You are listening to the Less Drama More Mama podcast, episode 373: Your Nervous System and Self-Forgiveness: What Every Mom Needs to Know
This is Less Drama More Mama, the podcast for moms who want to feel calm, in control, and confident about how to handle anything life throws their way. If you’re ready to go from feeling frazzled and disrespected to feeling calm and connected, this is the podcast for you. I’m your host, Pam Howard.
Hi Mama! Welcome to today’s episode and happy last day of September! If you’ve been listening to me for over a year, you’ll know that October is my absolute favorite month of the year, namely because of my birthday, but also because I love Autumn and pumpkin spice everything, and dressing up with my kids for Halloween, and giving you gifts. That’s right. Every October, I celebrate by sending a little birthday box to the moms who decide to work with me. It’s full of some of my favorite things, from books to self-care treats. Honestly, I think I get as much joy putting the boxes together as my clients do opening them. So, if you’ve been thinking about getting parenting support, October is the perfect month. Not only will you step into the calm, confident parenting you’ve been wanting, but you’ll also get a little extra love from me in the form of a birthday box. You can schedule a 30-minute chat with me to see if it’s a good fit by going to lessdramamoremama.com/chat
Let’s shift into today’s topic—self-forgiveness. It’s one of the hardest things for us as moms to practice, but also one of the most transformative skills we can model for our kids. With Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, happening this week, I’m focused on reflection, repentance, and renewal, so it feels like the perfect time to examine how we can release ourselves from the grip of parenting guilt and shame. As moms, we carry so much. Every time we fall short of our own expectations, it’s like slipping another heavy stone into our pocket, and before long, we’re carrying around a weight that drags on everything we do. But what if I told you that the way we hold onto these moments isn’t just emotionally exhausting, it’s actually keeping our nervous systems in a state of chronic activation that makes us less available to our children? Once you understand how your nervous system works, self-compassion doesn’t feel foreign or forced anymore. It becomes your natural response. Understanding that your nervous system is doing exactly what it evolved to do—protect you and your family from perceived threats—is the foundation of genuine self-forgiveness. For example, when your toddler has a meltdown in the grocery store and you feel a surge of panic, embarrassment, or rage, that’s your nervous system saying, “Alert! Social threat detected! Reputation at risk!” When you snap at your teenager for leaving dishes in the sink after you’ve asked them ten times to put them in the dishwasher, that’s your system responding to what it perceives as disrespect or loss of control.
If you listened to my recent six-part series called From Protection to Connection, you already know about fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, and what being in a state of safety and regulation is like. Today I want to connect that understanding to self-forgiveness, because when you recognize these responses in yourself, you can approach them with curiosity instead of judgment.
When you’re regulated and feeling safe, you can access patience, humor, and wisdom. You can see your children’s behavior as communication rather than personal attacks. But when your system detects a threat, whether it’s a toddler meltdown in public or a teenager’s mess, you might notice yourself snapping back, wanting to run away, shutting down, or bending over backwards to keep the peace.
In episode 186 called How to Move On After a Mama Meltdown, which was back in March of 2022, I shared a story about one of my hardest mornings as a mom when I completely lost it trying to get Marissa out the door for school, and ended up yelling and feeling out of control. Back then, I was able to offer myself compassion instead of shame, but now, with the nervous system lens, I have an added layer of understanding. My system went into fight mode because it felt threatened and unsafe. That deeper awareness lets me soften toward myself even more, and makes forgiveness feel so much more possible.
What if you started recognizing your reactivity as nervous system information, instead of proof that you’re failing as a mom? When you yelled at your child, your system was activated. When you completely checked out during the bedtime routine, your system was in shutdown. When you felt triggered by your child’s defiance, your system detected a threat to your safety or connection. These aren’t excuses. They’re signals. And when you treat them as signals instead of shortcomings, you can finally work with your body instead of against it.
