Ep 88- Breaking the Cycle: Strategies to Overcome Mom Rage

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Parenting feels hard because it is hard. And all of the different emotions that come up can make parents feel like they're on a roller coaster. Especially when the emotions seemingly come out of nowhere. 

And that is exactly what tends to happen with Mom Rage! Listen along as Pam shares the underpinning of Mom Rage, and walks you through the steps to get unstuck. 

And don’t forget to grab your free practice to start rewiring the brain TODAY! 

💫Grab Your Free Practice to Clear Out Mom Rage💫

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Transcript

Pamela: 0:00

Welcome back to the peaceful home podcast. My name is Pam and I'm your host. And today we're talking all about mom rage. What it is, where it comes from, and what to do about it. Because here's something that we know very clearly, mom rage is negatively impacting our kids. So Let's unearth this stuff. Let's get rid of it. Let's dive in. So what the heck is mom rage anyway? Isn't that just being angry? You might have heard it as like postpartum rage or mom rage. And it might be something that you're like, I don't know if that's what I'm experiencing. I definitely feel anger at times, but I don't know that it's rage. Rage is when anger It's where you have these thoughts of like, I'm not going to yell at my kids. I'm not going to lose my shit or, you know, lose my patience with them. I'm not going to call my husband, husband an asshole. I'm not gonna, you know, react to someone. Negatively, I've got this. I'm going to manage my emotions. I'm going to keep my cool, not going to freak out on my boss, even though he's a prick. And then you find yourself in the midst of the day, maybe at the end of the day, completely losing it, screaming at your kids, slamming doors, stomping around. Telling off your husband, preparing to quit work, right? Maybe it comes out for you in like hysterical crying. Maybe it comes out in screaming, but it's like a big surge where you just kind of lose control of this emotional experience that you're having. And honestly, it usually comes out during times that your logical brain is like, why were you upset about that? That makes no sense. As moms, we are prone to rage because the transition into motherhood was really freaking hard. It was way harder than most of us thought that it would be. Right? We, we had this idea of what parenting was going to be like. And as moms, we tend to put our own needs last. We tend to take care of everyone else's needs first. And when you don't get enough sleep, when you don't get proper nutrition, when you're not taking care of your physical, emotional, and spiritual health and well being, and managing your emotions, Then your emotions start to become impacted negatively. And like every other emotional experience that we've talked about, you can't think rationally when you're in the midst of an emotional experience. So when you are in a rage, when you are like flown into a rage, whatever that looks like for you, it's going to be different. From person to person. When you're in that place, you're not thinking clearly. You might have been thinking this morning, I'm going to take a walk, take care of myself, you know, hold my shit together. And then this evening rolls around and you're screaming at your kids because they dropped food on the floor. And this is because mom rage really becomes created when unprocessed emotions build and our needs go unmet. Now, just think about that for a moment. You have emotions that you haven't processed. Now, if you grew up in the 80s or early 90s, you probably were never taught how to process your emotions. And maybe that's a journey that you've been on trying to figure that out. How do I feel the emotion and process through it? I was at an event this weekend my daughter is in the theater program. And I was talking to some of the cast of this amazing show, these like, you know, 16, 17, 18 year olds. And one of them was like, my mom is always like, stop crying on me for crying out loud. And just kind of joking around. She's like, in fairness, I cry on her all the time. And I said, don't lose that. Don't step back from feeling. Feel all the feelings. Feelings are a good thing. My generation was taught that feelings were bad. We learned how to numb and shut down. We don't know how to process our emotions. And it really fucked us up. I think it was hysterical because there was like six teenage girls at this table and they were all like, yeah, totally. Yup. And you know that they were thinking about their, their own parents, right? They were like, yep. Cause I'm a mom there representing other moms are like, totally. Yep. See it, see it all the time. Our kids are way more insightful than we are with this stuff. But when our, when we don't process our emotions and we don't meet our own needs because nobody's lining up to meet your needs. And the tipping point is usually something that our rational brain says, that is so ridiculous. So you stayed calm all day, you're, and then your kid gets up three times, like you put them down for bed at like seven 30 and they want to drink a water. They need to go to the bathroom. They want a snack. They need another hug. They just keep getting out of bed and you're like, this is my time for me and you just Below your lid, you just freak out at them for what seems in retrospect is like, what was I, why did I do that? Or you've just finished cleaning up dinner, you've put everything away, you're finally able to kind of sit down with the family and they want a snack. Or it's time for them to brush their teeth and they won't let you help them or they've taken a bath and they need help brushing their hair and they don't want your help, they're going to do it themselves. And then you explode when you're experiencing rage, it's not rational. It's an emotional reaction. And the very first thing that you need to do is uncover what your triggers are, because it doesn't come out of nowhere. Like sometimes people will say like, all of a sudden I just was like in a rage, I flew into a rage, which implies that it was like. Unwarranted, not a, you