When Everything Feels Important: Motherhood, Business, and Guilt

There are seasons in life when it feels like everything needs you at once.
Your kids. Your business. Your body. Your home. Your dreams. Your rest.
And no matter what you choose, part of you feels pulled somewhere else.

In this episode, I’m talking about something that feels very real for me right now.
At the time of recording, we’re in the middle of a war here, staying close to shelters, kids home from school for weeks, life unpredictable — and still, business, family, and personal life all keep moving at the same time.

For years I’ve noticed that my brain goes to the same thought:
If I didn’t have kids, this would be easier.
And I hear the same thing from so many women building businesses while raising families.

But what I’ve realized is that the problem isn’t actually the kids.
And it’s not the business either.
It’s that when you care about many things, life will always ask you to choose where your time goes.

We also talk about “mom guilt” — what it really is, what it isn’t, and why not every uncomfortable feeling means you’re doing something wrong.

I share a personal story about leaving on a trip while my kids were upset, the moment a war started while I was away, and why I still didn’t feel guilty — even though it would have made perfect sense to.

This episode is about:

• motherhood and ambition
• guilt vs discomfort
• having a full life with many priorities
• learning to choose on purpose
• and letting go of the idea that something has gone wrong when everything feels important at the same time.

If this is something you struggle with too, this is exactly the kind of work we do inside my coaching containers — building a business and a life that actually fit together, instead of feeling like they’re always competing.

You can find more info about working with me here:

