I built a whole courtroom case against my own intuition in about 30 seconds, and that is when it hit me. I didn't trust myself anymore, not because my intuition had failed me, not because I had some terrible life decision. But because I had gotten so used to overriding myself that it just felt automatic.

You are listening to Mama. Let's Talk the podcast where real moms get real about connection, growth, and the beautiful chaos of motherhood. I'm your host, Angela Hare. Life coach, wife, mama of two girls and fellow traveler in this wild, messy, magical thing we call parenting. If you're craving honest conversations, practical tips, and a reminder that you're not alone, you're in the right place. So, hey mama, let's talk.

Hey mama. Welcome back to Mama. Let's Talk. Thanks for being here today. I know there are a million other things you could be doing right now, so the fact that you're here means something, and whether you intentionally pressed play or just needed something in the background, you're in the right place. Today we're talking about something that I think most women don't realize they've lost until they're already living without it. No, I'm not talking about your sanity. I'm talking about learning to trust ourselves again. Not the trusting yourself in the big dramatic, quit your job and move across the country to live off the grid kind of way. But hey, if that's what you're into, go off Queen. I'm talking about trusting yourself in the quiet everyday moments. Trusting that gut feeling that tells you something isn't quite right. Trusting your instincts and your decisions and your timing. Trusting that inner voice that used to sound so clear and concise and now sometimes feels buried under everyone else's opinions and expectations and needs. If you've ever found yourself thinking, why can I not just decide or I don't even know what I want anymore? This conversation is for you. You didn't lose your instincts, you just stopped trusting them. When you got promoted to everyone else's, everything, you shifted into survival mode. And survival mode doesn't ask what feels right, it asks what needs to get done. So your instincts did what instincts do when they get ignored. They went quiet. They rested. Y'all, they basically went into hibernation, and now when you reach for them, they feel a little rusty or a little groggy. Well buckle up buttercup because we are about to wake the bear. I don't think we wake up one day and consciously decide to just stop trusting ourselves. There's no dramatic moment where we announce, you know what? I'm done listening to my intuition. It's quieter than that. It's subtle, and it tends to happen gradually. It happens when you become the reliable one, the responsible one, the one who can just handle it, the one who everyone calls. You become the calendar keeper, the snack packer, the emotional regulator, the fixer, the glue. And at first, yeah, it feels good. It feels capable and strong, but slowly something shifts. You start checking with other people before making decisions, you start asking, well, what do you think more often than you ask yourself what do I think? You start pulling the group chat. You start Googling, you start researching for three hours over something that used to take about three minutes. You start second guessing things that once felt obvious. And seriously, motherhood amplifies this in a way nothing else can. Because suddenly every decision feels weighted. Am I doing this right? Is this the right school, the right sport, the right discipline approach, the right friend group, the right response, the right boundary. Any of this sound familiar? You start feeling like every choice is shaping their entire future. No pressure. Right? And there is no shortage of opinions. From family friends, from that one mom at practice who somehow has a PhD in everything or from strangers on the internet who are extremely confident about how you should raise your children while eating cereal at midnight in their pajamas, and more than likely have approximately zero experience in raising kids. And when you care deeply, which you do, those opinions can get really loud. Not because you're insecure, but because you wanna do it right. You wanna be intentional, you wanna get it right the first time. So you start outsourcing your inner authority, not all at once, just a little at a time. You defer, you check, you compare, you adjust. Until one day you realize you don't fully know what you think anymore. And I get it. That can be scary. It's so easy to look for outside validation for our decisions, especially when we are decision overloaded. There was this moment recently, um, for me when I realized this was happening in real time. Olivia hit one of those big tender milestones. One of those moments where you look at your daughter and think, wow, we're here already. Okay. And afterward, instead of just sitting in it, I immediately started questioning myself. Did I make a big enough deal out of it? Did I say the right things? Should I have celebrated more or less or differently? I found myself asking anyone who would listen what they had done in that season. I was mentally scrolling through social media advice, comparing and measuring. The mom guilt started creeping in. What if I didn't handle it the way you're supposed to? What if I missed something important? What if I didn't mark it the right way? And I could feel myself spiraling, searching for something, anything that would bring me back to that steady feeling of I'm a good mom. But then I caught it. I wasn't actually confused. I wasn't lacking information. I wasn't incapable. I just wasn't trusting myself. Because when I slowed down, I knew the truth. I know I'm a good mom. I know I'm present and I know my girls and I have a strong open connection. And if there was anyone whose feedback mattered in that moment, it was hers. Hm. Not the internet, not the group chat, not the imaginary panel of motherhood judges in my head, just hers. So I leaned back into my instincts. I