know, not, not something that was building, not something that's a, a regular trigger for you, but the truth is It's a regular trigger for you. You might respond in different ways based on where you're at coping wise that day. But there's a pattern and you have to start uncovering what that pattern is. Maybe it's your kids not listening. Maybe it's when one of your kids hurts their sibling. Maybe it's when your kids are like super loud or the environment's super loud and you feel overstimulated. Maybe it's with change or disappointment. Like when you have plans and they go wrong, we were at a museum this past summer and we're in the parking lot. Like the museum is just opened and there's a bunch of people pulling in, this family pulls in next to us in like too many vans. It was a large group and this teenage or like probably a tween preteen girl, maybe like 11 or 12 ish, got out of the car with a Dunkin Donuts. Starbucks iced, beverage, and she went to hand it to her mother. And her mother wasn't paying attention, and the drink spilled onto the mother's shirt. And it wasn't like she was drunk, she just got coffee on the front of her, like she had been drinking her coffee and it spilled down the front of her. And she Lost her shit in the middle of the parking lot and this poor young girl that was just trying to be helpful that got, you know, her ass, ripped a new asshole, basically. The mother was like in a blind rage. The husband came over and like removed the daughter. And he was like, you know, it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's just, and she was like, it's not a big deal for you because you don't have coffee all over you. Freaking out and she's like, where are the wipes? And she's throwing things around trying to find them. And I was like, that's mom rage. That's what that is. Right. I'm sure later on her rational mind was like. Why would I lose my shit on my kid like that? I mean, it was just an accident. She was trying to be helpful. Mom was like, you could have just left it where it was. Don't touch my, basically, don't touch my stuff. It was kind of an interesting, but it was such a great example and which is why I share it. We can be triggered by our kids, like something like that can happen and we can be triggered by our kids, but mom rage is very rarely about our kids. It's very rarely about something that they're doing. It usually has nothing to do with them, actually. It usually has to do with your own story. I have a mom that I've worked with for a very long time, and this kind of level of anger and rage would arise in her when she felt like her kids weren't listening to her, and she would yell, and she would say, like, Oh, it's You know, it's because I don't feel heard and we kind of, she dug around and she was like, I think it's just like not feeling heard and validated. And she also talked about times where she would feel really kind of rageful or really, really angry when I was teaching her to validate her kids emotions. And she was like, nobody ever validated my emotions. Right. So even when you're doing the work, this stuff can still come up. It's about finding the space to be able to go, Oh, what's actually going on? What's the pattern here? When we uncover the pattern, then we're able. To do something about it, we're able to start to shift our reactions to this, to these patterns, to these triggers. So once you're clear, like, oh, when my kids don't listen to me or when I've, and, and that can include by the way, like you put your kid down and they keep getting up, that can feel like my kid's not listening to me. That can feel like my kid doesn't follow directions, right? When you've asked them to do their homework, when you've asked them to pick up their laundry or to do something around the house and they're not doing it. That can feel like my kid's not listening to me, whether they are or they're not that's what it can feel like. So it's not about what they're doing and what's actually creating it. It's like, what does that, how does that make me feel? What is the thing that comes up? What's the experience or the thought of the story that comes up about me that then has me fly into this blind rage? And it could also be like, I'm not, nobody ever gives me time for myself. Nobody ever like lets me do me and you're infringing on my time. That used to happen to me a lot when my daughter was little, especially if I like had carved out some time to read or do like meditate or practice yoga or whatever. And then she'd be at the door wanting to come in and my husband would be like, leave mom alone. And there'd be a big battle outside the door. And I'm like, this is not relaxing. And for a long time, it would like, I've ripped the door open. I'd be like, you know, what the hell's going on? I'm here. That was me like just flying into, and then whatever would come from that. Right. So the first thing we have to do is recognize. When you feel angry, notice the pattern, write it down even, right? That's like always step one. I always say to people like, write it down. If you're feeling angry, write it down. What happened? What came up? What was the thing, the event that occurred when you felt angry? Then you've got to get into your body. You've got to tune in and figure out where am I feeling this in my body? So that you know what anger rage feels like. In your body, in the nervous tissue of the body, then you have an opportunity. This is all in processing. This is not in the moment of the, like, where you're feeling like you're moving into a rage. This is all like, after the fact, we gather information. You have this opportunity to ask yourself, when was the first time I felt this way? This is one of my favorite questions when we're trying to dig around and really figure out patterns and old stories and old beliefs and things about ourselves. Experiences that we've had in life is to just tune into the body. Where do I feel it? And then, and you might feel it like uh, I had an experience where I'm like, I feel it as if somebody's like putting their hand across the, my, my upper chest, like right underneath my collarbones, right below my throat, and just kind of squeezing, like my chest feels tight. And