Every week brings fresh evidence that we’re living through a crisis of control. Polarization, social fragmentation, a news cycle engineered to keep us anxious. Much of what unsettles us today is rooted in a single feeling: that we have no power over our own lives. For working mothers specifically, that feeling has a very concrete shape. It’s the mental load – the invisible, constant tracking of everyone else’s needs that rarely shows up on any to-do list but never really switches off.

A major study following mothers and fathers found that women carry roughly seven out of every ten household mental-load tasks, regardless of their income or career success – a pattern that holds steady even when fathers genuinely believe they’re doing their share. It’s not laziness on anyone’s part. It’s an invisible imbalance that’s hard to see precisely because so much of it happens in someone’s head, not on a chore chart.

This matters because that load isn’t just exhausting in the moment – it adds up. A large US study found that the share of mothers rating their own mental health as fair or poor rose by more than 60% between 2016 and 2023, a far steeper decline than fathers experienced over the same years. Meanwhile, a recent pan-European survey found seven in ten British mothers describe themselves as overloaded, with nearly half reporting anxiety or depression. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re imagining how hard this is, you’re not. The data backs up what you already feel in your body by Wednesday evening.

So, this isn’t a piece about trying harder or thinking more positively to escape structural inequality. It’s about something narrower and genuinely useful: a concept psychology has studied for decades, and what it can, and cannot, do for you.

What Self-Efficacy Actually Means

Self-efficacy isn’t confidence as a personality trait, and it isn’t optimism as a mood. It’s the belief that you can act, and that your actions matter, even in small, unglamorous ways. Psychologist Albert Bandura, who introduced the concept, found that this single belief shapes which challenges people take on, how much effort they put in, and how long they keep going when things get hard.

For a working mother juggling a job and a household’s invisible logistics, that’s not an abstract idea. It’s the difference between feeling like the day is happening to you and feeling like you still have some say in how it goes, even if “some say” just means choosing which three things matter today and letting the rest wait.

This is where positive psychology earns its keep. Not as a substitute for real support, and not as a way to quietly accept an unfair load, but as a discipline that’s spent twenty-five years studying how resilience is actually built.

What the Research Shows

Positive psychology sometimes gets dismissed as a feel-good add-on – gratitude journals and affirmations dressed up in academic language. The actual research base is more substantial than that reputation suggests, and some of it speaks directly to mothers.

Research specifically on parenting self-efficacy, a mother’s belief in her own ability to care for her children well, has found it to be one of the strongest protective factors against parental burnout. Mothers with stronger parenting self-efficacy report less burnout, even when their practical circumstances (work hours, number of children, household support) look similar to mothers who are struggling more.

Social support plays a major role here too: studies consistently find that the more support a mother receives from a partner, family, or community. the lower her parental burnout, almost regardless of how much practical help that support translates into. Sometimes simply feeling backed is itself protective.

A well-known meta-analysis of positive psychology interventions found moderate but real effects more broadly: they meaningfully improved well-being and were associated with measurable reductions in depressive symptoms among clinical populations, across dozens of studies (Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009). More recent work on resilience backs this up across different populations: self-efficacy reliably predicts psychological resilience, and resilience in turn predicts life satisfaction and the ability to manage stress.

The pattern holds even under real, not hypothetical, stress. A study built around the early pandemic, when so many mothers were suddenly managing work, childcare, and home-schooling from the same kitchen table – found that positive emotion, resilience, and coping self-efficacy actively softened the relationship between anxiety, depression, and overall well-being. In plainer terms: women who believed they could do something about their situation suffered less from the situation itself, even when the situation didn’t change. That’s not a small thing to know on a day when nothing about your circumstances feels like it’s improving.

Where This Gets Practical, and Why It’s Not Just on You

If self-efficacy is something that can be built, and the evidence says it can, then this cannot only be framed as one more thing for an already-stretched mother to work on alone. It’s also a design question for the workplaces, schools, and partners around her.

The research on parenting self-efficacy makes this explicit: it’s shaped by ecological factors such as partner involvement, social support, workplace flexibility, not just an individual mother’s mindset. A mother who’s drowning in unsupported logistics isn’t lacking self-efficacy as a trait. She’s missing the conditions that let self-efficacy take root. That distinction matters, because it moves the conversation away from “she should feel more capable” and towards “what would actually need to change so she could.”

This is the part that should change how we talk about working mothers at home and at work. A partner who takes on a genuine share of the mental load – not just the physical tasks – isn’t doing a favour. A workplace that treats flexibility as a real policy rather than a slogan isn’t being generous. Both are protecting something real: a person’s actual capacity to keep functioning well, which research shows is built from resilience and self-efficacy in the first place.

The Important Caveat

None of this works as advertised if someone is genuinely unwell.

There’s a meaningful difference between the exhaustion of an unsustainable load and clinical depression or anxiety, and the research is honest about where positive psychology’s reach ends. One well-known intervention study found that for people with elevated depressive symptoms, positive psychology techniques weren’t sufficient as a standalone treatment. Researchers explicitly positioned them as a supplement to real treatment, not a replacement for it.

Qualitative work with people actually living with depression and anxiety adds a further layer of nuance: these interventions aren’t universally welcomed, and their fit depends heavily on a person’s specific symptoms, personality, and what other treatment they’re already receiving. Telling an exhausted mother who’s clinically depressed to focus on gratitude or self-efficacy isn’t resilience coaching. It risks being dismissive of a medical condition that often requires therapy, sometimes medication, and time – and the data on rising rates of poor maternal mental health suggests this isn’t a rare or niche concern.

