You were never broken, Mama!

“Suffering psychological upset was the price we paid for our heroic search for understanding.” - Jeremy Griffith

You Were Never Broken, Mama!

Reclaiming your innate goodness in a world obsessed with blame and shame

There’s a silent weight most mothers carry.

It’s not the nappy bag, the laundry basket, or the dinner that no one seems to want.
It’s the invisible burden of blame and shame.

We’re blamed when we don’t bounce back.
Shamed when we yell.
Questioned for breastfeeding. Questioned for bottle feeding.
Judged when we stay home. Judged when we work.
Told to be present but also productive.
Asked to love unconditionally — while receiving little understanding in return.

Is it any wonder so many mothers lie in bed at night whispering to themselves:

“I’m failing.”

The Blame Game of Modern Motherhood

The culture we live in is addicted to critique.
Scroll your feed and you'll see it — an avalanche of “perfect parenting” advice wrapped in subtle (or not so subtle) judgment.

And we internalise it.
We ask, “What’s wrong with me?”
We think, “If I was just more healed, more conscious, more calm…”

But what if the problem isn’t with you?

What if the system is broken?
What if we’ve all been living under a misunderstanding of what it means to be human?

You Were Never Broken — A Biological Perspective

Let me introduce you to a man called Jeremy Griffith, an Australian biologist whose life work has been dedicated to answering the deepest of all human questions:

“Why are we the way we are — capable of so much love, yet so much hurt?”

For centuries, we were told that humans are “bad by nature.” That our selfishness and anger are instinctual, embedded in our DNA like some savage inheritance. This is the view so many parents subconsciously hold — that they must fight against their “failings” and “flaws” to become better.

But Griffith presents a radically compassionate truth:

We are not bad.
We are not broken.
We are simply upset.

Upset by an ancient conflict within us — a clash between our instinctive loving nature and our conscious search for understanding.

He calls it the human condition — not a flaw to be fixed, but a wound to be understood.

Instinct vs. Intellect — The Root of Our Inner Turmoil

Imagine this: once, humans lived in deep harmony — cooperative, loving, nurturing (watch bonobos interact with each other, our closest living relatives). That was our original state, and it still echoes in your deepest maternal instincts.

But then something extraordinary happened.

We developed consciousness — the ability to think, question, reflect.
And in doing so, we began to challenge our instincts.

This created an inner war — not between good and evil — but between feeling and thinking, between our knowing hearts and our questioning minds.

Unable to explain why we were feeling so conflicted, we began to act out:
We defended ourselves with ego.
We sought validation.
We passed down hurt, because we didn’t know what to do with our own pain.

This is the biological basis of guilt, disconnection, and reactivity — not personal failure.

And this, Mama, is the root of so many of the voices in your head that say:

“You’re not enough.”
“You’re messing them up.”
“You should be more…”

Healing Through Understanding — Not Through Perfection

Here’s the liberating truth:

When you understand this conflict — this ancient upset that lives in all of us — you stop fighting yourself.

You no longer need to fix every reaction.
You no longer need to become the “perfect mother”.
You simply begin to hold yourself with grace, knowing that your triggers, your tears, your tiredness…
They’re not signs of failure.
They’re signs of a mind doing its best to navigate the very human journey of healing.

Your child is not here to perfect you — they are here to mirror you.

They invite you — every day — to rewrite the story.

Not from guilt. Not from shame. But from understanding.

A New Paradigm of Parenting

When we mother from this place — from compassion instead of comparison, from curiosity instead of criticism — something magical happens.

We become cycle breakers.

We raise children who don’t have to grow up defending themselves against a world that misunderstands them.

We nurture resilient, connected, loving humans — not by forcing ourselves to be flawless, but by being real, regulated, and ready to repair.

So… there is nothing wrong with you.

You are not a bad mum because you sometimes lose it.
You are not unworthy because you’re tired.
You are not broken because you carry wounds.

You are part of the most human story there is.

And now that we finally understand the human condition,
you can begin to lay those burdens down — and pick up your peace.

You are not failing.
You are waking up.