Thrive Like a Mother Podcast
I'm Ebony and I'm a mama to 3 beautiful souls. I'm learning how navigate my trauma healing while building the life I never dreamed was possible. I'm a survivor of childhood abuse and for the longest time, I believed that if anyone knew my story, I wouldn't be worthy of love. Many years later and now I know that it far from the truth.
On the Thrive Like a Mother podcast, I'll share the resources and tools I use on the daily to cultivate a healthy mindset break the wheel of survival. Here we're about honesty and transparency. Because at the root of it all, my purpose in creating this podcast is so that you know you are never alone in your journey.
There may be laughter, there may be tears and we'll do it all by linking arms and learning to thrive together.
Thrive Like a Mother Podcast
Being a safe space for big feelings
Some days begin and end in tears; sometimes theirs, sometimes ours. When the storm hits, the most powerful thing we can offer our kids isn’t a perfect script or a quick fix; it’s a steady presence that says, you are safe here. I’m sharing how choosing calm over urgency transforms meltdowns into moments of trust, and why witnessing can do more than convincing ever will.
We unpack the shift from fixing feelings to holding space for them. I talk through real-life moments with my three kids, what changed when I stopped matching their energy, and how co-regulation teaches emotional safety without lectures. You’ll hear two simple tools you can use today: name what’s true—“You’re tired; I’m tired too”—to help both nervous systems downshift, and reflect after the dust settles to build self-awareness and repair. Along the way, we explore boundaries and limits, why stepping away for five minutes can save the moment, and how open body language, gentle tone, and small choices restore a child’s sense of control.
This conversation is for anyone living through toddler tantrums or kid-sized hurricanes and wondering how to stay grounded. You’ll leave with practical steps that fit real life: breathing before reacting, giving options, using an emotions poster or bedtime debriefs, and remembering that presence matters more than perfection.
Your kids don’t need you to be a robot; they need you to be human and consistent, a safe place they can trust when feelings overflow.
If this episode meets you where you are, share it with a friend who needs a reminder that calm is contagious.
Thank you so much for listening in! If this episode spoke to you, it would mean the world to me if you left a review or shared it with a friend. And don’t forget to tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me spread the word.
Follow and chat with me on Instagram:
Podcast account - @thrivelikeamother.podcast
Personal account - @thrive.empowered
Sending you light and love always!
You have to allow your kids to see you processing those big feelings just as they are trying their best to figure out how to process those big feelings. So when we even if we are having big feelings, when we are able to re ground ourselves and allow our kids to see that, they start to learn, okay, there's safety in this person. I can trust this person. When we allow them themselves to feel, they start to learn that I'm not too much. I am enough just as I am. Right? Hey Love, I'm Ebony and welcome to Thrive Like a Mother. On this podcast, we're scared for our truth, but that fear is what fuels us to truly live in it. You're in the right place if you feel like you're stuck in survival mode and you're ready to step into who you were truly meant to be. I'll share resources and tools I use daily to help you in your journey with a healthier mindset and to break the wheel of survival. The journey may not be easy, but you won't have to face it alone. I'm a mama of three healing day by day from past trauma, and I'm on a mission to build a life I've always dreamed of, but never thought was possible. So love, if you're ready to believe in what's possible, let's link arms and thrive together. Today I want to talk about something that has truly been on my heart for a while. And it's about the way that we hold space for our kids when the emotions are running high. I mean, let's let's get real. If you are a mom listening to this, you know exactly what I meet, especially if you are now to be fair, I have younger kids, right? So I haven't hit the preteen or teenage years, but let's be real, the toddler emotions and kid emotions, they are big sometimes. Like so big. And the meltdowns, those big feelings, those things that they can't yet fully process, um, kind of in a way without feeling like, oh my gosh, it is like this is the worst possible feeling ever. Sometimes it feels like they can hold on to things and be like, this is just the way things are, and this is horrible. It's those long days, long days where you are working on getting them to bed and then they end in tears or the start of days where we start off with big tears in the morning. And sometimes it's just theirs, and other times we may be joining in, right? Um, so recently there's kind of been a shift. Let me let me give you a little background first, right? I'm a mom of three. I had a seven-year-old, a four-year-old, and um, I'm gonna say he's he's a little over one and a half. He's turning two in February, right? But there has been a shift in how I recently have been finding myself reacting to when those moments happened, especially now being a mom for 70 years. Wow. Wild, wild. But it was maybe a few months back, right? Jeed our four-year-old. She's coming out from kind of the toddler zone and coming into her kid era. She had a full meltdown. And y'all, my kids have meltdowns all the time. Know that, you know, social media can be that highlight reel, right? I'm not on there like posting my kids' meltdowns. Every once in a while, I might come on my stories and share with y'all, hey, like this is what's going on. Me too, right? Like, you're not the only one dealing with the meltdowns. But y'all, she was exhausted. She was exhausted. And honestly, I was too. It had been a long, long day. Every part of me wanted to just wake her up and cry with her too. I realized that what good would that do in that moment if we were both falling apart from exhaustion? And I knew that that's what it was. I knew that, you know, this wasn't necessarily something that, you know, an emotion that I had to help her process in that way through talking, because it was mostly like, we're just tired. We're exhausted, right? And so instead of melting down with her, which sometimes as a mom you feel like you want to do, I said I took it to a deep breath, a deep breath. I did my best to