Book Review
Mumma of 3 and psychotherapist, Anna Mathur sheds light in her fourth book, the struggles of motherhood. Anna draws not only on her own experiences but the experiences of other mothers in a book that picks apart the myths of the “Perfect mother”. Her reassuring tone empowers mothers to depict their feelings of failure, fear and their self designed expectations.
Throughout the book, Anna inspires readers to understand their feelings, digging deep to the root of the cause. Then teaching them how to overturn those feelings and reframe their thinking.
With emphasis on putting more time and love into yourself, Anna’s highlights of the daily struggles of motherhood, provide the reader with raw and relatable examples. The book does an amazing job at ensuring that you understand that mothers are entitled to rest. Giving them space and a voice to say ‘I MATTER’ without bias. It provides a toolkit for becoming a calmer, more patient and more resilient mum.
Anna dismantles how mums come to set impossible expectations of themselves by designing their own “fantasy motherhood”. The book offers evidence-based therapy guidance and tackles taboo subjects such as a ‘mother's rage’ and intrusive thoughts, in depth and in detail. The book firmly empowers readers and provides practical ways to learn to trust their gut, to set regular ‘self check ins’, set realistic standards, and tools on how to decide on if those standards are actually important and sustainable.
Each chapter provides strategies for reframing your thoughts and outlines different strategies to help regulate and reflect on your emotions and current state. Giving journaling tips and guidance.
The book is relatable and caters for all mothers of all ages. It even touches on the generational changes of motherhood. Emphasising on the current digital world. Where we have more access to more knowledge, readily available, more than previous generations and therefore more potential to feel guilt, as we are told how to correctly do everything.
I found this book to reframe my own thoughts of “I’m not enough, I’m not doing enough” to “I’m the best mum I can be”. Motherhood is not a one size fits all sorta hood. It’s varies, just like us and we need to change the way we look at motherhood in order to stop this “mum guilt”, “mum shaming” and comparing. We, as mothers, as stated in the book, need to have more “self awareness of our own humanness”.
“Normal” is an illusion and Mothers are out there creating their own “motherhood fantasy”, and in turn, are setting the bar too high. We need to challenge the “motherhood fantasy”. In order for us to overcome this ‘mum guilt’. The book also highlights (which I absolutely love) that “Comparison is proof of your own perceived not- enoughness and can send you further into low self esteem” – words that spoke volume to me. This is the sort of roadblock that Anna talks about, that gets in the way of out mental and emotional ability to see our natural and good mothering.
This book is a perfect read for all the mums that get stuck in that negative cycle of guilt and comparing. Motherhood is about understanding our “humanness” and we should be focusing on placing our energy in making motherhood more sustainable for ourselves. I highly recommend this book to any tired and overwhelmed Mumma. You're not alone and you shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help. Recognising and putting into action Anna’s suggestions is a game changer. Not only am I self reflecting differently, but I’m also more self aware of my actions and the emotions my kids can see.
10/10 would recommend.
