“Why do I struggle to implement parenting advice? Shame, silence and the nervous system in motherhood”
Quick takeaways for the busy mum
Often you are simply mothering with a nervous system under constant stress.
Shame and silence after “messy” parenting moments keep your body in survival mode and make it harder to change.
Your nervous system is responding to pressure, lack of support and old wounds, not just to your child’s behaviour in the moment.
What heals is connection, not perfection: telling the truth, being witnessed and practising repair.
Small somatic practices can help you come back to yourself so you can learn, grow and show up more gently next time.
The quiet shame so many mothers carry
There is so much parenting advice in the world right now with scripts for what to say, “Evidence based” methods. They may be gentle, conscious, respectful, attachment focused. All with Beautiful intentions but also a lot of pressure.
What happens on the nights you yell, slam a cupboard, freeze, scroll your phone to escape, or yell something to your child that you would never post on Instagram?
Most mothers do the same thing. They go quiet. They swallow the story and turn it against themselves.
This silence is not just emotional. It is nervous system survival.
When “not meeting the standard” feels like danger
Your body is always scanning, without you even trying, for cues of safety and danger. In polyvagal language this is called neuroception – the way your nervous system decides if you are safe, under threat or completely overwhelmed.
In motherhood, the “danger” is often not a tiger. It is:
Being judged as a bad mum
Feeling like you are failing your child
Fearing you will repeat the pain of your own childhood
Feeling you do not belong in your parenting community unless you are “good”
So when you snap or shut down, your nervous system often reads this as: I am not safe here. I am not good enough. I might lose connection or belonging.
From there, the body does what bodies do:
Fight / flight (sympathetic activation): you get loud, sharp, fast, controlling, or you want to run away, fantasise about leaving, scroll, clean, keep busy.
Freeze / collapse (dorsal vagal): you go numb, blank, checked out, heavy, teary, or shut down.
You are not “choosing” this. Your body is trying to protect you.
So of course it is hard to calmly apply the parenting script in that moment. Your system is in survival, not in connection.
Why silence keeps the cycle going
After a hard moment with your child, many mothers move into what SomaSoul Somatic Therapy (that I offer) calls impasse: buffering feelings with things like blame, busyness, overthinking, self criticism, or numbing out.
It can look like:
Over analysing what happened in your head at 2 am
Telling yourself you are a terrible mother (borrowed inner criticism from your own upbringing)
Avoiding talking about it with anyone
Over consuming parenting content to “fix” yourself, instead of feeling what is underneath
Underneath impasse lives what SomaSoul calls death layer: the raw shame, grief and terror of feeling unworthy, unlovable, “too much” or “not enough”.
If no one ever met those feelings with understanding when you were little, it makes sense that your body now says:
“Keep quiet. Do not show this to anyone. Survive it alone.”
The problem is that silence keeps your nervous system alone with its pain. It stays braced for danger instead of learning, “I can be messy and still be held. I can make a mistake and still be worthy of love.”
It’s not your willpower, its what you are carrying alone
So many mothers I work with assume the problem is their willpower, their character or their “lack of regulation”.
But when we look closer, we see:
Chronic sleep deprivation
Little or no village support
Financial stress or work pressure
A history of trauma, infertility, loss or complicated birth
Parenting in a culture that blames mothers and isolates them
From a nervous system perspective, that is a lot of sympathetic activation with very few sustained moments of ventral vagal safety and rest.
Of course your fuse is short and your body moves into fight, flight, freeze or collapse. It’s a biological response to chronic demand and lack of co-regulation.
What we truly need is connection
Healing comes from being met in the truth of your experience.
For mothers, this might look like:
Awareness: “In that moment I was totally overwhelmed. My chest was tight, my heart was racing, my mind went blank.”
Being with: “Of course I felt that way. There is so much on my plate. I can let these feelings be here instead of pushing them away.”
Connection: “Who could hear this story and meet me with kindness? A friend, a therapist, a group of mothers, or even an imagined wise figure or ancestor who can sit with me as I feel.”
When we tell the truth about the hard moments and are held with compassion, something shifts in the body. The nervous system gets a new imprint: “This too deserves loving connection.”
Rupture, repair and the mother you are becoming
Every relationship has rupture and what helps shape a child’s nervous system is the presence of repair and reconnection.
When you come back to yourself, even a little, you may find you can come back to your child too:
“I yelled earlier. That was scary, hey. Mummy was really overwhelmed and I am working on finding gentler ways. I am sorry, and I love you.”
You do not have to say it perfectly. Allow your body to also speak and guide you. This is co-regulation.
Each time you do this, you are not just repairing with your child. You are repairing something in your own nervous system. You are slowly teaching your body: “I am allowed to be human and still be in connection.”
That is the opposite of silence and shame and that is embodied motherhood.
Continue Reading
If this piece resonated, you might love my somatic guides and practices designed to help you come home to yourself in motherhood.
Explore both free resources and deeper paid guides to support your nervous system, soften overwhelm, and reconnect with your body’s wisdom.
