Do you ever stay up at night stressing out about your kid? Not the normal everyday kind of worry, like whether they ate enough protein or remembered their water bottle for school. I mean that deep, gut-level worry. The kind that wakes you up before your alarm. The kind that has you replaying conversations, questioning decisions, texting coaches, texting other moms, googling options, spiraling through every possible future version of your child's life.

The kind of worry where their heartbreak becomes your heartbreak. Their rejection becomes your rejection. Their uncertainty becomes the thing that sits on your chest at 4 in the morning.

And y'all, that's where I've been these last few days.

Today I want to talk about something that is deeply personal but also deeply universal, especially for the moms listening. I want to talk about what happens when your child is hurting and you can't fix it. I want to talk about how hard it is to separate their experience from your old wounds, your own fears, your own trauma, and your own need to protect them from pain. And I want to walk myself through my own SNAP method in real time.

Because I'm not coming to you today with the perfect answer. I'm coming to you from the very messy, hard middle. And sometimes that is exactly where the work begins.

All right, welcome back, friends. Today's episode hits a little different, and that's because it's personal, it's very raw, and it is still very much unfolding in real time.

Honestly, I thought about not doing this episode, because I don't have it all figured out yet. I don't have it tied up in a pretty little bow. There's no clean lesson you're going to get today. I have no fully processed, polished version of the story where I can just say, "Here's what happened, here's what I learned, here's how you can apply it." Which, while I love that, y'all, I am still in it.

And I also know that so many of the women listening to this podcast are not just leaders at work. You're leaders in your home. You're mothers, aunties, caregivers. You are the person everyone comes to when something hurts, when something breaks, when something needs to be figured out.

Sometimes the heaviest sticky floors aren't the ones that show up at work or in the boardroom. Sometimes they show up in carpool lines, and in the bleachers, and in a text thread at 9:30 at night when you should be sleeping. Sometimes they show up when your 8-year-old is trying to figure out who she is, what she loves, where she belongs, and whether she wants to keep doing something that has been a huge part of her life.

That's where I am with Hallie right now.

I'm going to keep some of the details private, because she's eight and this is her story too. But at a high level, we've been navigating a really hard situation around her cheer group. She's been in competitive cheer for two years. She's made very strong friends there. It's been a huge part of our life. I think many of you know I was a cheer mom, so I was all up in that gym doing all the things.

And I know that in the grand scheme of things in 2026, this is not a global crisis. It's what you'd call a first world problem. But if you're a mom, you know that something doesn't have to be catastrophic to completely consume your heart. When it's your child, it just hits different.

She's loved cheer. She's built her friendships. She's developed skills. She has been doing one-hour private lessons just so she could nail her back handspring and be confident and excited and proud.

And there have also been the hard moments. Moments when she's felt unseen. Disappointed. Maybe not placed where she hoped she would be. Maybe placed for the betterment of the team rather than the betterment of just her. Moments where I've had to watch her process something that I can't process for her.

That's the part that's getting to me. Because I can handle a lot. I can handle challenging executive conversations. I can handle boardroom politics. I can handle walking into a room full of strangers and speaking on stage like I've known them my whole life. I can even handle rejection in my own life.

But this one, watching my child hurt, that really takes it out of me. It takes me out in a way that feels physical. I feel it in my chest. I feel it in my stomach. I feel it in my sleep.

And I know I'm not the only one out there feeling this way. I know there's a mom listening right now who's done this with sports, or school, or friendships, or with a certain teacher, or a birthday party invitation, or a child who keeps getting left out, or your child being treated in a way you don't think they deserve.

And then suddenly it's not just about one situation. It becomes every situation. It becomes their confidence, their identity, their friendships, their future, their resilience, maybe even the relationship they build with themselves.

If you're anything like me, your brain doesn't stay in the present moment. It's always off and running into the future, five, ten, fifteen years from now. And all of a sudden I'm not just thinking about a freaking 8-year-old cheerleading squad. I'm thinking:

Is this going to impact her confidence? Will she regret quitting and walking away from something she's loved for two years? Will she lose her skills? Will her friendships unravel? Will she find something else she loves? Am I making the right call by supporting her decision to leave? Or am I pushing too hard? Or am I not pushing enough? Am I protecting her, or am I projecting onto her?

