Why Relaxation Feels Impossible for Mothers – and How to Finally Feel at Ease

Motherkind

Zoe Blaskey

Kids & Family, Parenting

4.8 • 863 Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A Most-Listened-To 2025 Episode - If you’ve ever thought, “I don’t think I’ve ever met a relaxed woman”, this episode will show you why and how to finally feel more at ease. To close the year, we’re re-releasing one of our most listened-to episodes of 2025, and it’s no wonder it struck such a chord. Speaking to many of you in our community, one theme comes up again and again: women feel permanently rushed, tense and overwhelmed. Relaxation doesn’t just feel unlikely, it feels unimaginable. And most of us have no idea how to get from “constantly on edge” to “at ease in our own bodies.” In this grounding and beautifully honest episode, therapist and author Nicola Jane Hobbs explores what it really means to become a “relaxed woman” not as a luxury, but as a way of living that’s rooted in nervous system safety, self-permission and gentleness. Nicola shares why relaxation feels so rare, how guilt gets woven into rest, and what begins to change when you start feeling safe in your own skin. She also opens up about her first year of motherhood, the tenderness, the disorientation, the identity shift and how it transformed everything she thought she knew about rest. In this conversation, you’ll learn: Why your nervous system resists slowing down and how to help it feel safe How guilt became tied to rest and why guilt can be a sign you’re growing Tiny, realistic ways to bring rest into your day without more time or childcare Why can’t we become relaxed women alone, and how to build the support you need Remember to subscribe to Motherkind — it helps more mothers find the show and keeps our community growing. If you liked this episode, listen to this next: MOMENT | Calm your nervous system in seconds with this technique Feeling different since becoming a mother? Get clarity on who you’re becoming now and download your FREE Matrescence Cheat Sheet Connect with Zoe: Follow Zoe on Instagram Get Zoe’s Sunday Times bestselling book, 'Motherkind: A New Way to Thrive in a World of Endless Expectations’ This Motherkind episode is sponsored by: Headline sponsor Wild Nutrition, the brand raising the bar for women’s supplements. Want to feel the Food-Grown difference yourself? Get 50% off for three months at wildnutrition.com/motherkind. Ts and Cs apply. For a £100 sponsored job credit, visit Indeed.com/ Motherkind Get 40% off a Calm premium subscription at calm.com/motherkind Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Motherkind. It is me, your host Zoe. We are sponsored by Wild Nutrition,
0:11.9	and this is the show that is about you, the woman behind the mother. Do you struggle to
0:18.2	switch off? Do you finally sit down and then start mentally scrolling through
0:22.5	everything that you should be doing? Do you find it hard to let go of control or maybe you feel
0:27.6	like things have to be done your way? Well, no shade. You're not alone because when I first
0:33.9	released today's episode, hundreds of you message me saying, this is me. So today I'm
0:40.1	bringing it back. I recorded this conversation with Nicola Jane Hobbs in April. She is a leading
0:45.4	therapist who specialises in the psychology of rest and relaxation in women and is one of the
0:52.2	most powerful episodes of the year. And yes, I know it's December.
0:56.5	It is peak mental load Olympics time. It might feel like the worst possible time to talk about rest.
1:03.9	But actually it's the best time because learning how to take tiny pockets of rest,
1:08.6	even in the kind of mental chaos of December, is what
1:12.5	helps us to keep going without burning out. So here it is. And I hope it gives you exactly
1:17.5	what you need to hear today. Nicola, I first came across your work, I think like millions of other days with your viral post about being a relaxed woman.
1:35.9	And I wondered, what is it? Do you think about those two words together and your work on being a relaxed woman that just so caught the attention
1:46.6	of so many women. I think as I've been doing my research into women's relationship with
1:52.9	rest and relaxation and we talked about the archetype of the relaxed women, what came up is that
1:58.4	there is something within us that recognises this archetype of
2:03.7	the relaxed women as if she lives in all of us, but has been suppressed beneath kind of
2:09.8	decades of societal pressures and unrealistic expectations and patriarchal conditioning. And I think as
2:17.3	that kind of post showed is that we're
2:21.2	yearning for that deep down. And sometimes just saying those two words together, relax and
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Zoe Blaskey, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Zoe Blaskey and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.