This is worth saying plainly, because the gratitude-journal version of positive psychology tends to flatten the distinction: self-efficacy and positive psychology are tools for building on a baseline of health, not a substitute for treating its absence.

If you recognise yourself in something heavier than ordinary overload such as a persistent low mood, anxiety that won’t lift, a sense of hopelessness that doesn’t match the day you’re describing, the responsible first step is real support: your family doctor, a therapist, or both. Positive psychology becomes genuinely useful afterwards, as part of what helps you stay well and keep growing, not as a way to skip the harder, necessary work of getting well first.

The Thread Running Through It

The mental load isn’t going to redistribute itself, and the world isn’t going to get quieter or slower on its own. What you can influence is something narrower but more durable: whether you meet an overwhelming week from a place of “this is happening to me” or “I still get to decide some of this.”

That shift doesn’t erase the unfairness of an unequal load, and it isn’t a replacement for real support, practical or clinical. But it is something you actually have some say over, and on the days when nothing else feels controllable, that can be enough to hold onto.

If this resonates and you’re navigating something heavier than ordinary overwhelm, please reach out to a doctor or therapist. You deserve real support, not just a better mindset.

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But as working mums, we know the truth. You cannot optimise your way out of a demanding career and a bustling household without eventually running out of fuel. True resilience isn’t about enduring an overwhelming number of tasks. It is about finding ways to safeguard our mental health so that we can thrive, not just survive, in the messy, unpredictable chapters of life.

I recently studied some research on resilience, and it completely reframed how I view the biological and emotional blueprint of our well-being. It turns out that our capacity to handle life’s storms isn’t just a personality trait we develop as adults. The foundation is laid much, much earlier.

The Blueprint in the Womb

One of the most eye-opening parts of the research comes from neuroscientists at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, led by Professor Elisabeth Binder. Her team looks at how chronic stress impacts the developing brain, specifically how the stress hormone cortisol interacts with our biology.

Because scientists cannot directly study an embryo’s brain inside the womb, Professor Binder’s team utilised an incredible method: growing “brain organoids” (three-dimensional, brain-like cell structures cultivated from stem cells outside the body) to simulate early development.

When they introduced synthetic cortisol (the primary stress hormone) to these developing cells, the results were undeniable. High levels of stress hormones altered the very development and expression of genes that are directly associated with the risk of developing psychiatric illnesses later in life. When a pregnant woman experiences chronic, unmanaged stress or trauma, the natural biological barrier can weaken, exposing the embryo to a flood of cortisol.

The Mother-Child Mirror

This scientific reality is mirrored by the work of the pioneering French psychiatrist and neurologist Boris Cyrulnik, a true pioneer in early childhood resilience. His research demonstrates a delicate, profound cycle between a mother’s emotional state and her child’s neural architecture.

Dr Cyrulnik explains that when a pregnant woman is under severe, continuous stress, those stress hormones enter the uterus. The baby absorbs these hormones, which can lead to early cognitive and neurological shifts. Dr Cyrulnik highlighted the final weeks of pregnancy and the first two years of a child’s life as an incredibly sensitive window where neural networks are constantly firing and shaping.

As Dr Cyrulnik beautifully points out, these early changes are not caused by the mother herself, but by the mother’s unhappiness or the weight of the environment she is forced to endure. This insight is political, social, and deeply personal. It tells us that protecting a mother’s peace of mind isn’t a luxury or an act of self-indulgence. It is a biological necessity for the next generation.

This Is Not Your Fault

If you are reading this as a mother who experienced a stressful pregnancy, it is vital to know that this is not a sentence of doom. Motherhood brings enough unearned guilt as it is, and the last thing we want to do is carry the weight of past stress that we likely had no control over.

The entire beauty of resilience science is built on the concept of neuroplasticity. Our brains are remarkably adaptable and constantly rewire themselves based on our current environments and experiences. Even if your biological stress response felt heightened during pregnancy, you and your child are not locked into that state. Resilience is a muscle that can be consciously trained, repaired, and expanded at any stage of life.

Healing the Blueprint: The Power of Positive Psychology

To move from surviving to thriving, we can look to the powerful frameworks of Positive Psychology. Unlike traditional psychology, which historically focused on treating mental deficit and illness, Positive Psychology shifts the lens toward human flourishing, strength-building, and actively cultivating a meaningful life. It is one of the most powerful tools for rewiring our stress responses.

You can actively grow your resilience and protect your family’s well-being right now through small, intentional, everyday habits rooted in these principles:

• Cultivate “The Co-Regulation Effect”: Children develop resilience by mirroring the adults around them. When you take a moment to breathe, ground yourself, and calm your own nervous system, your child’s nervous system co-regulates with yours. Healing your stress response directly supports theirs.

• Practice Active Reframing: As psychologist Michelle Vessa highlights in the research, our resilience grows when we intentionally focus on what we have achieved rather than where we stumbled. This aligns perfectly with Positive Psychology’s focus on gratitude and strengths. Make it a daily habit to acknowledge the small wins, even something as small as navigating a chaotic morning with patience.

• Establish Internal Control: Burnout thrives when we feel helpless. Counteract this by finding small areas in your daily routine where you have absolute control, whether that is a strict ten-minute coffee boundary in the morning or consciously choosing how you react to a stressful email.

• Prioritise Joyful Movement, Rest, and “Glimmers”: Physical resilience directly influences mental resilience. Simple acts like stepping away for a short walk or listening to music can serve as a powerful reset for a flooded cortisol system. Beyond movement, intentionally looking for micro-moments of safety and joy, what Positive Psychologists call “glimmers”, can instantly cue your nervous system to calm down. I wrote a whole article on how to find and use these daily sparks of peace, which you can read here.