That's the spiral.

And that's why I want to walk myself through the SNAP method with you today. Because SNAP isn't something I just teach. It's something I have to come back to over and over and over again.

The whole point of SNAP is that we stop letting the sticky floor run the show. We slow down long enough to notice what is happening inside of us. To name the belief or behavior that's keeping us stuck. To ask ourselves the deeper questions. And then to pivot into something more powerful and more grounded.

So walk through it with me, will you? But I'm going to be honest, this is real time. I'm walking through it with you, not from above you or any other direction, because I am not healed and handing you this lesson. I am in the arena. If you're watching on YouTube, you may see the puffy eyes. I've got a phone full of text messages and a nervous system that needs a freaking beach.

S: Stop and notice

The first step in SNAP is to stop and notice what's going on inside your body.

I know that sounds so simple, but for a lot of us high-achieving women, especially moms who are used to managing everything, noticing what's actually going on in our bodies is not our default. Our default, especially mine, is to solve. To fix. To reach out and text somebody, or make a plan, or get more information. It's about getting ahead of the pain before it gets any worse.

And that's what I've been doing. I spent over an hour last night texting back and forth with the cheer coaches and other moms who understood how I felt. I was trying to understand. I was trying to advocate for my child. I was trying to be respectful and clear and strong. I was trying to stand up for my daughter without going full mama bear in a way I know I'd regret later.

I was texting other moms, asking them what they thought, trying to understand if I was even seeing this clearly, if I was reading the room. I was trying to kindly let other people know that we most likely would not be back, while also trying not to make this decision from an emotional place.

And the whole time, my body has just been screaming. It's been on high alert.

This is what I want you to hear: my body knew before my brain did.

My chest has been tight for a couple of days, because I think this was coming. My stomach's unsettled today. My sleep has been disrupted. This morning I woke up early, not in a "yay, it's Monday, let's go, I'm ready to take on the day" way, but with my mind already racing and a pit in my stomach. The second I tried to call my friend to talk about it, I was actually just going to leave her a voice note, I couldn't do it. I immediately started crying. I had to text her and say, "I'm sorry I can't leave you a voice note like I said I would, because I just started crying."

That is information for us. Our bodies are giving us data.

For me, that data is clear. This isn't just frustration. This is anxiety. This is grief. This is fear. This is uncertainty. It's a feeling of helplessness.

And I don't like feeling helpless. Moms are not built to thrive in helplessness. We want to protect. We want to create the path, and call the person, and solve the problem, and make the pain stop.

But sometimes the first move isn't to fix it. The first move is to notice what's actually going on with you, and make sure you don't hand that energy off to your kid. That's the part where we have to be really careful. Our children are already carrying their own feelings. They don't need to carry ours too.

That sentence makes me emotional, because I know how hard it is. I want to be calm for Hallie. I want to be grounded for her and let her have her own experience and make her own decisions. But I have my own experience happening right alongside hers. And if I don't be the parent and the adult and stop and notice it, I risk making her situation about my nervous system.

That's the first sticky little truth: sometimes what feels like advocacy is anxiety dressed up in a designer blazer. Sometimes protection is our own fear trying to control the outcome. And sometimes the most loving thing we can do is pause before we act.

N: Name the sticky floor

The second step is naming that sticky floor, and that's where we have to get honest.

For me right now, that sticky floor is worry. But it's worry disguised as responsibility. It says, "I'm just trying to make the right decision." And duh, of course I am. But underneath that, there is something much heavier. It's the belief that if I make the wrong decision now, I could really screw up her future.

That's the sticky floor. And that's the part that feels impossible, because this decision on paper isn't about cheer. She's eight years old. It's freaking 8-year-old cheer, okay? But emotionally it feels like so much more. It feels like I'm standing at a crossroads with Hallie's confidence, her friendships, her identity, her skills, and all of this joy sitting in the middle of it.