so I So have that experience and then you go like, when's the first time you felt that way? Now, this is a really cool thing that happens in the subconscious brain is the subconscious wants to answer questions for you. It wants to get information. It wants to know the answers. So when you ask it questions, it will search for the information and you'll bodily sensations are a great way to do that. So you have a sensational experience. You're like, Oh, I feel this tightness in my chest. I feel this constriction in my throat. I feel this like upset stomach. I feel like this back pain or the shoulder pain or whatever thing that's going on. This is where I. Feel the emotion, when's the first time I felt that way, you'll start to get some information. So that's number one is you've got to uncover what the trigger is and how it shows up for you. And then the next step, people often say like, you know, how do I cope with this? How do I deal with this? You've got to rewire the nervous system. You've got to rewire how your body and your brain responds to stressful stimuli. And some of that is rooted in doing thought work and we, I call it thought work, it's mind, it's like mindset work, right? When you look at what are my thoughts creating, what are the stories they're creating, what are the beliefs that are showing up? What am I believing when an experience happens, like for instance. If you're losing your shit because you've been calm all day, you clean that, cleaned everything up. You're just finally sitting down and relaxing and your kid's calling you because they need something. And you're like, you, you know, one times, two times, three times you get to the fourth time. And you're like, you know, you lose your shit. Is the story that you're not worthy of taking care of yourself? Is that the story? Because if that's the story, then you've got to change that story. Or that you're, You're believing that that's what your kid thinks, or you're believing that that's what the people around you in your life think. Everybody takes you for granted and nobody's grateful or, you know, you know, uh, wants to say, nobody ever says to you like, Hey, good job. Or, Hey, I appreciate this. Or, Hey, thank you so much. Right? I mean, we do so much as moms and very rarely are our kids like, Thank you so much for going out of your way to bring me my missing cleat. That was stuffed underneath my bed that you searched for an hour to find so that I had my cleats for my game this afternoon. Because I went off to school with one shoe. Right, like, our kids, most of the time, don't go, don't like, validate and support us in that way. And I'm not saying it's their job to, but if you've never been validated and supported in that way, and that's what you need. That could be something that's a trigger for you, right? So you're just kind of uncovering what's going on, what's going on, what's going on. You're clearing what those things are and you've got to rewire the nervous system. You've got to clear out the responses or how your nervous system responds to stress. There's lots of different ways to do this. There's lots of different practices. I teach a ton of different practices. And in the last couple of episodes I want to say like two episodes ago I talked about strategies to get out of functional freeze. Those will, those are some strategies to help rewire the brain in these situations as well. Rewiring the brain is rewiring the brain. And rewiring the nervous system, getting into the body, getting rooted into like the healing process. But you've got to get clear on what you need, right? So in that process, you might be like, okay, so I don't, the story is you're not worth having time to yourself. You're not worthy of taking care of yourself and you find yourself not getting enough sleep, not eating well. You know, if you're the mom that like, you're like, Oh, by the end of the day, I'm exhausted and my kids won't eat regular food. So I made them macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets and because that's what they'll eat. And so what do I eat? I eat that last cold bite of mac and cheese. It's in the pan and I eat like a half drooled on chicken nugget or whatever, right? If your kids are younger maybe this resonates me. And if you have older kids, you may be like, Oh my God, I remember those days. I was fortunate in the sense that I had, I have a gluten allergy. And so there was no, I never had that. I never, I couldn't just eat what she was eating unless she was eating what we were eating. So I just started making her the food that I ate because I didn't want the other, I didn't want the other things honestly contaminating my cookware. Like no, you can't have boxed macaroni and cheese because then there'll be, there might be scraps of gluten in that pan and then I'm going to die when I make. You know, steam broccoli or whatever and not die, but you know what I mean? So, so as a result of that, as a result of a limitation for myself, I didn't fall into that old pattern, but I remember babysitting as a kid before I knew I had a gluten allergy or watching my nieces and nephews where you're like, I didn't necessarily pack food to go over and like, I'd be feeding them lunch and I'm like, oh, I guess I'll have a little bit of this and whatever. You know, like, you just, you don't put in a huge effort. It's fine on one random Saturday afternoon, but when that's your every day. When you're not fueling yourself, then you're going to be tired, you're not going to sleep well, you're going to be impatient, you're going to lose your shit on them. So what do you need? It might be that you need some time for you. It might be that you need a five minute shower with nobody interrupting you. It might be that you need, uh, to do some meal prepping and do some healthy food planning for you and you need to ask for help with that. But figuring out what is it that you need that's going to make you feel a little bit more whole. Then you can start moving from that place. And next is to find a community, find people that you can kind of share this with, that you can do this work with. Now, in truth, most of us are not walking around going, I fully lost my shit. I