144. The Self-Talk That's Running Your Parenting — And How to Rewrite It

There is a story running quietly in the background of your parenting. You may not even know it's there. But it's shaping everything — how you respond in hard moments, how you recover from mistakes, and what you believe you're capable of as a mom.

For the mom overwhelmed by self-criticism and parenting anxiety — this episode gets underneath both.

As a resilient mom, you're not broken. You're running an old story that was written before you even had a choice about it. I walk you through where that story came from, how early messages became automatic beliefs, and how those beliefs are showing up in your parenting right now in ways you may not have recognized.

We look at the research on narrative identity, growth mindset, and the neuroscience of how changing your self-talk actually rewires what your brain predicts. Because emotional regulation for moms and parenting mindset work start in the same place — the voice inside your head.

Mom burnout often starts not with doing too much — but with believing the wrong story about yourself. And nervous system regulation becomes possible when you change the narrative your brain is running on.

I'll give you three concrete steps to start rewriting your story this week — because calm parenting starts inside. And you can do this.

If you'd like to get the show notes for this episode, head to:

 https://leighgermann.com

Transcript

The story running quietly in the background of your mind, the one that decides who you are before you've even tried, it's not always the truth. Today, we're looking at where that story comes from, how it might be shaping your parenting, and how you can rewrite it. This is Leadership Parenting. Is the story you're telling yourself ruining your life?

Did you know that resilience is the key to confidence and joy? As moms, it's what we want for our kids, but it's also what we need for ourselves. My name is Leigh Germann. I'm a therapist and I'm a mom. Join me as we explore the skills you need to know to be confident and joyful. Then get ready to teach these skills to your kids. This is Leadership Parenting, where you learn how to lead your family by showing them the way.

When I talk about having a story in your head, what I mean is that little voice — it's not out loud, it's just underneath and kind of quiet. The one that says things like, I always do this, or I'm just not a patient person, or I'm not the kind of mom who handles this very well. Maybe you haven't said it out loud, but the verdict is already playing in your head. Your voice is telling you that story. And if you're like the moms I work with, you've been running that story for so long it probably doesn't even feel like a story anymore. It probably feels more like the truth of who you are.

The reason I want to talk about stories today is because I think when we have the concept that our brains and our minds and our bodies are actually listening to a narrative, it's going to help us have increased awareness as to what that narrative is saying. We have some really great research that this is going on in all of our heads — especially for us as mothers — that we've got a story that's telling us what we should be doing and what we actually are doing, and what that means about us as a mom and as a person.

As we talk about story, I love that word because stories are in the category of fiction. A textbook is not a story. A textbook is supposed to have substantiated facts, but a story is fiction. And when you're the author of a story, the beautiful thing about being a writer is that you get to choose what your characters do. You get to interpret what they're feeling. You can give them motivation, you can cause them struggles, and you can watch them overcome those struggles and grow. That's great fiction.

We have these stories in our head all the time. And I don't think we realize — A, that they're fiction. B, that we are the author of them. And C, that we can rewrite them so that they're a story that we want to read and a story that we want to live. Too many of us, I think, have stories that are not ones we want to be in. They're depressing, hopeless, discouraging, critical. The story we live with every day makes it hard to get up in the morning, do our jobs, and look forward to life. So when I put in the title of this podcast episode "Is the story you're telling yourself ruining your life?" — for a minute I thought maybe this is too heavy. And then I thought, no, actually it's perfect. Because it can feel like our lives are ruined by these stories. And I want to talk today about a way to reverse that.

So let's start with where stories come from. There's a psychologist, Dan McAdams at Northwestern University, who has spent his career studying what he calls narrative identity. The idea is that each of us has an internalized story that gives us meaning and continuity in our life. In a real sense, these stories tell us about ourselves. And what he finds is that we begin forming these stories about ourselves very early on — long before we have any awareness of the whole process, or definitely any capacity to question it or even look at it.

