Become A Calm Mama

Guilt & Self-Forgiveness (Repair pt. 1)


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Jan 29 2025 30 mins  
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None of us is perfect. Not your kids, and not you. We all mess up, lose our cool and act in ways we aren’t proud of. It’s normal to feel guilty after you blow up on your kid, but there is a path back to connection. It starts with learning how to forgive yourself. 

You’ll Learn:

  • What to do after you lose it on your kid.
  • The difference between guilt, shame, and remorse
  • Why you have to forgive yourself before you make amends with your child
  • The 4 steps to self-forgiveness

When moms come to me worried that they’re messing up or traumatizing their kids, it’s often because of a few isolated experiences of them losing themselves in an angry moment and acting in a way that they don't love, like shaming their kid, name calling, being threatening, acting in a way that causes fear and pain for their child. Afterward, they feel this overwhelming regret, guilt, and fear that they have done permanent damage.

But these isolated moments don’t define you as a mom. The only thing you need to do now is attune and repair. This idea is so simple, so beautiful, and absolutely true. 

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Guilt, Remorse, and Repair

When you have a rupture with your kid and you show up in a way that doesn't feel good, or you end up not connecting with them when they're doing a bid for connection, and they feel hurt and sad, you probably feel really bad. It feels existentially wrong when we cause our children pain.

You had a big feeling cycle, you weren’t calm and emotionally regulated, and mama had a meltdown. 

After this happens, it’s normal to feel yucky. It’s also important to have a conversation with your child to reconnect and repair the relationship. When you repair, you’re helping your child make sense of what happened when you yelled, shamed or otherwise caused them fear or pain. It helps them to understand that the way you acted wasn’t about them. It was about you.

But before you do this, you need to deal with your guilt. If you go into the conversation feeling like a monster or like something must be wrong with you, your kid is going to feel like they have to convince you that you’re not a monster. 

You can’t rely on your child’s forgiveness to make you feel better. That’s not their job. It’s your job to deal with your guilt and shift to remorse. 

Guilt can be informative. Guilt is when you realize, “I’ve done something wrong.” But when we focus only on guilt, we can feel really alone and ashamed of ourselves. It is a self-centered feeling that keeps you focused on worthlessness and self-loathing.

Guilt can keep you stuck in a destructive cycle of, “I’m a bad mom,” “I’m not good at this,” or “Something’s wrong with me.” It will keep you from actually taking action to make things right. 

I’m here to tell you that you are not a bad person or a bad mom. You had a moment of overwhelm. You are a human, and you're going to have human reactions.

So rather than guilt, let’s shift toward remorse. Remorse takes it a step further to, “I have regret. I did something wrong, and I don’t like that I did it.” From this place, you can process those yucky feelings and start to make amends. 

 

How To Forgive Yourself

The keys to self-forgiveness are to separate the behavior from your core self and to have compassion for yourself and the feelings that led to the behavior. 

When you act in a way that you don't love, you are acting that way because of your own emotional needs, because of something that's going on inside of you. The temporary overwhelm, anger, resentment or frustration that you felt and acted out is not YOU. You are not a bad person, you had a bad moment. You are a human who had a human reaction. 

One of the obstacles to self-forgiveness is the fear that if we forgive ourselves, we won't change our behavior. And that's just not true. In fact, the only way you will change your behavior is through this act of self forgiveness. You can’t move on when you’re trapped in a cycle of self-hatred and shame.

Before we start going through the steps, I want you to put your hand on your heart and repeat this sentence: I am worthy of love and forgiveness. 

If, like me, you feel that pain in your gut when you hurt your kids, you can also try placing one hand on your heart and the other on your belly. Tell yourself that you get to be forgiven. You get to let yourself off the hook.

You can’t ask your child to forgive you if you haven’t forgiven yourself. And while it feels uncomfortable, the process is really quite simple. 

Step 1: Acknowledge. Be honest about your part in the rupture, your wrongdoing. Write out what happened, what you said or did. Acknowledge what happened to your kid. What was the expression on their face? How did they react to your behavior? Lay out the facts without judgment.

Step 2: Allow. Let yourself feel the pain of remorse and regret. Feel whatever shame, anger, betrayal, confusion or self-doubt comes up. These are all temporary emotions, and they will pass. Sit in it for a little while, and be very kind and gentle with yourself. 

Then, get curious about those feelings. What are they teaching you? You can even talk to yourself about what’s coming up, like “Hey, girl. What the heck is going on? What do you need right now?”

Step 3: Accept. Accept what happened as an experience that took place in the past. You can feel badly about it, but it was only one event in the history of your parenting. It doesn’t define you, your family, or your child. It is just what happened. 

When you’ve acknowledged the situation, felt your feelings about it, and accept it as something that happened in the past, it’s time to let it go. Here are some phrases that might help:

  • I release my past and forgive my imperfections. 
  • I choose to release guilt and embrace self-compassion.
  • I am learning to let go of my mistakes and forgive myself. 

This is the most important part - saying to yourself, “I forgive you.” That’s it. We think we have to be punished before we can be forgiven, but forgiveness is there for you whenever you need it. 

In next week’s episode, we’ll talk more about the 4th step - Amends. This is where you have the repair conversation with your child and make things right. 

Mama, you are going to mess up. Your child is going to have moments where they don't feel safe and secure, where they feel worried, where they feel fear. That's normal. Your role is to let them know that that really did happen. They get to feel scared, hurt, or mad at you. And you get to let them know that you’re sorry and that you’re working on it. 

You forgive yourself so that your child can forgive you. And through this process, you also teach them to forgive themselves when they make a mistake. 

Of course, the more regulated you are, the easier it will be for you to pause and reset before you react. This means that you need to take care of yourself and your nervous system on a daily basis (that’s why CALM is the first step of the Calm Mama Process).

As you get curious about how you need to take care of your body, mind and emotions, you will learn to grow the length of your pause. Your fuse will become longer, giving you more time between the trigger and your reaction. 

I want to leave you with this final thought: Every day, I am becoming a more compassionate version of myself. 

We are all becoming, healing, and growing. We all have moments of dysregulation, times when we have to go back and repair. We are all becoming calm mamas.


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Free Resources:

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

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✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

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