Libby is good at her life.
She has a career she loves, and people count on her, for good reason. She can walk into a complicated situation, figure out what needs to happen, and make it happen. She has good friends, a strong marriage, and two kids she loves more than anything.
And…being a mom feels so much harder than she thought it would.
The other morning, her four-year-old was melting down because her socks didn’t feel right. It was 8:07, and Libby had a meeting at 9. Lunch wasn’t packed, the water bottle was missing, and her younger child still needed shoes. And now the socks.
Libby knew her daughter wasn’t trying to make the morning difficult. She knew getting frustrated wasn’t going to help. She knew all the things you’re supposed to know about staying calm and connecting with your child. And still, she could feel herself getting more and more agitated.
Just. Put. On. The. Socks.
She tried reasoning, then reassuring. Then offering different socks. Then explaining that they were going to be late. And eventually, of course, she snapped.
Later, sitting at her desk after everyone had finally gotten where they needed to go, she felt terrible. Her self criticism wasn’t just because she’d lost her patience. It was mostly because she knew better.
That’s the part that gets Libby. She knows so much about the mother she wants to be. She just can’t always seem to access that mother when she needs her.
If you asked Libby whether she needs therapy, she’d probably say no. She may be right.
There is a lot of space between “I’m fine” and “I need treatment”
I spent more than two decades working as a psychotherapist in maternal mental health and I believe deeply in therapy. There are times when I encourage women in my programs to work with a therapist alongside our work because what they’re experiencing needs clinical treatment. But years of sitting with mothers also taught me that not everything that makes motherhood hard is a mental health disorder. Sometimes a woman is struggling because motherhood is asking something of her that the rest of her life hasn’t required in quite the same way. Her struggle isn’t pathological, it’s just a gap in experience and practice.
Libby is very good at solving problems and that’s part of what has made her successful. She plans ahead, gathers information, and anticipates what could go wrong. She organizes, makes decisions, and gets things done. Libby gets lots and lots of things done. I call these abilities Strategic Intelligence, and they work beautifully in many parts of her life. Until the problem is a four-year-old whose socks don’t feel right.
In a situation like this, there isn’t necessarily a solution that will make her child feel okay. Sometimes the socks really do feel wrong. Sometimes they’re already late. Sometimes her child is going to be upset no matter how thoughtfully Libby responds.
And the question becomes less, How do I fix this? and more, Can I stay connected to myself, my child, and what is actually happening when I don’t know how to make it better?
That is a very different skill.
What if you don’t need another answer?
Many mothers come to me looking for answers to very specific questions. How do I stop snapping? How do I stop worrying so much? How do I know whether I’m making the right decision? How do I stop feeling guilty when I’m working? How do I stay calm when my child is completely losing it? How do I stop second-guessing myself?
We live in a time when answers are everywhere. We can Google the question, ask AI, listen to a podcast, read another parenting book, or follow another expert. But, many of the women I work with already know a tremendous amount.
Libby knew snapping wouldn’t help, and she didn’t need someone to explain that to her. But you can understand exactly why you snapped at your child and snap again tomorrow. You can know that tantrums are developmentally normal and still feel desperate to make one stop. You can understand that there is no perfect parenting decision and still spend three hours researching one. You can know your child is safe and still feel alarm moving through your body.
Knowing something when you’re calm and being able to access what you know when you’re activated are two different things.
Insight and capacity are not the same thing.
Motherhood requires another kind of intelligence
Alongside Strategic Intelligence, there is another set of capacities that become especially important in relationships. I call this Relational Intelligence.
Relational Intelligence is the capacity to stay engaged with reality as it is, especially when it’s uncertain, uncomfortable, or different from what you expected, so you can choose a response that aligns with your values and the relationship you’re trying to build. It means noticing what is happening before immediately reacting to it. Recognizing when your nervous system is activated. Being able to tolerate discomfort without automatically assuming something has gone wrong. Staying present with another person’s feelings without immediately needing to change them. Separating what is actually happening from the story your mind is creating about it. And trusting yourself when certainty isn’t available.
This doesn’t replace Strategic Intelligence. Lord knows there are plenty of moments in motherhood that need solving. Your baby has a fever and you need information. Childcare falls through and you need a plan. Your family schedule is chaos and so you get out the calendar.