I want you to think about the kinds of messages you might have received as a child about who you were, about what your capabilities were, about what your role was in a family. The ones that landed sometimes because they were said with love and felt good to us, and sometimes the ones that landed because they came with criticism — like you're so sensitive, or you're the responsible one, or you've always been a handful, or you're not really a math person. These phrases arrive in us at a time when we really don't have defenses for them. We're like a sponge. And over time we hear them as other people's opinions, but start experiencing them as facts. By the time we're adults, we're often not even aware that we're running a story — a compilation of all those things that were said to us. It can just feel like reality, like this is who we are. But it's not who we are. It's who we were told we were.

It's not that you even had to have a lot of people telling you negative things. It's the little beliefs we pick up as we deal with difficult situations. That time maybe when you weren't chosen on the playground for the kickball team. Or when you didn't get a good grade and your friend did, and you started to compare and told yourself, I guess I'm just not good at math. It's not necessarily who we are, but those stories compile. And now they feel like fact.

Here's where it becomes important for us in our parenting. We don't just carry our stories privately — we bring them into the room with our children. When your child is struggling and the story you carry about yourself comes up, you will interpret what you're seeing through that story. Your child's hard season becomes evidence of your failures. Do you see how we keep adding little pieces to our stories as we start seeing evidence around us? Maybe your story was I'm not enough. And then your child or your teenager starts to become distant or push back — or even, heaven forbid, says, I hate you. In that moment, if you have a story about not being enough, that criticism can feel very sticky because it just goes right along with it. All of us are dealing with this. We're personalizing what's going on in our children's lives because we care so deeply about it. And if we're not careful, we can be overlaying our story onto our parenting and even into our children's lives. This is a weight we don't need to carry. And certainly our children don't need to carry it either.

Carol Dweck at Stanford University has done foundational research on mindset — particularly growth mindset. She found that the beliefs we hold about our own abilities profoundly shape how we handle challenge and failure. People who believe the qualities of who they are are fixed — like I'm just not a patient person, or I'm too emotional, or I can't handle things very well — tend to give up more quickly, struggle to take feedback, and avoid situations where they might fall short. But people who believe their qualities can be developed have so much more room to make mistakes, try new things, and rebound when things go wrong. And she found that the mindset we have as parents tends to be the mindset we end up teaching our children.

That puts pressure on us, doesn't it? But let me tell you why I think that pressure is actually fair — because it blesses our lives. When we take the time to take responsibility for our own mindset, to look at our own stories, to protect ourselves from the harshness or criticism that's holding us back — we will then also protect our children. That's a different way to write the story about why this matters. It's not just because you need to be a good parent so you better figure out your story and get it rewritten. It's because it blesses your life when you do it for yourself. Our kids watch how we talk to ourselves. They can see it on our faces, even when it's silent — how we respond when we make mistakes, whether we say I'm just not good at this, or I haven't figured this out yet. Fixed declaration versus open question. It's one of the most powerful things you will ever model to your child.

In my work with moms, there are a handful of stories I see coming up again and again. They wear different words and come in different formats, but they carry the same kind of weight. Things like I'm too intense, I'm too sensitive, I'm too reactive. This story usually traces back to early childhood experiences where we were told to calm down, be quieter, or just handle it better.

Another story I hear a lot is I always do this — a permanent flaw story. Not I lost my temper this morning, but I always lose my temper. Not I struggled this week with getting everything done, but I'm so unorganized, I always struggle. That word always is doing enormous damage in a lot of our inner monologues. Always and never — those black and white words — are worth pausing on every single time you hear yourself reach for them. This is part of how we catch that inner narrative so we can hear it. And I'm not asking you to judge yourself for it. We all have this going on.

Another story I hear a lot is I'm not the kind of mom who — and then we fill in the blank. Who stays calm. Who has it together. Who doesn't yell. Who keeps her house clean. These stories are particularly tricky because they sound like honest self-knowledge. But they're really often hidden criticisms where we've stopped questioning and just accepted that we kind of stink at something. It rarely comes with compassion. It usually comes with comparison and harshness.

