Motherhood Beyond Martyrdom: Finding Yourself Again as Your Kids Grow
There comes a moment in motherhood—not always loud, but always clear—when you realize:
I don't need to self-sacrifice to be a good mom.
I can prioritize myself and my own needs and wholeness in this motherhood equation.
What I want matters.
I deserve to be seen and appreciated.
I want to be free to be me.
Hopefully, outgrowing this cultural script of “to be a good mom you have to be a martyr, you have to self-sacrifice,” can occur before hitting rock bottom. But many of us moms get to a place of utter depletion before we are literally forced to start re-sourcing ourselves, set boundaries, and prioritize our own Self-Care.
Motherhood is a personal evolution process like no other. All parts of it propel us into personal growth, regardless of our desire or resistance of it. Each point: Pregnancy, birth, postpartum, infant stages, baby stages, toddler stages, school age, adolescent, adulthood calls for us as moms to pivot and evolve in the face of the constantly changing landscapes. And it is hard because we just care so much! Motherhood is an empathic portal. Once we step into it, the truth of our interconnection becomes undeniable, and attempts to disconnect feel (and are) impossible.
As a mother of teenagers now, I feel great relief that I am not needed for the basic daily fundamentals of my children’s lives. My kids can now make their own food, wipe their own bottoms, clean up, put themselves to bed, get dressed in the morning, help out, etc. On an energetic level, when our children are little, our body is the boundary between them and the world. Our nervous system regulates theirs. Our presence—physical and emotional —is the scaffolding of their feelings of safety in our reality. As my children are getting older, I am realizing that they are self-sourcing energetically. Where once I was needed, now I can step back. And it is a huge relief! I still am constantly empathically monitoring them, but for the most part, they can take care of their own mental, emotional, and empathic states.
And yet, I really still am needed for the basic daily fundamentals of life. I need to make money to buy groceries, I need to make sure nutritious food is available, that they have the right-sized clothes and shoes, their permission slips are signed, their sports games attended, their social life tracked and supported. And yet, I feel more freedom to get back to myself now in the increased spaciousness of having older children and them not sourcing from me for self-regulation.
In this spaciousness, and in the realization that I want my kids to be self-sufficient when supplied with the adequate ingredients of daily life, I am faced with new aspects of motherhood that are pushing me into more personal reflection and growth. How much do I really need to DO to support them, and how much can they DO? How can I show my love without doing everything still?
There is a trap of overdoing in our culture, as fundamentally, our personal worth and success are determined by our productivity. Our culture rewards mothers for doing everything. For being endlessly competent. For making it look easy. And so, without even meaning to, many mothers build an identity around achievement through caregiving. We equate our worth with our usefulness. Our success with how much we can carry.
But what if vitality doesn’t live in how much you do, but in how much of you is present, is embodied in the day-to-day process of life?
This is the moment to pause and ask: Am I helping because my kids truly can’t do this task… or because I’m faster? Am I fixing because they need me… or because I feel valuable when I do? Am I doing this to show love and care… is there another way to be in loving connection? Am I holding this together because of habit… or am I afraid of what happens if I let go? Who am I in all of this anyway? What do I even want? Is being in service my love language?
And I don’t know about all you moms, but even with tons of support, my house is not peaceful. Three growing sons are never quiet, never dull. I have learned to live in the chaos, but what disturbs me is when we do not feel like we are all working in harmony. We are not being a good team. I crave coherence in my own body and in myself and in my life.
What do I mean by coherence? Coherence doesn’t mean control. You don’t have to fix the chaos to find your peace. Many empathic, intuitive mothers equate personal coherence with environmental harmony. If the house is calm, I can be calm. If everyone’s okay, then I’m okay. But this is a setup—because the swirl of chaos is inevitable. But you? You don’t have to suffocate in it. Coherence doesn’t mean controlling the mess. It means you stay intact—your energy, your clarity, your breath—even when the waves come.
In Vitality Medicine, coherence is the felt sense that things, while messy or loud or imperfect, are fundamentally aligned. That connection exists between people. That the system—your home, your family—is moving together as an organism. Coherence doesn’t mean silence. It doesn’t mean order. It doesn’t even mean ease.
Coherence means that, even in the swirl, there’s attunement. There’s a shared rhythm. There’s a sense that everyone is in the same river, not lost in separate streams.
And most importantly and annoyingly, we as mothers have yet another job: coherence begins with us. It’s our inner intactness. Our clarity. Our ability to stay rooted in yourself, even when the external world is chaotic.
So when you say:
“What I look for in my home is a sense of connection, of teamwork, of coherence,”
You’re saying: I don’t need my house to be calm—I need it to be connected. I need to feel that we are in relationship, in motion together, and that I don’t have to be alone in the process of holding it all.
Craving coherence within yourself and your home, no matter what stage you are in with all of this, is a step for reclaiming your own emergence of your Self as human, mother, woman, partner, wife, sister, professional, multi-dimensional being.
This is the balance point where sovereignty can step in: You notice the swirl, but choose your own still point. You step out of the default “manager of all things” role. Release the “I need to fix this”. You give your energy back to your own becoming. You begin to ask wiser questions: What is mine to hold, and what is not? Where am I seeking control because I crave peace? Can I allow the swirl and still feel rooted? Can I stay present without collapsing? You start to honor the truth: Your peace is not dependent on their coherence. Your emergence doesn’t require their approval. Your vitality is not selfish—it is your right, and you prioritizing that is essential.
Because when you are vital you embody coherence, and when you embody coherence, your environment and the people within it respond. They attune to match it. They can accept your invitation to live in harmony.
This is an alternative model of motherhood sourced by Vitality Medicine. Vitality Medicine holds that the health of the mother largely determines the health of the system. Not because she holds everything for everyone, but because when a mother is whole, clear, and free to be herself, the entire field begins to reorganize. This is hard in a system of patriarchy, and please do not feel like it is any personal failure if you do not feel like you embody this vitality. It is a journey. The invitation is to begin to let yourself emerge in the middle of the mess of life. To seek what you want to be, do, and have. And don’t worry about selfishness. What a mother craves is never solely for herself. Because as a connected empathic being, she craves on behalf of the whole. On behalf of the wellbeing of all. Even with focus on self, empathically there is never a disconnect. We are woven together, and that is innate to the system of humanity and family. Please don’t wait for the world around you to settle. The time for you to rise is now.