I know that sounds dramatic. But if you're a mom, if you're a caregiver, you know how fast your brain can take something so small and turn it into a full documentary about your child's future.

If she quits, am I going to regret it? If she stays, will she feel smaller? Will she hate her decision? Will I be dragging her to cheer? Will she lose her love for the sport? If she comes back next year and takes a year off, will she be behind? If she leaves this group of girls, will those friendships fade away? If she doesn't have cheer, what does she have? Will she feel like she gave up? Will she feel like I let her give up?

That's the mother lode of the mental load, y'all. And yes, I meant mother lode, because that's what this feels like.

We talk about the mental load in terms of the groceries and the dentist appointments and the birthday gifts and the forms and the snacks and the laundry and the calendar and being lunch parent and this, that, and the other. But there is another layer of the mental load that is much harder to explain, and that is the emotional forecasting. The constant future scanning. That invisible decision tree running in the back of your brain all day long. And it is exhausting.

When I name it here with you, my sticky floor isn't just worry. It's control. It's the belief that if I think hard enough, if I figure it out, if I ask all the questions and analyze it from every angle, I can somehow guarantee the right outcome.

But motherhood doesn't work that way. Leadership doesn't work that way either. You can make the most thoughtful decision available to you with the information you have and still not know how it's going to turn out.

That's what's so hard for women who are high achievers. We are used to being people who produce outcomes. We're used to being able to work harder, prepare better, communicate clearly, and ultimately solve the problem.

But my child is not my project, and her life is not a business plan. I can't reverse engineer her joy. Her confidence isn't something I can build for her.

That's why it's so important to name the sticky floor. I'm afraid that if I don't get this right, she will hurt. But she's already hurting. So my job may not be to prevent every hurt. My job is to help her learn that hurt is survivable, and that disappointment is too, and that she is allowed to change her mind.

This idea of sunk cost fallacy is hitting me really hard, because we've put so much of our time and energy and money into this. It's hard to really understand that sometimes walking away from something that no longer feels right can be the brave thing to do. And staying and working through it could be brave too.

But the biggest lesson is this: her worth isn't determined by a team, a position, a role, a placement, or a title.

Oh my god, y'all. That one is for the moms, but it's also for us. Because how many of us still struggle with that? How many of us still tie our worth to the role, the title, the room, the invite, the recognition, the external validation?

Of course this hits something in me. I teach women about sticky floors every single day, and then life hands me an 8-year-old with a cheer bag and says, "Great. Apply it right here." Which, oh god, that's rude. But also very necessary.

A: Ask and answer the deeper questions

The third step is to ask and answer the deep, personal questions. This is the step we want to skip most of the time, because it requires us to go deep. When you're in mama bear mode, you don't feel like being curious. You want to be busy. You want to send the text, make the phone call, find the new cheer gym, talk to the group chat and get them on your side.

But this is where the work lives.

So I've been asking myself: why does this feel so big?

Again, at a high level, this is 8-year-old cheer. But in my body it feels bigger. I think part of it is because I know what it feels like to be disappointed by something you worked so hard for. I know what it feels like to think the path is going to go one way and realize that the adults in the room, the systems in the room, the decision makers in the room, don't see it the same way. I know what it feels like to want something and not get it. I know what it feels like to be overlooked and to question yourself.

And even though Hallie is only eight and I'm a grown woman, our nervous systems don't always keep those stories separate.

This is why parenting can be so triggering sometimes. Not because anyone's doing anything wrong, but because our kids' pain often brushes up against our own unhealed places. Their social dynamics remind us of our own. Their rejection reminds us of our rejection. Their disappointment reminds us of the doors that slammed shut in our faces. Their uncertainty reminds us of every time we didn't know what to do next and how that felt.

And then all of a sudden, we're not just parenting the child in front of us. We're parenting the child we used to be. We're protecting the version of ourselves who didn't feel protected.

Now, that is a lot to put on an 8-year-old's extracurricular activity. And yet that's exactly why we have to pause. Because I don't want to make decisions for Hallie based on my old wounds. I want to make decisions with Hallie from her current reality. That is a very different thing.