Something beautiful about nervous systems is that they’re constantly adapting based on your environment and experiences. The system that gets activated by your child’s behavior is the same system that floods with love when they snuggle you. The system that goes into shutdown when overwhelmed is the same system that finds deep peace in quiet moments. Your nervous system learned to respond the way it does through years of experience—your childhood, your relationships, your previous parenting moments. It developed these patterns to keep you safe. So, having compassion (and even gratitude) for these patterns is the first step toward gently reshaping them. Here’s what’s fascinating: when you engage in harsh self-criticism, your nervous system can’t tell the difference between your own internal voice and an external threat. That voice that says, “You’re a terrible mother” or “You’re screwing up your kids” – your nervous system hears that as danger. It responds the same way it would to someone else attacking you with activation, defensiveness, or shutdown. When you judge yourself harshly, your heart rate increases, stress hormones flood your system, your prefrontal cortex (the part of our brain responsible for wise decision-making) goes offline, and you literally lose access to your most patient, creative parenting self. You aren’t flawed. This is biology. Your nervous system is trying to protect you from what it perceives as an attack, even when that attack is coming from within.
Understanding that self-criticism is triggering your threat response, you can approach it with curiosity instead of more judgment and ask, “What is my nervous system trying to protect me from right now?” Often, underneath the harsh criticism is a deep desire to be a good parent, to keep your children safe, to be loved and accepted. Your inner critic developed to help you survive, to help you avoid rejection, or to push you toward perfection and keep you vigilant about potential danger. And when you approach your nervous system responses with curiosity and compassion, something beautiful happens physiologically. Your vagus nerve, which is the pathway to calm and connection, comes online. Stress hormones like cortisol decrease. Oxytocin and other bonding hormones increase. You literally create the biological conditions for wisdom and patience. I want you to start thinking of self-compassion as medicine for your nervous system. When you place your hand on your heart and say, “This is really hard right now, and it makes sense that I’m struggling,” you’re not just being kind to yourself. You’re actively shifting your biology from threat to safety. When you remind yourself, “My nervous system is doing its best to protect me and my family,” you’re moving from self-attack to self-understanding. And in that state, your nervous system can finally relax enough to access your wisest, most patient parenting self. Then, when you have compassion for your own nervous system, you’ll naturally extend that same understanding to your children. You’ll start to see their “difficult” behaviors as information about their overwhelmed nervous systems rather than defiance. And your children, witnessing your self-compassion, learn that they, too, deserve understanding and patience when they’re dysregulated. When you break the cycle of self-judgment and criticism, you’re not just rewiring your own responses, but potentially your children’s as well.
Now, it’s one thing to understand these concepts intellectually and even notice, “Oh, I’m in fight mode right now” or “Oh, I’m fawning.” But I work with moms to help them learn the language of their own nervous systems and explore what activation feels like in their bodies in real time. We also identify what safety and regulation feel like for them personally, because it’s different for everyone. Once they can recognize their patterns, we work together to gently expand their capacity for staying grounded and present in times of stress. So, instead of immediately going into a reactive state, they start to have a little more space between the trigger and their response. If this resonates with you and you’d like support in developing this kind of nervous system awareness and compassion for yourself, I’d love to talk with you. You can book a 30-minute call with me to talk about how we can calm your nervous system, release the guilt, and help you show up as the mom you want to be. The link is in today’s show notes.
So let’s recap: self-criticism activates your nervous system’s threat response, while self-forgiveness brings you back to safety and connection. When you forgive yourself, you’re not only honoring your biology, you’re showing your kids that mistakes are part of being human and that compassion is always possible. That’s how you break cycles of shame and create more peace at home. So, as we head into October, remember that self-forgiveness is a gift. When you give it to yourself, it doesn’t just change how you feel. It transforms how your whole family experiences you. Thanks for listening today, mama. I hope this episode brings you a little more peace and a lot more compassion for yourself. Have a beautiful week, and I’ll talk to you again next time. Bye.
If you enjoy listening to this podcast, and you’re ready to feel calmer, more confident and more at peace in your family and life, I invite you to sign up for a free consultation with me to learn about how my coaching can help you achieve the exact life you want. You’ll take the concepts and tools I share in the podcast and apply them to your own life, and as your coach I’ll be there to support you every step of the way. Go to lessdramamoremama.com/mini and sign up now.
