When Good Moms Feel Bad
New episode on motherhood and becoming a mom
We have the lovely and talented Jessica Tomich-Sorci on the podcast this week to talk about motherhood. Jessica is an IFS therapist who has spent 15 years working with moms and noticed the same parts showing up over and over. Anger. Resentment. Anxiety. Guilt. Destroyer. Blame. She named 29 of them, made them into cards, built a method around them, and wrote a book called When Good Moms Feel Bad.
I’ve been thinking about what she said in our interview: Motherhood is as much your developmental journey as your child’s. What she meant is, you have a right to grow, struggle, fail, and try again. This time belongs to you as much as it belongs to them. I don’t think most moms hear that. I didn’t.
Jessica talks about matrescence—the developmental transformation of becoming a mother. We talked about how we expect moms to be all in for a helpless newborn, then gradually let go as kids grow, then be okay and unaffected when they leave. And we expect them to do all of that without nearly enough recognition or support.
Jessica said twenty percent of moms are diagnosed with a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder. That’s more like a 20% cultural failure rate.
I loved this episode and the energy and passion Jessica brings to an emotionally charged topic for many of us.
Listen to the full episode here or wherever you download podcasts.
We stayed on for our Substack extended interview after the main podcast. Jessica mentioned that she just released an album and I wanted to hear more about that part of her life. In addition to being a therapist and author, she’s a super-talented singer-songwriter. The album is called Sticks and Stones, and she sings about her experience with her mother and her own motherhood journey. You have to check it out. I also asked her where she’s finding hope lately, and she shared about the ketamine-assisted therapy she did a couple of years ago and how that unlocked so much for her personally and professionally.
Extended Interview: