You look successful on paper—career, kids, calendar full, but inside you feel strangely blank. You can answer who you are as “mom” and what you do at work, but if someone asks, “What do you want? What do you enjoy?” your mind goes quiet. If you’ve wondered, “Have I completely lost myself in work and motherhood?” this episode is for you.

Connect & work with Christina:
Speaking, workshops, consulting: Hello@ChristinaRunnels.com

Buy Boldly Both: A Mom's Guide to Balancing Career and Family Without Guilt

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👉 If you want a simple way to see your burnout on paper—energy, sleep, snapping, joy, start with the FREE Working Mom Burnout Check-In PDF

In this episode you’ll hear:

• Why high-achieving working moms often feel like they’ve lost themselves in their roles
• The quiet “Who am I, really?” moment when you’re asked what you want for the next few years
• How being everybody’s go‑to person buries your own desires and dreams
• 3 practical steps to reclaim your identity and ambition as a working mom:
  • Remember: who you are beyond “employee,” “leader,” and “mom”
  • Reconnect: with what actually gives you energy and joy in this season
  • Rebuild: your ambition with small, aligned steps that fit your real life

Episode roadmap

0:00 – Feeling like you’ve disappeared inside work and motherhood
2:30 – The moment someone asks, “What do you want?” and your mind goes blank
6:45 – Step 1: Remember – separating who you are from what you do
11:30 – Step 2: Reconnect – using an Energy List to notice what makes you feel like yourself
16:40 – Step 3: Rebuild – letting your ambition back in one small step at a time
22:00 – This week’s identity + ambition experiment + invitation to share your sentence via email

Visit www.ChristinaRunnels.com

You finally get a quiet moment—shower, car, parking lot and instead of feeling relief, you feel… nothing. Not excited, not inspired, just flat and tired in your bones. If you’ve wondered, “Is this just my life now?” this episode is for you.

Connect & work with Christina:

• Speaking, workshops, consulting: Hello@christinarunnels.com
• Buy Boldly Both: A Mom's Guide to Balancing Career and Family Without Guilt
• Follow on Facebook

👉 If you want a simple way to see your burnout on paper, monitoring your energy, sleep, snapping, joy, start with the FREE Working Mom Burnout Check-In PDF

In this episode you’ll hear:

• The subtle difference between being “tired” and being truly burned out
• Christina’s quiet burnout breaking point: “If life looks like this for 10 more years…”
• How over‑functioning at work and home numbs you out instead of fulfilling you
• Three gentle moves for burnout recovery in the life you already have:
  • Notice: telling the truth about how depleted you really are
  • Nurture: adding tiny, non‑performative care into your day
  • Negotiate: changing the terms of how you’re living (at work, at home, with yourself)

Episode roadmap

• 0:00 – “Flat and numb” hook in the shower/car/parking lot
• 3:54 – The quiet thought that changed everything: “I don’t know if I can do this for 10 more years”
• 6:29 – Notice: honest burnout check-in (using energy, sleep, irritability, joy)
• 7:58 – Nurture: 5-minute practices that don’t require a whole life overhaul
• 9:55 – Negotiate: small but real changes in workload and expectations
• 10:55 – This week’s recovery experiment + invitation to share your story via email

Visit www.ChristinaRunnels.com

Feeling like the reliable one for everyone at work, at school, at home, and also the most exhausted person in every room? This episode is for you.

Connect & work with Christina:

• Speaking, workshops, consulting: Hello@christinarunnels.com
• Buy Boldly Both: A Mom's Guide to Balancing Career and Family Without Guilt
• Follow on Facebook

Free burnout check-in (from Episode 1):
Start tracking how depleted you really are and how often you’re saying yes from empty.