trusted the relationship we've built, and I trusted that we were going to be okay. The truth is most of us don't stop trusting ourselves because we're incapable. We stop because we're overloaded. We stop because we're trying to be good. We stop because when you're carrying everyone else's needs, your own voice tends to get a little quieter. Not because it disappeared, but because it got crowded out. And somewhere in the process of trying to be everything for everyone, we stopped fully trusting ourselves. For me, this realization didn't come in some dramatic movie worthy moment. It came in a very mundane, everyday life, ordinary one. Maybe it's the same for you. Maybe you're sitting in your car after a long day and you start feeling this pull, this knowing, this quiet voice inside saying, "hey, this isn't working." It's not in a catastrophic, burn it all down kind of way. Nothing's falling apart. I mean, life is good. It's full, it's successful, it's busy in all the socially acceptable ways, but internally, something feels slightly misaligned. For me, it was like I was performing a life instead of inhabiting it. And what surprised me wasn't that I had the thought, it was what I did next. My immediate reaction was to argue with it. I started listing all the reasons why that voice must be wrong. You are fine. Be grateful. Don't be dramatic. Other people have it harder. I built a whole courtroom case against my own intuition in about 30 seconds, and that is when it hit me. I didn't trust myself anymore, not because my intuition had failed me, not because I had some terrible life decision. But because I had gotten so used to overriding myself that it just felt automatic. My inner voice would speak and I would correct it, it would nudge and I would rationalize it away. It would whisper and I would drown it out with logic, productivity, or comparison. Ignoring myself had become the normal. And that realization was both sobering and freeing. And maybe you felt that too. That quiet internal nudge, you immediately explain away. That subtle discomfort you label as just being tired. That knowing you talk yourself out of because it doesn't fit neatly into your current responsibilities. Maybe you felt that low hum of something's off, but everything looks fine on paper. And so you dismiss it because it's just inconvenient, because it's untimely, because acknowledging it might require change. And change feels risky when you're the stable one or the dependable one. So instead of exploring it, you minimize it. And the more you minimize it, the quieter it gets. Until one day you realize it's not that your intuition stopped speaking, it's that you stopped honoring what it said. And that was the moment for me. Not a breakdown, not a crisis, just a quiet awareness that I had been negotiating with myself for a long time and I didn't wanna do that anymore. Here's something I really want you to hear. Your inner voice didn't disappear. It didn't pack a suitcase and move out because you got busy. It just stopped competing for airtime because when something keeps getting interrupted, eventually it lowers its volume. Your intuition is still there. It's just waiting for you to circle back, and here's the part that's important. Intuition rarely sounds like a booming voice saying Attention, everyone. This is the correct decision. It's more like a quiet steadiness, a subtle clarity, a soft sense of this feels aligned. This feels good. Sometimes it shows up as relief or as peace. Sometimes it's an unexpected exhale. And the interesting thing your body often knows before your brain catches up. Like there's actual neuroscience behind this. Your nervous system is constantly scanning for safety and alignment. It picks up on patterns, tone shifts, inconsistencies, like all of it long before your logical mind forms a conclusion. That's why you can walk into a room and instantly feel tension or meet someone and think, I can't explain it, but something feels off or say yes to something that looks great on paper and feel a tightness in your chest that you can't quite justify. It's not irrational, it's information. But here's what we've gotten really skilled at doing. We override it. We explain it away. We talk ourselves out of it. We say it's fine. We're overthinking. Don't be difficult. Don't rock the boat. Especially as women, especially as mothers. Especially as high capacity, dependable women who can endure discomfort like it's an Olympic sport. We pride ourselves on being adaptable. We can handle it, we can push through, we can make it work. And that ability, it's strength. But when strength turns into self abandonment, that's when things get murky. Because there's a difference between stretching yourself and silencing yourself. There's a difference between being flexible and ignoring your internal cues lose. And when you've been overriding your own signals for a long time, you can start to lose a sensitivity to them. Not because they stopped showing up, but because you stopped pausing long enough to notice. And I wanna say this gently, not critically, you didn't do this because you're weak. You did this because you're capable, you're responsible, because you care. You learn to tolerate what feels slightly off. In order to keep things steady. You learn to push past your own hesitation to meet everyone else's needs. And that makes sense. It makes sense in busy seasons, it makes sense in survival mode, but long term? Well, your system keeps score. Your body will keep sending nudges, your emotions will keep tapping you on the shoulder, and the more you practice paying attention to those small cues, the quicker clarity returns. As a grounded, steady knowing. The kind that doesn't shout, it just sits calmly and says this way. Let me give you a really ordinary example. Maybe you're child comes home from an activity they've always loved and something feels different. They say they're fine. Logically, nothing is wrong. The coach is great, their friends are there, it makes sense to keep