Reframe Mom Probs with Principles

You know that feeling when your therapist or partner asks you a really good question??

When you’re like - OH. DAMN. That is a really good question. 

You know that if you sit with it... and really answer, really dig for the most honest answer, that it will change the way you see the situation.

And change the way you act.

And maybe even change you.

This reflexive insight does not happen with critical questions - why would you do that?? 

Aha moments only arise when we feel safe enough to get curious enough to really reflect. 

My boss asked me a good one not long ago - what surprised you most after that series of client meetings? I loved that question. I didn’t have an answer initially, which is the whole point of a good question. I had to really stop and reflect to realize that there were aspects of those meetings I did not expect, and put into words what those things were and what I learned from them. 

We can really stop and get still enough to reflect with someone we trust to hear the truth. Friends, therapists, partners - even great bosses - we need these people. 

AND. 

We need to do this job for ourselves. It’s a power move to be our own questioner. You’re probably already doing it, but you may be able to benefit from going deeper. And we don’t need to wait for New Years to sit back and reflect (when we most likely won’t have time over the busy holiday season anyway). Our children are growing up and changing so rapidly, that we need frequent checkins with ourselves. 

We ask ourselves a lot of dumb questions by default. 

Our mind just churns out these self-referential, repetitive clips:

-why aren’t they listening to me?

-why didn’t I think of that?

-what if xyz horrible thing happens?

These are fake questions. They are victim mindset statements, just wailing from the void, not waiting on an answer, with no useful one. 

This is our default mode network at work. It doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with us, it’s just the way the brain works as adults. They say over 90% of our 50,000 daily thoughts are some variation of the same thoughts we had the day before. That’s a lot of rutty thinking. 

It takes actual energy, in the form of metabolic resources (glucose, amino acids, heat, real biological processes) to get out of the neural pathways, the psychological habits that are in place. The way our brain is wired and operates is based on predictions. Our mind is continuously predicting what will happen next, preparing our bodies for action, and then updating its predictions based on our body state. It takes concerted effort to intentionally update our thinking, shift out of negativity, and make new choices. It’s a heavy lift for the brain. 

So first things first, we have to give ourselves grace. Sometimes, and quite often, we just need to give ourselves the same nurturing we would give our baby - food, rest, a cleaning. These physical actions reset our “body budget”, giving us more available energy to try again.

But let’s say that today, you are tired of rutty thinking, and want to do something differently. If you’re tired of the “dumb” automatic thinking in your brain, asking yourself good hard questions is a great place to start. And a great place to start for coming up with the good hard questions is PRINCIPLES. 

Principles: a Source of Stability in the Storm

It has been nearly 40 years since Stephen Covey wrote 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, but time has probably only increased the need for the strong character ethic it teaches. This book was a groundbreaking self help classic, for personal and business use. Covey teaches that principles are something stable in the flow of change in which we all live. He makes a strong case for finding security and guidance through living a principle-centered life. 

As moms, we can be greatly benefited by this idea of principles. So much changes on a daily basis as our children are born and grow up, that we can feel overwhelmed by all the uncertainty. It’s very hard to feel happy and uncertain at the same time. It’s hard to feel confident and uncertain at the same time. We’re just a bit edgy and anxious when we don’t know what’s coming next or how to best prepare for it. 

Principles steady our attitudes, and thereby guide our actions. 

Here’s what I mean. Say you’re having a tough day. The cat peed on your child’s backpack, your car’s making a weird sound, and you have an unexpected $1000+ hvac bill (my actual day yesterday). Returning to sound principles gives us a way to reframe. Reframing is what your therapist is always trying to get you to do. “It’s not the load that breaks you down but the way you carry it”, said C.S. Lewis and others. Your minor annoyances and major problems all have reframes that help to lighten the load. Or give you the mental strength to put in more effort to effectively lift the load. Or just keep calm(ish) and carry on.

