Why am I so hard on myself? Self-compassion for moms is hard when you have spent years trying to do it all "right." In this solo episode of Chill Like a Mother, a Canadian podcast for moms, I open with a quote from Nicola Jane Hobbs and introduce the undermothered series: what happens when a mother's own capacity could not stretch far enough to meet her child's emotional needs.

I share seven ways to practice self-compassion: learn how to build awareness of your feelings, discover the power of writing it down, find out how to talk to yourself like a friend, discover what happens when you stop assuming the worst, uncover a common trap in managing your own expectations, help yourself believe people are doing the best they can (including you), and discover why your words and actions need to match. Plus a bonus practice: talking to yourself the way you wish your mom had.

To see the full blog, my credentials, and complete show notes, head to kaylahuszar.com/blog/2020/how-to-be-gentle.

If you want support working through any of this, you can book a session with me. This fall, I am also starting a live UNDERMOTHERED mindful art group therapy series, you can email me @ [email protected]

This content is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice or a therapeutic relationship.

Mom guilt shows up in a lot of places, including the guilt around wanting your kid to play on their own. Kari Castro, an educator with over a decade in the classroom, joins Kayla to talk about how she taught her toddler to play independently, and why she had to ditch her own guilt to get there.

Kari shares her turning point: a move to a new city, a toddler with a little too much screen time to cope, and the moment she realized becoming the constant entertainment was burning her out.

Key mom takeaways:

• Why teaching independent play gets you called "lazy"
• The exact routine that got a toddler mom 20 minutes of real peace
• Independent play is a skill, not a personality trait
• Where mom guilt actually comes from
• What to say to yourself when the guilt hits

Kayla and Kari also get into the "good mom" pressure that hits hardest in summer and the stay-at-home mom myth.

To see the full blog, Kayla's credentials, and complete show notes, head to kaylahuszar.com/blog/how-to-get-kids-play-independently

This content is educational only and does not establish a therapist-client relationship. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, text HOME to 741741, or go to your nearest emergency room. Kayla Huszar is a Registered Social Worker licensed in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario.

Guest: Kari Castro, educator with a master's degree and over a decade in the classroom. Instagram: @eduplay.together

Guided Mindfulness Meditation for Moms

A short, calming meditation to help moms feel more grounded, relaxed, and centered. This episode uses breath, body awareness, and visualization to create a simple reset for busy days.

What you’ll get:

• A gentle body scan to release tension
• Breathwork to help calm the nervous system
• A peaceful visualization to ease overwhelm
• A quick reset you can return to anytime

Best for: moms who feel stressed, overstimulated, or mentally scattered

The pressure to make every moment magical, stay regulated at all times, and perform gentle parenting perfectly is exhausting. And it keeps coming up in sessions - so Kayla is pulling it from the archives for summer.

This conversation between Kayla and guests Anneke and Olivia from the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Trainings group gets honest about where so much of that pressure actually comes from - and it may not be what you expect.

What this episode covers:

• When you need your kid's distress to stop
• Regulation is an ebb and flow between states - a flatline is masking
• The anger you are not showing is aging you
• You do not have to be a dog or build a fort to connect with your kids
• Your kids want to get to know you - the real, complex you

Book a free consult or session: https://kaylahuszar.janeapp.com

Every mom knows the voice. The one that says you're not patient enough, present enough, calm enough. The one keeping score.

This episode is a guided inner critic meditation for moms - a visualization practice that gives your inner critic a shape, a color, a form, and then calls in the voice that actually has your back. Your inner champion. The part of you that knows you are good enough, even when the guilt says otherwise.

Kayla Huszar is a Registered Social Worker and maternal mental health counsellor specializing in mom guilt, identity loss, and expressive arts therapy. In this episode she leads you through a body-based relaxation and into a visualization where your inner critic and inner champion meet - and your champion gets the last word.

After the meditation, spend 15 to 20 minutes making something. A sketch, a doodle, a splash of color.

Get it out of your head and onto the page.

Find the full meditation script and journal prompts at kaylahuszar.com/blog/inner-critic-guided-meditation-for-moms

Mom guilt is one of the most talked-about experiences in motherhood - and one of the least understood. In episode 89 of Chill Like a Mother, Kayla sits down with Emily Rose MacDonald, host of The Sparkle Project podcast, certified motherhood studies practitioner, and single mom of two boys, to get into what mom guilt actually is, where it comes from, and what you can do about it.

Emily opens with a distinction that reframes the whole conversation: mom guilt is almost never just guilt. It's guilt plus shame. And those two things do very different things to a mom.