going, but in your body, something feels off, not alarming, just different, and you just start to rationalize it. They're just tired. It's probably a phase. I don't wanna overreact. So you override the nudge, that little internal tap that says Lean in. Ask one more question, just slow down. Or in business, maybe you're about to say yes to an opportunity. It looks good on paper. The numbers work. Other people think it's smart, but when you imagine stepping into it, your shoulders tighten. Your stomach drops just slightly, and instead of honoring that signal, you talk yourself into it. It's fine. This is growth. Don't be scared. Now listen, sometimes discomfort is growth, but sometimes discomfort is misalignment, and the only way to know the difference is to stay connected to yourself long enough to listen. That's what intuition often sounds like, not fear or chaos or urgency. It's just information that's subtle and steady and available. Your body knows when something is aligned, your system recognizes when something isn't. And the more we override those signals, the harder it becomes to hear them clearly. And here's the hopeful part, you can retrain that. You can rebuild that connection. Not by making massive life changes tomorrow, but by pausing the next time something feels slightly off and just asking, what am I sensing right now? What is my body telling me? If no one else had an opinion, what would I choose? That is how you begin turning the volume back up gently, consistently, without shame. There are so many reasons we lose connection with our self-trust, and most of them make complete sense. Sometimes it's because we made a decision in the past that didn't go the way we hoped. Maybe you chose the job that looked secure and it drained you. Maybe you trusted a friendship and it shifted. Maybe you followed your gut once and the outcome was messy. And instead of seeing that as part of being human, we quietly turn it into a verdict. See, you can't trust yourself. But one imperfect outcome doesn't mean your internal guidance system is broken. It means you're alive. It means you're learning. It means you made the best choice you could with the information you had at the time. Y'all, that's not failure, that's growth. Sometimes we stop trusting ourselves because we were subtly trained not to. Many of us were raised to be agreeable, to be pleasant and easy, to not rock the boat. We learned that being liked, felt safer than being honest. So, we developed the ability to read a room. We can sense tension, we can anticipate needs, we can adjust ourselves in seconds, but, but when you get really good at adapting to everyone else, you can lose touch with your own preferences. What do you actually want? Not what works, not what keeps the peace, not what looks good. What feels true to you? And then there's the pace of our lives. We're moving fast. Even when we're sitting still, our brains are sprinting. If it's not schedules, it's deadlines and groceries, practices, emails, that text you forgot to answer three days ago. Yeah, sorry about that. Self self-trust requires presence. And presence requires space. Not hours of silence on a mountain somewhere, although that does sound nice. Just small pockets of noticing. But slowing down feels almost unnatural when you're managing a household, a career, relationships, responsibilities, and approximately 4,000 open mental tabs at all times. I'm convinced half of motherhood is walking into a room and thinking, why did I come in here again? And the other half is remembering something critically important at 11:47 PM when you are horizontal and finally still. That kind of constant motion, your inner voice doesn't get much attention because it doesn't compete with urgency. It doesn't shout over to-do lists. It's waiting for quiet, and if you haven't had quiet in a while, it can feel like it's gone. But underneath the busyness, underneath the noise, underneath the roles and the responsibilities and the expectation, there is still you. Still thoughtful, still perceptive, still capable of leading your own life. You didn't lose your wisdom. You've just been operating in output mode for a very long time. And when you're constantly producing, fixing, solving, managing, you don't always pause to check in. But the ability is still there. Your discernment didn't expire, your instincts didn't retire. They're just waiting for you to come back into relationship with them, through small moments of attention. You don't have to overhaul your entire life to rebuild that connection. You just have to start noticing again. Rebuilding trust with yourself doesn't require burning your life down and starting over. You don't need a new identity. You don't need a solo trip to Bali, although I'm not opposed You don't need a perfectly color coded morning routine. Again, not opposed. You need small, honest moments. That's it. Self-trust is rebuilt the same way it was lost, gradually. It starts with noticing. Noticing what gives you energy and noticing what takes that energy away. Noticing what feels steady in your body and what creates tension. And here's the key: noticing without immediately judging, instead of, "why am I like this?" Try, "oh, that's interesting. That's information." Your internal responses are data. Rebuilding trust also means honoring your signals in very ordinary Trusting when you're tired instead of powering through, because I should just be able to handle it. Drinking water before your third cup of coffee. Going to bed when you said you would instead of scrolling until your eyes burn. These aren't revolutionary acts, but they are relational acts. They tell your nervous system. Okay. Okay, I hear you. It looks like saying no when something doesn't sit right, even if you don't have a perfectly articulated reason. It looks like letting yourself change your mind without turning it into a character flaw. You're allowed to evolve. You're allowed to gather new information, and you are allowed to pivot. It looks like making a decision