Motherhood: How I Started Unraveling My Guilt

Sometimes, as mothers, we quietly carry a complex, ever-shifting guilt, one that weaves itself into our days and even into the most tender moments.

This guilt does not come from nowhere. It is shaped by social expectations, family patterns, and the unspoken standards we try to meet. It shows up in the questions we ask ourselves when the world is finally quiet: Am I doing enough? Could I have shown up differently?

What I am sharing here is a piece of my own story, messy, human, and still unfolding.

The Inherited Echo of Guilt

Growing up, I watched my own mother carry guilt she never deserved. She was one of the kindest humans I know, soft-hearted, loving, generous with her warmth. Yet she still questioned herself, her choices, the kind of mother she was.

Her self-questioning became quietly intergrated into my own narrative.

I have shed layers of awareness, I have worked on embracing all parts of myself, and yet, the journey is still in progress.

Recently, I found myself confronted again with this familiar weight.

My 12-year old son was having bad dreams. In the middle of the night, he called for me. After a long, exhausting day, I responded with words from the warmth of my bed, trying to soothe him without physically getting up.

It happened a few times that night.

We all eventually drifted back to sleep.

But the morning brought a wave of guilt that hit me hard.

My son had texted me during the night. He had been scared.

The guilt washed over me like a cold tide: Why didn’t I get up? What kind of mother does that make me? Is my exhaustion an excuse? Why does the smallest moment make me feel like I am failing?

And the guilt intensified as I prepared to leave for a work trip, knowing I wouldn’t see him for a few days.

The Layers We Carry: Conditioning, Trauma, and the Mother Wound

Before becoming a mother, I never knew guilt could feel so sharp, so deeply rooted.

Motherhood brings up layers of inner wounds: the way we were raised, the expectations placed on us, old emotional patterns, and the pressure to be endlessly available, endlessly patient, endlessly “enough” in every moment.

But this standard isn’t human. And yet society has conditioned us to believe that falling short of it, even slightly, means we are somehow failing.

So how do we unlearn this? How do we loosen the weight on our shoulders and soften the edges of guilt?

By noticing the stories we inherited.
By giving ourselves permission to be real instead of ideal.
By allowing motherhood to be a relationship, not a performance.

And by remembering, again and again, that our worth was never meant to be measured by impossible expectations.

How I Started Unraveling My Guilt

I began unraveling my guilt by first trying to understand where it was actually coming from. I would pause and ask myself: Is this feeling rooted in love, or in fear? Is it coming from my own values, or from pressure and conditioning I absorbed along the way? More often than not, I realized the guilt wasn’t truly mine, it was learned.

From there, I started allowing myself to be human. I was tired. I needed rest. And needing rest didn’t make me a bad mother; it simply made me a human one. The more I embraced that truth, the more the weight on my shoulders began to loosen.

I also gave myself permission to be imperfect. Motherhood is not a performance; it is a relationship, messy, shifting, and deeply real. When I stopped trying to measure myself against an invisible standard, I could finally see the beauty in the moments that were already unfolding.

I learned to view each moment in context rather than isolation. One difficult night does not define me. One moment of exhaustion does not cancel out the thousands of moments of tenderness, presence, and love. It all exists together.

Slowly, I became a student of my own inner world. Motherhood has a way of teaching us continuously. We stumble, learn, rise, love, break open, grow, and then begin again. This cycle is not evidence of failure, it is evidence of evolution.

Motherhood, I have realized, is a living poem. It was never meant to be flawless. It is a raw, breathing piece of life, written with joy, missteps, repair, exhaustion, deep tenderness, and courage. In this path, we are allowed to be learners. We are allowed to rest. We are allowed to be imperfect. We are allowed to evolve.

And with that permission, something inside begins to soften.

Something begins to heal