www.tamarcoaching.com/group

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Yo yo yo. Welcome back to Brave Little Things, guys. Welcome to episode 40. Episode 40. I tell you, every like 10 episodes, it just feels like such a huge accomplishment. It feels so freaking great. I'm so happy that I get to be here and share with you guys all this content and all these ideas and all these new ways of thinking and living and believing and getting your minds to be like, you know, twisted and churned and thinking in different kinds of ways, it is really the biggest honor of my life. I feel so grateful. So thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. And I want to start off by saying, you know, if you were over in my last episode, which I think I titled something like Life Sucks, when Life Sucks, then I kind of shared how I had to cancel my or postpone my national networking dance party. I want to tell you the good news, which is that we have put it back on the books, people. The new date is May 11th, same time, same place, and it's gonna be so amazing. And so if you have not signed up yet, I'm telling you, the tickets really like this is really not one of those, you know, trying to push you into a sale thing. I think that I had without even actually marketing, once I changed the date, I think I got like three more tickets sold. So I think we're about like 13 tickets left. That is it. So if you want to be at this amazing event, it really is going to be unique. It's gonna be freaking fantastic. If you are a dancer and an entrepreneur and a woman and someone who likes to have fun and someone who, after this freaking war, God willing, will be on the other side already, wants to celebrate, this is a place. So I'll put the link in the show notes. You can come at tomorrowcoaching.com slash dance and grab your ticket before they're gone. Anyway, welcome back, guys. And you know, this is like a crazy time for us, besides the fact that many of us are here in war and in bomb shelters, running, you know, nonstop to our bomb shelters, kids at home nonstop. I mean, the kids have been home, I think, for three and a half weeks here in Israel. They're talking about at least another month and obviously the holiday of Passover. So there's just a lot going on here. And so I want to dedicate this podcast to specifically all the mamas out there. But definitely stick around, even if you're not a mama, because this is definitely for folks who've got full lives and constantly feel pulled in all the different directions. And I just want to let you know that I am like very this is like happening in real time for me as well. Because, like, as I mentioned, I'm here, you know, with my all my kids home, you know, school not happening. We're not doing the Zoom thing, like as some folks I think are. We are not doing the Zoom thing. I'm not waking my kids up to like be in a chaotic room of like yelling kids and teachers who like are really struggling and having a hard time. I'd rather like give a teacher less one less student there. So my kids are home. There's no, you know, what's the English word? Like an organization. There's no like, you know, they have no day-to-day plan, basically. And Passover is coming, and it's just kind of crazy. So I just felt like this would be a good time to talk a little bit about that. Talk a little about like the when there's so many things that are important in our lives and we just don't know like what to put on our schedule, what we should be focusing on, right? It's like the kids, the business and the holidays and the all the stuff, and it's it can be feel really chaotic. So I kind of wanted to dedicate a whole episode of that talking about like when specifically things are like when everything feels really important at the same time, what do we do about that? Right, which is really intertwined with motherhood and business and guilt. Because I know for myself, and this is like separate from war, kids home, and Pesach being like around the corner and like any holiday in general. I know that my go-to, I can't tell you how many times my brain has been coached by my coach on me believing and thinking and feeling that it I'm not further along in my career because of my kids. I can't tell you how many times I've been coached on this. My belief really being like, you know, every time, like, you know, there's it just it goes in that direction, thinking that like it would be so much easier without kids. And anytime I see somebody, you know, online or someone I know personally who's like quote unquote doing so well, which of course is just in my mind, like who knows if they actually are, I'll just go to a place of like, that's because they don't have kids, you know, and I have four of them, and they need this and then they need that, and you know, and there's such a limited time that I can work, and I just my brain will just go into all these excuses of why I'm not where I want to be, or I'm not getting things done, or the day wasn't quote unquote successful because of my kids. And I've gotten coached so many times on this, and it's like one of those things that like, oh, I know where my brain's going here, likes to use my children as an excuse, and maybe you're in the same boat. Maybe you've also kind of felt that way from time to time, or maybe all the time, right? It just kind of feels like you have to choose between the business and the family and feeling like the kids are like what makes this so hard. And I'm sure, especially right now, again, with many folks who are listening, who are listeners to the podcast, have all their kids home as well. And even if you don't, for many other ones, they might be having the holiday of Passover, which is an incredibly intensive holiday. Which I will tell you, I I I will tell you that I do not know this personally because my whole life growing up, we always went away for the holiday. My father was like the resident rabbi of an amazing retreat center in Ohio, California. And so every every Pesach, every Passover, we just packed our bags, got on a plane, and went there, and it was amazing. And, you know, now that we're home in Israel, my parents used to be my grandmother, but then became my parents, would take take us away. So the truth is, I don't really know what you guys are going through on that level, but I'm sending so much love, but I know that's crazy. I know it's chaotic, and it's definitely vacation, so it's like brings up those kinds of things. But I want to like offer you one thing that I have realized down the line, and again, because I've been coached on this