Summary

In today's episode, I’m diving into the topic of how guilt might be affecting your weight and overall experience as a working mom. I’ll share insights into why so many high-achieving moms experience guilt and how it impacts various aspects of their lives.

Be sure to check out my new private podcast and discover the steps to burn stress + fat for lasting weight loss here: https://www.theunstoppablemombrain.com/bodyreset 

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Guilt, whether it's about not being at home with your children or not being productive enough at work, can have a significant impact on your weight and overall well-being.
• Many women have been conditioned to prioritize others over themselves from a young age, leading to feelings of guilt when they focus on their own goals and needs.
• Guilt is a learned emotion tied to should and shouldn't thoughts, which often stem from societal expectations and upbringing.
• Letting go of guilt requires intentional effort and awareness of the thoughts driving it, but it's essential for prioritizing your own goals and achieving true satisfaction.
• By prioritizing yourself and letting go of guilt, you can create a more fulfilling and impactful life for yourself and your family.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Download the full transcript here.

• Hey, this is Dr. Priyanka Venugopal and you're listening to the Unstoppable Mom Brain podcast. Your guilt is making you gain weight. Today's podcast episode might be a little bit spicy, but this is a topic and a conversation that I have been wanting to have on the Unstoppable Mom Brain podcast for quite a while over the last few weeks and actually many months, I have been in the company of some amazing, brilliant, high achieving working moms. And I have been hearing from so many of you, how you sometimes experience guilt. And maybe you've even called this mom, guilt, mom, flavor, guilt, guilt, because you know, you go to work and you feel some guilt around not being at home with your children, or maybe you're with your kids, you're with your family and you're feeling some guilt. Around and not being productive at work. There's some flavor of guilt that is following so many women around. And from what I have seen time and time again, from these conversations that I have been having, it is driving a lot of number one, undesirable results for you on the scale. We're going to get into this episode, exactly why and how that is happening. And also more than just you not hitting your weight loss goal because of you experiencing guilt as a working mom, you are likely experiencing your working mom life in a way that is less than what you want to be experiencing.

  We are all here after having worked years and decades, having gone through school and training and been high achievers, you know, in school and in the workplace to have worked very, very, very hard. To create the life that you are living right now. And I want to just plant the seed of what it would be like if we could actually experience this life that we have worked so hard for free of guilt. So I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation. This is a topic that I get this visceral reaction around. So if I get a little spicy, it is because I really, really, really do care about this topic. And I'm on a mission for high achieving working moms. to live the life they want without the guilt. I promise you it is available to you and it might help you achieve your goals both at work for your body with your family so much more easily.

  Before we dive into today's podcast episode, I want to make sure that you know that I have a brand new Secret exclusive podcast after having the Unstoppable Mom Brain podcast for over two years. I have heard from so many of you, is there a podcast roadmap? I am new to your orbit, or I've been here for a while and I just am so ready to lose the weight. I'm so ready to get started. And you know, there's so many episodes to choose from. Where do I start? Do you have a PDF roadmap? And I did consider making a roadmap for you to go through the Unstoppable Mom Brain podcast, but I decided it would be so much more impactful to actually teach the six necessary topics with brand new content. And that is really what the secret podcast is all about. It's called the body reset. It's going to talk you through basically like a roadmap, how to burn fat, burn stress, and feel unstoppable. So that you have science based strategies to lose the weight you want in a simple and sustainable way. This is a private podcast. You have to sign up to get the link for it. You can go and grab your private podcast URL over at theunstoppablemombrain.com/bodyreset. The moment that you sign up, I will meet you in your email inbox with the private URL, and also an invitation to join our private Facebook group, where I'm going to be giving you homework so that you can start working through these episodes and really get the most out of your experience.

  Without further ado, let's get into today's episode. If you want to reach your ideal weight and create lightness for your body, you need to have simplicity, joy, and strategic decisions infused into your life. I'm a physician turned life and weight loss coach for ambitious working moms. I've lost over 60 pounds without counting points, calories or crazy exercise plans. Most importantly, I feel calm and light on the scale and did my life. There's some delicious magic when you learn this work and the skills I'm going to be teaching you. Ready? Let's get to it. I was recently at a physician wellness conference where I was speaking with so many incredibly smart, talented, confident, amazing women who are leaders in their industry, leaders in their medical practices, their medical directors, Program directors, residency program coordinators, partners in their practice. And one of the things that I saw happening, you know, in so many of these conversations is how much the word and the phrase mom guilt was being thrown around for so many of these women who are probably used to having gone to medical conferences. The idea of coming to a wellness conference brought up a lot of emotions. And I'm going to talk about the importance of having a wellness conference, especially for the women that I was talking to that identified as working moms, they were leaving their children, they were leaving their families at home to come to a wellness conference. And from the conversations that I was having with some of these women, there was this feeling of, Almost like there was something indulgent about them coming to a wellness conference and leaving behind their children, maybe their partners to fend for their kids.

