Building Self-Awareness and Conscious Parenting: How Focusing on Ourselves Can Help Us Break Cycles

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We all want to be good moms—but far too often, the measuring stick we’re using to determine how we’re doing focuses on all the wrong pieces (including our children’s behavior). 

We might find ourselves questioning our abilities as parents or wondering what we’re doing wrong. What we don’t often realize is how much our behavior, our expectations, our patterns, and our childhood come into play. 

We’re mothering in an unprecedented time, with more pressure than ever to show up as “perfect moms,” break cycles, and dedicate all of our time, energy, and resources to everyone else. 

And we’re expected to do all of this often without a blueprint for emotional regulation, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence. 

But we can learn those skills and support our children without sacrificing our needs, abandoning ourselves, or clinging to unreasonable standards (for ourselves and our children). 

This week on The Momwell Podcast, I’m joined by therapist Bryana Kappadakunnel, author of Parent Yourself First to discuss how conscious parenting and focusing on our own childhood, expectations, and patterns, can change the way we show up. 

Why Conscious Parenting Is So Hard

So many of us desperately want to become cycle breakers. We want to show up for our children emotionally and support them in positive, productive ways. 

But we’re also parenting in a time of intensive mothering—an ideology that tells moms we should abandon our personal needs and sacrifice everything for our kids. We build ourselves around our kids, often abandoning ourselves in the process. 

Bryana pointed out that this leads to martyred parents, who might end up having high expectations of their children to appreciate them and see all the effort that they’ve put into the process. 

She also said that when we need our children to see our sacrifices and validate them in order to feel worthy, we’re repeating a damaging cycle that can hurt relationships. 

Bryana wrote the book Parent Yourself First to help parents take a different approach—focusing not on being and doing more for their kids, but on becoming more self-aware, authentic parents. 

Breaking cycles is admirable—but it’s not all-or-nothing.

We often hear scripts or little tips or pieces of advice on being more “conscious parents.” But Bryana said that bite-sized conscious parenting doesn’t work. It’s not about scripts or strategies. Conscious parenting is really an entire approach of becoming self-aware and reflective. This means tuning in to ourselves, our needs, our emotions, and what’s going on for us in tough parenting moments.

Bryana said that the more tuned into yourself you can be, the more connected you can be with the child in front of you, and the more authentic everybody gets to be. You can let go of expectations and pressure and just be present. 

It’s important to remember that breaking cycles is admirable—but it’s not all-or-nothing. We can show up and support our children without perfection. Bryana said that it’s not realistic for us to think that we’re going to break every single cycle in our lifetime. We can make changes that matter without holding ourselves up to impossible standards. 

Conscious Parenting vs. Permissive Parenting

The dynamic of intensive mothering combined with the pressure to break cycles can put us on a pendulum—we might either hold our children up to unreasonable standards of perfection, viewing their behavior as a measure of our worth as parents, or we might swing the other way, becoming so child-centric that we are afraid to set boundaries. 

But Bryana pointed out that there is a middle ground. We can set boundaries with empathy, love, and respect—not being permissive but also not being overly rigid or controlling. 

For example, when your child speaks to you with a disrespectful tone, the empathetic parent in us might think, “Maybe they’re just having a hard day.” Bryana said that validating our children’s feelings and seeing the needs behind the behavior are important—but our job doesn’t stop there. 

We can set boundaries with empathy, love, and respect.

We can say, “I know you’re tired, and I love you so much, but that tone isn’t okay. We need to find a better way to talk to one another.”

Bryana said that showing up this way can be empowering for everyone. We can tune in to what we want to teach, how we want to talk to our kids, and what the best approach for everyone is in that moment, instead of being pulled in different directions from external pressures. 

This can feel hard, especially in a world of online mom influencers and social media. But conscious parenting is about letting go of those pieces and parenting based on our values, responding to our kids as individuals.  

Becoming Aware of Our Negative Core Beliefs

In Bryana’s book, Parent Yourself First, she pointed out that a big piece of conscious parenting is identifying our negative core beliefs that we have been carrying, often since childhood, without even realizing it. 

One of those negative core beliefs is perfectionism. As millennial moms, we were often held to perfectionist standards growing up. And when we carry that into motherhood, it can feel like we’re failing at every turn. 

When we carry perfectionism into motherhood, it can feel like we’re failing at every turn. 

Bryana said that other negative core beliefs often sit underneath perfectionism—a fear of being bad, a feeling that they will never be enough, a belief that we’re unwanted, or a feeling that we will never fit in. 

She said that when we can learn to see those wounds and address them, we can build acceptance around them, seeing that it’s just part of being human. This can help us stop rejecting ourselves, embrace imperfection, and stop the spiral of guilt and shame. 

From there, we can recognize how these things show up in our relationships—in our parenting, in the way we respond to our partners, and the way we interact with others. 

For example, if something your partner says triggers a feeling of being emotionally unsafe, instead of just reacting, you can “parent yourself first,” acknowledging the wounded child that developed those negative core beliefs to begin with. 

This is big, ongoing work, but it goes a long way toward becoming more present, being conscious parents, and breaking cycles without holding ourselves to unreasonable standards. 

