#20: How To Emotionally Regulate Yourself Through Motherhood
A No-BS Guide to Emotional Regulation for the Overstimulated, Touched-Out, and Totally Fried
If One More Person Tells Me to “Just Breathe...”
Raise your hand if you've ever been one overstimulated moment away from screaming into a throw pillow while a toddler opens the fridge and your partner asks, "What’s for dinner?" Yeah. Same.
Emotional regulation sounds like one of those things you’d learn in a yoga retreat or from a parenting coach with a fancy degree. But for the rest of us who are deep in the trenches of motherhood, covered in mystery stains and surrounded by people who always need something? Regulation isn’t something to be thought about, it's something that we desperately need.
This blog isn’t about becoming a serene goddess who never yells or cries in the laundry room or bathroom. It’s about learning real tools to bring yourself back from the edge and teach your kids how to do the same. We’re talking nervous system science, not toxic positivity. No bullshit, just stuff that works when your patience is gone and your coffee’s watered down.
Let’s get into it.
1. Why You’re Freaking the F Out (And No, It's Not Just You Being ‘Dramatic’)
Motherhood isn’t just exhausting, it’s neurologically overwhelming. When you’re constantly toggling between snack duty, safety patrol, being an emotional sponge, and part-time therapist, your nervous system basically stays in fight-or-flight mode 80% of your day, every single damn day.
You were never meant to be in survival mode all day, every day. Your brain’s alarm system (the part that screams “DANGER!” way too often) was built for the occasional lion attack, not a toddler screaming while spaghetti boils over and your inbox won't stop dinging. So if your heart races, your jaw clenches, or you feel like you might spontaneously combust? That’s not you being dramatic. That’s your nervous system trying to keep up with a pace that isn’t sustainable.
Tips:
Name it to tame it: Neuroscience says labeling your emotion actually lowers amygdala activation. When you say your feelings out loud like ‘I’m frustrated’ or ‘I’m overwhelmed,’ you’re actually calming down the alarm center of your brain. That part’s called the amygdala, and it’s the drama queen of your nervous system. Naming your emotions helps it chill the fuck out. Try saying to yourself: "I’m not crazy, I’m just dysregulated."
Micro-resets: Two deep breaths. Cold water on your wrists. Ground yourself by looking around and name five things you see. Small, doable ways to calm the chaos will go a long way.
Track triggers: Keep a note in your phone and keep track of every little thing that triggers you. Try to see if you can find patterns, that way you can actually interrupt them and start rewriting them.
2. When Your Body Feels Like the Enemy
Your body made a human (or more), and now it feels like it’s working against you. Postpartum changes, weight fluctuations, and the full-body experience of carrying everyone else’s needs? That can wreak havoc on your self-image.
Add to that the cultural pressure to "bounce back" and the fact that you probably haven’t had a truly quiet moment since giving birth. Yeah, it’s no wonder you sometimes feel like a stranger in your own skin. Your body became a home for someone else, and now it's begging to be treated like one again: with kindness, compassion, and a hell of a lot more grace than society gives it.
Tips:
Unfollow shame: Clear your feed of toxic fitness and bounce-back culture. If it helps motivate you, than by all means, but if you feel like a piece of shit or down about yourself after looking at it, that's when you should hit the "not interested" button and remove those out of your feed.
Body gratitude: Write down one thing your body did for you today. It carried you. It hugged your kid. It got you out of bed.
Dress the now-body: Stop waiting to shrink and get over the fear or feeling bad about having to order a size or two above what you used to wear and get you some new, cute and actually comfortable clothes that fit you the way clothes are meant to fit. Dress how you want to feel today, and I promise, no one can tell what size you're wearing nor would they give a quarter of the shit that you do. It's important to feel comfortable, and a bonus, you can feel more confident when your clothes fit your right, regardless of the size.
3. The Anxiety Loop (Or: When Your Brain Won’t Shut The F*ck Up)
Motherhood and anxiety go together like peanut butter and jelly. Well, if the jelly were made of dread and spirals. From constant what-ifs to that nagging feeling you’re never doing enough, anxiety is often invisible but always present. It is a perfectly natural response to have anxiety as a mom and honestly, it makes us better moms since we predict dangers before they even happen. If you think about it, we're like psychic superheros.
Tips:
Write your spirals down: Getting your fears on paper takes away their power. My last blog post (Journaling Challenge) breaks down the science-backed details and tips on how to effectively get your emotions out and helps you feel so much better.
Set-it-and-forget-it routines: Fewer decisions = less mental load. Use an app like Structured, Habit, or even your Google Calendar to set reminders or to time block so you won't have to worry about missing anything. If you're a ADHD girlie like me, it helps to color-code it and do it every Sunday to prepare for the rest of the week in advance. You're future self will thank you, deeply.
Let safe fails happen: Let the toddler pour their own cereal. Let the laundry wait. Load the dishwasher and let the rest soak. Let your kids choose their own clothes, even if it's PJ's to school. You’re not failing, you’re choosing peace.
