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So redefining Good Mom. The reason I wanted to do this topic today is because I feel that this is a big part of reclaiming yourself. Because so often we hold ourselves to these ideal expectations or standards that we've learned from various sources. And I'll share a little bit more about that in a minute. But we hold ourselves to these unrealistic expectations, and it keeps us trapped. It keeps us feeding that belief that we are inadequate, that we are failing, that we're not enough, all of these innate beliefs that we hold and can keep us trapped. Let me just silence my phone and make sure we don't get interrupted here. There's a lot of pressure to be this ideal mom. And it can cause a lot of stress. Motherhood is stressful enough, but when we hold these standards and we measure ourselves against them, it can really interfere with your relationships. It can contribute to a lot of physical and mental elements, depression, anxiety. Even physical elements. There's a lot of diseases that are tied directly to stress. When we're feeling this undue pressure to be this mom that we think we need to be, it can be creating havoc in your life.
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So that's why I wanted to come here today and share with you and challenge you to redefine what it means to be a good mom. And I say that in quotes, a good mom because there is no definition. Let me just put it out there. There is no universal definition for what it means to be a good mom. It is completely personal. I keep seeing this meme out there and it's saying, the fact that you are questioning whether or not you're a good mom, that in itself is showing that you are a good mom because you're worried about it. If you weren't a good mom, you would just be on autopilot and you wouldn't care one way or another whether you're doing a good job at it. Just the mere fact that you're questioning, that you're watching this video, that you're thinking about, am I a good mom? That shows right there that you are a good mom. Now, I did a post yesterday in our Facebook group about my faith, not crisis, my faith journey. And with that, I have for a long time believed that God gave us our children because we are the perfect parent for them.
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It's exactly who our child needs. I still believe that. And that has given me comfort in times where I feel like my mom hat is questioned, or am I doing right by my children? Being able to lean into our own intuition and trusting ourselves that we are doing right, even when it's so confusing, even when our kids hit teenage or adolescents age and we feel like everything blows wide open. It's like toddlerhood all over again. And just because it's unknown waters. And just because you've done it before, maybe you've raised a four year old before, so you know what to expect. But you've never raised that four year old before. And so it's uncharted water. I tell my kids all the time, I have no idea what the heck I'm doing. I don't. And I have to lean into my own intuition and self trust and trust that I have the answers within me. And sometimes I just need to take some time to find those answers within me. But my point is that the definition of good mom is completely personal. It is for you to decide and for you to recognize that you are a good mom.
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These unrealistic expectations, like I said, can really create havoc and can really keep us feeling stuck. Social media. Yesterday I was on our local news doing a feature on the effect of social media on our mental health. But it's so important. When I got asked to do the segment, I was really excited about it. One, because they reached out to me, I was like, heck yeah. Because I always feel like I'm the one doing the work. And so to be recognized as an expert, that was really cool. But the other thing was because I'm passionate about this. I feel like social media is something that we can have control over because there's so many different things we can't have control over about our situation, about things that happen. But social media is something that we can have control over. We can decide how we're going to let social media influence us by the actions we take, the decisions we make. And so in regards to this, to the ideal image of motherhood, it comes on strong on Instagram, here on Facebook, on TikTok. All of the social media platforms, they present to us this ideal image of motherhood that is definitely not realistic.
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I almost said unrealistic. Give me one second. I want to see, because I know this isn't my regularly scheduled time to be on Facebook or to be to be doing this live. So I just want to make sure if anyone's watching. Here we go. Hey, Holly. Good morning. Oh, I love that you asked your kids, have I done anything that needs to be improved on? Yes. So that's key, right? Like, checking in with your kids and seeing how am I doing? Not that they're our boss, but we are serving them. We are in the position we are because of them. I love that Holly asked me that. I don't know what my kids would say. No, I do. Every once in a while, I'll say, Hey, do you think I made a good decision? Or I'll check it with them. But yeah, that's brave. That's great. I think I might try it. I might try it. I've done it with my older ones. A few weeks ago, I had them for dinner. And we were just talking about their childhood and especially in regards to homeschooling, because I feel like that has impacted them hugely in both positive and negative ways.
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And so we had this whole conversation about that and just how it influenced them. So yeah, I like that. Okay. So social media definitely influences the way we define good mother and or good mom. Just being aware of who you're following, what kinds of things you're consuming, and being aware of how it's affecting you. Really, it goes back to asking yourself, how do I feel? How is this making me feel as I go through these reels? I know often I will see different moms, you're only seeing a window of time that they are presenting to you. There's so much more to the story. And one of the things that I struggle with as a business owner is getting caught in that compare game when it comes to seeing mom entrepreneurs who seem like they are making it big. And it got to the point where I was very discouraged. I could feel when I was watching different reels and stuff, just feeling worse and worse about myself and about what I've been doing and feeling everyone else has it figured out. And that's the same thing with mother. Everyone seems to have it figured out.
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Why can't I do this? A gain, it's feeding that feeling of not being enough. And so being aware of that, and I started digging in and finding out more to the story. My podcast is a great platform that allows me to do that because then I can talk to other entrepreneurs who seem to have it all and get it all together and seem to be these really successful women. And not that they're not successful, but there's always more to the story, and maybe it's taken them a lot longer. I'm looking at what they're presenting to me, but there's a lot of things happening in the back scene. Maybe they have a whole team behind them, or maybe they've been in business for way longer than I have. So these are the things that I decided to be more proactive. Instead of just letting it affect me and feeling bad about it, really finding more of the story and expanding that view. And I encourage you to do the same, too. If you're noticing how social media is making you feel, then you are able to do something about it. I just want to give you some tips on how to redefine motherhood, how to redefine your definition of good mom.