stay grounded. And I let her cry. I let her cry and I let her feel everything she needed to feel in that moment. And because I was able to do that, I was able to become her safe place. And I had just enough, just enough left in me to let her land, to let her be calm when she like couldn't find that in her own in that moment. And I'm not gonna, I'm not saying that that's gonna happen every time, right? We are human, right? Mamas still remember that yes, our kids see us as superheroes, but we are still human. But there are moments where you can take that deep breath, right? So that's what I want I want to talk about really today, is really just both the beauty and the challenge of holding space for our kids' feelings while still honoring who we are too as people, as humans. Before you were a mom, you're a woman. Before you were that, you were a young woman. And before that, you were just a little girl too, right? And both can be true. Right? We can know that there is beauty in a holding space, and there is challenge in a holding space. And both of those deserve you coming at it from a lens of compassion. Okay, so let's talk about how I used to respond when my kids were upset or emotional, especially as a new mama of just one. When Olivia used to start to have a meltdown, I used to like jump quickly into action, try my best to fix it. What's wrong? What's happening? Sometimes even trying to match the energy, be like, oh, are you gonna come at me? I'm gonna come at you with the same energy. And my goodness did I, thank goodness I learned from that. But sometimes there was also that part, right? That was like, okay, maybe they're big emotions, maybe I'm doing something wrong, right? Maybe this is a reflection on what I've been doing or how I've been showing up as a parent. We've all been there, right? We're human. And this work as a mother and motherhood, it's not about perfection, but it is about starting to become self-aware of when those moments happen and when you can start to possibly shift them, right? And so what changed for me, like I talked about in this in the beginning, right? Watching her meltdown. As much as I wanted to melt down too, as much as I wanted to fall out and cry too, because girl, I'm exhausted too. I started to slow down, take a moment and slow down, recognize that both of us are maybe feeling exhausted. Maybe both of us had a rough day. But instead, choosing to be that grounding space, instead of just starting to create my own storm, because in that moment, when you think about it, it's not what our kids need. And I'm not saying it's gonna be perfect every time, but if you are able to slow down and have that self-awareness in that moment, you can start to shift the way that that interaction is gonna go. And so you're gonna start to first of all take a deep breath. Because even if you need to step away for five minutes, mama, go out in the closet, go out in a room somewhere, say, I just need to take five, take that moment for yourself, right? They'll be fine, right? They'll be fine if they're crying and things like that. They will be fine for five minutes for you to take a second to reset. And when you come back, go back and have the calm tone. I mean, that's the opposite of what they're giving you, right? We're not matching energy here. No, you're not matching energy because that is just a recipe for disaster. But we are being open with our body language and saying, hey, I'm here. I'm here and available for you, right? When you're ready. And just being that gentle presence that when they realize, okay, all is not ending, this is not, you know, the worst thing that's ever happened. Like I'm gonna be okay. They'll be ready to come to you. So in that moment, you know, taking a second and realizing it, even though I was exhausted too, that I was able to hold space. And it doesn't mean that I have to have any answers, right? I don't know what she's feeling completely in her body. Yes, as a mom, I can gauge, like you're tired, right? But maybe she had been going through something else earlier in the day that she hadn't told me yet. Sometimes that happens with my oldest, right? I do my best as a mom to check in with them and say, how was your day? You know, what was your favorite part? What was the worst part? I do all those things, but sometimes all the things don't come up. And sometimes they forget too. And so you don't have to have all the answers. You just have to hold space and be open. You just have to give them a safe place to feel their emotions, right? Know that you're not gonna judge them. You're not going to try to get them to stop. Of course, keep them safe, right? I always tell my kids, like, hey, my number one priority is definitely to keep you safe. And so I'm gonna make sure that you can safely feel whatever you're feeling right now. And when you're ready, like I'm here, right? But why does this matter, right? Why does it matter for them? Why does it matter for us? It's because I learned that our kids start to learn emotional regulation when they're watching ours, right? And that doesn't mean that we have to be perfect all the time, but you have to allow your kids to see you processing those big feelings just as they are trying their best to figure out how to process those big feelings. So when we, even if we are having big feelings, when we are able to reground ourselves and allow our kids to see that, they start to learn, okay, there's safety in this person. I can trust this person. When we allow them themselves to feel, they start to learn that I'm not too much. I am enough just as I am, right? You're allowing them to also see that my mom still has limits. My mom also gets tired, and I'm watching her honor that she's human and she can still be a safe space for me and for herself to feel her feelings, and for me to feel my feelings and know that she's not gonna tell me, you know, I'm being too much or I need to stop. She is that place where I can't process, and so I want to offer you two ways to start to practice this this balance, right? It's not about being perfect, it's not about putting on a mask and saying mama is always this grounded perfect person. That's not it. But you want to start first one, name it for yourself, name that feeling for yourself. For me, in that moment, it was saying I'm tired and she's tired, and verbalizing that to them too. My gosh, you're so tired. Me too. And when you like pause to give a name to what's happening, not only does it start to give your nervous system a cue to slow down, it starts to give them a cue to understand what's happening with their body, right? Or it gives them a clue to start thinking about what's