4. When You’re Touched-Out, Talked-Out, and Tapped TF Out
If you’ve ever flinched when someone tried to hug you because your skin was already at full capacity, welcome to the land of being touched-out. It’s real. And it’s not you being ungrateful, it’s your nervous system waving a white flag. You can only be tugged on, poke in the face, hair grabbed and shoved back by tiny hands so many times before we all burst, you're not alone.
Tips:
Noise boundaries: Try Loop earplugs, white noise, one earbud in, or “quiet time” for the whole house. Now we get why our parents played the quiet game when we were kids so often.
Hands-off cues: Teach your kids a signal for "mom needs a second." Whether it's a safe word, giving them their iPads and patting them on the head, or one finger up while you walk into the bathroom and slide down the door to take your deep breaths.
3-minute no-touch zone: Pick a time every day. Make it sacred. No contact, no convo.
5. Regulating Without Pretending You’re a Zen Goddess
You don’t need a Himalayan salt lamp or an hour of silence. You need tools that work when you're interrupted 17 times just trying to pee. Regulation isn’t about perfection; it’s about shortening the spiral.
It’s not about being calm all the time, it’s about coming back quicker after you’ve snapped. You can scream in your closet and still be emotionally regulated if you know how to walk yourself back into peace. That’s the whole damn point. Real tools for real life, not some fairy tale where moms never lose their shit.
Tips:
Anchor rituals: A daily calming habit (morning stretch, journaling, lighting a candle).
Shake & scream: Move your body. Dance it out like you're Meredith and Cristina from Grey's. Scream into a pillow as loud and long as you need. Your nervous system needs to release energy but in a safe way.
Soothe with your senses: Engage one sense—smell (essential oils), sound (calming music), touch (bubble-bath after bedtime) or sight (sunlight) so you can ground yourself.
6. What Healing Actually Looks Like
Healing doesn’t mean you’ll never yell again. It means you recognize it faster, repair quicker, and have more grace with yourself. It takes patience (I know, that word makes me eye roll, too) and consistently recognizing you're doing it. The more you realize it, the faster you can kick it's ass and the shorter the duration of you feeling your on a spiral. They do say, "practice makes perfect."
Tips:
Track your bounce-back speed: It’s not about whether you lost your cool (because newsflash, we all do) but how quickly you found your way back. That’s growth. That’s regulation. That’s badass mom energy and we are embodying that from now on.
Find your anchors: A song, a mantra, a drink, a show, a movie, a friend, your mama. What brings you home to you?
Give yourself permission: To rage. To rest. To repair. To not be okay, because no matter what anyone says, it is okay to not be okay.
7. Regulate You, Regulate Them: Co-Regulation & Modeling for Your Kids
Here’s the truth that no one likes to say out loud: your nervous system is their safe space. Kids learn emotional regulation not from lessons, but from watching you freak out and then come back from it.
They watch and feel how we bounce back, like how we either slam things on counters or take deep breaths when we're super frustrated, or how we yell at them for something minor when they have done the same thing you asked them not to do over 65x that day or you just simply removed the problem instead.
This isn’t about being perfect. It’s about showing them what healthy repair looks like. Because when you model emotional honesty, you teach them they’re safe in all of theirs, too.
Tips:
Name emotions out loud: "I feel overwhelmed. I'm going to take a few breaths." "This is too much right now, I will come back to it later."
Create calming rituals together: Cozy corners, snuggle breaks, joint breathing.
The repair is everything: Yelled? Go back. "I’m sorry. That wasn’t okay. I love you."
Practice together: Try deep breathing exercises, living room dance parties, or even just laying on the floor with your hand on your heart while being side by side.
Moral Of The Story:
You're Not Too Much; You're Just Carrying Too Much Shit
You’re not dramatic, broken, or bad at this. You’re emotionally overloaded in a system that doesn’t support mothers or mental health. But you can create little pockets of peace. You can teach yourself and your kids how to feel and deal.
And you don’t have to become a different version of you to do it. You just need a few tools, some breath, and the reminder that showing up for yourself is showing up for your family.
You’ve got this, Mama.
And if today feels like too much? There’s always tomorrow. Or the pantry.
Did something in this post hit home? Have your own "I lost my sh*t and bounced back like a boss" story? I’d love to hear from you.
Drop a comment below, share this with a mama who needs to hear it, or tag me on Instagram @loveyourselftoomama with your favorite takeaway or one thing that resonated with you that you’re gonna use next time you feel like you’re about to explode like a damn firework.
Let’s build this messy, magical, emotionally-regulated village together.
If you found this post helpful, be sure to check out my other tips on self-care for busy moms, or browse my full collection of motherhood hacks to make life a little easier! Thank you so much for reading, remember to follow me on all my socials and don’t forget to subscribe to my website to be the first to read my weekly blog.
If no one told you today, you are an amazing mom and I see you. You wouldn’t be reading this blog if you weren’t and I am SO proud of you. Keep loving yourself too, mama.
With Love,
Caitlin Nichols - Founder of Love Yourself Too, Mama
