Spirit: Big Fat Lies Moms Believe OR How to Break Free From Your Inner Critic

Today's post comes from Amy Ahlers, a certified life coach and author of Big Fat Lies Women Tell Themselves: Ditch Your Inner Critic and Wake Up Your Inner Superstar. 

When I became a mom I also became more self‐critical. It was as if when I gave birth to my daughter, I also gave birth to a new clan of Inner Critics whose mission was to create a swirl of negative thoughts in my head. I like to call these addictive negative thoughts Big Fat Lies.

I’m also a life coach, so I’ve coached hundred of moms and have witnessed firsthand how they become their own worst enemy. After more than a decade of coaching moms from every walk of life (from CEO moms to stay at home moms to mompreneurs) I finally got it: we are all hard on ourselves despite appearances. I am not alone (and neither are you!). We beat ourselves up for both the big things and for the tiniest imperfections. And all this punishment isn’t helping us be better moms or feel more fulfilled or even to get more done. Who can blame us for being so hard on ourselves? We have a lot on their plates: kids, careers, romance, health . . . the list goes on and on. We’re supposed to bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, have incredible sex with our partners, get the laundry and housework done, have healthy, accomplished kids, and a tight butt and perky boobs to boot. We feel like we’re supposed to enjoy being pulled in a million directions at the same time. And that we’re supposed to be as flexible as Gumby on muscle relaxers. But we’re only human.

What would happen if we gave ourselves a break?

To get started, see if any of these Top Three Big Fat Lies sound familiar and then go easy on yourself by tapping into the truth:  

1. I’m a failure (can also show up as I’m a terrible mother, I suck at motherhood.): This Big Fat Lie is pandemic among nearly every mom I’ve talked to. The truth is that we all have moments of failing as moms (you know like when your kid spills milk and you completely loose it because you’ve had the worst day filled with traffic jams, a failed bake sale fundraiser and your mate just called to say he’s working late…again), but that does NOT make us a failure. Winston Churchill put it brilliantly when he said, “Success is leaping from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” I would add that to be a successful parent, success is leaping from mistake to mistake without loss of compassion. So, why not get your compassion on?!

2. ___________ is a way better mom than me (can also show up as I’m a way better mom than _________.): The comparison game amongst moms can be intense and grueling. We can feel like we never quite measure up and develop a serious inferiority complex or we can turn the tables and find our Inner Critics telling us that we are a far better mom, creating a superiority complex. Either way, the comparison game is a losing one. The truth is that this isn’t a contest…and it’s time to put your focus on being the best mom you can be and leave others out of it.

3. Taking care of myself is selfish (can also show up as self‐care just isn’t a priority.): This lie is one of the biggest traps moms fall into, leading to overwhelm, depression and downright resentment. When we put our own well‐being first, we are more able to be there for others. I know how hard it can be to carve out personal time. . .boy, do I know! But it is vital to do so to be a present and caring mom. By deciding to take responsibility for your self‐care, you are giving yourself the opportunity to be a good parent, friend, partner, sibling, and/or coworker. Why not get started with simply 1 hour/week of ME TIME and ease your way up? The more you recognize your negative self‐talk as Big Fat Lies and tap more into the compassionate truth, the more you’ll increase self‐love, self‐esteem and self‐respect. And what better gift can we give our kids than to model that?


Join Amy Ahlers for the Exposing the Big Fat Lies Summit in which 21 world-class experts disclose their secrets and share like you’ve never heard them before … really!

Work: How to Balance Career and Family (Hint: Maybe You Can't)

We were raised around a bunch of women who were tired of being directed to secretarial school when they expressed career aspirations. They were tired of having their fannies slapped. They were tired of of biology getting in the way.

So they worked really hard AND raised families. They demanded to wear pants and went on The Pill. They indoctrinated their spawn with "Free to Be You and Me," an all-star tribute to equality and genderless capability.

And so I thought I could have it all, and that everything would just glide into place when it was time. My career path has wended its way through streams and around mountains and on rutty side roads; It didn't get on the Interstate until I moved to California six years ago and took a corporate gig.

And then, lo, the husband came at the relatively late age of 42, and exactly nine months later, our precious angel baby showed up. And after nine weeks of sticking to each other like cling monkeys, it became time for Baby Grace to go to daycare with lovely grandparent types in their comfortable home, and for me to return to work.

I am jealous of the women who can stay home. On maternity leave I did the math over and over again to see if I could get someone to come in and clean a few times a week so I could just nap and mush up with the baby all day and take her to Anthropologie. I wanted to have quality time during our limited days, not endless shit-tons of laundry. Some days the height of my productivity was unloading the dishwasher. I certainly didn't get my book proposal done. (In my pre-baby delusion, I'd chirpily announced to my therapist that during maternity leave I'd have time to write it WHILE SHE WAS NAPPING. Which is about 40 minutes a stretch. Fool.)