Say you’re having a big year. You got married, moved, you or your partner started a new job, you bought your first home, and then you had a baby.

Sidenote: Did you know that it is not uncommon for first time parents to do some or all of these major life transition things in the same year?

Big year, big change. You have multiple changes of identity. You have a new daily lifestyle that probably doesn’t match what you imagined. You have financial responsibilities that you may not have wrapped your head around. You have a new joint life mission of raising this child. You have a new division of labor with your spouse to accomplish all the things. Your body is doing new things like giving birth, lactating, and not sleeping through the night. You have new hormonal levels and patterns. It’s a LOT of change. 

The way I see it is that we can help the process of change along. We can find wellbeing in the chaos by partnering with change, working diligently to change ourselves as profoundly and rapidly as we need to. 

Some Principles to Reframe

To ask ourselves good hard questions with these principles, we simply remember they exist. Because very often, our default negativity will overshadow these facts, even if we have knowledge of the principles, on an intellectual level. It can be helpful to keep them around and check our own frame of reference. These principles contain seeds that we can always plant and always tend. 

The short list that follows are broad concepts, all with the potential to impactfully shift your perspective. This is by no means an exhaustive list. There are many more - gratitude, acceptance, systemization - to name just a few, that give you the power to pivot when you most need it. 

They spell the acronym HAAK, which could help you remember to hack an upgrade to your normal way of operating.

Humor.

I said it. Lightening up, not taking life and ourselves so seriously is a sound principle. 

"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive."

~Elbert Hubbard american philosopher, thought leader, and author of the late 1800s. 

Humor sets a lower bar than happiness. We can laugh at things even when we're miserable. Often, things are so bad they’re funny. Comedians make lots of money pointing this out for us. Laughter is an expression of radical, hardship-defying, existential joy. Laughter also points to truth. When we don’t get the joke, we don’t laugh. When something strikes as as hilariously true, we spontaneously crack up. Things don’t have to be purely good to be funny. That’s the beauty of humor. We also know that laughter lowers stress, is an indicator of mental health, and predicts relationship wellbeing aka “laughter is shortest distance between two people”. 

I learned the wisdom of tapping into the principle of laughter in my early days of motherhood from my friend Hannah. She was my only acquaintance who had a baby at the same time I had my first, and I still feel very grateful that we had each other. Her transition to motherhood was extremely challenging; her baby was born early at 36 weeks due to preeclampsia, and her health was precarious. There were significant breastfeeding struggles. Her premie little boy was colicky, tiny, slow growing, and acutely vulnerable for a very long time.

I’ll never forget her changing his diaper in the hatchback of her car when we were meeting to take a walk. He was screaming and thrashing, in stark contrast to my serene, chunky infant, wearing a “zen baby” hat in the wrap. I looked on apprehensively, not being used to that much crying.

As I watched, I became inspired and amazed, as she beautifully handled the situation and slowly and awkwardly changed his diaper. She spoke to him with gentle humor: “Oh small friend, you really hate this. What a ridiculous thing that mommy has to change your diaper in the parking lot. How dare I!?! This is the part that feels icky to you. Someday you’ll thank me…I think. I wonder how you’ll thank me?” Her words played on with a calm tone and funny lightness, all while showing empathy. They were sarcastic, slightly self deprecating, and alluding to desperation while standing staunchly apart from panic. It was so not fun, but why not laugh? Silliness is a much lower bar than joy. Bringing humor to the situation was a superpower that helped get them through it. And it can for you too. 

Awareness 

is another way to say mindfulness. Which is another way to say nonjudgemental acknowledgement of whatever is going on, both inside and around you.

Your nervous system is taking in so much information in every moment, and your brain is trying to make sense of it all. In order to function, our brain has to filter out whatever is deemed less important for survival. This means that we stuff down a lot of stuff. Even when we aim for mindfulness and feeling all the feels, in order to function, we have to turn down some inputs to stay sane. We don’t want to feel upset that our daughter cried herself to sleep last night when we’re trying to get work done. However, bringing awareness to emotions and sensations below the surface can prove useful. 