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I've already mentioned that it is completely personal. There's no universal definition of a good mom, but it helps to embrace your imperfections. I heard this awesome quote by Oscar Wilde, and it was... Let me think of it. Be yourself because everyone else has already taken. It is in your imperfections that you are you. But it's important to embrace those imperfections. And that's where self acceptance comes in. You're accepting your sofa both your strengths and your weaknesses and recognizing that is what makes you unique. When you're trying to live up to some unrealistic expectations about what it means to be a good mom, you're likely not bringing into account... You're not accounting for your imperfections. And so I encourage you to embrace them. Embrace them. Know that you are doing you. And that's hard to do, especially if you've lost yourself under your mom hat. If you don't even know what it is that you'd like to do anymore, then how are you going to know those deeper things about what it is that makes you you? And so that's one of the things that we work on in the Super Mom detox is identifying what are your strengths?
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What are your talent, what are your weaknesses, where do you want to improve? Where are those things, what makes you you? Then how can we move toward self acceptance so that you can lean into that piece and really let the true you shine? Knowing that it's a personal definition, that you need to embrace your imperfections, setting some boundaries. When you feel like when you're letting everybody in, when you are so caught up in making sure everyone else is happy, that too can prevent you from letting your true self shine. Holly, you said about there's a back seating someone's success. Absolutely. They had to learn to walk first. We might see them running, right? And we think, damn, they've got it all together. There's so much that this happens behind the scenes in that back seat that has gotten them to where they are, just like you. There's always going to be somebody who's looking up to you, and there's always going to be someone you're looking up towards. And that's what life is about, moving forward. But when you're looking just at that front person and not recognizing all of the work that it took to get there, that's when it can take a major toll on your mental health and keep you trapped and stuck.
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So I'm challenging you to expand your view and recognize that there's so much more. I also encourage you to, aside from setting some boundaries, which, again, we work on in the super mom detox, but connecting with other moms. Now, here in the Moms Without Caves Facebook group, I'm amping it up with the opportunities to be able to connect with one another. I find that I've learned that growth happens in connection with others, in relationships with others. And there's nothing like being able to come together with other moms, other women who are in the gist of it, right? In the trenches with you and feeling like you're not alone, feeling like we've got this, having that support, whether it's that emotional support or just knowing that you are not alone as we go through this, that it's a game changer. So I'm trying to provide lots of opportunities. I would love to have any ideas that you have, but what I've come up with so far is we've got Quizz'O coming up on May eighth to this coming Monday night. This is a fun trivia game. We played it as a family during the pandemic. Wait, my mind just went blank.
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When the pandemic was like, we were in it, right? I had never played it before. I never considered myself good at trivia or whatever. But this was really fun. My cousin was the quizzo master. Quizzo is just another name for trivia. We did it in different categories, different rounds. Every week she'd come and she'd be our host. So I called her in and she was totally willing to do it. We're going to do a Mother's Day theme quizzo. You do not, I promise, you do not have to be good at trivia in order to have fun here. It is really fun. It's very fast paced. I'm going to be giving prizes. We're going to have opportunities to mingle. We were talking on Sunday night. We did a phone call and just ironing out some details. And once one of the things we're like, Well, there's this time period where you've got to score it. And when it was my family, we all chatted about what's new and all of that stuff, what we were all doing to pass time during the pandemic. But here we're going to do just some fun get to know you games in between the actual trivia round.
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So it's going to be fun. So get your ticket. The ticket is $10, which you can't even go to a movie for $10 these days. So come on out, momswiththatcapes. Com quiz. I will go ahead and throw the link in the comments section. But that's only one opportunity to build relationships with other moms here in the Moms Without Caves community. I've also got the Summer Book Club, which we've been doing the virtual book club. In fact, today we're meeting at 11 o'clock Mountain Time, 1 o'clock Eastern, to discuss Forget Having It All by Amy Westervel. Come out to that. Even if you haven't read the book or even gotten the book, come out because the questions that I have that we're going to go over or go through, you do not have to have read the book in order to engage in the discussion. So if you are able to or if you can make it happen, come to today. All you need to do is RSVP yes, and go to the event section and it'll be a direct link right into our Zoom room. So that happens today. But in the summer, I'm doing it more of a membership style where it's all three different books.
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The first one is June 6, we're going to be reading Boundaries. And we're going to do Boundaries. And then on July, we're going to do a book on Burnout. And then on August, we're doing You Are Badass. I have this book right here because I read the first and third book and yesterday I was getting together a raffle ticket for a local event and I gave my three books in the raffle ticket along with a membership. And so I had to rebuy the books, but that's something else altogether. But anyway, the book club is going to be an amazing opportunity. I'm doing virtual and I'm doing in person. So if you live here in Billings and you want to come to the in person, I invite you to that. It'll be down here in the heights in my office, in my counseling office. But we're also going to do virtual. So the three books are already there, mumswith. Capes. Com book club. That is 20 bucks for all three months. That's like a no brainer. But that's just going to lock in your spot so that we know that you're going to be involved in this book club.
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So that's another opportunity. What else do we got? We got the claim your me time challenge coming up on May 22nd. You can go register for that starting on Monday. And then we've got a self care in the summer master class happening June first. There's just so many different opportunities. My mind is like, Okay, what else can we do? What else can we do? I would love to have your ideas because I really want this place to be a fun place to build those connections and relationships that are going to help you in so many ways. So that is it. If you're interested in learning more about the Super Mom detox, definitely schedule a call for me, momswithoutcapes. Com love yourself. That link has never changed. Let's talk. I've got so many different resources and ways to help you that I would love to be able to jump on a call with you, find out what's going on, and maybe providing some of those resources for you, telling you more about Super Mom detox. I am here to serve you, and that's why I created this whole group. So come on and schedule a call with.
