Day In The Life of a Recovering Angry Mom

They say a storm is coming today.

There’s something strangely fitting about trying to write about a day in my life under a sky that looks like it might split open at any moment. It’s almost as if the weather knows something about motherhood that I’m only beginning to understand.

The house is quiet right now, or at least quiet in the way a house with children is quiet. Which is to say, not all that quiet at all. There’s a feeling in the air, that peculiar stillness—the calm before the storm. Only I don’t think the storm Christian mothers are most afraid of is always the one outside the window.

Sometimes the storm is the toddler who refuses to get dressed, or the baby who decided sleep was overrated or the child who spills milk right after you cleaned the floor. Sometimes it is simply the sound of everyone needing something from you at once. Sometimes, if I’m honest, the storm is me.

It’s what rises up in my own body before anyone else even knows it’s there. It’s the tightening in my chest, the urgency in my voice, the irritation that starts moving faster than wisdom. It’s the feeling that if everyone would just move quicker, listen faster, stop needing so much, and cooperate for five minutes, then maybe I could stay calm. But that is not peace. The need to control your environment and the people around you in order to feel peace is not actually peace.

When I say I’m a “recovering angry mom,” it doesn’t mean “now I never struggle.” It means “I no longer believe anger is inevitable or unchangeable.” There was a time when I thought anger was just part of my personality, part of motherhood, part of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. I thought the storm was my circumstances. Now, I can see that so often the storm began in me long before anything actually happened. That is one of the biggest mercies the Lord has given me in motherhood.

I’m no longer a slave to my emotions.

Preparing for the Other Storm

There is a temptation, especially in the morning, to rush everyone all day. Quickly, quickly, quickly. Hustle up. Hurry. Come on. I have had to learn that a peaceful home is not built by a mother who is constantly whipping everyone into motion with the tone of her voice.

Today, as I’m preparing for the storm outside, I am also preparing for that other storm, mom anger. I’ve learned that just having a battle plan for common triggering scenarios and planning ahead can be so helpful. Like Proverbs 31 says she laughs at the days to come because she has planned for them with wisdom. The Proverbs 31 woman is a strategic planner who acts with foresight, diligence, and wisdom, rather than just reactive work.

For me, I plan for those little triggering moments ahead of time, by keeping my thoughts in check moment by moment. I am noticing the places where I want to rush my children simply because I feel unsettled inside, noticing the moment my voice wants to sharpen noticing how often anger is not the first sign of something wrong, rather, its the fruit of all the little unchecked thoughts that came before it.

It starts when I rehearse the thought, “No one listens to me.”

It starts when I believe, “I cannot handle this.”

It starts when I decide, “This day is already ruined.”

It starts when I take one hard moment and prophesy misery over the entire afternoon.

Then, by the time I finally snap, it feels like it came out of nowhere. But it did not come out of nowhere. Just like weather, there was a pattern. There were clouds. There was pressure. There was wind. There were thoughts I indulged in, little resentments I entertained, fear and the desire to control that I didn’t rule over.

The Foundation of Recovery

What I believe to be the foundation of how I’ve recovered from mom anger is this.

I realized that if what I’m doing isn’t for the glory of God I’m missing the point entirely. So, I stopped believing that my children are interruptions and that they are actually my whole purpose and everything I do is anchored in this. When you consecrate your mothering to the Lord, He is so gracious to deliver little mercies everyday to help you along. For example, I had a phrase that kept coming back to me and it was “words like honey” and I thought, huh… words like honey. I like that. I took that and ran with it and I started repeating in my head, “My words are sweet like honey” anytime I wanted to speak harshly.

Proverbs 16:24 says “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the bones” and the craziest thing happened, a woman in my course wrote in our community how she was having the same revelation! She said “honey words” are thoughtful and stick to the ones I love—a delicious mess, so to speak. Dripping, sticking, sweet, pleasant. So now we speak sweet, honey-words that we can stick on and cover our children with.

Words Like Honey

I love that picture because words do stick, don’t they?

Sharp words stick. Sarcastic words stick. Exasperated words stick.

But pleasant words stick too. Words of blessing stick. Words that remind a child, “I am glad you are mine,” stick forever. I think sometimes, as mothers, we underestimate the atmosphere our words create because we are so focused on whether the task got done.

Did the dishes get washed? Did the lesson get finished? What stuck to them while we were doing it? Was it honey? Was it sweetness to the soul, or did everyone leave the room a little smaller? This is not about pretending every moment is precious in a sentimental way. Some moments are honestly just messy and loud and repetitive.