So I have to ask myself the hard questions:

Am I worried because she's truly unhappy, or because I'm uncomfortable watching her navigate uncertainty?

Am I afraid she'll regret quitting, or am I projecting my own fear of regret onto her?

Am I worried she'll lose her skills because she cares about it, or am I thinking about future opportunities through an adult lens that she doesn't give a damn about?

Am I trying to teach resilience, or am I asking her to tolerate something that no longer feels good for her?

And I think the real question is: am I trying to protect her joy, or am I trying to protect my idea of what I thought her joy was going to look like?

That last one got me.

Because sometimes our kids love something and we start building a whole identity around it. She's the cheer girl. Hudson's the baseball boy. She's the math girl. And before we know it, a thing they do becomes part of how we see them. Sometimes it becomes part of how we see ourselves as parents too. We get connected to the schedule and the families and the rhythm and the competitions and the team and the identity. When they change, it feels like a loss for us.

Not because we want to control them. But motherhood is full of tiny griefs that no one talks about. The last time they ask you to pick them up. The last time they wear their little league uniform. The last time they run into your arms without checking who's looking at them. What about the last time they love something in that fully innocent, all-out way?

So yeah, it kind of is about cheer. But part of this is also about watching my daughter grow up and realizing that I can't choose her path for her.

I can expose her to things. I can support her and ask good questions. I can advocate when it's needed. I can teach her not to quit because something is hard. And I can also teach her that she doesn't have to stay somewhere that makes her feel small.

Both can be true. That's the hardest part.

There is no perfect answer. There's no decision that removes all risk. If she stays, there's risk. If she leaves, there's risk. If she takes a break, there's risk. If she tries something new, there's risk.

So maybe the deeper question isn't "how do I make the decision that guarantees she never regrets anything?" Maybe the deeper question is "how do I help her trust herself through whatever decision she makes?"

That is the work. It's not about controlling the outcome. It's about building self-trust.

And honestly, y'all are listening to it in real time. This work is for me too. I have to trust myself as her mom, that I can guide without gripping. That I can advocate for her without bulldozing people, because I have a tendency to do that. That I can listen without jumping into fix mode. And I really have to trust that even if we make a decision now and adjust it later, that is not a failure. I don't need to be worrying about these sunk costs when it comes to an 8-year-old's cheer.

P: Pivot

Which brings me to the pivot. And here I want to be honest with you, because I don't know what pivot is going to stick with me right now.

Usually when I teach SNAP, there's a pivot where we move into the new belief, the new behavior, the new action, that new empowered response. But today, my pivot is still forming.

And maybe that's important too. Maybe sometimes the pivot isn't a lightning bolt or an easy button. Maybe it's a practice.

Maybe it's the next grounding choice, to put down the text messages and take a break. Maybe it's choosing to stop crowdsourcing all these other cheer moms for every feeling I'm having. Maybe it's choosing to sit down with Hallie and say, "Tell me what you want. What do you really want? Not what you think I want. Not what your friends want or what your coach wants. What do you want?"

And maybe it's choosing to believe that stepping away from one thing doesn't mean stepping away from possibility.

Oh, I love that one. That is the pivot I think I'm going to work on.

Because Hallie is eight years old. Childhood is not a resume. It's supposed to be the place where kids try things and learn things and love things and outgrow things and come back to things and discover who they're becoming.

So yes, there are commitments and lessons and perseverance, and sometimes kids need encouragement to push through discomfort. But there's also wisdom in listening when something doesn't fit anymore. There's wisdom in letting a child have a voice in her own life. There's wisdom in allowing space for that.

Because maybe stepping away from cheer doesn't close the door on who she is. Maybe it opens the door to something we cannot yet see. Maybe it gives her the space to find out there's another thing she really loves, another part of herself she hasn't found yet. Maybe she does volleyball. Maybe she comes back to cheer later. Maybe she does something totally different. I don't know.

