The Hidden Heart of Anxiety in Motherhood - What Your Body Really Longs For
Motherhood is one of the most beautiful and tender experiences we can live through and also one of the most overwhelming. Alongside the joy and love, many mothers carry a quiet, buzzing thread of anxiety. Sometimes it’s a background hum; other times it swells into racing thoughts, panic, or a body that feels like it can’t exhale.
Rather than seeing anxiety as something “wrong” with us, it can help to understand it through the lens of the nervous system and the protective patterns our bodies develop over time.
Anxiety as the Body’s Alarm System
From a nervous system perspective, anxiety is not a flaw but a signal. It is the body saying: I don’t feel safe right now.
For mothers, this makes sense. We are suddenly responsible for a tiny human and our system, shaped by millennia of evolution, is wired to be on alert. Add sleep deprivation, social isolation, or a history of stress and trauma, and the alarm system can easily become oversensitive.
Anxiety, then, is not a personal failing. It is the body doing its best to protect what we love most.
Protective Patterns and the Ways We Cope
The body develops patterns to help us manage what feels too big. These protective parts aren’t mistakes they’re intelligent adaptations.
In motherhood, they might look like:
The Over-Doer: staying endlessly busy, never resting.
The Fixer: researching, controlling, planning every detail.
The Avoider One: scrolling, shutting down, disconnecting from sensation.
The Pleaser: keeping everyone happy at the cost of your own needs.
Each of these patterns arises to keep us safe. They step in when being in the raw immediacy of the body feels too much. But over time, they can also keep us from truly feeling, connecting, and resting.
Meeting Anxiety Through the Body
Somatic Therapy invites us not to push anxiety away but to meet it with compassion and curiosity. Instead of asking, How do I get rid of this? come questions we might ask are:
How does this feel in my body in my chest, belly, breath?
Is this feeling familiar?
What is this anxiety trying to protect me from feeling or experiencing?
Sometimes, giving the body permission to move as the anxiety can shift it. Shaking, curling, pacing, or even letting sound move through can allow the energy to express itself instead of being trapped.
Finding Safety, One Breath at a Time
What helps anxiety soften isn’t forcing calm but creating safety. Safety in small, embodied ways:
Placing a hand on your heart and slowing your breath.
Feeling your feet on the earth and letting the ground hold you.
Speaking gently to the anxious part: I see you. Thank you for trying to keep me safe.
Allowing movement or rest instead of overriding your body’s need.
Connecting and coregulating with another person who carries a sense of safety for you.
Why This Matters
When we begin to view anxiety not as an enemy but as a protective signal, something shifts. We stop fighting ourselves and instead learn to meet our nervous system with compassion.
For mothers, this is vital. Not only does it support our own wellbeing, but our children learn safety through us through the way we meet our own bodies, feelings, and patterns.
In this way, anxiety becomes a teacher. It invites us back to presence, back to the body, and back to the possibility of living motherhood not from constant vigilance but from moments of real connection, breath, and trust.
Continue Reading
Why Taking Care of Your Body and Nervous System is the Greatest Gift to Your Child
A Mother’s Guide To Understanding and Regulating Your Nervous System
Sleep Deprivation in Motherhood: How Exhaustion Affects Your Nervous System & Parenting
How to Notice When You’ve Left Yourself in Motherhood…And Gently Come Back