Now when I'm at work I'm a little raggedy from a 4 a.m. wakeup. This morning some last-minute spit-up forced alternate outfits for both me and Gracie, and tacked on another 20 minutes. I work like a steam engine, chugging through, skipping lunch and small talk, so I can get out and hold my baby as soon as possible. As regular as a Japanese train, I start getting anxious to see her on the 10 freeway just before getting on the 5.

I was just invited by the EPA's ENERGY STAR division to make a presentation at their annual conference in North Carolina in November. Normally I would have jumped at the chance to do this, and figured out logistics after. It's huge props for me and for my company. Then I talked myself into going for just a day and turning around on the red eye and coming home. Then I looked closely at the invitation and saw that they'd want me to present three times, on three consecutive days. My heart sank. I can't imagine going that long without inhaling the sweet baby smell, bouncing her on my knee as I eat dinner, snuggling in bed with her and slipping off into a dream together after the 4 a.m. feeding. I still don't know if I'll go. It's a broken heart either way.

My friends Shannon Kelley and Barbara Kelley over at Undecided have become the experts on the impossibility of having it all. At this point, I'm not sure I want it all. I just want enough.

Beauty: Britain Bans L'Oreal Age-Erasing Ads

When Julia Roberts was the Pretty Woman, we were also wearing midriff-baring shirts and skirts that could better be described as big belts. When Christy Turlington was in Duran Duran's 1987 video, we were pretending to be Girls on Film in nightclubs. We all grew up together.

Recently Britain's Advertising Standards Authority banned L'Oreal's ads featuring Roberts and Turlington, saying that the photos of the 40licious women had been too doctored to fall within truth-in-advertising standards. Which reminds me of when Jamie Lee Curtis had a groundbreaking revelation in 2002 about what she really looks like without the Photoshop for a spread in More magazine.

Which makes me wonder if anyone at all really believes an over-the-counter cosmetic product could erase their life lines the megastars wear so beautifully on their faces? Come on, L'Oreal. We weren't born yesterday. Far from it.

40licious Money: Working Moms Have Fatter Kids

How fat do you think Rosie's kids were?

There's this new study in the journal Child Development that shows a correlation between how long a mother works and her children's body mass index (BMI). Apparently the more a mother works, the fatter her children will be. They're not really sure why this is. The study spanned many socio-economic and ethnic groups.

There are a couple theories: That working moms may not have enough time to prepare nutritious meals (they also allowed for dads who helped, but no change in results) and that people who are taking care of kids let them watch more TV, rather than invest time and energy getting them off their tuchuses.

I'm not a scientist. I didn't measure 990 kids and weigh them, and interview their moms. But something about this stinks. I can't tell if this is some weird patriarchal subterfuge to add another layer of guilt to working moms, or real science. But it's making me pissy.

I don't know. I don't have a kid yet.

Gloria Steinem, if you're reading, what do you think about this? 

And everyone - do you have kids? Do you work? Are you kids fat? Tell us about it and maybe we'll find out what's really going on here.

40licious Work: Why Aren't We at the Table?

Great takeaways from Facebook Chief Operating Officer's Sheryl Sandberg's TED talk on why women hold only a fraction of leadership positions men do. Sit down with a crisp chenin blanc, an earthy cabernet, steaming mug of cocoa or your morning tea and listen to this 15 minutes of truly inspired insight:

1. Sit at the table.

• 7 percent of women negotiate salary for their first job. 57 percent of men do.
• Women regularly underestimate their abilities, while men tend to overestimate.
• Success and likability are proportionate for men, but disproportionate for women.

2. Make your partner a real partner.
Dude should be participating in child rearing and homemaking as much as you are.

3. Don't leave before you leave.
Women regularly tend to take themselves out of the running by sitting back at work in preparation for having children. Be in the game, until it's time to get out. As we know, child-having can take a very long time.

She is 40licious. I love her.

Undecided

I am all in love these days with the mother-daughter team of Barbara and Shannon Kelly, who have a blog and forthcoming book called "Undecided." It's about "analysis paralysis, grass is greener syndrome, longing for the road not traveled: How the success of the women’s movement has left us stumped in the face of limitless options — and how to get over it."

When I met Shannon at a writer party, I felt like she'd put into words all the things I'd been feeling but couldn't quite grasp in language. If I could have it all -- marriage, children, career -- why wasn't I doing any of it very well? It has taken me this long, well into my 40licious, to get around to the marriage part, and hopefully soon, the child. I will spare you the long psychological navel gazing at this point. Let me just say that they are right on and always tackle something of interest to women of a certain generation.

Anyway. Go over there and read yourself some Kelly women.