Today we're going to talk about mom reach, what triggers it, and more importantly, what you can do about it. Welcome to today's topic. I'm Annie. I am the host of the Mom to thought, Cates, Facebook group and podcast. I'm excited to be here today. What is mom reach? Last month, we held a casual conversation about it. It's different than anger because mom rage is that intense anger or frustration that moms may experience due to feeling stressed, exhausted, or just simply feeling overwhelmed. Of course, there's lots of times where we experience those things, where we feel stressed, we feel exhausted, we feel overwhelmed, and it doesn't get expressed as anger. But mom rage seems almost like that eroxion or complete total outburst, where it almost feels like it's uncontrollable. I want you to imagine a situation where you have felt overwhelmed and if it's led to anger or frustration. Let me know in the comments. Just put a one in the comments if you have ever experienced mom rage before. I want you to just put a one. That way we know that we're not alone. It is something that is felt commonly. I know we say mom rage because we're in a group with moms.
And if you're listening to this, you're likely a mom. And of course, dads can experience it too. Anyone can experience rage. But this is specifically, it's commonly referred to as mom rage because that's usually who it happens to. And in our intents and purposes, that's what we're going to focus on today. So if you've been in this group for a while, you've been listening to the podcast. I have shared a bit. I think in my newsletter too, I shared about the struggles we're having right now with my nine-year-old who is not wanting to go to school. And she's, in fact, home right now. And this has created a huge mom rage has been alive and well here, right? And it's like almost every day or at least three or four out of five days where I get so frustrated that I start feeling this rageful word. I guess that's a word. I start feeling like this so frustrated saying it 20 times, right? That I just erupt. And I can see that it's damaging our relationship. And that's what's so hard about mom rage is because it can definitely affect your relationship, negatively affect your relationship.
You can feel a lot of guilt afterwards where you start overthinking, Did I do this right? What could I have done differently? Feeling bad? I've damaged my child for life. And when it's happening repeatedly, when you're not doing the things that we'll talk about in a little bit, and it's going to happen more often, and it's going to feel even more heavier. And so that's why I wanted to share with you today some things that you can do that I know I need to practice in order to help keep that relationship intact, help keep myself calm, because when mom rage happens, it's like all hell breaks loose. Can I say that on Facebook? I don't know, but it is. It can just feel really gross and feel really hard. I just want to acknowledge that and put a one in the comments if you've ever experienced any of these emotions or if you've ever experienced mom rage. So some common triggers of why you might be experiencing mom rage. One, lack of sleep. I was in fact, just talking with one of my clients this morning, and we were talking about when the stress feels heavy, when she experiences the most, she even was having nightmares.
But when she's... And this is, I feel, common, not just her, but it just hit home that when we are lacking sleep, when we're not getting the sleep we need, whether you have a sick kid or you're struggling to... You'restaying up at night worrying about things, when you're not getting the sleep that you need, you're going to be less likely to have that self-control or be less likely to be able to manage the emotions that come from a child not listening or a child not doing what you know needs to be done. Constantly multitasking. I've done episodes at Facebook Lives about multitasking before that it is a myth. One cannot actually multitask. We may take some... I'm trying to try to find like, Oh, women are better multitaskers, but it's really not true. We still need a transition period. Our mind is constantly going, When we think we're multitasking, we're really switching our focus back and forth, back and forth constantly throughout the tasks. It would be much more productive if we just focused on multitasking, like doing one task at a time rather than trying to do 10 tasks at one time. I know that a lot of times that is necessary.
We feel that it's necessary in order to get out the door to be doing a whole bunch of different things. But that's one of the missions of the moms without case is actually to help you slow down so that you don't have to multitask. So they are not constantly feeling that pull of trying to do so many things at one time. Feeling unappreciated. When you're doing something and you feel that you're not getting that appreciation that you might deserve or that you feel would help you, would motivate you to keep going. You feel that you're the only one doing all of the things. Some of these expectations that you might be holding in your mind, that too is going to increase the likelihood that mom rage is going to make an appearance when you're feeling that underappreciation. Then feeling isolated, feeling like you're all alone, feeling like social media can definitely perpetuate this feeling of being the only one who's struggling when you're seeing all of these moms that seem to have it together. It can create a lot of feelings of isolation, and that also can increase the tendency of mom rage. I know that for myself, when I feel that everyone seems to need me at the same time, like one of my teenagers, I have three teenagers in this house, but one of my teenagers is wanting me to look at a homework problem.
Another one is asking me about if we have laundry to charge it. My husband's asking if I've seen something, if I know where his shoes are, and all of these things at one time can cause me to erupt. If I don't recognize that I need to step back, maybe take a deep breath, take a couple of deep breaths, because one deep breath is not going to do anything. Taking a few couple of deep breaths, maybe I need to separate myself physically and just take a breather. But if I don't recognize that, I erupt. But knowing that that's going to be a trigger for me, I can take back some of my control and know that this is... Recognize it and address it rather than just feeling that I'm going to freak out. It is so important to recognize what your triggers are and recognize them early enough to be able to do something about them. Well, for me, again, that irritability that I actually can feel the tension in my body when I'm feeling like I'm being pulled in a million different directions or when I feel that my daughter is just not listening to me and I know that this needs to get done, this is important.