Often these things are there anyway, and using precious mental energy to resist. 

Were you ever trying to get something done, but you kept thinking about something else? Sometimes journaling or taking care of a to-do frees us from that nagging worry that is draining our focus. 

In addition to adding to the mental load if not faced, our perceptions often are sources of insight.

Did you ever find out something, and realize that you already knew that, or at least had a feeling? That your neighbor is pregnant. That your coworker is lying. That your child is sick.

One of my best friends took her teenager to several specialists after he passed out in school. His doctor said he was fine, and repeated check-ups all gave the same message - he was perfectly healthy. Despite this evidence, she trusted her gut feeling that they needed to get further data and testing done on his heart. Eventually they found a hole in his heart the size of a quarter that had to be repaired with surgery. This is an all too common example of mom intuition at its most necessary. 

But sometimes we ignore what we sense.

What if we went off the premise that our inner experience, pleasant or painful, contains useful information?

We need to stop disregarding, or suppressing our perceptions. 

What if we listen to our spidey-senses? 

What if we stop ignoring our dehydration?

What if we stop second guessing our intuition? 

What if we stop gaslighting ourselves? 

We need to honor the raw data as a starting point for living intentionally. 

The principle of awareness calls us to acknowledge what is there, really experience what the experience is actually like, and use that understanding to live with greater self awareness.

Adaptation 

is another way to say Growth, that fits in the HAAK acronym better : ) Growth is a principle of life. None of us would be here if our ancestors weren’t masters at adaptation and survival.  "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." wrote Charles Darwin. Adaptability is nature’s way, and we have to adapt to survive. 

We also have to adapt to thrive. Personal growth is at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as “self actualization”. We only feel deep fulfillment when we are growing. 

There has been much research and much written on the benefits of a growth mindset. Growth mindset is the belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through effort and learning, versus a fixed mindset that sees them as innate traits you're born with. 

Just as we can rely on change as a constant of life, we can rely on our capacity to grow. Neuroplasticity is not just for babies, it is for all of us. Your brain may struggle with big and small change, for good reason (see energy resources, above). Scientists have a word for when our brain updates its predictions and rewires its responses: learning. 

As I remind my kids often - “if you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right”. The gym analogy applies here. I cannot squat 160 pounds today. But I know that if I keep going to the gym, I will be able to. But if I believe I can’t, I won’t go to the gym, and then I still can’t.

Remembering that we are growing, changing, learning beings is such an optimistic positive perspective. And it’s true.

Truth: Everything that’s hard in your life today is giving you reps for being able to do better tomorrow. 

Truth: We can’t live without stress, without change, without hard. Problems are a permanent fixture of life, not a bug. 

These are all obvious, even pithy statements. But do we remember them in our cat pee moments? That’s the real challenge. 

Kindness.

A core principle that is applicable for you right now at this moment in life (and actually for all of us at all times) is kindness. Kindness is always appropriate. 

While no one would argue against kindness in principle, many of us still find it hard to live by when we’re tired, hungry, and hormonal. It can be challenging to approach your child with firm kindness instead of degrading criticism when they do something dangerous, stupid, or mean-spirited. It’s hard to be kind to others when they aren’t there for us the way we wish they would be, or when they accidentally trigger our stress response. 

You know who it’s really hard to be kind to? Ourselves. Kristen Neff, when asked what gift she would give to all mothers everywhere said - “kindness”. Self kindness doesn’t make us mediocre and indulgent, as we sometimes assume. In fact, self kindness proactively prevents unnecessary suffering in the postpartum period AND helps you consistently show up as the best parent you can be. 

How to apply Principles: Ask yourself good, hard questions. 