But my biggest hope is that she learns she can survive changing her mind. And that she learns her mom will stand beside her while she figures it out, without needing to script the entire future in advance.

That, I think, is the pivot. The pivot is moving out of control and into trust. Taking myself out of the spiral, out of the panic I've been feeling, and into being present with her. I don't have to get it exactly right. I can just help her listen to her heart.

Because that's what really matters. This is just one chapter. It's a meaningful one. It's an emotional one. But it is one chapter. And our kids get to have so many chapters, and so do we.

Motherhood is learning how to hold the tension between protection and permission. We want to protect them from pain, but we also have to give them permission to live a life that includes discomfort and disappointment and risk and change.

We want to protect their confidence too. But confidence isn't built by avoiding the hard thing. Confidence is built when they go through hard things and realize they're still okay.

We want to protect their friendships. But they need to learn that the right people will remain and that new people can arrive.

That's what I'm trying to stay present to. The child in front of me. My sweet little baby Hallie. What is she telling me? What is her body telling me? What lights her up? What dims her? What does she need from me?

Not from the part of me that is scared and upset, but from the grounded part. The mom part. The part that knows love isn't about controlling every outcome. It's about being present and grounded. It's about being an advocate when needed. And it's also about loosening my grip.

And God, y'all, that is hard.

The bandwidth piece

Real quick, I want to name the bandwidth piece, because I think it's something we moms carry so quietly. This stuff takes time. Actual time.

You're texting the coach. You're taking the time to talk to your child. You're processing this with your partner, explaining everything to him. It takes time to text the other moms, to look up different options, to map out other cheer gyms and other activities.

It's a lot. And then we're supposed to wake up on a Monday and run a business, lead a team, show up on a call, record this podcast. My girl Kaye, who produces this podcast, was like, "Hey, I need it, and I need it today." So here I am.

And it is too much sometimes. Can we just say that? Can we call a spade a spade? Because so many women are walking around wondering why they're so exhausted, and they're exhausted because their brain is running eight invisible operating systems at the same time.

So we're all going to take a deep breath. We're going to stop and notice what's happening in the body. We're going to name our sticky floors. We're going to ask the deeper questions. And we're going to pivot into the next grounded choice.

Because I want her to learn that her voice matters. I want her to learn that her mom will stand up for her, and that her mom will also stand up for herself. And I want her to learn that sometimes life gives you a pivot before you're ready for it.

That might be a lesson for both of us. Because it's not just her pivot. It's mine too.

So if you're in this room with me right now, if you're listening and you know whatever version of this exists in your life, I want you to know you're not alone. It might not be cheer. It might not be anything I'm going through. It could be your kid's friendship group, a sport, anxiety, a diagnosis, a teacher who doesn't see him clearly. Maybe it's watching your child realize that the world isn't always fair. And y'all, that one sucks. But we already know that.

So here we are. Practicing presence. Practicing trust. Well, I am. I'm practicing not making a permanent story out of a temporary season. I'm practicing support. I'm practicing letting Hallie be eight years old, for goodness sake.

All of these are parts of the pivot. And that's the real work here.

I think that's enough for today. If you're listening at home and this episode hits you, I would love for you to send it to a mom who is also feeling this way, who probably needs to feel less alone this week. And if you're in your own sticky floor, whether it's motherhood, leadership, work, or just that impossible mental load we've been talking about, come back to the SNAP method. Stop. Name. Ask and answer. Then pivot.

Because you don't have to have the whole path laid out. You just need the next honest step.

And as always, I'm cheering you on. I'm right here with you in it. And I believe in the infinite possibilities waiting on the other side of this messy, beautiful, deeply human work that we're doing.

I'll see you next week.

If this episode resonated with you, don't let it stop here. Send it to a woman you care about, a colleague, a friend, someone who's been on your mind while you were listening. These conversations are meant to be shared, and you never know what one small shift can unlock for someone else.

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If you're ready to go deeper, come a little closer. Send me a DM. I'll invite you to sit in on a live HER Collective session as my personal guest. No pressure, no strings attached, but you get to experience it, feel the room, and see what happens when women start moving together.