Empowering Your Next Chapter

What this research truly highlights is that we must stop asking mothers to simply “tough it out.” The mental and emotional well-being of a mother, whether she is currently pregnant or navigating the chaotic early years of parenting, is the absolute cornerstone of a healthy family.

When we choose to slow down, when we refuse to let the corporate mindset dictate our worth, and when we actively protect our mental health, we aren’t just changing our own day-to-day experience. We are setting a boundary that protects our children, too.

If you are currently navigating pregnancy and want to proactively build a protective, gentle space for your mind and heart, or if you are looking to heal your mindset for the chapters ahead, I have put everything I know about balance, positive transitions, and emotional resilience into a dedicated guide. You can find practical tools and reassuring frameworks in my book.

Let’s protect our peace together, one chapter at a time.

With lots of love,
Kristina

The Point of Reading Books

Since this is my first book review on Between the Chapters, I’d like to briefly share my approach to reading non-fiction.

I don’t expect a book to significantly change my life, although some, including this one, have.

Non-fiction books can teach us, and I want to grasp that knowledge. But I’m realistic about the fact that I cannot memorise or, more importantly, practically apply everything that is written. That is where the real value of reading lives: in the application, not the information.

So I’ve made peace with the limited capacity of my memory and, more broadly, of my resources, being a working mum with small children, in a foreign country, still building my village.

That’s why I aim to learn and ideally apply at least one thing from every book I read, every course I attend, every podcast I listen to. One single thing I can truly digest and that will make a difference in my life. If it turns out to be two or three things, it’s wonderful. But one is enough. I’d rather read one book and genuinely absorb one insight, than read ten and carry nothing practical away from any of them.

This approach requires concentration, reflection, and time to synthesise. Ideally, it also includes time to test and apply what you’ve learned in daily life, which, as it happens, is also one of the core principles of Positive Psychology.

How I Found What Might Be the Best Parenting Book

Two years ago, during a period when I was attending online therapy, I mentioned in one session that I was genuinely worried about my son. As his mother, I see him as so kind, and that kindness made me anxious about what will happen to him, and how much I can protect him from life’s challenges.

My therapist recommended “The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read: (And Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did)” by Philippa Perry.

I’ll admit I enjoy listening to this book more than reading it. I love Philippa’s voice, and how convincing and encouraging she sounds on audio. So I listened while solo-driving, on nature walks, and while working out. There were moments when I had to pause and sit with what she’d said, rethinking my own behaviour and my understanding of what it means to be a good mother.

Even though my work with that therapist didn’t continue, I’m grateful for this recommendation to this day. It made something very clear to me: what I should actually be aiming for when it comes to raising mentally strong, emotionally healthy people. And, of course, the ultimate goal that one day, our grown-up children will genuinely want to spend time with us. Philippa explains beautifully how that is built.

My Key Takeaway

According to Philippa, the primary responsibility of a parent is to build a relationship with their child. We might assume that the physical care, such as food, clothes, and a safe home, is the most important thing. And of course it matters. But what children need most is a strong emotional bond. A relationship that nourishes both the parent and the child.

So how do we actually build that? Philippa outlines several principles throughout the book, but the heart of her approach comes down to this: children need to feel seen, heard, and understood, not fixed, not managed, but genuinely met where they are.

This means acknowledging their feelings rather than dismissing them. When a child says “I hate my brother,” the instinct is often to correct: “No, you don’t. You love him.” But Philippa suggests sitting with the feeling instead: “It sounds like you’re really frustrated right now.” The feeling is valid. The child feels understood. The relationship deepens.

She also emphasises that our own unresolved childhood experiences, the things our parents did or didn’t do for us, inevitably shape how we parent, often unconsciously. This is where Positive Psychology intersects beautifully with her work: self-awareness and self-compassion, two cornerstones of Positive Psychology, are essential tools for breaking generational patterns. We cannot give our children what we haven’t yet found within ourselves.

Philippa doesn’t ask us to be perfect parents. She asks us to be present ones, to be curious about our children, to be honest about our own feelings, and to be willing to repair the relationship when we inevitably get things wrong. In fact, one of the key messages in the book is that parents can make mistakes. The repair, Philippa says, matters as much as the rupture.

“You Have to Like Your Kids”

Another thing I remember and practise every day is something Philippa says plainly:

“You have to like your kids. Not only love them, but genuinely like them.”

This makes so much sense to me now. It is far easier to demonstrate that we like someone than that we love them. And children can see that spark, when we light up at how they look, what they say, what they sing, how they show initiative, when they’re curious, when they play. The list is endless.

I love my children always. But I like them every time I see them. Even in the difficult moments, and there are many, that distinction guides me back.

The Story That Made Me Sit in My Car and Cry

There is one story in the book that shook me so deeply I couldn’t get out of my car for a while.

Philippa describes a boy whose parents worked very hard and were constantly busy. During the week, different babysitters looked after him while his parents worked. On weekends, they planned exciting activities and gave him gifts and special treats.

The boy never complained. He seemed fine.

One day, the father was at home when he walked into the kitchen, and found his son trying to jump out of the window.

He was caught in time. He was saved.

But the most shattering part was the reason why. The boy later explained that he wasn't acting out of recklessness. He truly wanted to end his life because he believed he was causing too much trouble. He had noticed how hard his parents worked to arrange his care, and in his quiet, heavy loneliness, he came to believe that his existence was a distraction from their important work. He genuinely believed that by ending his life, he was freeing his parents to live and work without the burden of him.