The reason I want to talk about it today is because I want you to open up your awareness and start hearing those stories — because the good news is a story is changeable if it's not working for you. I want you to put a story in your mind about who you are and how you work and what you think about yourself. But I want it to be a story that is hopeful and encouraging and at least a little bit true in a way that encompasses the wonderful parts of you. Because if you have to read a story every single day about your life, why not have it be an uplifting one instead of a discouraging one?

James Pennebaker is a psychologist who has done decades of research on what happens when people write about their difficult stories — specifically when they write to make meaning of them, not just to vent. He found consistent evidence that this kind of reflective writing improves our physical and psychological well-being. Not because it rewrites things, but because it changes the narrative frame around them and helps us see the story for what it is.

Our brains are essentially prediction machines. They're constantly making meaning out of experiences based on past patterns and what they predict will probably happen in the future. When you change the pattern — when you notice it and then try to put a different meaning to it — you change how your brain predicts you're going to be in the future. That's how we rewrite the narratives in our mind. It's not just wishful thinking. It's neuroscience. The paths in our brain that get traveled over and over again become stronger. So catching our stories, evaluating them, and deciding whether we want to change them — that is very, very powerful.

So I want to talk about three very small steps — small enough to actually do — to help us with this.

Step one is catching the narrative. Noticing it. When you hear yourself using words like always, never, just, or I'm just not that kind of person — pause. Those words are markers, story flags. They signal that you've moved from describing what's going on to making a declaration about yourself. We can't revise a story we haven't caught. This is probably the most important step of all three. Just notice it.

Step two is to ask one question: Is this true, or is this just a story? Because a story and truth are not always the same things. Something can feel absolutely certain because you've thought it ten thousand times and it still might not be an accurate description of who you actually are.

Step three is what I call a story revision — not a fake replacement, but a complete and honest version where you're pulling in a few more facts. Instead of I always lose my temper, you could try: I lost my temper today. But I also repair. And I show up again and again for these kids and my family. That is a truer story. And a truer story gives you so much more room to move, repair, and grow.

When you start catching the story and asking if it's true or just a pattern, you'll notice there are a lot of other things that aren't written in that narrative. All the things you did earlier today that went really well. All the ways you think about, pray about, study, and struggle to love your kids and take care of them. That's not part of the narrative — and to be fair and honest, it needs to come in. Do you see how that expands who you are? It makes room for you to own something you'd like to change while also putting it in context with everything else you do that truly represents you and your parenting. Once you do that, the picture begins to shift.

The story you carry is shaping your emotional environment — for your life and for your children. They are extraordinarily attuned to the underflow of their family, to what the adults are feeling and how they care for themselves. When you do this work — when you catch the I always or I'm never and replace it with something more honest and more complete — your life feels better. And you're modeling for your children a much more balanced way to write the stories that define their lives. That their identity is not fixed. That one chapter does not determine the whole book.

I still catch myself running old stories — stories written by people who loved me imperfectly, who were trying to be good parents or good teachers and inadvertently said things that weren't helpful. Things I told myself out of innocence, trying to control my environment or motivate myself. Those old stories still run in my head sometimes. But now I can catch them. I usually know to look for something in my narrative that needs to shift by how discouraged or hopeless it makes me feel.

I'm in this practice with you. And I want to tell you — the story you're telling yourself matters. But you are the author now. And authors can revise.

So this week, catch your story. Just notice it. See if it's useful to you. See if it's compassionate. See if it's something you would want your kids to be thinking about themselves. And if it isn't — consider revising it. Change a word or two. Pull in the things that make it truer and more hopeful. Rewriting your story is actually more fun than it sounds, because it gives you power and control to feel better and to shape your life so that your narrative is helping you, not hurting you.

Thanks for being with me today. I can't wait to talk to you next week. Take care.

The Leadership Parenting Podcast is for general information purposes only. It is not therapy and should not take the place of meeting with a qualified mental health professional. The information on this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any condition, illness, or disease. It is also not intended to be legal, medical, or therapeutic advice. Please consult your doctor or mental health professional for your individual circumstances. Thanks again and take care.