so much personally, that I kind of that has brought relief to me, which is recognizing that if it's not the kids that's like quote unquote taking me away from my work, it would be something else. Because it's not about the kids. It's never about the circumstances that are happening. It's about how I'm thinking about it, right? Oftentimes I'll be like, I'm, you know, the kids are like, I can't get anything done. I haven't, this day wasn't successful. I didn't check off ch you know, X, Y, and Z because of my kids. They needed so many things. They kept interrupting, you know, when I was in the office and all these kinds of things. But really what was happening is I wasn't getting so much done because I was so focused on believing that they were the problem. And so I was like overwhelmed and frustrated, and I was spending all my time there instead of just focusing on my work and making things happen and graciously and kindly, you know, responding to my children or creating boundaries, all those kinds of things. That was really my problem. And I kept on believing it was my kids. But then I realized, wait a second, okay. If I didn't have children, God forbid, because I freaking love the hell out of my kids, like, would I just be like, okay, I'm gonna get stuff done. All right, I'm gonna make things happen. And I realized that no, that was not the reality because I have many friends who do not have children, and they tell me all their things, as well as clients, by the way. They tell me all the things of like what comes up for them, what bumps up against them and their work, what bumps up between them and getting things done all the time. Right? Sometimes they have to choose, like, you know, they've just, you know, signed they've you decided to be a guest speaker on a podcast, you know, and then, you know, a week and a half later, this amazing invitation to go out to this fancy restaurant, a one-time only situation with a good friend came up, and those friends paying and all these kinds of things, and they're like feeling this, like, you know, feeling so torn. And should they cancel the guest podcasting? You know, how many followers does the podcast the podcast you know host even have, and all these kinds of things. And so I realized that it's not my kids. Even though I would love for it to be my kids, because then I don't have to take any responsibility whatsoever. But the bottom line, guys, it's not about our children. It's not about PESA and how much we have to clean, it's not about any of those things, right? Again, it is about how we are just choosing to believe and think about our work, our businesses, or our children, our kids, whatever's kind of bringing up this uncomfortable feeling, and then kind of creating boundaries around what we are seeing as sacred and what we want to take care of. Right? And the bottom line is that thank God these things come up as well. I want to offer that too, because you know, the fact that like I'm having some these struggles between like getting work done and taking care of my kids means simply that I have a full life. Right? And that I have things that I care about deeply. They only kind of like a comparison, which I don't know if this is a full good comparison, but kind of like with like love, and then you get your heart broken. And it's like my heart wouldn't break if I hadn't been in love. And so it's like worth those kinds of things, right? So it's like, okay, I'm willing to feel these uncomfortable feelings of how trying to figure out how to divide my time, or even to go through this thing where my brain's believing that it's my children who are taking me away from all the things I need to do and all the things I want to be doing in my business, right? In order to have these four children, in order to have this beautiful business that is needing me as well, and my clients who I love to serve and all those kinds of things. Right? That this tension means that I have values, right? And this happens to everyone with a life that is with a full life, right? Not just moms and not just entrepreneurs, but people who really have a few different things in their lives that feel like pretty major, pretty like pretty big time. You know, and I think this is like a perfect time to really talk about like mom guilt for a second. Because I think that everything, almost everything, mom guilt gets like slapped onto it, right? Like I and I just like hearing conversations, again, even with other mom friends, who will say things and be like, Yeah, I had so much mom guilt about that. I felt so guilty. It was such like this mom guilt that I couldn't like can it was so intense, right? And it feels like everything gets called mom guilt. Any uncomfortable feeling is like up it's mom guilt. But it's not true. Not every uncomfortable feeling is mom guilt because guilt means you believe you're doing something wrong. But sometimes you're not doing anything wrong. Most of the time you're not. And sometimes you're just choosing between two things that you deeply care about. And I'll explain I'll explain this actually from a personal experience. I was going to London when was it? It was April, maybe a year ago, I guess it was. And I was meeting one of my best friends in London, and we were going to, and I've spoken about this a few times, but we were going to a Elizabeth Gilbert workshop learning with my mentor for you know for a week. And when I left, my kids were like really like, what? You're going? Like, please don't go. Like, you know, they really didn't want me to go. And they were like totally fine, but you know, I'm a I'm the mom of the house. Like, you know, my husband's amazing, total co-pilot, the guy, like, we run the ship together. But I definitely keep this house much more orderly. And I make the food that my kids like. I mean, my my husband is a vegan rabbi, and my kids are vegetarian, and some of them are meat eaters actually. And they just like when I cook better. They just like the food that I make better. And I'm just, you know, I got the things that I do that, you know, that are and I'm I'm the mama. Like, who wants their mama to ever leave? I mean, I know that I don't. I'm like, I miss my mama now. I wish my mom was around 24-7. So they were just like, especially my little one, my, you know, my he's now 10, so I guess he was well just last year, I guess, no, or the year before. I don't know. But they were a bit bummed about it. And so I remember, you know, sitting at the airport and just feeling like this quote unquote mom guilt. Like, what am I doing? I'm like leaving my kids. This is the