But other moments don’t need a better strategy. Your child is furious that you said no. You’re dropping your baby at daycare and grief and guilt wash over you. Your toddler has been screaming for ten minutes and nothing you’re doing is helping. You’ve made a parenting decision and your mind desperately wants someone to promise you it was the right one. Your four-year-old is crying on the floor because her socks feel wrong and you’re already late.
Those moments may require your ability to stay. The challenge is learning to tell the difference.
So what would this look like for Libby?
This doesn’t mean that Libby becomes perfectly calm while her daughter melts down and it doesn’t mean she suddenly doesn’t care about being late. It also certainly doesn’t mean she stands in the hallway taking deep breaths for 20 minutes while missing her 9 a.m. meeting. She still has a real problem to deal with. But instead of immediately treating her daughter’s distress as another problem she has to solve, Libby begins by noticing what is happening in herself.
I’m getting really activated. My brain is telling me we have to make this stop. We’re late. That’s true. My daughter is upset. That’s also true. Neither means I’m failing.
That tiny bit of space changes what becomes possible next. Libby can still set a boundary, she can still move the morning forward, and her daughter may still be unhappy. The goal isn’t to create a morning in which everyone feels good. The goal is for Libby to have enough access to herself that her daughter’s distress doesn’t automatically determine what she does next.
That’s Relational Intelligence.
This is where practice becomes important
One of the limitations of insight is that we usually have the most access to it when we’re calm. But, of course, the real test comes at 6:15 p.m.
You’ve had a long day. Your child is melting down and dinner isn’t ready. Someone needs something from you. Your body is activated, and suddenly all the things you know about child development, nervous systems, attachment, and conscious parenting feel very far away.
You don’t need to become more intelligent in that moment. You need greater access to yourself. And that access develops through practice.
You notice what is happening. You get curious instead of immediately reacting. You recognize the difference between what is actually happening and the story your mind is telling you about what it means. You create enough space between the feeling and your response to have a choice.
Sometimes you still lose it. Then you repair. And you practice again.
Over time, something begins to change. Motherhood doesn’t become predictable, but you become more capable of staying present when it isn’t.
You may not need fixing. You may need development.
This distinction has shaped the work I do today. The Calm Connection Experience™ isn’t psychotherapy, and it isn’t meant to replace psychotherapy when mental health treatment is needed. It grew out of my 20 years as a psychotherapist working with mothers and families and seeing a need that wasn’t always about pathology.
There are women who aren’t looking for treatment. They may already have a therapist. They may have spent years in therapy. Or they may have no reason to believe they need therapy at all.
They are functioning. They are leading teams, raising children, maintaining relationships, managing homes, building companies, caring for other people, and doing all the things that need to get done.
And somewhere inside all of that, they’re thinking, I love my children. I’m capable. I know so much about the mother I want to be. Why can’t I access her when I need her?
I don’t think the answer is to care less, lower your ambitions, stop planning, or become a completely different person. The capacities that helped you build your life are still super valuable. But motherhood is asking you to become fluent in more ways of being. Motherhood is asking you to know when to solve and when to stay. When to seek information and when to trust yourself. When something is actually wrong and when something is uncomfortable or uncertain. When your child needs your strategy and when your child needs your presence.
And sometimes, when the moment needs both.
Libby doesn’t need to become a different woman
Imagine that same morning a year from now. The socks can still feel wrong, it’s still 8:07, lunch might still not be packed, and Libby may still have a meeting at 9. The difference isn’t that she has finally figured out how to prevent hard mornings. It’s that a hard morning doesn’t pull her away from herself or her child quite so quickly.
She can feel the urgency without immediately obeying it. She can let her daughter be upset without experiencing that upset as a problem she must immediately make disappear. She can make a decision without knowing whether it’s the perfect one. And if she snaps, she knows how to come back and repair.
This isn’t about finally learning enough to get motherhood right, it’s about becoming increasingly able to meet motherhood as it actually is. Because motherhood will keep giving you moments you couldn’t have predicted and problems you can’t completely solve.
The goal isn’t to know exactly what to do in every one of them. It’s to trust that when you don’t know, you can still find your way.
