25. Three Hidden Beliefs Holding You Back While Mothering Without Your Mom's Support

What if some of the biggest obstacles in your motherhood journey aren’t your circumstances, but the silent beliefs you’ve internalized along the way? 

In this episode, Alyssa Carlene takes a deep dive into three hidden beliefs that keep so many moms, who are mothering without their own mom's support, stuck in survival mode. These beliefs often stem from unhealed wounds, generational patterns, and the absence of a nurturing maternal figure, and they directly impact how we mother our children and care for ourselves. 

Listen to the episode to answer the following questions:  

• What are hidden beliefs, and how do they silently shape my motherhood experience?
• How can I recognize which beliefs are rooted in my childhood story?
• Why is it so hard to ask for help or trust myself as a mom?
• How do these beliefs tie into harmful generational patterns, and how can I break them?
• What’s the first step toward healing so I can mother from a grounded, resilient place? 

1. Want to join a supportive, heartfelt community with other moms who are also navigating motherhood without their mothers? Join our Facebook Group today!

2. Are you ready to build confidence and emotional resilience as a mom, even without the support of your mother? Access the free video training now: Five Steps to Navigating Motherhood Without Your Mother!

3. Want to chat more about what it's like to mother without your mom and get personalized support? Send Alyssa Carlene a DM on Instagram!