👉 Get the Burnout Check-In PDF:

Free Working Mom Burnout Check-In PDF

In this episode you’ll hear:

• Why “You’re so reliable” can feel like both a compliment and a curse
• A real Tuesday: meeting request + Flock DM + text from school all at once
• How always being the “responsible one” becomes part of your identity
• Two questions to ask yourself before you say yes to anything
• Two simple scripts to say:
  • “Yes, but with truth” at work
  • “No, to protect who I am” at home, school, and with friends

Episode roadmap

• 0:00 – “You’re so reliable” hook
• 2:20 – The meeting + Slack + school text moment
• 7:52 – Question 1: “What part of me wants to say yes?”
• 7:57 – Question 2: “If I say yes, what am I saying no to?”
• 9:11 – Script 1: Yes, but with truth (work)
• 10:24 – Script 2: No, to protect who I am (home/school/friends)
• 11:32 – This week’s boundary experiment + Episode 8 teaser

In this episode of Lead Like a Mother, licensed therapist and author Christina Runnels dives into a topic that hits every overloaded working mom: anger and resentment. Christina shares her own story of snapping over small moments, like asking kids to put on shoes and explores why these reactions happen when we’re carrying too much. She breaks down why anger isn’t a character flaw but a signal of overload, and shares three practical scripts to help working moms name it, normalize it, and redirect it, without guilt or pretending everything is fine.

Connect & work with Christina:

• Speaking, workshops, consulting: Hello@christinarunnels.com
• Buy Boldly Both: A Mom's Guide to Balancing Career and Family Without Guilt
• Follow on Facebook

Episode Timeline

00:00 – Introduction: Why small moments can trigger big reactions
01:01 – Personal Story: The “shoes” moment and early-morning meltdown
04:35 – Understanding Your Anger: Overload, unspoken expectations, and grief
06:53 – Shift 1 – Name It: Stop gaslighting yourself and identify what’s really happening
07:14 – Shift 2 – Normalize It: Recognize that anger is a signal, not a flaw
09:31 – Shift 3 – Redirect It: Use scripts to redirect frustration toward partner, work, or self
11:50 – Practical Scripts: Real examples for partner, work, and yourself
12:29 – Tiny Intentional Moments: How small changes can reduce resentment
13:54 – Free Resource: Working Mom Anger & Resentment Script Sheet
14:18 – Next Episode Teaser: Setting boundaries without guilt

Episode Summary

You snap over something small… and then immediately feel guilty. You think, “What is wrong with me?”

If this sounds familiar, this episode is for you. Christina Runnels, licensed therapist, author of Boldly Both, and fellow high-achieving working mom, explores why working moms experience anger and resentment. She explains that anger is often misdirected—it comes out sideways on the people we feel safest with—and why it’s not a reflection of your character.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why snapping over small things is actually a signal that you’re overloaded
• How to stop the guilt spiral and offer yourself self-compassion
• Three practical scripts to name, normalize, and redirect anger in everyday life
• How to communicate needs to your partner, at work, and to yourself
• Tiny intentional moments that help you release resentment without a major overhaul

Mentioned in this episode

Free Working Mom Anger & Resentment Script Sheet – includes all three scripts and space to write your own version in your own words

Visit www.ChristinaRunnels.com for more support and to connect with Christina!

Working Mom Time Management: End 8:57pm Dinners Forever

Download your FREE Working Mom 3-Block Template ⬇
https://officialchristinarunnels.kit.com/1bc4f01ac1

You glance at the clock: 8:57pm. Cold dinner over laptop. Kid lunchbox in sink. Work phone buzzing. Tomorrow is looming.

High-achieving working moms need a working mom time management system—not more discipline. Episode 5's 3-block routine (work/family/margin) stops rush days.

Connect & work with Christina:

• Speaking, workshops, consulting: Hello@christinarunnels.com
• Buy Boldly Both: A Mom's Guide to Balancing Career and Family Without Guilt
• Follow on Facebook

Episode Highlights:

• 8:57pm dinner realization → no purposeful "you" time
• 3-block routine working moms use: 3 golden hours + family DND + 90min margin
• Sunday reset (laminate weekly)

Timestamps:

0:00 Working mom 8:57pm dinner scene

2:30 Thursday "no sitting down" moment

7:15 Block 1: Working mom golden hours

11:45 Block 2: Family block (phone DND)

15:20 Block 3: Working mom margin time

19:10 3-block template walkthrough

This week:

1. Circle 3 golden work hours

2. Sunday: Fill + laminate

3. Notice 8:57pm feels different

Share your completed template → Hello@ChristinaRunnels.com

Next: Episode 6 - Working Mom Anger

www.ChristinaRunnels.com

That grocery store receipt moment...