without running it past five different people just to calm your anxiety. Okay, now listen wise counsel is valuable. Yes. But constant reassurance seeking erodes self-leadership. There's a difference between gathering perspective and outsourcing authority. And maybe most importantly, it looks like keeping small promises to yourself. If you say you're going to take a 10 minute walk, take it. If you say you're gonna have a hard conversation. Schedule it. If you say you're gonna stop overcommitting, pause before you say yes. Because every time you follow through on something you told yourself you would do, you send a message internally that you'll show up for yourself that you mean what you say, that you can rely on yourself, and that message builds. Think of it like compound interest for your confidence. Tiny deposits repeated consistently. No grand gestures required. You don't rebuild self-trust by being perfect. You rebuild it by being honest. By catching yourself when you override your own needs. By pausing when something feels off, by correcting gently instead of criticizing harshly. This isn't about becoming more rigid, it's about becoming more aligned. And alignment feels different than control. Alignment feels calm, and grounded and clear. It's the quiet confidence of knowing you are not abandoning yourself in the process of taking care of everyone else. And that kind of steadiness, that's powerful. It's not loud or flashy, but it is strong. If you're listening and thinking, okay, but how do I actually start? Here's something you can try this week, just three small shifts. Step one, pause and name it once a day, just once, pause and ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? What does my body feel like? Not what should I feel? Not what do I wish I felt? Just what's true. Maybe it's tight or calm. Or irritated. Or peaceful. Naming it builds awareness and awareness rebuilds connection. You can't trust what you don't notice. Step two, make one aligned micro decision. Every day this week, make one small decision without outsourcing it. It can be tiny. Maybe it's where you want to eat, whether you go to the workout, if you need 20 minutes alone before engaging again, whether that commitment actually fits your capacity. And when your brain says, text someone and see what they think. Pause. Ask yourself first, what do I think? Then act on that. Not recklessly, just intentionally. Step three, keep one promise to yourself. Pick one small promise for the week. Not 12, just one. We don't need a whole re-intervention plan. Maybe it's going to bed by a certain time. Maybe it's taking a walk three days this week. Maybe it's finally scheduling that appointment you've been putting off. Whatever it is, keep it. Because every time you follow through, you reinforce a new internal message, that you can rely on yourself. And that reliability, that's where confidence comes from. It's not hype, it's consistency. You need repetition, small, steady proof that your voice matters. I am gonna challenge you to try this for seven days and just watch how quickly that quiet internal knowing starts getting a little stronger. If you've been feeling disconnected from yourself, I want you to hear this very clearly: you're not broken, you're not incapable. You haven't lost your ability to lead your life. You've just been living in survival mode. You've been carrying a lot, and sometimes survival mode requires you to temporarily disconnect from yourself to keep everything moving. But you don't have to stay there. You can come back to yourself, not by forcing it, but by gently turning toward yourself again,. By getting curious and listening and allowing your voice to matter. When you start trusting yourself again, everything shifts. Decision making becomes easier, not because you suddenly know everything, but because you stop abandoning yourself in the process. You stop seeking constant external validation. You stop explaining yourself to everyone. You stop living in constant second guessing. You start moving through your life with a quiet steadiness. It's not loud or performative, it's just grounded. And maybe, most importantly, your kids see it. They see what it looks like for a woman to trust herself, to honor herself, to listen to herself, and that gives them permission to do the same, because, I mean, seriously, they're always watching. Hey mama, if this episode found you in a place where you've been second guessing yourself, where you've been questioning your decisions, where you've quietly wondered, when did I stop feeling so sure? Let this be your reminder, you don't need to reinvent yourself. You don't need a new personality or a louder voice. You don't need to prove anything to anyone. You just need to return to yourself to the version of you that knows, that senses, to the version of you that felt clear before the noise got so loud. Your voice didn't disappear. It's still there. It's just been waiting for you to slow down long enough to hear it again. And here's the beautiful part, you don't have to fix everything right now. You don't have to untangle every decision or resolve every doubt this week. Just start small. Start gently. Start with one pause, one honest check-in, one moment of choosing not to override yourself. Self-trust isn't rebuilt in grand declarations. It's rebuilt in quiet, in integrity, in small follow through, in catching yourself when you start to outsource your authority and bringing it back home. It's one honest moment at a time. Thank you for being here. Thank you for pressing play. And thank you for being willing to look inward instead of numbing out and staying on autopilot. That is courage and it matters more than you think. Y'all. I really am so grateful we get to have these conversations. I'll see you next time.

Come back next week. Bring your coffee, your chaos, and your whole self because on this show, we're not here to have it all figured out. We're here to get real, get honest, and grow through it together. Talk to you soon, mama.