I started here:

C mom says “I have lots of things I wish for”
T She is unhappy and it is my fault (I know this is an interpretation but I am attached to believing it’s true)
F Guilt / not enough
A Beat myself up, lose sleep, I worry about not having children, I make myself feel miserable, I ruminate, I don’t fully feel my feelings, I get stuck in this guilt spiral, I don’t fully live my life, I suck all the joy out of my life.
R I am unhappy and it is my fault

So, I can see that this model isn’t helpful. I can see that the underlying belief here is that “I can and should make her happy.” That feels so, so heavy.

C Mother exists
T I can and should make her happy
F Heavy, depressed
A I try everything I can possibly think of to make her happy, I fight against my life, I try to figure out how to please her and nothing ever works, I completely abandon myself, I jump into her model. I spin around in circles not knowing how to get out of this model.
R I’m not sure

C mother talks about the child across the street
T If I had kids she’d be happy
F Immense pressure
A Ruminate, panic about running out of time, feel the intense amount weight of making this happen, I fight the reality of my life really hard
R I ruin my life

I’m all about believing new things. But with this….I don’t know where to take it.

I see that I have a manual that says: mothers should be happy with their children just as they are.
Clearly that’s not true, because I’m pretty sure she’d like me to be different.
If she were happy with me just as I am, I’d feel good enough, and complete. Yay!
But I don’t feel that way. Am I supposed to do a thought ladder here? I feel like I don’t even know which thought to start with.

I want to believe that it’s not my job to make her happy, and I want to get out of her models. But when she says things that imply she’s gravely unhappy, which I know she is, I feel like it’s my fault. Where to even begin here?