Chill Like a Mother Podcast

As a mom, you want your kids to grow up feeling understood, and maybe not having to heal from their childhood like you're healing from yours. But between the rage and regret, the mom guilt, your own childhood stuff, and the scary "no contact" stories online, it can start to feel like every reaction is one more thing your kid will bring to therapy someday. That's why Dr. Debbie Raphael, a child and...

Mom rage and anger can feel like they come out of nowhere. Most of the time, they build from all the little things that pile up over a week or a month. This guided visualization and body awareness practice may help you slow down, calm your body, and understand what your anger needs. You will begin with deep belly breaths and notice the sensations in your body. Then you will look back at your recen...

Mom burnout almost ended this podcast. Working around the school calendar - about 196 school days out of 365, plus sick days, PD days, and field trips - leaves me far fewer work hours, so the podcast is continuing on a more flexible schedule. In this episode, you'll learn: Why Kayla almost stopped the podcast How the school calendar shrinks a working mom's hours The time drains self-employed moms...

I sit down with Saghar, who I've known for almost 20 years - we worked together at the YWCA in Regina back in the day. We're two moms, always connected by creativity and navigating the complexities of life. This time, we get into the guilt that comes back in three hours, even when you've done everything right. Here's what you'll learn: The 3 mom burnout warning signs to watch for Reactive vs. prev...

Summer is ending, and if you can already feel the shift in your body, you are not the only mom who feels it too. For moms with school-aged kids, fall usually means earlier mornings, extracurriculars, rushed routines, and the return of the morning meltdowns nobody misses. Before September speeds everything back up, this is an invitation to pause. In this ten-minute end-of-summer practice, Kayla gui...

Why does getting everyone out the door in the morning feel like its own daily battle for so many moms? This week I sit down with Dr. Jenny Demark and Conrad Leung from Child Solutions, two of the three authors of Complex Kids, Simple Solutions, to talk about morning meltdowns, mom guilt, and what is actually happening when mornings fall apart. We get into their framework, prepare, teach, and motiv...

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...

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 cop...

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 anyt...

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 f...

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...

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...

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 foc...

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...

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 fi...

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 inh...

ATTN: MOMS! When was the last time you had a feeling and just... let it be there? Not ignored it. Not scrolled until it passed. Not hidden in the bathroom for a minute of fake peace. Just let it actually exist in your body for a minute. For most of us moms it's probably been a while. And I think I know why. Dr. Jenn Rapkin is a naturopathic physician, bodyworker, and author of The Feeling Muscle....

Every mother deserves to feel like herself - not just a version of herself that exists to keep everyone else afloat. In this episode of Chill Like a Mother, I sit down with Shar Thomas, Edmonton-based interior designer and owner of Where My Love Grows, for one of the most honest conversations we've had about creativity, neurodivergence, and what it actually takes to hold onto yourself in motherhoo...

If you feel like your creativity vanished when you became a mother - you are not alone. Or maybe you feel like you need permission to pick it back up (or keep it consistent) - this conversation is for you. Twin mom and children's musician Mama Nous shares how she protects her creative practice without guilt, why she tells her kids "this is important to me," and what happened when she stopped askin...

One broken mug. All-day self-criticism. Sound familiar? Lisa Danahy (MS in Yoga Therapy, author of Creating Calm in Your Classroom) breaks down why mothers spiral into hypervigilance after one mistake - and shares the body-based regulation tool that actually works. What we cover: How "See, loser, you suck" becomes an all-day mantra Why your nervous system catalogs every imperfection The one questi...

How do you stay present when you're not okay as a mom? Megan Dowd shares the worst flight of her life (funeral, delayed, toddler screaming 3.5 hours) and the best (crying babies everywhere, pediatrician validation). The metaphor that changes everything: "The thing that will fix it is getting off the plane. That's not an option when we're somewhere over Montana." We talk about: The "over Montana" m...

Have you ever felt like motherhood has swallowed you whole? Like your teenager self, your childhood self, just your human self is no longer part of who you are? This week I'm sitting down with Allie McQuaid - known as @millennialmomtherapist on Instagram - and we're talking about the thing nobody prepares you for: the slow disappearance of yourself in motherhood. Allie is a therapist in Maryland w...

Send us a text Four years ago, Jessica Dunn was navigating her daughter's AuDHD diagnosis with too many opinions, not enough answers. Today: 18 months without sensory meltdowns. What this episode cover: Moving from diagnosis shock to usable roadmap Why early intervention builds skills before shame sets in Family therapy vs "fix the kid" approaches The ADHD tax: funding, benefits, and hard budget c...

Send us a text Tired of saying "I'm fine" when your body and brain are screaming for honesty? This guided meditation helps overwhelmed mothers stop pretending and start feeling—without forcing a fix. What You'll Get: A 7-minute practice that meets you where you are: angry, sad, touched out, or completely empty. We start with breath work and body scanning, then move into five practical tools that t...

Send us a text Ever slammed your hands on the table and yelled "ENOUGH!" when the noise and chaos became too much? You're not alone, and contrary to what social media might have you believe, it's not a parenting failure—it's biology. In this eye-opening conversation with therapist Charlie, we explore the myth that mothers should be regulated all the time. Charlie explains how our nervous systems w...