Transcript

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Several years ago, I was sitting in a hospital room, crying my eyes out, telling the doctors and nurses in the emergency room that I was so scared that I was going to end up just like my mom. Now I know that this sounds extreme, it sounds shocking, but I want to tell you this story and I'm going to continue it on later in the episode. But it's because I was holding a limited belief within me that I would not be able to break the cycle of addiction, break the cycle of dysfunction, that I would just end up like her. And it really scared me. I really, really felt like I couldn't do anything about it. But here's the deal. That was a limited belief that I was able to break free of and I want to teach you that you can break free from these limited beliefs that may be hidden within us that we don't even realize that we have. So stay tuned because today we are talking about these beliefs that may be quietly shaping how you show up as a mom and how to unlearn the lies you believed about yourself. You're listening to Navigating Motherhood for your family please remember my podcast content is for educational purposes only and should never replace proper medical and mental health guidance from licensed professionals let's get started Welcome back to the podcast and thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you here and you listening. Before we dive into the episode, I just really briefly want to say that if you haven't already joined my Facebook group, Navigating Motherhood Without Your Mother, we would love to have you. We are small in members right now and we are mighty and we need more voices, more women. We need this community. I've had this dream for so long to create this community and I'm looking for the moms who want that village who want that support and who feel like this community would benefit them so if it feels right for you please consider joining it's a great safe place to be around other mothers who are in similar situations in a similar boat where we can heal we can grow we can be there and have honest conversations it's really an amazing place so we need you we need your light we need you there I hope you'll consider joining you can click the link in my show notes to Join in. I hope you come Okay. Well, I know I left you on a little bit of a cliffhanger at the beginning of the episode So I want to just go right into the story of me In the hospital in the emergency room Almost 10 years ago. It was thanksgiving day 2016 and I had checked myself into a hospital and I haven't told this story to very many people. I've held this inside for a long time and I realized that it was because of some shame, some embarrassment and you know I thought I started this podcast and I've been very vulnerable and I've done a lot of healing and I'm not ashamed anymore. I feel like this story needs to be shared because it could help somebody else and I just want to tell you what happened. So for some context as to why I was in the hospital in the first place, I had recently broken up with my boyfriend who we were only dating for a short amount of time, but I was very in love and I was very hurt by the way that we ended. And after the breakup, I was living in Idaho for college and I moved back home and And I became so deeply depressed that I just couldn't function. I couldn't function. I couldn't eat. I lost so much weight. I was just very mentally unwell. And if you are familiar with my story and my upbringing and my relationship with my mother, I didn't have my mom. I've really never had my mom. And so I was so sad and I needed her. I needed... I needed something and I didn't want to continue my life. I was so sick inside my mind, inside my body, and my heart was just completely broken. My mother at the time was really not a part of my life. She was participating in illicit drugs and in and out of rehab. Again, it was just very, very difficult for me. So when I checked myself into the hospital, I was sobbing and I remember speaking to I think it was actually a social worker who told me that I was not going to end up like her even though I was crying sobbing saying I can't I can't be like her I don't want to be like her I don't want to be like her and the reason why I said that was because all growing up my mother would lend land in the hospital after attempting to take her life over and over and over and over again and because I was scared and I couldn't trust myself and I admitted myself into the hospital I was afraid that I was just repeating the pattern that I was just going to end up like her and this was the first time in my life that I realized that I wasn't that I was doing the right thing and that even though I was in a similar circumstance that she had been in once before that I actually was making a difference and making a change And this is why hidden beliefs are so important to uncover, to unravel, because these limited beliefs can keep us shackled. They can keep us really stuck in our progression, in our healing. And today I want to tell you three hidden beliefs that might be impacting you as a mom without her mom. So the first belief is number one, I have to do everything on my own. I've felt this. I experienced this too after I had my first daughter. This comes from growing up unsupported, very hyper-independent as a survival skill. Maybe growing up, you had to be the mom. Maybe you had to mother your siblings because your mom couldn't be there. And this is how it shows up now, by never asking for help, burnout, resentment, feeling like you have no other choice. but to just do it on your own. So the reframe for this is that you can be strong and you still need support. So like me in the hospital, I admitted myself and I had to stay for three days. It was very scary, very vulnerable, but I asked for help because I couldn't do it on my own. And ways now that I've recognized and asked for help as a mom are through other moms, other friendships, community, the Facebook group that I've created. There are ways that we can ask for help. We don't have to carry this just because we carried it as a child. So really think, is this limited belief taking over my life? Am I trying to prove something to myself? I used to feel like I had to do all these things by myself and that I was... You know, I had to be this perfect mom and I was overcompensating for the lack of mothering that I had as a child. Think about these things. Is this why you might feel this way? Another belief, number two, I'm going to mess up my kids like my mom messed me up. Now, I know if you're listening, this might not be the case. Maybe you didn't grow up with a mom who was scary or who... had a lot of problems and you're not, you know, breaking from generational trauma. So this might not apply to everyone listening. But there is fear that we might mess up our kids. I think every parent has this fear or limited belief. And it comes from the fear, right, of repeating generational cycles or just the fear of, you know, witnessing other people have difficult relationships with their children or things happen. And it can also be, like I mentioned, an inner child fear. And so it can show up like perfectionism or just shutting down emotionally, spiraling into shame. So the reframe for this belief is that awareness is the first step to breaking the cycle and that you're already doing better. You are already taking accountability. You're listening to this podcast. You are doing everything in your power to make these changes possible. And you are already making the shifts, even if it feels like little baby steps, okay? Practice self-compassion. Notice what you're doing differently and celebrate it. Take your small wins, right, and celebrate, and then just pivot. Just pivot the things that you might need to work on. Okay, maybe it's feeling like you're raising your voice or yelling at your kids a lot and thinking, you know, I don't want to do that. Nobody wants to do that. What can I do? to pivot, to make a difference because you're not, you're not going to mess up your kids. Okay. This is a fear and you're going to make a difference. So don't let that limited belief keep you from healing, from growing. The last belief is my needs don't matter. Okay. This comes from being taught to ignore your feelings, trauma, anxiety, being the caretaker, being parentified, feeling like I'm a mom. I have to put my kids' needs before mine. This is not true. This is a total lie. I experienced this a lot last year when I was in the depths of colic and postpartum depression. I shut down myself. I shut down my needs. I really put everything into my children which you know i felt like i had no other way and now i see in hindsight you know okay i could have i could have done this better and that's okay but take the tools that you have and know that you can change you can grow and that your needs do matter Meeting my needs teaches my kids how to meet theirs. Tell yourself this. Meeting my needs teaches my kids how to meet theirs. And one way to break it, you act with self-care and love without guilt. What is something that you can do today that's going to focus on a need? Do you need to take a shower? That's a need, right? Do you need to eat a meal? Do you need an hour to yourself or maybe five minutes? I know that it's like so overwhelming sometimes. These are beliefs that we might not even realize that we are experiencing or that we have deep within us. Things that maybe we were taught, things that we were modeled. But the reality is that you matter. You are divine. You are light. You are love. And that these are lies that you can no longer believe. You must break free. And breaking free requires acknowledgement. It requires changing some habits. Maybe it requires some trauma work. Whatever it is that you can dig deep. You can write on a sticky note on your wall the opposite of the belief and start repeating it every day. Every single day. You're not broken. You are healing. Notice which belief shows up and gently start working with it. Think, you know, which of these beliefs do I recognize in myself and how has it shown up this week? Maybe journal it. Maybe talk it out with your spouse or a friend or a boyfriend. You know, whoever you'd like to share this with. I know all of us are in different situations, different circumstances in our mothering, in our lives. And we need to share. We need to talk. And that's why I'm going to bring it up again. You should join my Facebook group because we're going to have conversations like these and they're waiting for you. That community, that healing is waiting for you. So real quick, let's wrap up. The three hidden beliefs that might be holding you back. The belief number one, I have to do everything on my own. Belief number two, I'm going to mess up my kids like my mom messed me up or a parent or I witnessed somebody do this to their kids. And number three, my needs don't matter. These are lies. You don't believe these anymore. We are changing. We are shifting. We are healing. I'm so grateful that you're here, Mama. You are doing the work to break the cycles of dysfunction, to grow, to thrive. Vulnerability is your friend. Share these stories. Message me. I want to be here for you. Thanks for listening. You are amazing.