like A Different Person Since Becoming a Mom (E21)
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How I Lost and Found Myself in Motherhood (E19)