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Ever feel like happiness keeps slipping through your fingers as a mom? You're not broken – you're just chasing the wrong thing.

The happiness trap is all too familiar. You've orchestrated a smooth morning, everyone's fed and out the door on time, and for a brief moment, you feel that elusive sense of contentment. Then your phone buzzes – school nurse, fever, pickup needed – and just like that, your carefully orchestrated day crumbles. That fragile happiness dissolves instantly, leaving you wondering what you're doing wrong.

Here's the truth rarely discussed: happiness was never designed to be permanent. It's a weather pattern, not a constant climate. When we chase happiness as our primary goal in motherhood, we're essentially trying to control the weather – an exercise in futility that leaves us feeling like failures when the inevitable storms roll in.

What sustains us through motherhood isn't happiness but resilience – the ability to find profound meaning amid difficulty, to breathe underwater, to discover we can hold grief and gratitude simultaneously. Resilience recognizes that you're doing sacred work in unremarkable moments – shaping neural pathways in developing brains and creating relationship templates your children will use for life.

This episode introduces five practical ways to build genuine resilience: reframing your daily rhythm around energy rather than achievement, strategically creating moments of lightness, developing a meaning-making practice, building your support ecosystem, and practicing emotional granularity.

Remember, motherhood is a love project, not a happiness project. Real, transformative love is far more complex and resilient than happiness could ever be. Your children don't need you to be happy all the time – they need you to show up and love deeply, even when it's hard. That's the gift of resilience, and that's what makes motherhood not just bearable, but profound.

Subscribe now to continue exploring the skills that build confidence and joy for both you and your children.

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https://leighgermann.com