Please read that again. Slowly.

I was shaken by how much invisible weight a child can carry while, from the outside, appearing perfectly fine. This story stays with me. It changed the way I think about presence, not just physical presence, but emotional availability. Being there is not the same as being there.

You can find the book on Amazon here. It's an affiliate link, which means that I earn a small commission only if you decide to buy, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting Between the Chapters this way.

Philippa has also recently published her first novel. I haven’t read it yet, but if you’re curious, the link is here. Do let me know if you read it. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you so much for reading today. As always, I look forward to sharing more with you next Sunday.

With lots of love,

Kristina

A holiday. A promotion. A house your family loves. A morning when nobody spills their drink.

But the more I dive into positive psychology, the more I realise that happiness – real, lasting happiness – works very differently from what most of us were taught.

And the science? It’s both reassuring and quietly revolutionary.

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First, let’s talk about what happiness is NOT

It’s not the absence of hard days. It’s not a permanent state of joy. And – this one surprised me – it’s not something that money reliably buys, at least not beyond a certain point.

Research shows that making more money has rapidly diminishing returns on life satisfaction. Below the safety net, increases in income and increases in life satisfaction go hand in hand – but above that safety net, more wealth produces smaller and smaller boosts to our everyday joy.

The Science: Below the safety net, increases in money and increases in life satisfaction go together — but above the safety net, increases in money produce smaller and smaller increases in happiness. (Diener & Seligman, 2004)

For those of us juggling a corporate career with small children and expat life, this is worth sitting with. We often tell ourselves: “When I earn more, things will feel better. When we have a bigger house, I’ll finally relax.” The research gently suggests otherwise.

How much of your happiness can you actually influence?

This is perhaps the most empowering finding in all of positive psychology. And it comes in the form of a simple – if surprising – pie chart.

According to groundbreaking research by psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, our happiness baseline breaks down into three distinct parts:

• 50% is genetically determined.

• 10% is affected by our external life circumstances.

• 40% is subject to our own intentional choices and daily habits.

The Science: Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K.M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change. Review of General Psychology. Popularised in: The How of Happiness (2008).

Let that sink in for a moment.

Half of your happiness baseline was handed to you at birth – and you cannot change it. Ten per cent comes from your circumstances – your salary, your house, your country of residence. While those things certainly matter, the research suggests they matter far less than we think. (Of course, if you live in extreme circumstances like a war zone or an unsafe home, the weight of external factors increases; but here, we are talking about regular life, most likely navigating a career in a foreign country).

This leaves 40% of your happiness and well-being belonging entirely to you.

It belongs to your mindset. To your daily habits. To the micro-choices you make between the school run, the corporate work call, and the bedtime story.

For a working mum navigating expat life – where so much feels completely outside your control – this finding is quietly revolutionary. You cannot change your genes. You cannot always control your circumstances. But you hold 40% of your own happiness in your hands, every single day.

That is not a small thing. That is everything.

(Note: While these exact percentages have been debated by some researchers as an oversimplification, the underlying core principle – that intentional daily habits significantly influence our well-being – is heavily supported across psychological literature).

So, what actually allows us to flourish?

Martin Seligman – the founder of positive psychology – spent decades researching what allows humans to truly thrive. His answer came in the form of five core building blocks, known as the PERMA model.

There are many different routes to a flourishing life, and we all derive well-being from each of these five elements to varying degrees. Let’s walk through what they look like in the real, messy life of a working mum:

P — Positive Emotions

This isn’t about toxic positivity or pretending everything is fine. It’s about deliberately noticing and savouring small moments of genuine warmth throughout your day.

• According to Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions literally broaden your thoughts and actions, enhancing your long-term creativity, resilience, and social bonds.

• In real life: Savouring your morning coffee before the chaos begins, genuinely pausing to notice your child’s laugh, or taking two minutes to write down three good things before bed. Small, deliberate, and highly effective.

E — Engagement

Have you ever been so absorbed in something that you completely lost track of time? That’s what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called ‘flow’ – and it’s one of the most reliable sources of deep satisfaction available to us.

• In real life: Flow doesn’t require a weekend retreat. It can happen in the gaps of a busy day: getting fully absorbed in a creative project at work, losing yourself in a 20-minute run, or being entirely present during bathtime instead of mentally drafting tomorrow’s to-do list.

• The question to ask yourself is: When was the last time I was fully present in something — not performing, not multitasking, just completely here?

R — Relationships

This is where the science gets particularly powerful – and deeply relevant to those of us raising children far from home.

• The Harvard Grant Study – one of the longest studies of human life ever conducted, spanning over 75 years – concluded with a famous five-word finding: “Happiness is love. Full stop.”

• Furthermore, the World Happiness Report 2025 highlights that family units of four to five show remarkably high levels of life satisfaction.

• In real life: Building a support network takes immense effort when you are far from your original village. But the research doesn’t say happiness requires old, lifelong relationships; it requires genuine ones. As expat mums, I believe we should focus on strengthening our immediate family relationships first, creating a solid foundation, before attempting to build that wider village.

M — Meaning

Data published by the Greater Good Science Center in 2025 found that individuals who derive their purpose from mattering to others report the highest levels of life meaning, while those pursuing inner peace and positive impact feel the happiest day-to-day.

• In real life: For working mums, meaning often lives in the natural tension between two spaces: the career that gives us our professional identity, and the family that gives us our personal purpose. Positive psychology doesn’t ask you to choose between them. It simply asks you to notice where meaning already exists – and tend to it intentionally.