How Negative Core Beliefs Impact Our Parenting

When we are carrying negative core beliefs, like a feeling of unworthiness, a fear that you’ll never be enough, or that we need to be perfect in all areas, they tend to show up in motherhood. 

We might find ourselves constantly needing to prove our worth, or feeling ashamed for wanting more outside of our motherhood role. We might start gatekeeping or trying to take on every task for ourselves to prove to ourselves that we’re good moms, or we might avoid seeking help for mental health concerns out of shame, feeling like if we ask for help we’re admitting that we’re failing. 

We don’t realize how strongly our past plays a role in how we show up as parents. 

We don’t realize how strongly our past plays a role in how we show up as parents. But our childhood really is the blueprint for parenthood. 

Bryana said that sometimes the blueprint we receive is ready to go—it has a good structure even if we need to make changes. Other times, the blueprint needs to be demolished. And so often, that process requires therapy and ongoing self-work. But she pointed out that the end result is worth it. 

We can see the negative core beliefs we have, work through them, build self-awareness, let go of perfection, and tune into who we really are and who our children really are as well. 

Bryana walks through so much of this journey in her book, Parent Yourself First, but she also provided some tangible tips to get started. 

Sit with It: A Strategy for Conscious Parenting 

One of those tips is something Bryana calls “sit with it,” one of her favorite tips from her book. 

She pointed out that we all have reactions—organic, protective responses that come up when we’re triggered, frustrated, scared, or anxious. These are emotional responses—and they often surface when we’re in conflict with our partner or if our child is challenging us. 

The goal isn’t to erase our feelings—it’s to see them happening, feel them, and cope with them. 

But the goal isn’t to just “stay calm” or erase those feelings—it’s to see them happening, feel them, and cope with them without falling into those knee-jerk reactions. 

Bryana said that the key is to slow everything down, noticing our breathing, our responses, and our feelings. 

We can ask ourselves questions like:

• What's going on with my heart? 
• What's happening in my belly? 
• Do I feel tightness in my hips, in my back, in my throat? 
• Am I stiff? 
• Am I tense? 
• Am I feeling just completely frozen?
• What’s going on inside?

We can sit with the feelings and acknowledge the discomfort, the good, and the bad. Bryana said to listen to your inner critic and try to figure out the source. That might be someone other than ourselves (maybe a parent who loved us but judged us and held us to unreasonable standards in our own childhood).

She said that when we realize the source of our inner critic, we can grasp why we act out towards our children. Sitting in our feelings can help us grow, become more in touch with our feelings, and be more conscious of how we want to show up in those moments. 

This can also help us hold space for our children’s feelings, and recognize what’s going on with them, without shaming or blaming ourselves for their feelings. 

Name Frame Claim: Another Conscious Parenting Strategy

“Sit With It” can help us recognize our feelings early on and start to build skills over time to respond differently. But Bryana also shared an in-the-moment strategy we can use when we’re already feeling activated—name, frame, claim. 

Step 1: Name

First, you name what you are feeling. “I’m feeling angry.” “I’m feeling frustrated.” “I’m feeling annoyed.”

Step 2: Frame

Then, we frame it—we try to figure out the reason we’re reacting that way. (Bryana pointed out that this is about us—it’s not, “I’m feeling angry because my children are fighting.” It’s, “I’m feeling angry because I was taught that conflict was bad and now this is causing me to feel unsafe.”)

Step 3: Claim

Once we are consciously aware of why we’re feeling the tension, then we can claim the moment. Our tension won’t go away instantly. But now we can analyze the wound within us that makes us sensitive to the circumstances. We can own up to ourselves that it’s not our child that is stirring us up. It’s a certain deep-rooted sensitivity that triggers our response. 

Bryana said that name, frame, claim allows us to make sense of a moment and move on. This strategy can help us build emotional awareness and understand ourselves better. 

Becoming a More Conscious Parent

Parenting can be difficult. It’s full speed ahead from moment one. We have to deal with each moment as it comes. 

Bryana pointed out that being a conscious and self-aware mom is about you and your children. It’s not about societal expectations. It’s not about trying to be a model mom. It’s about you being tuned into you and your little ones. It’s about connecting with your child—and it’s about personal growth and self-understanding.

Conscious parenting isn’t perfection.

Bryana said looking within and understanding ourselves can help us work through tough parenting moments as they occur in real-time. She also said embracing discomfort can help us face our fears and understand our insecurities.  

Conscious parenting isn’t perfection—it’s doing our best to be the parent for our children that we wish we’d had. It’s saying, “I’m an adult. I’m going to parent myself and meet my needs. I’m going to see my wounds. I’m going to see my flaws. And I’m going to accept myself and respect myself and also work to show up the way I want to.” 

Bryana said that this process might come with grief—especially as we acknowledge childhood wounds. But that’s okay. We can accept that there were wounds and pain and let ourselves grieve for what we struggled with. And we can also be empowered to make change and break cycles realistically, step by step, by accepting our imperfection, taking accountability for our mistakes, and communicating with our child. 

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