  They were leaving behind work. They were leaving behind patients, their inboxes, their pending labs and to do's while they could sit by the pool for half the day, attend wellness lectures for half the day. And there was a sense of of guilt. That somehow being here meant that they were doing something wrong. Now, we all logically know if you're listening to this, you might logically know that we all, all humans deserve to have rest. We've all heard the phrase, right? Work hard, play hard. We are all as high achieving professional working moms working incredibly hard. And yet when it comes time to either play hard or rest hard, a lot of us have this really subtle. And for some of us, very overt underlying feeling of guilt. The sense that I have gotten, and I have seen so many people post about this online and even in this conversation, is that we think that mom guilt is just a part of the gig. That it's just the way that things have to be. If you're a mom and you're a working mom, then mom guilt is just a part of the package. And I want to tell you, I think that that is a load of crap. Here's where I'm going to get just a little bit spicy. This idea of feeling guilt or experiencing mom guilt has come from a set of beliefs, a set of ideas that many, many, many women grew up with. So when you were a little girl, probably two, three, four, five, you saw the big people in your life, the woman in your life, maybe it was your mom, your aunt, your grandmother, a woman teacher, or maybe a woman neighbor. And you saw them really living their life in a very simple, Self sacrificing way, you learned at a really young age that putting others before yourself, being more productive, letting your needs and your desires get pushed to the bottom was a noble thing. You were likely praised for it, for putting others in front of yourself. And what you learned when you really experienced either, you know, your mom or your aunt or your grandmother, or basically the big adult in your life, who was a woman sacrificing herself. In the service of her family or her community, you learn that that was the right way to be. And without realizing it as a child, you grew up with that belief structure because that's what you were raised in. And that is what the patriarchy in which we are living in has really peddled to us as children, especially to young girls. If this is you, You're not alone. This is across the board how so many young girls who grow up into powerful women have been raised. It's not just, you know, your family of origin that you might have learned this from, your parents, your mom, your grandmother, your aunt, your neighbor, but it is what we are seeing in the movies. It is what we are reading about in books. It's what we see in our education system. It is what we see just in every corner and crevice of society. I'm going to make a really general statement, and this is not a hundred percent across the board, but what I see in broad brushstrokes is if you see a man put his needs or desires above his work or his family, it's considered bold. Confident, right? We have these kinds of phrases when it comes to men putting their desires and needs above work and above family, right? We're like, Oh, that person is a go getter. That person's really confident. When a woman does the same thing, somehow the label becomes selfish. And as women, we have learned that selfish is bad. So I want to just kind of follow this thread and really go to this idea of feeling guilty. This idea of you prioritizing your body goal, your weight loss goal, your personal professional goal above your children, above your family, above your work, above productivity, and this idea of guilt that seems to be following us around. First and foremost, if we really took a solid inventory, guilt does not make us better moms. Feeling guilty does not mean that you care about your children more than other people or that you love your kids more than someone who does not experience guilt. Feeling guilty in the little and big ways where you feel like you're not doing enough at work when you're at home or you're not doing enough at home when you're at work or really feeling bad about any decisions that you're making in the workplace or at home is just that.

  It is simply a constant feeling. Of not enoughness. A few years ago when I also used to experience this feeling of guilt, and I didn't ever label it as mom guilt specifically, but this feeling of not enoughness that seemed to follow me around. It felt like I could be doing more at work. I could be more as the mom at home. I want to tell you what struck me and why I decided on purpose to do the work of letting guilt go back in 2019 and 2020. When my daughter was born in 2018, I remember thinking how much I wanted for her. And more than just thinking about her and my dreams for her, imagining this like little peanut, she was just like six pounds and 10 ounces, this little peanut growing up into an adult one day and having a life of her own. I was thinking about not just what I wanted for her. I was thinking about what I didn't want for her. I knew for her, I didn't want her to go through some of the unnecessary pain that I went through as a child. I didn't want her to have a lot of negative thoughts about her body. I didn't want her to have a relationship with food and be on the up and down roller coaster the way that I was.