A — Accomplishment

Recent data from late 2025 flips the script on the classic hustle narrative: “I’ll feel better once I’ve achieved more.” The science shows that feeling well functions as a precursor to functioning well. Participants who reported higher well-being first showed significantly greater self-control and professional accomplishment later.

• In real life: This means that rest, restoration, and self-care are not rewards for working hard. They are the absolute foundation of your performance – both at the office and at home. Tend to your well-being first, and the accomplishments will follow naturally.

One more thing the research tells us

A massive 2025 meta-analysis pooling data from over 2.5 million participants found a beautiful, cyclical truth: people who tend to trust others more are significantly happier, and experiencing greater well-being fosters even more community trust in return.

Trust. Community. Connection.

For those of us navigating expat life – building new friendships from scratch, integrating into new cultures, and raising children between worlds – this finding feels both challenging and deeply hopeful.

Your happiness is not waiting for your circumstances to perfectly line up. It is being quietly built, right now, in every genuine connection you make.

So, what does this mean for you today?

You don’t need to overhaul your entire life. You just need to notice it a little more carefully.

Take a look at your own life through the lens of the PERMA framework this week:

• Positive Emotion: When did you last feel a genuine spark of joy — not forced, but real?

• Engagement: When were you last fully immersed in a single task?

• Relationships: Are your current connections nourishing you or depleting you?

• Meaning: Where does your daily life feel most purposeful right now?

• Accomplishment: Are you celebrating your small wins — or only tracking what’s left undone?

Pick the single element that feels the most depleted right now. This week, do just one micro-step to tend to it.

That’s not a grand gesture. That’s positive psychology in practice.

Sending you lots of warmth and a gentle reminder that you are already doing more than enough.

With love,

Kristina

I’ve observed that we often approach our own well-being with the same ‘fix-it’ mindset. We look at our exhaustion, our guilt, or our busy calendars and treat them as problems to be solved.

But positive psychology offers us a beautiful, liberating alternative. It invites us to focus on flourishing over fixing. As a working mum, I know exactly what it feels like to live on autopilot in survival mode. Yet, the moment I intentionally shift my focus to what is working and how to truly thrive (a topic that certainly deserves its own article), I feel far more fulfilled and less tense.

The Myth of the Perfect Hour

When we think about self-care or personal development, we often picture grand gestures: a weekend retreat, a flawless one-hour morning routine, or a perfectly quiet house.

But let’s be honest. In the middle of an intense work week, a busy household, and the beautiful chaos of raising children, those long stretches of time barely exist. If we wait for a perfect hour, we risk waiting forever.

True emotional resilience isn’t built in isolation. It is built right here, in the messy middle of our everyday lives.

The Micro-Reset: It is incredible how just five minutes of absolute silence can entirely save your day. Stepping out onto the terrace with a cup of coffee, leaning back, closing your eyes, and just noticing the movement of the trees in the wind. I call it true luxury, and it is a necessary circuit-breaker for a busy mind.

Turning Inward: Releasing External Expectations

A major part of flourishing is learning to protect our own energy. In our careers and our families, we face an endless stream of external expectations. If we try to meet all of them, our internal tank runs completely dry. And as we know too well, a mother’s energy directly influences the atmosphere of the entire home.

Taking time to recharge isn’t about adding another task to your endless to-do list, even if blocking a calendar for some ‘me time’ is a very practical solution. It is about claiming your agency.

When we unhook ourselves from the world’s expectations of how we should look and turn inward to trust our own intuition, the entire experience of motherhood shifts. We stop trying to project a ‘perfect’ life and start enjoying the present one.

Collecting Glimmers

Children are our greatest teachers in mindfulness because they live in the present. They don’t look for perfection. They look for connection. On this note, I highly recommend a wonderful book by Philippa Perry, who emphasises that building a secure relationship is the core foundation of parenting. It's called The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did), and I can’t wait to share a more in-depth review of it soon. If this is a topic you’d love to dive into, do drop me a comment. It will help me shape what I write about next for our growing community.

When we look closely at how this connection unfolds in daily life, we can realise it’s built entirely out of micro-moments. Our children are constantly showing us how to collect them:

• They notice with delight how the room smells like grandpa’s house while you are folding the laundry.

• They find pure magic in learning to count to three in the middle of a chaotic evening bath.

In psychology, these are called glimmers, which are tiny micro-moments of safety, joy, and connection that instantly rewrite the narrative of an exhausting day. When we change our line of sight and intentionally ‘look up’, much like pausing to admire the trees on a walk, we can break the autopilot cycle of stress.

Your Mindset Practice for the Week

This week, let go of the pressure to fix everything. Instead, give yourself permission to step back, protect your peace, and look for the beauty in the imperfections.

• Fill your own cup first: Not because you are responsible for everyone else’s mood, but because your peace of mind is the foundation of how you want to live.

• Take the five minutes: When the afternoon gets overwhelming, step away. Breathe. Reset. The work can wait.

Remember, you do not have to earn your rest, and you do not need a flawless calendar to deserve a moment of joy. The magic of motherhood and the strength of your career are not found in the perfect hours we chase, but in the tiny, imperfect glimmers we choose to save.

Wishing you a beautifully imperfect, grounded week ahead.

With lots of love,

- Kristina

For generations, classical psychology operated primarily on a deficit model. It was a framework engineered to identify weakness, manage dysfunction, and return an individual from a state of acute distress back to a baseline of “neutral” survival. But as working mums building careers while nurturing families, we quickly discover a harsh truth: simply fixing what is broken does not make us grow. It merely leaves us static.