went into an uncontrollable rage on my preschooler this morning. So yeah, they were sobbing when I brought them to school. Like we don't do that. We don't like get on mom's Facebook groups or get on, you know, go into our mom communities and be like, yeah, I totally. I lost my shit. Freaked out on my kid. Now they had an awful day and it's all my fault. But when we do, when we do say, you know, I just could not, and like trying to get them to brush their teeth or get their shoes on and we were running late and I just lost my shit and screamed. I just screamed at the top of my lungs and like ended up tucking them under my arm and dragging them out to the car and throwing them in the car and all their stuff. And I don't even know if they have everything they needed. What most often what we hear from other moms is, Oh my God, I've been there. Oh, that happened to me too. Or that was last week. Or that was last month. Or I remember that at that stage. Or it's not that we're not all experiencing it. It's that we're not talking about it because of shame and guilt. Right? We were raised in an environment that said, Feelings are bad. Don't feel. So as a result of feelings are bad. Don't feel. We don't know how to process. And part of processing for some of us is. Speaking it out loud. And there's different styles of processing. Some people process by writing about it. Some people process by speaking it out loud. You'll know this when you're like, if you, if you're stressed and you're trying to problem solve something, what is your go to? Do you sit and think about it? Do you write it out? Do you do you talk to other people about it? Right. Which is your medium for processing? And it could just be like trying to process. Like navigating, you've got a bunch of kids and a lot of things going on this week, and you've got, you know, we've got to figure out dinner, we've got to do some meal prepping, and we've got to figure out, like, who's getting who, where, when, and blah, blah, blah. And so you might say to your spouse or your mother or your mother in law, you might be like, hey, can I just talk this through with you? Have you ever done that? Hey, can I just talk this through with you in, because I've got to figure out a plan. And I just need to speak it out loud. I have an app on my phone called Marco Polo which is a video texting app. And it's great because it allows me to talk through problems and I will, like, I have a couple of friends. in the world of doing similar work that I do and I'll just like get on there and start like talking through something and processing through something. I'm definitely a verbal processor. I need to speak it out loud to the world around me, which is part of the reason why vulnerability has come pretty easily for me. I will admit I have wicked social anxiety. And if you know me, you're like, no, you don't. Yes, I do. I ruminate about like showing up to social settings and in particular, when I don't know people and I don't have a clear. intellectual role. So like, if you, you know, show up at one of my presentations or I'm on stage, I'm great. I can talk to you. I can speak to you from stage. I can talk about whatever the context is, but if like, I don't, I'm not good at small talk at all. I would rather talk about your deepest, darkest secrets or mine. And so as a result, I didn't use to have social anxiety. I don't think maybe I did. And I just didn't, wasn't aware that that's what it was. I have fucking social anxiety. And So for me, it's way easier to be around people that just want to like dive in and talk about the hard stuff and So you've got to like find the tribe that works for you You've got to find the people that are willing to be like, oh my god. Yeah, I've been through I've been there I've been that that's happened to me this week. That's my life too. I'm going through that right now My kid won't go to bed. I lost my shit on them last night And in truth, the real problem with rage is that it's detrimental to your kids. It's scary for them. And if you're not regulating yourself, you can't be there to support them, to regulate their emotional experiences, to help them be okay with how they're feeling, to co regulate. You can't do that. And since we understand that rage is bad for our kids, the other piece that I want you to understand is that rage is also bad for you. It's bad for your health and many of us just parent what we, what we learned, right? We repeat what we know, but chronic rage increases the risk of high blood pressure. It causes struggles with your mood and even increases the risk of heart attack. Now you cannot be there to support your kids and help them regulate if you're not there. But the good news is this is a hundred percent. It's possible to change this. It just takes effort. When I was shifting out of this place of rage, mom rage, I used meditation. I teach a lots of different practices. Meditation is one of the things that I teach, but honestly, you can grab a free meditation to help kind of clear out some of this mom rage in the show notes of this episode. Download it, use it. It is, uh, like a under 10 minute practice. You could practice that every day for 90 days and you will see a drastic shift in how your nervous system reacts to emotions, how it reacts to stress and anger. Ultimately, rage is a red flag signaling that something has got to change, that something is wrong in your wiring and you've got to fix it. And you won't live a life free of anger. I'm not like trying to sell you any, like, you can just be happy forever and live with rose colored glasses, but when you learn how to uncover and clear out your triggers, regulate your emotions. You can live a life that is free from rage and both you and your kids deserve that. So if you liked this episode, please let me know. I'm happy to record more about mom rage, more strategies to manage more in depth on what it is and all the neuroscience of it all. But let me know, shoot me a DM, send me an email. I would love to hear from you. And by all means, use the free meditation that is in the show notes and start regulating. Now and see what that does for you. Thanks so much. And I will see you guys soon. Take care.