  I did not want my daughter feeling bad, pursuing her dreams, her growth, her joy and opportunity while feeling guilty. So I want to ask you a question. Do you want your children feeling guilty for pursuing their dreams, their missions, life betterment, change, or growth? And I would say, if you resonate with this podcast, with the Unstoppable Mom Brain, likely your answer is overwhelmingly yes. Of course not. You're listening to this podcast because you want your children to pursue their dreams and missions and growth without a feeling of guilt lingering and following them around. So, if they don't deserve to feel guilty for pursuing growth and their dreams, then you're not listening to this podcast. Why do you? We've talked a little bit on this podcast episode about where guilt has come from, right? It's been a learned feeling. It's a, it's an emotion in our body. It's a vibration that you experience because your brain has a thought, right? Two neurons in your brain fire. These are very habituated thoughts that you've learned from a very, very long time ago that you might not even be aware of. So this part of the podcast episode, I want to help shed light to the thoughts that you're thinking in your mind that are happening in your subconscious thoughts that you don't even realize that's creating the sensation in your body of guilt. And when you start to uncover the thoughts you're having, you can bring so much more awareness to why it is you ever feel guilt when you are at home about work. Or when you're at work about your children, you feel guilty because you tell yourself what I call a should thought should thoughts like I should be doing more. I should be the one that puts them to bed. I should be there more. I should volunteer to be the class mom. I should set up more play dates for my kids. I should be playing with my kid more. I should be taking care of this instead of my partner, my colleague, my neighbor, my family, or you might tell yourself a shouldn't thought. I shouldn't work so much. I shouldn't travel this way. I shouldn't go out with my friends. I shouldn't do that conference because I shouldn't say no to that request. You aren't feeling guilty because of something your kids or your partner ever said. You aren't feeling guilty because of how many hours you've worked. And you aren't feeling guilty because you want to spend time with your children. You're feeling guilty because you're shitting on yourself. Let me just say that again. Your kids, partner, colleagues, your mom, friends, cannot guilt you. No one can ever guilt you. You are guilting you and the way that you're guilting yourself is by having an optional sentence, a thought in your mind that is laced with a should or shouldn't. Now just remember, you're not alone in this and a lot of your should and shouldn't thoughts are just a set of rules that you learned when you were really little. And what we're doing on this episode is simply bringing your awareness to understand. Where those thoughts are coming from and how to change them. Do you want to walk yourself out of a life of perpetual, not enoughness of this constant lingering guilt that I want you to just start by practicing, becoming aware of what are all of your should and shouldn't thoughts. What is this manual, this unwritten set of rules that you've created for yourself that you have defined would make you enough of a mom or enough in the workplace? There are so many messages that we have learned as little girls from the big people in our life, from the patriarchy, even from the religions that maybe you have grown up with that was designed to keep little girls in line. And the reason that we are here is because high achieving professional working moms are confident and resourceful. And we know that we want to pursue growth. We want to pursue our dream body goals. We want to pursue personal and professional goals that we have for ourselves. And we want to do it in a way that really feels free of this lingering guilt. Before we can do that, I want to just bring your attention to what guilt is actually costing you. I think this is really important because a lot of us can be like, well, I'm just going to keep the guilt. It feels like it is so habituated and listen to drop the guilt. It does take intention. It takes some effort. It does take some work. We're talking about, you know, we're not going to take the speed highway to guilt because that's what you're used to. So it does take effort and I want to really. I want to paint a picture and really drive home the point for why it is worth putting in the work and the effort to drop the guilt. Let's just talk about what is guilt costing you? What is this feeling of perpetual not enoughness actually costing you? This one life that you have worked, So incredibly hard for spend decades working towards with your home, your two and a half kids and your dog, your partner and the well paying job. I want you to think about you still feel guilty in little big moments that is creating this dampened experience of the life you have worked so hard for. And because you and I both know that there's no number of green check marks that you can give yourself going down a task list. This is a feeling that is going to create a less than stellar experience of your life. I want you to think about this visual. It's like you're walking around going to work and being a mom coming back and forth carrying around a 50 pound backpack. It doesn't make you perform better. It doesn't make you a better mom. It doesn't make you focus in the workplace. It does not make you more productive. It does not make you love your kids or your family more. And I want you to just think about for a second this idea of carrying around this 50 pound backpack. It's not making you perform better. It is not making you focus more. It's not making you more productive at work or more present with your kids. It is a lingering, heavy 50 pound backpack. So why is it that smart, high achieving women would carry around this 50 pound backpack when it is not making us more productive? It is not making us love our kids more. So why would smart, resourceful, confident, Brilliant women, keep this 50 pound backpack that is taking us out of being present with our children, more focused at work. Why would we ever do this? There are three reasons that we keep this 50 pound backpack. And then we're going to get into how it is so expensive to keep. 