But even then, I can ask the Lord to make my words nourishing, make me nurturing and make my words sweet like honey. I want my children to know that their mother’s mouth is not a place where storms are always forming, that even when correction comes, it does not have to come with contempt, that even when the day isn’t going my way, I do not have to make my children feel like burdens.

Catching the Storm While It’s Forming

Recovering from being an angry mom took the ability to catch the storm while it is still forming.

Something that helped was being quick to repent and shockingly abrupt to stop my reaction. I had to train myself to sort of awkwardly stop mid-sentence, or mid-adult temper tantrum and turn away from that sin. And instantly repent.

Something else that’s helped me happens long before the storm clouds even gather—before destructive thoughts enter my mind or a reactive comment flies out of my mouth. I mentally rehearse triggering moments: situations I’m struggling with and how I can show up as the mother I want to be. Usually I do this in my journal, but essentially I run it like a football play in my mind. That way, when the situation actually arises, I’ve already practiced how I’m going to handle it.

Because when you know a storm might be coming, you prepare differently.

You close the windows.

You bring things inside.

You check what might blow away.

You think ahead.

You do not wait until the wind is tearing through the yard to decide whether the cushions should be brought in. Motherhood is like that too. If I know certain moments tend to bring out the worst in me, the answer is not to be shocked every single time they do. The answer is to prepare.

Anxiety, Survival Mode, and Peace

My theory is that a huge reason for mom anger is anxiety. And the Bible says when you’re anxious be grateful instead and I know that sounds too simple, but it is said so it can be done. So, how do we do it?

Phil. 4:6-7 says “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” By prayer and thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. That’s how we do it. The answer is right there. It takes the mind that wants to scan for danger and teaches it to notice God’s mercy.

I have another theory. It’s that so many moms are living in survival mode. They are operating in a state of fight or flight all day long, that they cannot help but react in anger and rage because it’s a fight/flight response. They feel trapped in their body, and then trapped in motherhood, and they just freak out.

That was me. And real change didn’t come from a few breathing exercises or positive affirmations — it came from learning a full system that helped calm my nervous system, retrain my mind, and change how I actually responded in real life. That’s why I created my free workshop where I teach moms how to get out of survival mode and love motherhood again and I walk you through the exact process I used to calm my nervous system, break out of fight-or-flight. I’ll show you why willpower and insight alone aren’t enough, and what actually creates lasting change from the inside out.

The Grief of Healing

There is grief in all of this too. When you begin healing, you often start seeing clearly what survival mode cost you. There is grief over how you used to mother, grief over lost years in survival mode, grief over how often your children got the overflow of a nervous system that was constantly panicking, grief over the birthdays you could not fully enjoy, the baby years that felt like a blur, the little voices that felt too loud because your body was already at capacity.

As a recovering angry mom It can feel like standing in the yard after a storm has passed, looking at the branches everywhere and realizing, “Oh. There really was damage here.” The answer is not to sit in the wreckage and let it crush you. The answer is to bring it into the light, grieve what needs to be grieved, ask forgiveness restore fellowship, and then receive the mercy of God like you actually believe it applies to you too, because it does. If you truly believe that the work Jesus did on the cross was sufficient, you’ll rest in that relief too.

There is so much freedom in mothering with a Gospel mindset. You become a mother who is noticing your patterns, repenting honestly, practicing a new response, and teaching your children repair – thats evidence that your children are being raised in a home knowing the Gospel and thats the most important work you can do.

Just a Bit of Rain

The funny thing is, after all that talk of preparing for the storm, the storm never ended up coming after all—just a bit of rain. I cannot help but think how often that has been true in motherhood too. How many times have I braced myself for disaster that never came? How many times did I feel anxious for something that never came to pass and all the outbursts that came from that anxiety were for nothing? How many times did i assume the whole day was about to fall apart only for it to pan out better than it would have if everything had gone my way. How many times did I prepare emotionally for a catastrophe when what actually came was just a bit of rain?

A hard moment.

A tired child.

A chaotic house.

A plan that changed.

A little inconvenience.

Something that needed patience, not absolute panic. Perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts of healing. You. You stop letting one hard moment convince you the whole day is ruined. Storms do come, but in Christ, I am not helpless before the weather anymore. In fact, dare I say, I even have the ability to worship through the storm now? Something I never would have even dreamed of before.