happening, why they're reacting in this way. Because sometimes we may not we may not be right. What we say, maybe they're feeling, may not be what they're feeling, and that's okay. But it gives them, it opens the door for them to think, and it opens the door for them to know it's okay to tell mama what exactly is going on with me, even if it takes me a second to understand like what that is. And it gives them a chance to like regulate, right? It's like a little light bulb. It's the light bulb that now they can focus on instead of outwardly feeling their feelings or just feeling like, oh, this is doom and gloom. It's just the end of everything. This is awful. This is the worst time ever. It gives them something else to focus on so that they can regulate themselves and start to respond to you and with you, right? And at that time, y'all both can take a deep breath. And if they are still not there yet, then that's your moment, mama, to say, I'm going to step into another room. Would you like me to do that? Or do you want me to stay with you? Right? Give them the option. But if you certainly still need to step out for that five, please take it, mama. Please. There is no shame in letting them see that you are human just like them. And that just because you are older doesn't mean that you no longer have feelings. It just means that maybe you're a little bit better at regulating them. And sometimes that means taking a step out to get yourself together first before you start responding, before you can get so worked up that you do start matching their energy. And then when you come back, you can start to witness your child's feelings instead of trying to go into fix it mode. Okay. So, first one, start to try to name the feeling. Start to help them try to name the feeling. Number two, you want to reflect afterward, right? And this is like something that you guys can do together, depending on like when this event happened. At bedtime, it was like, okay, nope, we've regulated and now it's time to get rest. We can talk about it in the morning. Or if you would like, we can talk about it. But you want to reflect always with yourself after, because that's where the magic is going to happen for you as a parent with that awareness. Like, did I respond? Did I show up in the way that I wanted to? Was there any where? And this is not a judgment moment, right? This is that self-awareness, right? Were there any places where I could have done something differently or I could have responded in a different way? When you feel like you didn't respond in the way that you wanted to. Like I said, this is no judgment. You give yourself grace. You give yourself grace because that is part of modeling humanity too. That's a part of saying, hey, baby, I didn't exactly show up the way that I wanted to. But you know what? I noticed that, and I can change that for next time. Not only are you giving yourself grace, but you're also teaching them that it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to be human. It's okay to have that self-awareness to understand basically that, okay, I am still growing, I am still learning, right? It opens up that door of mama is human too, right? We're not superheroes, we're not robots. We are human too. And so as we wrap up today, I want to remind you that you don't need to be perfect. Your kids don't need you to be perfect. They just need you to be present. And whatever it takes for you to get to that point, you do, whether it's the deep breath, whether it's the five minutes of walk away time, because you need some time so that you don't match their energy, because that would not be helpful, right? But they need to know also that those big feelings, those feelings that feel like they are bigger almost in them, that it's not gonna scare you away. That you're not gonna be like, whoa, that's too much. You want to let them know that it's safe to cry with you, to be frustrated, to be annoyed, to have a day that is hard, because they will start to see and they will see what safety looks like in you, and they will know that you are a safe space. And then on your side, you get to show up as the human that you are. How awesome is it to take that pressure off because we still get tired, we still feel overwhelmed, we still need that one minute or five minutes, we still need that moment to step away, to take a deep breath, to allow ourselves to regulate before we come back and respond to our kids. That's how we ourselves learn, continue to learn emotional safety. And that's how we show them how to create emotional safety. So this week, I want you to practice those two things, right? I want you to name what's true for you in that moment and what you're naming. Try to help them name it, especially those with younger kids. They sometimes they're still learning what those emotions are, right? Help them understand what they are. In our house, we have there's a poster. There is a poster that shows the emotions. And when they're in school, they start to talk about these things too. But help them start to figure out, okay, how are we actually feeling? Which one of these matches like where you're at right now, right? Because we want to name what that is so we can start to work through it. And number two, I want you to take a deep breath before you react. Regulate yourself before you react. And then reflect after you react. Take that moment for self-learnings and let that that pause and that moment, let that become your superpower. Right? Let that become the thing that maybe your kids don't have just yet, but they're gonna watch you and they're gonna start to pick up those traits and those qualities. Because when you are choosing to be the calm instead of matching that energy, instead of matching the chaos that is a toddler tantrum, you're teaching your kid that love is holding space for feelings, or love can hold space for feelings without losing itself, right? You can be that safe space without saying, I am going to also go off the rails with you. I want to remind you that you're doing a beautiful job, right? Thank you always, y'all. Thank you for just letting me come on here and share this space with you, share my thoughts with you as my own journey through motherhood. And as always, I'm sending you love, I'm sending you light, I'm sending you grace for every single moment, both in the calm and when the storm hits. Thank you so much for listening, love. If anything in today's episode resonated with you, share it with your bestie or share it on social media and tag me so we can chat about it. As always, sending you light and love. And remember, you are worthy, you are enough, and you deserve to thrive.