  Reason number one, and this is not conscious. So there's literally no judgment on this podcast. It is because, and remember I'm bringing spice today. There's some masala going in the chai. Get ready. It is because you think subconsciously that it makes you a better mom or some flavor better in the workplace. You think that having some sense of guilt makes you, it's almost like this badge of honor that you get to carry around that somehow you care more than someone that does not feel the guilt. Now, if this is you again, I want you to know you're not alone. If you feel called out in this, it is just something that you learned a very, very long time ago.

  Reason number two, you love being needed by your children, or you want to be needed by your clients or your patients or your colleagues in the workplace. Friends, I promise you, this is one of those. And if you feel called out again, just remember you're not alone. I am saying this with so much love and so much tenderness. Of course you want to be desired and wanted and needed by your kids and your colleagues at work. Like you kind of love it when your kids are like, I only want mommy. Or, you know, when you are in the workplace and maybe a patient or a colleague or a client is like, I only want you, right? We get this little boost to our ego when we believe we're the only one that can do the job. And inadvertently, if this has been you, again, you're not alone. If this is you inadvertently, you have simply been tying your sense of self worth and value to yourself. To a child and what they think of you, you have been tying your sense of worth and value to what a colleague or a patient or a client thinks of you. And I hate to break this to you and I promise if this feels tough, I'm bringing so much tenderness and love to this conversation. This is not their job. It is not your child's job, your client's job, your patient's job, your colleague's job, your partner's job to make you feel worthy and valuable. That's our job. The reason that you will find yourself working a mile a minute overworking in the workplace and overworking at home is because you want to feel wanted and needed. And the reality is, again, this is very normal human brain functioning. We want to feel useful, needed, and productive, but also I want to just paint a picture of how it is creating less of the life you want in your relationships, both in the workplace and at home. We end up, especially as women, in this situation, endless loop, trying to change our self worth by overworking, try to feel more love by the way we are with our children, wanting them to give us words of affirmation to feel love. It is never enough. You will find yourself on the hamster wheel of self worth feeling constantly not enough simply because we have outsourced the role when it's really ours to have.

  The third reason is because it feels awkward or maybe even disconcerting to not feel guilty. You feel almost like something is wrong. Something is going wrong that you don't feel that slight lease of guilt that you see other women or other moms, other working moms experience. Whether it is one, two or three, and maybe it's a combination of all three, I see you and I want you to know that it is possible to let the guilt go, even if it is awkward and even if it is disconcerting. And here's why. It's expensive to keep guilt. It's the reason that you will find yourself constantly deprioritizing yourself. You will find yourself deprioritizing your personal body goals and your weight loss goals for tomorrow. You will find yourself waiting for life to be just a little bit easier, for the things with your kids, with the workplace to be a little bit more wrapped up. You're going to wait for that project deadline to pass for the summer vacation to be over to prioritize yourself. It's going to be the reason that you don't deeply commit to weight loss this year. It's going to be the excuse that you give yourself every single time life gets a little bit challenging or you get thrown a curve ball that you deprioritize and put yourself lower on your list. It's going to be the reason that you perpetually overwork and it is going to drive a state of constant not enoughness. Both at work and at home. I've shared my boardroom of emotions analogy before on the podcast. Basically, in a nutshell, every single emotion that humans ever experienced, I want you to think about them like directors of their private departments, joy, confidence, satisfaction, happiness are members of a boardroom. Anger, frustration, disappointment, even guilt are also members of the boardroom. No emotion is good or bad. I think that some emotions are very valuable players, like confidence and satisfaction and pride. And some emotions are just least valuable players. I put the emotion of guilt In the least valuable player category. I think that it is just creating very little in terms of the life that we want, both at home and at work. And if we really took an inventory of the feeling of guilt, I want you to ask yourself, what do you generally do next? Most of the time in my experience of coaching high achieving women now for hundreds of hours, when we are feeling a state of guilt, we will end up ruminating and overthinking and overworking, taking us out of creating the life that we actually want, both for our bodies and our home and work.