first time I left the country since the war started in 2023. And there was so much about that too. It was like, I'm leaving my kids in war, and I'm just going off to London to meet my best friend and go, you know, hang out with these creative, you know, growth-seeking folks who like don't know anything about my life and probably have not they're not themselves have been living through war, and it's gonna be such a different reality and whatever, and this like whole thing. I was like just like chipping out about it. Kind of like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? And, you know, I have a I've got a coach brain also here, so I was like able to really, because it was really bothering me. I did not want to get in the plane feeling this way, and so I took some time and I came to realize this. I came to realize that what I was experiencing experiencing was not mom guilt. It was because again, guilt, mom guilt and guilt is when you think you're doing something wrong. But what I was doing was very aligned with my values, which is travel and growth, and really like, you know, and really taking time for myself as a mom. And showing my kids, you know, what you can do as an adult, that you can have fun and be playful, constantly learning and growing, and take adventures with your best friend in different countries. And, you know, have and it's in and this in the health of like having separation in the family. You know, you're together for so much. Like I fully support my husband going and doing different kinds of things, and he's the same for me. I want my our kids to see that too. And I realize that everything I was doing was so aligned with my values, and not only that, but so aligned with what I want to be teaching my children. Far beyond math and you know, physics and history and all these kinds of things, I want them to see this in real life form. And I realize, okay, what I'm experiencing here is not guilt. It's uh discomfort. Discomfort that my kids are a little bit bummed that I I left. And discomfort that, like, you know, they're maybe not gonna get exactly the kind of food that they want, uh, you know, their dinners or whatever. You know, my husband does a great job. But I'm just feeling a little disunforable about that because, you know, I feel it as a mama when my kids miss me, but it's not guilt because I feel so aligned with this decision and with this choice. And that was so huge. I felt like such relief when I realized that. And I was like, okay, I can be uncomfortable. That I can do. And I, you know, and and that's exactly what happened. And on top of that, it actually happened to be the first Iranian attack happened while I was there. So it really tested me in all the different kinds of ways. It was like it it came up, and I think that's what happens when you kind of, you know, bring on a new belief, something that you're trying on. There will be lots of different tests. I call these the belief fairies that come down and are like, well, what do you now? Well, now do you still think that this was a great aligned, you know, decision and choice now that like you're in another country than your kids and Iran is attacking your country? And I have to tell you that I came back with the answer, it was still yes. My husband was there. I knew that he was gonna take care of them. I knew that my country was gonna take care of them, they have a bomb shelter, they have all these different kinds of things, and I still was like, I still felt very aligned with me taking myself to a different country to have a break from this war, to meet up with my best friend, to be growing and learning from my mentor, to be growing my business and all those kinds of things. And it really was incredibly helpful. So I want to kind of give that to you guys. If you as a m parent, as a mother are kind of experiencing what they think is mom guilt, really question that for yourself. Really see, is that really the case? Because you know what, maybe it's not guilt, maybe it's just discomfort. And can I sit with uncomfortable feelings for long enough that I can get to the other side and it's not any comfortable anymore? Right? Take a look at that. And you know, I want to say that this doesn't obviously just come up with being a parent, being a mother. This actually has come up a lot with one of my particular one of my clients, where she, you know, she's new to business. She's she herself is a mother of many children, thank God. And she's like starting this new business, and she's constantly kind of like, you know, pushing the business on to quote unquote the back burner. It's not her priority. She like wants, she'll say she wants it, she wants it, she wants to put time into it, all these things, and then it kind of goes to the back, which totally makes sense. It's like not has been not hit her go-to this whole time. It's been taking care of her kids and taking care of her father-in-law and taking care of the meals and the community and things like that. And she was experiencing a lot of what she was just describing as guilt. Like she would like, you know, feel really guilty when at the end of the week she was not doing what she said she wanted to be doing in her business. And so I finally, it was just like I think two weeks ago, when we were like having this coaching session, like again, I was like, listen, this is what needs to happen. I want you, we do with my clients, I do what I call a CEO meeting. Every week on the like end of the week, so going into the new week, they have a CEO meeting with themselves, which is uh a meeting between them and them. And it's just them putting their schedule together, really getting real and raw about like what they want to see happen over the next week, you know, what kind of things are important that they want to see onto their schedules, anything from their business-related tasks to, you know, taking long walks on the beach and their naps and putting in the laundry and picking up and you know, taking, you know, doing a birthday party for this kid, all this stuff. And so I said, listen, I want you to come to your CEO meeting. And I want you to say, and I want you to come no matter what, no matter what's happening, come to this meeting and then just announce, okay, business, you're not on my schedule this week. I'm deciding to prioritize because this is what's happening. This kid needs this, this kid needs that. My father-in-law is in surgery, I need to, you know, pack up this kind of thing, da-da-da-da-da-da. And that's what's going on my schedule. And release the guilt. You do not have to do