And I can feel the tension in my body. A lot of times I feel a lot in my arms and in my chest. I could feel heated. You actually feel like your temperature rise because that's actually what's happening. Your heart's beating faster. There's different signs that we may not be noticing, but that are actually there. But when you slow down enough to start asking yourself like, What am I feeling right now? What's going on for my body? Where are these emotions showing up in my body? It's at that time that you can start getting familiar with what are the signs that you might be bleeding to an eruption. And so recognizing them, maybe you start raising your voice or just repeating things. And at that point like, Okay, it's coming. Let me do what I need to do in order to bring myself back down and address this in a different way. With anger, you can actually make yourself like an anger thermometer, where at the top of the thermometer is going to be your boiling point, and it's going to be where that eruption, that mom rage starts happening. We want to recognize what's happening at each level or each degree and start taking action when you're at the lower end.
I encourage you actually write down on a piece of paper, mark it out in 10 spots and rate your anger. That way, even with your check-in, like one to ten, What am I feeling right now? Am I at a level two? Am I at a level seven? Or am I nine, ready to go over the edge? Seeing what are those signs that are pointing at what level you're at. I don't know if that makes sense, but what happens when you're at a level two? Maybe you've asked twice. What happens when you're at a level five? Maybe you've asked four times and you can feel your heart rate increasing and you can feel that muscle tension. How about level seven? Where do you feel at that? What's going on for you at that moment? Then being able to assess where you are at different levels so that you can catch yourself and take action to not go any further. I already mentioned the deep breathing. Again, one deep breath might just be enough for you, but more likely than not, you may have to take more deep breaths, letting out to breathe from your diaphragm rather than just from chest breathing, putting your hand on your belly and really breathing in through your nose and holding that breath and letting it out.
All from your diaphragm, like from your belly doing belly breathing rather than just chest breathing because it's very shallow. But maybe you need to separate yourself and take some calming breaths in order to reset your systems and be able to approach the situation differently. Time-out. It doesn't just work for kids, it also works for you. But being able to, I said, physically separate, sometimes I'll go to the bathroom, or sometimes I will go outside. If an argument happened in the car and I feel like I'm going to erupt, maybe I stay in the car for a little bit longer just to bring my systems down rather than rush into the house and continue it, because I know that's going to definitely lead to the eruption. Leaning in on your support system, reaching out to a friend or family member for a quick chat. Might be reaching out for a chat, like getting in the Moms Without Cates Facebook group and saying, This is what's going on. Just simply putting words to what's going on inside you can be helpful. It's been shown to be helpful. I know it's helped me some just putting words to it.
So whether you're journaling, you get in a Facebook group, you send a text, you get on a phone call with somebody, they that you are close to and you feel comfortable with, doing those kinds of things are going to help you break that escalation. It is so important, I preach all about self-care, and that's going to not change here. When you're in the moment of feeling like an eruption is going to happen, yes, it is great to practice these things, to take a deep breath, to take time out, to lean in your support system, but you really need to work on getting those practices in place when you are in a calm state, when you are not in the situation itself. Doing these things are going to help improve your emotional wellbeing so that when situations do take place where you're likely to get erupted, not get erupted, feel like you're going to erupt, you already have, it's almost like muscle memory. Your body is already at a calmer space because you have these practices in place. And so it's not going to take as much to put you over the edge. Protecting my sleep has allowed me to have a clearer mind, make better decisions, be more patient, think better.
On those nights where I haven't had as much sleep as I want or I've been wakeful through the night, those are the mornings that it doesn't take much to set me off. But yet on the nights that I have had a good sleep, like I'm able to stretch out, I'm able to get the sleep that I want, I am able to face the day with much more clarity and from a much better place. But I've had to protect my sleep. I've had to put boundaries up, and I've had to honor my own boundaries. This is my bedtime. I need to go to sleep. I need to make sure that this is protected and that others aren't interrupting my sleep so that I can get the sleep that I need to be my best self. Let me know in the comments, what are some places that you need to put boundaries around in order to protect your sleep, to be able to not be multitasking, not to be doing the things that you know are sabotaging yourself and are putting yourself at risk of experiencing mom rage. Let me know. It doesn't look like anyone is live.
Let me refresh. Just make sure. Okay. So it doesn't look like anyone's live, which is totally understandable since I'm doing this later than usual. Let me know in the comments if you're watching the replay, first, #replay, let me know with the number one if you've experienced mom rage. And also let me know if you have any questions about this. What has helped you? What has helped you in these times where you felt like you were able to not experience mom rage? And then if you've experienced mom rage, reflect back on when was that? What could have been done differently? What could you have done differently that would have allowed you to step back and not experience that mom rage? Let's learn from our experiences rather than being so harsh on ourselves and just living with regret about that it happens at all. Let's say, let's normalize it because it's such a common experience. Let's say like, well, what can we do differently? And taking back your power, your superpower, right? Let's just go with the whole moms without Cates metaphor and taking back your superpower by saying, What could you have done differently that would have set you up for better success?
All right, so we talked all about understanding, recognizing it, and managing mom rage. Practice these tips. Let me know if you need help with this, definitely reach out to me. You can reach out to me either put it in the comments or reach out to me via a Facebook Messenger or email, ani@momswithatcapes. Com. Let me know if you need help with this, we can jump on a call. We can work together to get that mom reach under control. All right, that's it. Again, I will see you in the group and have a great Thursday, everyone. Bye.
