What if I just tried hard enough?
I used to tell my children they were good while my inner critic told me I was failing.
I didn't realize this contradiction though, at first. How could I? I was too busy trying harder to be a good mom.
I entered motherhood the way many of us do — with tremendous love, high expectations, and absolutely no idea what was coming, thinking that if I just planned well enough and tried hard enough, all would be well. I had spent years training as a marriage and family therapist, had an intellectual understanding of motherhood (I’d read lots of books!), and I cared deeply about the emotional lives of mothers and children.
And then, I actually became a mother. And everything I knew met everything I couldn't control.
When there was nothing left to give & I still wasn’t enough.
My second child was born at the beginning of the pandemic. When lockdown came and everything that had previously held my life in shape was suddenly stripped away, I had a newborn and a toddler. Despite all my planning and dreaming and preparations, I suddenly had no village, no routine — instead, I had the four walls of our small home, the endless needs of my children, the fear pressing in from the outside world, and the growing sense that no matter how hard I tried, I was always somehow falling short.
The harder I tried, the more depleted I became. And the more depleted I became, the worse I felt, and the more I criticized myself.
“You should be able to handle this. A good mom wouldn't feel this way. Look at what you're doing wrong. Try harder. Be better. Why isn't this enough? Why aren't YOU enough?”
And at the same time — I was holding my children and telling them things I desperately wanted them to know were true.
“You are good. You are loved. You are safe. Your feelings make sense. I delight in you — not because of what you do, but simply because you are you.”
I meant every word — I loved them more than words could say. But I wondered if they could feel the gap — between the warmth I was trying to pour into them, and the harshness I was living inside myself.
After all, children are exquisitely sensitive to that gap between what we tell them about their worth versus what we believe about ourselves as mothers. They breathe the air of our inner world long before they understand our words.
And my inner world, in those years, was not a particularly gentle place to live.
When I first turned toward myself with kindness.
It happened quietly, the way the most important things often do.
I was just starting my own personal Internal Family Systems (IFS) training, and had the immense luck to sit under a trainer who specialized in IFS as applied to perfectionistic moms. I felt so seen, and cared for, and from a new framework of understanding woven through with care and connection was able to begin noticing my own inner parts for the first time.
One night, after a long and draining day, I looked myself in the eyes in my bathroom mirror, and said:
“You are good.”
And as I looked at myself, I cried.
This is a moment I remember as the beginning of something within me softening to allow for more kindness towards my own self.
I realized in that moment what I had been doing. I had been trying to give my children a sense of their own worth — their goodness, their lovability, their inherent value as human beings — from a place where I did not believe those things about myself. I had been trying to pour from a jar I had never allowed to be filled, but had instead weighed down with intense self-criticism and crushing expectations.
The message I most wanted my children to receive — you are loved unconditionally, and your value is not contingent on what you do — was the exact message my inner critic had never once offered me.
How could I truly give them what I would not give myself?
When presence without perfection became possible.
What I was beginning to learn was how to move from depletion toward something different — not perfection, but replenishment.
Instead of trying harder, I started practicing noticing with kindness and choosing what was caring.
What followed this softening was not an immediate transformation. It was — and still is — a practice. There are moments when I feel I can tend to myself — and by extension, my kids — with genuine curiosity and warmth, and other moments where my inner critic runs the show and I slip into reactivity.
My three kids are in preschool and elementary school now, and the pandemic started over half a decade ago, but I'm still so grateful that the shifts that started in those early and hard days of motherhood continue to unfold.
Somewhere in mothering my kids, learning and living alongside them, I've begun to soak in a truth I'd only understood intellectually before:
Love does not have to be perfect in order to be good enough.
Therefore, I can connect with my kids, and with myself, even when none of us is perfect. I can trust myself to love my kids through even their most painful and messy and challenging moments, and I can let myself enjoy the good moments when they come. And when I make a mistake, which of course I will, I can notice with kindness, repair, and keep on loving.
And this changes things — choosing what is caring, for myself and for them, instead of exhausting myself striving for what "should be."
To me, this is deeply hopeful. And it is from this hope — imperfect, nonlinear, ongoing — that I created this space.
I would be honored to walk alongside you as you mother yourself home.
Chelsea’s Credentials and Training.
Chelsea Solorzano’s coaching work is informed by — but distinct from — her clinical background.
· M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy
· Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist — Illinois
· Perinatal Mental Health Certification (PMH-C) — Postpartum Support International
· IFS Level 1 Trained — IFS Institute
· Mothercentered Practitioner — trained with Jessica Tomich Sorci
Coaching services are not therapy and are not a substitute for mental health treatment.
A little more about Chelsea Solorzano.
When I’m not in sessions or developing curriculum, you’ll find me in the beautiful exasperating deeply meaningful chaos of living life with three children — navigating endless drop offs and pick-ups, trying to keep up with their latest favorite characters, playing outside, hoping desperately everyone will sleep through the night for once, and trying to remember where I put my coffee.
I love literary fiction, walking my dog, and conversations that go somewhere real. I am still coming home to myself — imperfectly and daily, but with far more self-compassion than I used to be able to offer.
I created this work in the middle of my own becoming. And I believe that’s exactly where the best work comes from.
Why I created this space.
I created this space because of what I know to be true, after years of this work both personally and professionally:
You cannot give your children what you will not give yourself.
Not really. Not in the way that matters. Not in the way they will carry with them.
But when you begin to mother yourself — when you learn to notice your own inner world with kindness, to tend to your parts with warmth, to lead from the best of who you are rather than the most depleted version of yourself — something changes in the home your children live in.
You come home to yourself.
And your children feel the shift, before you say a word.
Next steps.
If any of this resonates — if you recognized yourself somewhere in these words — I’d love to offer you a place to start.