Organic milk (dairy upset), gluten-free bread (headaches), exact yogurt she'll eat, Goldfish rotation, birthday wrapping paper (party Saturday), Tuesday-only sales. $187.43.

Every item = one mental decision you made.

If you disappeared tomorrow: Would they know her yogurt? Goldfish rotation? Science fair dates? Not because they don't care. Because that info lives only in *your* brain.

Connect & work with Christina:

• Speaking, workshops, consulting: Hello@christinarunnels.com
• Buy Boldly Both: A Mom's Guide to Balancing Career and Family Without Guilt
• Follow on Facebook

In this episode, Christina breaks it down:

• Grocery receipt → "If I disappeared" realization
• Shift 1:10-min brain dump (see your overload on paper)
• Shift 2:Hand-off script *"I'd like you to own [snack calendar] from here"
• Shift 3:Sunday 10-min handover ritual (prevents reload)

👉 Download Your Mental Load Handover Checklist FREE Checklist

Your 3 steps this week:

1. Tonight: 10-min brain dump → checklist
2. Tomorrow: Pick 1 task → use script "You own [task]. Questions?"
3. Sunday: 10-min handover → "Confirm you own it?"

Next episode: Time Management for Busy Working Moms: Simple Daily Routine to Stop Rushing All Day

You’re at work thinking you should be with your kids, and with your kids thinking about everything you’re dropping at work, so no matter where you are, you feel like you’re failing everyone. This episode is for the high-achieving working mom whose brain constantly says, “I’m not enough.” Christina Runnels, licensed therapist, author of Boldly Both, and host of Lead Like a Mother, breaks down mom guilt into three powerful mindset shifts so you can start releasing the shame and defining what “good enough” really looks like in this season.

Download your FREE Mom Guilt Reframe Worksheet : prompts to define “good enough” for this season and rewrite three specific guilt stories with kinder language

Connect & work with Christina:

• Speaking, workshops, consulting: Hello@christinarunnels.com
• Buy Boldly Both: A Mom's Guide to Balancing Career and Family Without Guilt
• Follow on Facebook

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The hidden belief driving so much working mom guilt (“If I’m good at work, I’m a bad mom”)
• How to redefine “good enough” at work, at home, and for yourself in this season
• A simple “why am I choosing this?” process to move from feeling like you’re failing to seeing yourself as an intentional decision-maker
• Why guilt grows in isolation and how sharing it in safe spaces shrinks its power
• How to create one new sentence you can use whenever guilt shows up
  
  

Visit www.ChristinaRunnels.com for more support and to connect with Christina!

High-achieving working mom who’s always rushing and still feels behind? This episode will help you finally understand why and what to do about it. You’ll learn how each one is quietly draining you and walk away with one simple survival key you can start using this week so you’re not constantly living in catch-up mode.

Download the FREE 3 Keys Survival Tracker so you can pick your key and actually follow through this week.

Connect & work with Christina:

• Speaking, workshops, consulting: Hello@christinarunnels.com
• Buy Boldly Both: A Mom's Guide to Balancing Career and Family Without Guilt
• Follow on Facebook

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why your exhaustion isn’t just a “time management problem” but a burnout and energy problem
  
  
• What the mental load of motherhood really is and how it keeps you stuck in overwhelm
  
  
• How to use a weekly 10-minute “brain dump and share” to stop carrying everything alone
  
  

A simple “good enough” weekly rhythm that helps you touch work, family, and you without expecting perfection

Get more support at www.ChristinaRunnels.com