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What Mothers Are Really Ready to Unsubscribe From

A question for you: What are you ready to unsubscribe from?

Not just intellectually. Not just in theory. But truly, deeply ready to release from your body, your nervous system, your daily lived experience as a mother.

This week, I asked this question in my community, and what came pouring out was both heartbreaking and validating. Because when mothers get honest about what they’re carrying, a pattern emerges – and chances are, you’ll see yourself reflected in this list.

The Collective Unsubscribe List

Here’s what mothers are naming as patterns they’re ready to release:

Hypervigilance. That constant scanning, monitoring, anticipating every possible need or danger before it happens.

Overexplaining. The exhausting need to justify every decision, every boundary, every choice you make.

Multitasking and busyness. The pressure to do three things at once, all the time, because standing still feels impossible.

Self-doubt – not just in decisions, but in your very capabilities as a mother and as a person.

Shame around asking for help. The belief that needing support means you’re failing.

The guilt of saying no or setting boundaries. That pit in your stomach every time you prioritize yourself.

Being the emotional load bearer for everyone. Carrying not just your feelings, but everyone else’s too.

The pressure to hurry. That constant rushing, even when there’s nowhere urgent to be.

Controlling everything. Or more accurately, trying to control everything while your own needs go ignored.

And then there are the specifics: Instagram, social media, group chats, other people’s moods, the contagion of everyone else’s nervous system states.

One mother said it perfectly: “When I first tuned into this question, my immediate reaction was all of it. I just want to tap out of everything.”

If you’re reading this and nodding along, you’re not alone. This is collective. This is the mother matrix we’re all swimming in.

But Here’s the Real Question: Are You Ready?

When we explore the question “What am I ready to unsubscribe from?” there’s one word that deserves our attention: ready.

Because here’s the truth – there are very few things in life we’re ever 100% ready for. Were you completely ready to become a mother? Probably not. Are you ever fully ready to make a major life change? Rarely.

So what does “ready enough” actually mean?

The Stages of Change: Understanding Your Readiness

In the addiction and behavior change space, we use something called the Stages of Change Model. It goes like this:

1. Denial – You’re not even aware there’s a pattern
2. Pre-contemplation – You’re starting to question it
3. Contemplation – You’re actively considering change
4. Preparation – You’re planning how to make the change
5. Action – You’re taking steps
6. Maintenance/Relapse – You’re sustaining the change (or cycling back through)

The key to moving along this readiness spectrum? Taking a hard look at the costs.

What is the cost of NOT changing? How is this pattern negatively impacting your life right now? Your relationships? Your presence with your kids? Your own wellbeing?

What is the cost OF changing? What discomfort will you need to face to release this pattern?

Here’s what’s true almost 100% of the time: both paths are uncomfortable. There’s challenge if you stay the same, and challenge if you change.

But when the discomfort of changing becomes less than the discomfort of staying the same – that’s when you know you’re moving toward true readiness.

Why You Can’t Just “Unsubscribe” Like an Email Newsletter

If only releasing these patterns was as simple as clicking “unsubscribe” at the bottom of an email. Choose your preferences: Would you like anxiety weekly or monthly? How about guilt – should we send that quarterly instead?

Obviously, it doesn’t work that way.

Here’s why: You can’t think your way out of patterns that live in your body.

These aren’t just bad habits or mindset issues. These are survival patterns wired into your nervous system – patterns inherited from your lineage, absorbed from society, developed out of necessity to keep you safe.

Hypervigilance? That came online to protect you. People-pleasing? That kept relationships intact when it wasn’t safe to assert yourself. Rushing and busyness? Those numbed the discomfort of slowing down and feeling what’s actually happening.

Insight alone isn’t enough to unwind these patterns. This is why you can know exactly what you want to change and still find yourself stuck in the same loop, year after year.

The Nervous System Truth You Need to Know

Here’s something crucial to understand: you cannot fully be in two nervous system states at once.

If you’re in shutdown – that dorsal vagal state where you’re checked out, dissociated, just going through the motions – you literally cannot access play. You cannot access connection. You cannot access joy.

This is why you might struggle to have fun with your kids. Why your partner’s touch feels irritating instead of comforting. Why you “know” you need rest but can’t seem to let yourself relax.

It’s not a character flaw. It’s biology.

When you’re in survival mode – whether that’s the hyperarousal of anxiety and busyness, or the shutdown of depression and dissociation – the part of your nervous system that allows for play, pleasure, and connection is literally offline.

This is also why we need anxiety at the right cadence. That activation this morning when my daughter’s earring backing was embedded in her ear? That drove me to take immediate action. Helpful. Appropriate. But anxiety on a constant loop, driving every moment of every day? That’s the subscription we need to cancel.

What Mothers Actually Want to Subscribe To

On the flip side of unsubscribing from survival patterns, here’s what mothers are longing for:

Rest. Real rest. Time in flow – often alone. Trusting themselves and their intuition. Moving more slowly. Joyfulness with their kids, not just efficient box-checking. Travel and adventure. Feeling like themselves again. Simple pleasures – soup, puzzles, the small things that nourish.

To claim and create space for what you desire, you need to release the conflicting pattern.

You can’t have playfulness while you’re in a state of hypervigilance. You can’t be present while you’re rushing. You can’t trust your intuition while you’re drowning in self-doubt.

The Work That Actually Creates Change

This is where we get to the heart of it: these patterns need to be addressed at the somatic level. In the body. In the nervous system.

Not just talked about. Not just understood intellectually. But actually unwound at the physiological level where they live.

This is why we’re gathering for UNSUBSCRIBE on January 28th – a 90-minute embodiment experience designed to help you unsubscribe on a deeper level than insight alone can reach.

Your Homework Before We Gather

Ask yourself: What am I ready to unsubscribe from?

Write it all out. Let yourself be honest, specific, raw.

Then look at your list and ask: Where am I on the readiness scale?

Some things you’ll recognize you’re not quite ready for yet – and that’s okay. That awareness itself is valuable.

But there will likely be one or two things that stand out. The patterns that make you angry because you’re tired of circling back to them. The ones where the cost of staying the same has finally outweighed the discomfort of changing.

Those are the ones that deserve your focused attention.

Because here’s the final truth: We cannot teach what we have not embodied. We cannot model for our children what we haven’t healed in ourselves.

If you want to raise unhurried kids, you have to unsubscribe from rushing yourself. If you want boundaried kids, you have to practice boundaries. If you want compassionate kids, you have to offer yourself compassion first.

This work? It’s not just for you. It’s for the next generation. It’s for breaking the patterns of the mother matrix that we’ve all inherited.

And it starts with getting honest about what you’re truly ready to release.

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Ready to do this work together? Join us for UNSUBSCRIBE on January 28th at theschoolofmom.com/unsubscribe