  Yet we have given guilt in the boredom of emotions, the megaphone. And then we wonder here I am in my thirties and forties and fifties. And why am I not feeling satisfied after working so hard? Now, you know, the reason the reason is because women especially have decades old programming that has led you to deprioritize yourself in the service of others, but don't worry, all is not lost. Because just knowing this, just listening to this podcast episode and uncovering your should and shouldn't thoughts, uncovering why it is that you've ever kept guilt alongside you, even though it makes your life feel less than what you want it to be is essential. Just becoming aware of the thoughts that you have seen now, you can't unsee it. We all know that feeling guilty feels terrible. But I also want to tell you a little secret. Letting guilt go might feel terrible, too. I know. It's because you're so used to operating with that flavor of guilt. And letting it go will feel disconcerting. So I want you to choose your flavor. You can decide to keep the guilt and the terribleness of feeling the 50 pound backpack, or you can decide to do the work of letting it go. This is seriously something. One of the best things that I help my clients do in the Unstoppable group is really uncover where it is that we ever feel guilt. That slows us down from making progress for our weight loss goals. When a life challenge is thrown our way in the workplace with our children, with our family, I want you to imagine the impact of what would happen if you were able to prioritize yourself in the face of challenges. How would that better up level, not just your weight loss results, obviously, but how would that start to up level the results you're creating in your life? And imagine that you got to model that for your children, which to me is the ultimate win that we can have when we do the work of letting guilt go. I'll be honest, this does take some intentional effort, but I want you to think about the impact for you. What would your life feel like? What would your experience in the workplace be like if you felt no guilt about your kids being at home? How would you feel at home with your children getting to be present with them if you never felt guilt about not working? What would your weekends and your vacations be like if you were never feeling guilty for the thing you left behind? This is one of those things that might be a crazy exercise because you're so used to having some flavor of guilt that you should be doing more or shouldn't be doing what you're doing or you could be more. I want you to just imagine the impact of that on your work, on your family, and absolutely for weight loss. I want you to tell me about what the impact of that would be. If you enjoyed today's podcast episode, and you want to do this work of letting the guilt go, I want to hear from you. Send me an email at [email protected]. Or you can DM me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is @theunstoppablemombrain. And I want you to answer one question, giving you a homework assignment. And I want you to really engage with me and tell me your answer. Question number one is what has been the cost for you? If you really looked at this with some tenderness and love and some gentleness, what has been the cost for you with the guilt that you have been carrying this 50 pound invisible backpack that you have had as a working mom, what has been the cost for you? In the workplace to feel guilt about home and leaving home and traveling and doing your work things. And what has been the cost for you at home, thinking about work, not happening when you're not working or not being productive, supposedly productive. I want to hear from you. What is the cost of that for you? And the second question I want you to answer. And again, send me an email or drop me a DM on Instagram. What is the impact? What would the impact be for you to lose the weight you want this year? If you could experience your working mom life, do the work. Be with the kids and prioritize yourself at the top. What would the impact of that be for you? With my clients, my clients that first come to work with me, they have all shared with me across the board. When they prioritize themselves, when they are able to prioritize their body and their personal goals, they show up. In a much more powerful way, both in work and at home.

  The reason for this is because we don't have little lingering resentments, little lingering frustrations, this perpetual not enoughness constantly following us around. You'd be surprised, and maybe not so surprised, at how much bandwidth you will free in your mind when you drop the guilt and how much faster, how much more effective your weight loss  strategy will become. I hope you all enjoyed today's episode. And if you did, I want to hear from you. So drop me an email [email protected], or send me a DM over on Instagram. I cannot wait to hear from you and be your coach in your corner. Have an amazing day. Friends. I really hope you enjoyed today's conversation on guilt and how it is getting in the way of you prioritizing your weight loss goals. I know that this is a conversation that I really want in the ears of every working mom. So if you enjoyed today's podcast episode, share this podcast episode with a friend and And give this episode a rating and review over on your podcast platform, and make sure that you grab access to the body reset. This is a private exclusive six episode bingeable podcast. It is going to walk you through like a blueprint, six tiny, but mighty concepts that you need to burn fat, burn stress, and really feel unstoppable as a busy working mom. I am on a mission to bring science back strategies into your hands. So that  you're really burning fat, not just dropping your number on the scale and getting skinny on the outside. I want you burning fat on the inside. I talked to you in episode one around the biggest mistake that I made was I lost 60 pounds, but my percent body fat was through the roof. I talked to you about the science of why this happened, how it happened. And I want you to learn from my mistakes. And really this podcast series is going to be the way that we do it.

  So make sure you grab that over at theunstoppablemombrain.com/bodyreset. And I will meet you in your email inbox with the private URL and an invitation to join our private Facebook group. Have an amazing day. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Unstoppable Mom Brain podcast. It's been an honor spending this time with you and your brilliant brain. If you want more resources or information from the show, head on over to theunstoppablemombrain.com.