Motherhood is Leadership 101
Long before management degrees existed, mothers were running households, shaping minds, and forming the next generation.
Before there was a word for “management,” mothers were already doing it.
Emotionally. Mentally. Physically.
We’ve been running the household, regulating emotions, facilitating and guiding development, leading, long before there was language for it.
We are the original leader.
Not because we choose it, but because the role chose us.
And it’s one of the most important forms of leadership there is. The leadership of the future generation. And it’s under valued in society presently, but I want to acknowledge and inspire you to hold it dear.
Because that leadership? Well, motherhood is such that the greatest contribution to the world, might not be something you did yourself, but someone you’ve raised. Undeniably that process of leadership is exhausting, especially when it’s unacknowledged and unsupported. It comes with invisible expectations and no pause button. By not being honest about the exhaustion and emotional regulation skills needed we aren’t able to grow them. We wonder around feeling guilty and not enough.
And we sigh when our child starts another monologue.
We feel the low-grade resentment when the washing pile multiplies again.
We snap when we didn’t mean but couldn’t stop, because we are expected to be everything to everyone, and forfeit our own self to do that.
Then shame follows it. Followed by frustration and guilt, just anger at yourself, lives quietly under the day-to-day.
This is what it feels like to lead without relief.
To hold space for others without the tools to process what’s happening in you.
Let’s Get Something Straight
Your kids didn’t put the buttons there that are being pushed.
They’re just showing you where they live. And thats a really great thing, because you get to choose to undo them, and show them a different way. Or not.
That emotional reaction you feel? It’s not about the spilled smoothie or the backchat.
It’s a memory. A story. A belief.
Something stored deep in your nervous system long before they arrived.
Maybe it’s the same tone you heard as a child.
Maybe it’s a belief you inherited quietly, that you have to be calm, perfect, nice.
Maybe it’s the way you were interrupted, dismissed, or silenced.
The button or trigger isn’t new.
It’s old, and it can ready to be rewired.
Your Triggers Aren’t a Parenting Problem. They’re a Pattern.
When your child tests boundaries or loses it in public, it feels personal.
Like a reflection of your parenting or proof you’re doing something wrong.
But more often than not?
It’s a reflection of your past, not their behaviour.
It’s your nervous system reacting to something it once learned was unsafe.
And that means it can be unlearned.
You don’t need years of parenting strategies. Nor do you need to sit in ‘healing circles’ or ‘therapy’ for years on end while your children grow and become adults while you stay locked in your own stories.
Without being an a*hole to yourself, children learn directly how to operate as adults from watching and experiencing the adults they love and trust. Watching you solve problems and change your default operating system, helps them to know they can do the same.
Your work is their work too, and for that give yourself tools that meets any old stories or emotion where it lives: in the body.
This Is Where EFT Tapping Comes In
EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) is a simple, powerful way to shift emotional patterns. It’s like emotional first aid—with long-term results.
By tapping on specific points while naming what you feel, you calm the nervous system and create space.
Space to respond instead of react.
Space to choose new language, new beliefs, new ways of being.
Research shows it reduces cortisol.
Rewires pathways.
Dissolves stuck patterns so you don’t pass them on.
But it can go further, especially when you pair it with NLP and motivational psychology.
What Happens When Mothers Tap?
You stop spinning in guilt and start grounding in awareness.
You start parenting from presence instead of pressure.
You begin to:
Shift your triggers so they don’t run the show
Build resilience for the inevitable chaos
Break patterns that have lived in your family for decades
Reclaim energy to be and do the things you aspire to - in your own life, not just theirs
Deepen connection without self-abandonment
This Isn’t About Perfection. It’s About Power.
Your kids don’t need you flawless.
They need you connected, to them, to their potential and to yourself and your potential. Living in glow, flow and with mojo. Because a parent’s happiness, and a parent’s ability to push through, to have resilience , to find the silver lining, that lens on life becomes their child’s too.
Because you’re not “just” a mum.
You are the emotional backbone of your family.
And you deserve tools that support you as much as you support everyone else.
EFT tapping is one of those tools.
It’s your invitation to pause, process, and parent with presence. Fast, so you Don’t miss your kids being kids.
And that?
Thats why I started Mindset in Mayhem, to give back mothers the tools to offload their limitations and all the feelings and inspire the kind of leadership that changes everything.
Want to know more about EFT?
Working with a practitioner makes all the difference.
It’s like learning an exercise routine from a book or video and being taken through it by a personal trainer. One thats studied it deeply, knows the nuances and understands what lies underneath.
You can tap solo, but when you’re holding generations of emotional memory, belief systems, and silent expectations?
Having someone trained to help you decode your language and guide your nervous system through it safely is everything.
Together, we can untangle the emotional patterns that keep you stuck in reactivity and over-functioning.
You get to use your voice, rewire your story, and create space—for joy, presence, and even pleasure in motherhood.
Because you’re not broken.
But you are carrying too much alone.
Let EFT be your first step back to your glow, flow, and mojo.
You lead everyone else.
Now it’s time to lead yourself.
Carla Mardell, creator of Mindset in Mayhem, teaches busy women how to get off the mouse wheel of busy, flip the thoughts that keep them stuck, and find calm- even with careers, kids, and lives chaos in the mix.
She blends EFT with emotionally intelligent tools that actually work- so that you can stress less, reclaim your time, and feel more like yourself again. You know glow, flow and bring back some mojo! No healing pits of misery. No 5am rituals. Just real change, in the moment, without the flaming hoops, because life can be mayhem, but your mind doesn’t have to be.