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This is exactly where the pivot to Positive Psychology changes the entire trajectory of our professional development and family life. Pioneered as an academic movement by scholars like Martin Seligman and advanced through seminal frameworks at Harvard, Positive Psychology explicitly shifts the question from “what is broken?” to “what is working?”. It is the scientific study of Salutogenesis — a term introduced by grandfather of the field Aaron Antonovsky, meaning the very origin of health, energy, and optimal human functioning.

The Illusion of the Fix-It Mindset

As senior managers, business owners, and mothers, our default setting is often operational optimization. We often view our daily schedules, family dynamics, and professional outputs through a problem-solving lens. We ask ourselves: What went wrong today? Why am I exhausted? What do I need to correct tomorrow?

While troubleshooting is necessary for basic logistics, anchoring our mindset exclusively in what isn’t working actively stalls our evolution. If we focus only on our deficits, we remain trapped in a defensive posture. We are not growing — we are simply preventing failure.

Positive Psychology introduces a far more ambitious mandate: flourishing. I have to admit, I sometimes hesitate to use this word because I know just how exhausted working mums are. It can easily sound like an unmanageable demand added to already heavy shoulders. However, the concept of flourishing is vital. By deliberately pivoting our attention toward our character strengths, peak experiences, and resilience, we alter the internal framework of how we interpret reality. We move beyond the flatline of survival and step into intentional growth.

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A Crucial Tool for an Unstable Era

This shift is no longer an academic luxury. I see it as a tool in today’s world, which is undergoing profound, rapid structural shifts. We are navigating an era defined by an intense AI revolution, economic and financial volatility, global political insecurity, and shifting professional norms. For the working mum, these macro-pressures manifest as micro-stressors every single day within our households and work projects.

We cannot control the global landscape, nor can we pause the velocity of technological change. Therefore, I strongly believe that we should build and strengthen our own resilience. Positive Psychology is the tool that moves us from a state of passive endurance to active creation. It provides a practical, science-backed foundation needed to anchor our mental stability, protect our personal career visions, and cultivate a genuinely happy family life.

Chipping Away the Excess Stone

In one of the Harvard course lectures, Dr. Ben-Shahar beautifully reminded me of Michelangelo’s description of creating the statue of David. The masterpiece was already inside the marble, while the artist’s only task was to chip away the excess stone to reveal the beauty within.

As mothers, we do not need to acquire an entirely new set of external capabilities to achieve balance. Our potential, our resilience, and our capacity to thrive are already internal realities. The work before us is subtractive: we must chip away the deep-seated perfectionism, the chronic corporate FOMO, and the culturally imposed guilt that obscures our strengths.

True growth doesn’t happen by obsessing over what to fix. It happens when we confidently lean into what is already working. Let’s stop optimizing for baseline survival and start building a foundation that enables flourishing.

I hope you’re with me.

- Kristina

Recently, I engaged in a conversation with a friend named Anne, who articulated concerns about the prospect of restricting herself to the role of the housewife. Anne, a woman of substantial education, intelligence, and ambition, finds that limiting herself to childcare and domestic responsibilities doesn’t match her aspirations.

In many well-developed nations, it’s a common practice for women to rejoin the workforce shortly after giving birth. Numerous options are available, including part-time and flexible work arrangements (I encourage open dialogue with your employer) and childcare solutions.

I don’t suggest that one should rush back to the office, but I want to emphasize that there are options. How we choose to use them is our decision.

On the contrary, a successful career doesn’t rely solely on physical presence in the office, where I’ve noticed that female employees with young children often encounter challenges in career advancement. Unfortunately, there is still much to be done to support working mothers, but we should focus on the positive and seek the best solutions available.

I advocate for self-development through continuous learning and pursuing new experiences. During pregnancy or when caring for a baby, you can try to delve into crucial aspects of your professional development that are often postponed due to full-time work’s perpetual time and energy constraints.

Throughout my pregnancy, I immersed myself in a journey of learning and experimentation. This path led me to explore new ventures, including investing in stocks and real estate, pursuing freelance opportunities, and starting the creation of my first book. I researched industry trends extensively, attended relevant webinars, and delved into literature, focusing on learning and personal development. This helped me stay up-to-date with the market and expanded my skill set. Most importantly, the increased self-awareness and new skills boosted my confidence when I returned to work.

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Upon my return to work after one year of parental leave, I had a well-defined vision for my professional goals in the years ahead. I remained intensely focused on building my team and maintaining transparency about my objectives with myself and those within the organization. During the initial six months of my part-time return (30 hours a week, five days a week), I not only witnessed an expansion of my responsibilities but also embarked on developing my team, recruiting the first individual to collaborate with me.

My friend Anne frequently experiences pressure from family members who advocate for a prestigious job title and a stable income as prerequisites before planning children. She is far from alone; many of us have grappled with these expectations from external sources and our inner selves. While I agree that well-planned finances provide security, the conventional 9-to-5 job is no longer the only optimal solution.

The concept of a stable job is gradually evolving today. With companies frequently implementing hiring and firing strategies to optimize costs, many employees, particularly Gen Z, are open to changing jobs to secure better opportunities for professional growth, financial benefits, flexible work arrangements, travel, home office options, and other essential criteria. There’s no longer an assurance of stability from either side, neither from the employer’s nor the employee’s perspective.

The way we approach work has indeed undergone a significant transformation. An ever-growing number of individuals value self-management, mental health, and flexibility, resulting in a consistent upswing in the population of self-employed professionals. This work mode not only bestows the liberty to make autonomous decisions but can also generate substantial income, particularly when leveraging the mastery of social media advertising.

