What Wellness Really Means When You’re a Mum

(Especially in a Season That Feels Too Full)

At this time of year, wellness can start to feel heavy.

Not wellness as care, but wellness as an ideal.
Something to achieve. Something to keep up with.
Another invisible standard quietly whispers, 'You should be doing more.'

For many mothers, especially in full and demanding seasons, wellness doesn’t feel supportive. It feels like another thing we’re failing at.

When Wellness Becomes a Performance

Somewhere along the way, wellness shifted from a practice to a performance.

Early mornings, perfect routines, balance, optimisation, constant self-improvement, all wrapped in the promise that if you just tried harder, you’d feel better.

But for mums already stretched thin, this version of wellness often asks for the very things we don’t have:
Time.
Energy.
Silence.
Space.

Recently, I listened to a conversation about wellness washing - how the wellness industry often preys on the very struggles mothers live with daily: overwhelm, exhaustion, lack of time, and the feeling of never being enough.

Hearing that named out loud softened something in me.

Because it isn’t that we’re failing at wellness.
It’s that wellness has been sold to us in a way that was never meant for real life.

See This Through a Yoga Lens

In Meditations from the Mat, Rolf Gates writes about yoga not as a pursuit of perfection, but as a process of returning.

Returning to the breath.
Returning to the body.
Returning to what’s true... again and again.

Not perfectly.
Just consistently.

That idea reshaped how I understand wellness.

We’re not meant to perform it.
We’re meant to practice it.

Performance asks, How does this look?
Practice asks, How does this feel?

The Quiet Kind of Wellness

The version of wellness that actually supports mothers is small and quiet.

It might look like:

• unclenching your jaw while rinsing a cup

• taking one slow exhale before responding to someone’s needs

• feeling your feet on the floor

• placing a gentle hand on your heart and whispering, “I’m here”

• choosing one small yes that honours you

• tasting your tea before it goes cold

These moments aren’t dramatic.
They don’t require extra time, silence, or a new identity.

They are yoga.
They are nervous system care.
They are mindfulness in real life.

And they are enough.

A More Honest Definition of Wellness

In seasons that feel full, demanding, or overwhelming, wellness might simply be this:

Choosing presence over perfection.
Awareness over achievement.
A breath instead of a performance.

What if wellness wasn’t something you had to add - but something you could notice?

A Gentle Place to Land

If this resonates and you’re craving a quiet, grounding space, I created The Slow Scroll Library, a free corner of my website filled with short videos, simple practices, reflections, podcasts, and gentle support.

There’s no sign-up.
No pressure.
Just space.

You can visit it anytime at:
clare-gent.com/the-slow-scroll-library

Wherever you are today, I hope you find one small moment of return.
One pause.
One soft breath that reminds you:

You’re doing beautifully.
And you are already enough.