You could call these “turning questions” as a therapist of mine used to. Turning questions help you flip your automatic thinking and connect with what is true. They’re like a get out of jail free card, opening doors to new possibilities. I like to also call them “steadying questions”, because answering them can bring peace, strength, and stability. In the sea of constant change, it is up to us to keep swimming. Someone else is relying on you to be the steady one when you are a parent. 

The two main ways to ask yourself good hard questions are: 

1. On the fly

2. In your journal 

These are both valid and necessary. We’ll have the cat pee moments, where we’ll have to remember humor when we’re bending over with the paper towels. And we sometimes (despite all busy pressures) have to find quiet moments to write or record deeper reflections. 

Important to remember: Use curiosity! Do your best to really ask your deepest, wisest self the question without assuming or judging the answer. Genuine curiosity taps us into the anxiety-reducing power of questions. 

When you’re on the go 

When life is life-ing and you’re running around, use questions internally as a mantra to reframe and reset.

Here are some HAAKs  to try:

• Humor: 

  • What is funny about this?

  • What’s ridiculous or absurd here? 

  • What would I laugh at about this in 5 years? 
    

• Awareness:

  • What is this experience actually like? 

  • What does it actually feel like? 

(then drop down and FEEL in your body/ heart)

• What is actually true right now? 

• Can I imagine the distance between my eyes? (Thank you Martha Beck for this instant meditation prompter!)

• Adaptation:

  • How is this going to get less hard the more I do it? 

  • How am I going to get better at this the more I do it?
    

• Kindness 

  • What could I let go of trying to control right now?(Tip - You never had control. *Nervous system regulation is always an act of kindness.)

  • What is the kindest thing I could say or do right now? (Tip - sometimes it’s nothing, walking away, a smile, or just your presence and zipped lips). 

  • Try the three steps of Self-Compassion:

    • 1. Acknowledge hardCan I admit that this is hard/ painful/ bad? 

    • 2. Common HumanityHow are others going through something similar? How am I not alone in facing this problem?

    • 3. KindnessWhat are kind words I need to hear? What would I say to a friend dealing with this?What is a gesture of kindness I can show myself? (Hint - something small, like a hand on your heart, or cheek)
      

When you have 15 minutes

In the second bucket, when you have a scrap of time to reflect, here are some journal or voice memo HAAKs to try:

• Humor (tip - go gently. Laughter is spontaneous, often at something surprising. You can’t force yourself to find something funny that is too painful. But you can often lighten up a bit.)

  • Would my friends laugh if this was a scene in a movie with good music and narration?

  • How could I be more silly and less serious with _________ (problem with my kid or household)?

  • How could I make ________ (necessary task) easier or more fun? 

  • How might my future self look back on this situation with more lightness in a year or 5?

• Awareness:

  • If this were a movie, what would the audience be screaming at the screen? (Thank you Chris Williamson for this awesome question!)
    

• Adaptation:

  • What am I much better at now that I didn’t used to be able to do?

  • Can I learn to handle _______?

  • How am I growing into _____ (Role, relationship, capability, skill)?

  • What is a habit I wish I had/ didn’t have? (anything - i.e. not yelling at my kids, setting better boundaries, structuring our days, sticking to a budget, etc)

  • What is the first tiny next step I could take to create this habit?  
    

• Kindness 

  • When in the course of the day, week, and month, is it harder for me to be as kind as I want to be? 

  • What is one tiny thing I could do to set myself up for slightly more kindness in these hard moments? 

  • How might I respond with more kindness to __________ when they _______.

  • Can I imagine actually responding this way? (Fantasize it i.e. How would I pause? How would I breathe? How would I hold my face? What might I say? …)

  • What is something I could do to surprise and delight ________with an act of kindness? 
    

Your Turn

There are questions you can't ask AI. You can only turn inward and ask yourself. 

What are your guiding principles?

Do you like any of these? 

What is a principle that would help you if you could remember to turn to more often in your life? 

What question might you want to ask yourself in your head or in your journal?

Is there a visual you could put somewhere in your environment to help remember it? 

Be well and be you,

~Anna