This reflection becomes especially relevant during pregnancy. Expecting a child often ignites a surprising wave of motivation and capability in women to pursue their professional interests. They are driven to set a compelling example for their offspring, which explains why many women have successfully established businesses while pregnant or during maternity leave. Please also consider that most of these women don’t do this alone – they organize help and support to work on their vision because raising a baby is already more than a full-time job.

I don’t tell you to leave your job and start your own business, but I really want to bring up this option in case it could be something that resonates with you.

The dilemma of choosing between family and career (or more precisely, professional development) is indeed a subject of controversy. Nevertheless, in most Western countries, I maintain that it’s primarily an individual choice rather than a societal norm. Whether someone focuses on one aspect and potentially sacrifices the other is a personal decision.

MY LESSONS TO STAY POSITIVE:

• Develop your career vision and forge your path.

• Carefully weigh your decision to work for employers who discriminate against mothers.

• Find inspiration in the success of other women. Draw inspiration from the numerous women who have effectively balanced a thriving career with a happy family or those who have successfully transitioned to stay home with their children.

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This article is an excerpt from my book, ‘Happy Pregnancy: A Guide to a Positive Mindset’, published on Amazon.

It took five years and three pregnancies to finalise this book. Looking back, I am still struck by how much Positive Psychology was woven into my first pregnancy - an extraordinary time that, despite its beauty, brought serious challenges and complications.

It was through those moments that I truly learnt the power of the mindset tools I share today.

But as I dive deeper into my studies in Positive Psychology, I’ve realised that this narrative is fundamentally flawed. Motherhood isn’t a pause. It is an intensive time in personal development. However, I’ve also learnt that this growth isn’t always obvious. It takes a deliberate effort to stop, look at the motherhood joys and challenges, and recognise them as the building blocks of our personal development.

If you feel more motivated, more resilient, and more focused on self-improvement since becoming a mum, you aren’t imagining it. There is a scientific reason why motherhood makes us more capable, if we choose to see it.

1. The Power of “Good Enough”

Positive Psychology teaches us the value of Self-Compassion over the toxic pursuit of perfection. Research by D.W. Winnicott famously introduced the concept of the “Good Enough Mother.”

The science shows that children don’t need perfect parents; they need resilient ones. Letting go of the “Perfect Mother” trap reduces our stress and increases our Psychological Capital.

For anyone struggling with the pressure to “do it all” perfectly, I highly recommend a book I’ve shared on my Instagram before: “Raising a Happier Mother” by Anna Mathur. It was a game-changer for me. It shifts the focus from “how am I performing?” to “how am I feeling?” and “why?” which actually gives some peace of mind in a busy daily life.

2. Motherhood as a Catalyst for Growth

Why am I suddenly diving into Harvard coursework on Positive Psychology while juggling a career, two small kids, the garden, and everything in between? Because motherhood provides a unique form of Intrinsic Motivation, even if it may sound unrealistic on most ordinary days for a working mum.

According to Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan), we thrive when we have autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Motherhood often forces us to develop these at an accelerated rate. We want to become the best versions of ourselves not just for our own sake, but to serve as a blueprint or an inspiration for the children we are raising. Our “why” has never been stronger.

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3. A Pragmatic Tool: Three Good Things

Working mums often suffer from “Role Conflict”. It’s that nagging guilt that we are failing at home when we are at work, and vice-versa. Positive Psychology offers a simple, pragmatic fix: The “Three Good Things” exercise (Seligman et al., 2005).

Instead of scanning for what went wrong, we train our brains to scan for what went right.

• Did you handle a difficult client with empathy? That’s a win.

• Did you manage 20 minutes of present, phone-free play? That’s a win.

• Did you reach out to your village today? That’s the biggest win of all.

4. Strengthening the Village

One of the most consistent findings in Positive Psychology is Social Connection, which is the number one predictor of long-term wellbeing. In my last article, I spoke about “The Village.” Science backs this up: we are not biologically designed to live (and to thrive) alone.

By building a support system, we aren’t “failing” at independence. We are applying Social Support Theory to ensure our family and our careers can flourish simultaneously.

The Human Playbook Play

I want to invite you to shift your mindset. It takes effort to see the strength in the struggle, but once you do, everything changes. Don’t look at your “working mum” status as a hurdle to your development. Look at it as your most powerful asset.

Motherhood has taught me more about leadership, resilience, relationships, and empathy than any textbook ever could. Now, I’m just adding the science to it.

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But recently, as I dive deeper into my studies of positive psychology, I’ve begun to realise that this badge of honour is actually a heavy weight. We have been taught to prize independence, but the human brain is wired for interdependence. In our pursuit of “having it all”, we often sacrifice the “Village” — and we are feeling the cost in our internal balance.

The Expat’s Invisible Tax

When you live in your home country, the village is often inherited. It’s the grandmother who takes the kids for an hour, the old school friend who knows your “pre-mum” self, or the neighbour who understands your history without you saying a word. When we move abroad, we lose that inheritance. We pay an “invisible tax” of extra emotional labour just to find basic support.

However, much depends on the stage of life we’re at the moment. When I was in my twenties, hopping from my exchange in Sweden to the bustling streets of South Korea and then for my Master’s in Norway, I didn’t think much about the village. Back then, my life was packed into a suitcase, and my hunger was for adventure, new cultures, and academic challenges. Independence was my fuel, and I thrived on the freedom of being free.

However, the shift happens when you decide to stop exploring and start settling.

