An Interview with Rebecca Geshuri, LMFT, PMH-C, on New Book When Good Moms Feel Bad

I spoke with co-author Rebecca Geshuri about her new book, When Good Moms Feel Bad: An Empowering Guide for Transforming Guilt, Anxiety, and Anger into Compassion, Confidence, and Connectedness. This warm and compassionate book is for moms at all stages of motherhood.

What is When Good Moms Feel Bad about, and who is the intended audience?

When Good Moms Feel Bad is a practical book for all moms and the people who care for them. The book is an empowering tool, supporting moms in untangling the complicated feelings that come with mothering. We call those complicated feelings “Mom Parts.” We married our knowledge of Internal Family Systems, a non-pathologizing therapeutic modality, and our deep understanding of motherhood to create a user-friendly method that helps moms get to the root of their suffering. We want every mom who feels overwhelmed, exhausted, angry, anxious, or like they are failing to have an accessible and validating way to begin to heal the parts of them that are hurting, without feeling shame.

What inspired you to write When Good Moms Feel Bad, and why did you feel now was the right time for this book?

We wrote this book because it seemed like every single mom who walked into our offices was presenting with the same issues – feeling like they were failing in all aspects of their life – motherhood, work, partnership; feeling overwhelmed, and overall, simply grieving about the loss of their pre-kid lives. 

The time is now because we wanted to be a catalyst in the paradigm shift around what it means to be a mom, especially in America. Moms often feel tremendous pressure to be “perfect.” American society is not set up to support moms. There’s a growing advocacy movement to establish better social systems, and organizations like PSI are doing invaluable work to support moms on a day-to-day basis. I have immense gratitude for this, but systemic change takes a long, long time. So how do moms live within the inadequate system and not fall apart? Somebody has to tend to the internal experience of moms. That’s where we come in.

For readers who are new to Internal Family Systems, how would you explain the concept of “parts” in a simple, approachable way?

The fundamental idea is that every person has many different parts of themselves. This doesn’t mean you’re crazy or have multiple personality disorder (or DID as it’s now called in clinical circles). It simply means that often there are parts of us that get activated in different situations, and often, they are polarized, meaning one part wants one thing, and another part wants something else. For instance, one part of me absolutely loves being a mom and another part of me doesn’t want to be responsible for driving one more carpool – ever.

A key thing to remember is that there are no bad parts. All parts are trying to help you and have good intentions. Even parts that we don’t like or feel scary have good intentions. Internal Family Systems’s (IFS’s) “goal” is to befriend our parts. Just like starting a relationship with a new person, we have to build relationships with our parts on the inside.

There are 3 types of parts: 

• Managers are proactive parts who want to keep you out of trouble – or really, keep you from feeling any pain. These are parts like Caretakers, Perfectionists, Mama Bears, or Anxious parts. We tend to call these “Good Mom” parts.

• Firefighters are reactive parts who just want to put out the fire. They don’t care what’s in the way, they are just getting out the hose to douse the pain. These can be parts like Anger, Blamers, Resentful, or even Suicidal parts. We tend to call these “Bad Mom” parts and they get criticized by our Inner Critics, but also externally by other moms, family members, and society.

• Exiles are the small inner children that got hurt when they were very young and need to be protected by the managers and firefighters. These parts carry beliefs like, “I’m bad,” “I’m not good enough,” or “I don’t matter.” 

Finally, a key IFS concept what we refer to as “Self” with a capital S – or what you might call your core, your soul, your center. We call it your Inner Mom. The qualities of your Inner Mom are: Curiosity, Compassion, Creativity, Connectedness, Confidence, Clarity, Calmness, and Courage. In the book we call these qualities “Remedies” because they truly heal you from the inside out.

What makes “Mom Parts” unique compared to other kinds of parts people may recognize in therapy?

Much of the suffering that mothers experience occurs when their parts become polarized. In my experience, moms often feel that the parts of themselves that were solely focused on their kids (i.e., Caretaker, Responsible, Nurturer, Superwoman) were good. But all moms also have parts that want something for Mom. These parts tend to be categorized as bad because they require attention to be pulled away from the kids. These parts really want Mom to be supported, too. For example, when you are up all night with a sick kid, your Blamer part might snap at your partner for sleeping, even though you may have negotiated a plan in advance. The Blamer has a knee-jerk reaction in order to get your needs met. The problem is, our knee-jerk reactions aren’t very relational, and it’s likely that kind of reaction will just irritate your partner. The fallout is that you end up in a shame cycle, or, in other words, feeling bad.

Key concepts of IFS are unblending and befriending. Will you give an example of what these look like in real life?

Unblending means slowing down enough to separate your Inner Mom from your part. When you are blended with a part, it takes over your whole being. Instead of saying, “I’m so mad at you for coming home late!”, if you unblend, you might say instead, “I felt an angry part come up when you said you were coming home late from work. It bummed me out because I knew I wouldn’t get a break from the baby.” It may seem like that’s really hard to do, but in IFS we often say, “We go slow to go fast.” It has to do with Curiosity towards your parts, which helps you understand what you really need. In the book, we introduced a quick little tool to help you access this. Think of the word SLOW as an acronym to help you remember.

• Soften your body. Body sensations give us clues about our parts.
• Listen to what you’re feeling. See if you can really hear the messages your parts are trying to give you.
• Open your heart to what’s here. Again, this is about being curious and noticing what’s truly needed.
• Wait for messages from your parts. When we listen to what our part’s hopes and fears are, we can make better choices about how to behave. 

For example, what mom doesn’t get frustrated when they’ve asked their five-year-old to put their shoes on for school five times? When you feel that Frustrated part bubble up to the surface, see if you can SLOW down a bit to notice what’s underneath the frustration; what the Frustrated part is hoping for. Maybe it’s wanting you to get your kid to school on time so you can get to work on time and not face the wrath of your boss again. Maybe it’s remembering how you got in trouble for being late to school every day when you were a kid because your mom didn’t get you there on time. Once you notice those tender spots, it’s likely you’ll start to notice something more like Compassion entering your body.

Can you share a moment from your clinical work that encapsulates why this work matters so much?

I’ve been working with some moms for many years, and I have the privilege of seeing the transformation from crisis to maintenance. In IFS terms, from being blended to being Self-led. When I hear a mom say to me, “My daughter had a meltdown on the way to school again today, and I stayed calm and helped her through it. I realized after that I didn’t have a meltdown myself,” I’m overjoyed. Not only is that mom calmer and more confident, but her child has the experience of being cared for in a way that will cement her own Self-compassion. Instead of passing down anger and disconnection to the next generation, that mom is passing down love and connection.

How do you hope your book changes the cultural conversation around motherhood?

I want this conversation to be less taboo. I want moms to be able to speak their truth without feeling shame. I want moms to allow their grief to be present, held, and understood. I want society to acknowledge that mothering is hard work, time-consuming, energy-draining, and expensive – and I want that acknowledgement to come in the form of more services and support. A mom’s choice to go back to work shouldn’t be determined by whether they can afford childcare.

I want moms who read When Good Moms Feel Bad to feel cared for and loved.

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Interview conducted by Postpartum Support International’s Samantha Reaves, MA, PMH-C.

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