In this episode:

• Why what most moms call mom guilt may actually be toxic guilt in disguise - and what the difference means in practice
• Emily's real story from 2024: a separation, a season of survival, more screen time than she planned, and why she stands behind every choice she made
• Why the perfect mother myth was not written by mothers - and how cultural conditioning keeps so many moms measuring themselves against a standard they never actually chose
• Two specific things Emily recommends when toxic mom guilt shows up
• Why taking care of yourself and taking care of your kids may not be competing ideas at all

Emily Rose MacDonald is the host of The Sparkle Project podcast and co-founder of Mom Friends Collective. Find her on YouTube at @thesparkleprojectpod and on Instagram at @honestlyemilyrose.

Kayla Huszar is a mom guilt therapist and Registered Social Worker licensed in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario. Book a free consult at kaylahuszar.janeapp.com.

Most moms I know have said it out loud at some point - if I don't do it, it's not going to get done. 

In this episode, Kayla sits down with licensed mental health therapist, couples coach, and Cedar & Rain Consulting founder Angela Tam to pull that sentence apart and find out what's actually living underneath it. 

We talk about why the mental load is a symptom, not the root cause - and why focusing on the task imbalance often keeps moms stuck in resentment. Angela shares five concrete steps that helped her move from household prime minister to a woman who has room for pleasure, creativity, and actual partnership. 

This one is honest, a little uncomfortable, and ultimately freeing. Because the dishes are not really about the dishes. 

Topics: the over-functioning mom identity, why Angela deliberately renovated her kitchen sink, the role childhood plays in how moms carry the mental load, and how to repair without an agenda. 

Find Angela at cedarandrain.org and on YouTube at Invisible Load Reset.

If you've ever said "I lost myself in motherhood" - this episode is going to reframe that for you.

Kayla sits down with Meghan Watson, therapist and collage artist based in Ontario, to talk about what actually happens to creative identity when you become a mom. Megan spent years as a prolific writer - ghost-writing for mental health companies, running a practice, building a Substack - and then had her son and found that the words just stopped coming. Six months postpartum, she came up for air and realized she was creatively spent. What she didn't know yet was that her creativity hadn't disappeared. It had changed form entirely.

In this conversation, Meghan and Kayla dig into the real reason mom creativity goes quiet postpartum, why "I lost myself" is more disorienting than accurate, and what it actually looks like to rebuild a creative practice around real mom life - not the one you had before.

Meghan also shares two of the most accessible entry points into a creative practice that she's ever heard: starting a collection and drawing a small square. No special setup required.

You'll also hear Meghan's take on precision over perfection, why mess being allowed is sometimes the deepest work for moms who grew up in rigid households, and how accessibility - not more time - is what actually keeps creativity alive.

If your creative self has been quiet since you became a mom, this one is worth your commute.

Find Meghan on Instagram and Substack.

In part two of this conversation, registered social worker and mom guilt therapist Kayla Huszar and therapist Danik Bernier, MSW RSW, get practical. If part one was about recognizing what you're carrying, this episode is about what to actually do with it — before the hard moment hits.

Danik introduces the window of threat: the moment in your 24-hour cycle where you're most at risk of going into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn — and giving from a place of total depletion. She breaks down why the emotional regulation tools that circulate on social media don't work in the moment, and what proactivity actually looks like for moms who want to show up differently.

Kayla shares the somatic tool her couples counselor gave her for unregulated anger — the one she thought was completely nuts — and what happened when she actually did it 100 times a day for a week.

This is the missing piece. Not a new tool. A new strategy for when to use it.

Go back and listen to part one first if you haven't — episode 85.

Grab the Good Moms Get Mad free toolkit at kaylahuszar.com.

And check out Danik's podcast, the Healing Mothers Club.

Some of what you feel as a mother isn't actually yours. In this episode of the Chill Like a Mother podcast, registered social worker and mom guilt therapist Kayla Huszar sits down with therapist Danik Bernier, MSW RSW, to talk about what intergenerational trauma actually feels like in the bodies of modern moms - and how to start telling the difference between what you've earned and what you've inherited.

Danik shares the story of her great-grandmother Simone, institutionalized in Brockville, Ontario in the 1950s, separated from her five children, and largely forgotten by family history - until Danik went looking. What she found in century-old medical records changed how she understood her own 2am panic, her family's patterns, and her work as a therapist.

In part one of this two-part conversation: what intergenerational trauma feels like in the body, how to start noticing what might not be yours, and why your confusion is data - not failure.

Part two drops next week. Subscribe so you don't miss it.

Grab the Good Moms Get Mad free toolkit at kaylahuszar.com.