it. This is your life. And in another week, come to it, and maybe the decision is this is gonna be all business this week. And I'm gonna release any guilt of like being completely available to every single kid. And just make a decision in a very truthful, honest way. Not uh from a place of I should be, I should be having things, you know, I should be putting things on the schedule for the business every single week, or I should be putting things on the schedule every week for my kids and, you know, all the other people in my life. No. Come to it and really be honest and truthful. Be truthful with yourself. Because there's going to be times when maybe the business isn't the number one this particular week. And maybe other weeks is gonna be the number one and you're gonna create boundaries and really clear like what's gonna happen every single day, and you know, and up, and if there's like a, you know, you think your kids are gonna be knocking on the door, you're gonna have clear solutions for those kinds of things, and really kind of protect your space there. And so just kind of like, you know, it was kind of a guiding l way for her to release, and because what happened is that every week she would come create her CO meeting, and it would be like all this business stuff, mixed in with all the kids stuff and the father-in-law stuff and everything like that, and the business thing would go to the back and she would just kind of feel like feel like crap. She'd feel like total shit, like she was like not doing the things she wanted to do. But when we're honest about it, then we're also honest about like not getting the results that we want, and that's okay. Right? Yes, we're not creating clients when we're not, you know, speaking to people about what we do and marketing it and all these kinds of things, because we're not supposed to unless we're doing those things. But if those things are on our schedule, then we will be moving in that direction. So let's kind of like drop the like I should have I should be doing this and I should have gotten these results, and just get really honest with ourselves, right? It's the same kind of thing, very similar to what I was talking about in terms of the mom guilt piece. And you know, this is the bottom line, guys. This kind of stuff happens when many things in your life matter, right? Because we have many things in our lives that really matter. Our kids matter, our businesses matter, rest matters, marriage matters, friendship, health, creativity, travel, freedom, right? Thank God our lives are not missing any kind of opportunity to like be fully alive. There's so many things for us to really, you know, care about and want and desire and have and all those kinds of things. Everything can be important can be important all at once, right? And it doesn't mean and just all it means is that you have a full life. That's all it means. And you just want to be able to like really fully understand that these things are not taking away from other things. Right? The only thing taking you away from those things that you want to be doing is your mind. Is how you're thinking about the the task that you're doing or not doing, the time that you have or don't have, and recognizing that if it weren't to be like this, if it weren't to be your kids, it would be about something else. Like, should I be doing this yoga class or should I not be doing this yoga class? Should I going on this trip or not going on this trip? You know, whatever it is, it's going to be kind of quote unquote taking you away from something. It doesn't have to be that way. The only thing taking you away from something is your mind. And so when we clean that up and get clear and realize going back to like, what are my values? What do I honor? What do I want to be? happening today? What do I want to be prioritizing today? Then everything really can be very, very different. Right? We don't have to we don't have to be like in this struggle that doesn't allow us to kind of move anywhere. So I just want you to think about some of that stuff, guys. And by the way, I do I have a podcast, I think it's actually called Work Life Balance or Inbalance or something like that. Which is a good pairing of this, I think. And I, you know, I wanted to kind of bring a new nuanced idea here to this particular episode. Because again, I think that right now in particular people's lives are really so much is going on with just kids home and the holiday you know being tomorrow, which is crazy when this episode drops, the Pesach starts tomorrow. And and just a new way kind of thinking of like these things are not taking us away from the other things. They're just another thing that's on our plate that we're so excited about that thank God is part of our lives. And we just have to in that moment decide okay right now I'm just going to focus on this thing right now and I'm going to come back to this other thing. And I don't have to make them feel like they're like you know rip their take their diminishing each other. Right? They really kind of really create this like full life for us. And that's ultimately what we want. All right guys well that is it and I am sending you so much love. I'm hoping that you got to listen to this while you are you know out if you're celebrating the holiday of Pesach like cleaning something, organizing something, being almost done. And if you're not celebrating the Pes the holiday Pesach, I hope you're just you're enjoying the beautiful spring weather that is coming our way. And stay tuned guys because you know as always I have a monthly group coaching call that's going to be coming up after Pesach so you can always go to my site um tomarcoaching.com slash group and find out when it is and I would love for you to join it. It's like one of those calls if you don't know by the way about group coaching calls they're not like group therapy calls. Not everyone has to go and take a turn and you know share all of their emotions and their insides you know share them the outside it's really folks who want to kind of come and volunteer to be coached and other folks get to witness and receive the coaching that other person's giving because our brains are all the same so oftentimes what one person receives is the same thing that another person will need to receive and it's a really beautiful space and a very supportive space. So I'd love to see you there. Alright guys well again Hagsa Meh, happy Pesach to those who are celebrating, happy spring to those who are not I love you all so much and I will see you over the next episode. Love you guys.