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When you aim to create a family and build a home, the village stops being a luxury and becomes a mechanical necessity. In my 12 years in Germany, I have tried to lay those bricks, but our journey wasn’t static. We moved three times within Germany (within only a 100 km radius), and with every new postcode, the clock reset. I found myself standing in a new kitchen, in a new town, having to start my village from zero all over again. Every move required me to find the courage to build a support system where there was only silence at first.

Every move required starting the village from zero.

By the time we settle and have children, many of us are so used to doing it alone that we stop asking for help entirely. We become “Projectors” (as my Human Design suggests) who can see the systems and help others, but often forget to design a system that supports ourselves.

Shifting the Needle from Survival to Flourishing

In traditional psychology, we might look at this isolation and focus on the “burnout”. But positive psychology asks a different question: What are the strengths we can use to build a village where one doesn’t exist?

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Flourishing isn’t about waiting for a village to appear at your doorstep. It’s about the active, science-backed pursuit of high-quality connections. Research shows that even small, micro-moments of connection — a shared laugh with another mum at the playground or a deep conversation over brunch with a local community — can regulate our nervous systems and restore our sense of balance.

The Human Playbook: Two Bricks for Your Village

If you are feeling the “juggle” today, I want to offer two tools from my Human Playbook to help you stop sacrificing your well-being for the sake of “independence”:

1. The Vulnerability Audit: We often think we are a burden when we ask for help. Positive psychology suggests the opposite: asking for a small favour actually increases the other person’s liking of us (The Ben Franklin Effect). This week, ask for one small thing from someone else to help you, even if it’s to watch your kids at the playground while you take a 15-minute walk in the neighbourhood.

2. The Identity Anchor: As expats, we often lose ourselves in the “roles” of worker and mother. Find one person who knew you before you were a mum, or someone who shares a hobby (like sport or your creative activity). This reminds you that you are a whole person, not just a “service provider” for your family.

The Village Strategy Matrix

We often wait for the village to find us, but as international professionals, we must be the architects of our own support systems. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, and the “best” village is usually a blend of different layers.

Depending on your current energy and needs, consider which of these “bricks” you can lay:

• The Locals: Build roots by stepping into the local culture through kindergartens, schools, or prenatal classes. Learning the local language and the local cultural norms is the ultimate bridge here. It transforms you from a “guest” into a member of the community and helps you understand the unwritten rules of your new home.

• The Expat Mums: Connect with other international mums who have lived here longer than you. They are your best resource for navigating the “systems” — from school registrations to local laws. They’ve already walked the path, so you don’t have to. Plus, they may have similar international experiences and perspectives on career and professional development to yours. Thus, you could connect well not only because of “being a mum”.

• The Home-Country Mums: Reach out to mums from your own country living nearby. Sharing a common language and background provides a unique form of emotional shorthand. You don’t have to explain your mentality; they already live it. Therefore, they’re also most likely to provide the best emotional and mental support.

• The Online Communities: If you are in a remote area or the “working mum juggle” makes in-person coffee less possible, lean into digital groups. These are vital for quick questions and solidarity when your schedule doesn’t allow for a physical meeting.

• The Original Village: Don’t discard the friends and family you left behind. While distance is a challenge, a video call or a visit from a loved one during intense times (like the first weeks with a newborn at home) remains an invaluable link to who you are.

You don’t need to do all of these at once. Choose a couple of these strategies that fit your life best right now. Often, a blend of local roots and international branches is where we find our true internal balance.

Building Brick by Brick

I am 38, and I am still learning that my strength doesn’t come from how much I can carry alone (one of the hardest lessons for me to embrace, I must admit). It comes from how well I can connect. Whether you are in Lithuania, Germany, or anywhere in between, the village is not a location — it is a practice.

Tomorrow, when the “wild world” starts its morning engine, remember: you don’t have to prove your worth by doing it alone. You prove your wisdom by building a village that allows you to thrive.

Are you ready to lay the first brick with me?

Then there is the AI revolution, along with global economic and political challenges. Recently, every time I open my news feed, the headlines are shouting that we have two years. To adapt, to change, to prove?

And last, and most important, my growing kids who watch me. My six-year-old son has already asked the most challenging questions. In less than two years, his little sister will start talking. Do I know enough about human life and the world to comment, to answer, and to share?

However, I already live a happy life in which there are so many things that I am grateful for:

• my husband, who has been with me for 15 years

• two adorable, healthy kids

• a house with a garden

• many inspiring trips

• uplifting and encouraging people

• my international education

• an expat career which I’ve built from scratch

• an investment portfolio

• well-being routines and hobbies

• my first book on a positive mindset during pregnancy, which I published last year

• many dreams and ideas to work on.

But the hunger is still here; somehow, it doesn’t seem to be enough to greet my 40th with great confidence. I feel like there is still so much to learn about myself, the human mind, and the world. I see this urge to cultivate a strong internal balance to showcase a happy life for my kids in this difficult age.

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With constant comparisons on social media, global dystopian news, and the AI revolution, the world has become really wild, unpredictable, and insecure. And I’ve been thinking a lot recently about not only how to survive but also how to thrive in this age.

Not only for me, but also for my kids, as a role model, providing them with strength and encouragement. And we all have heard that people do what we do, not what we tell them. This is especially true for our kids.

So, I’ve been looking for new role models, theories, and techniques to cultivate a positive mindset and build internal balance. This is how I came across positive psychology - a relatively new area of psychology which, in contrast to traditional psychology, focuses on what’s working, and not what has to be fixed. It examines human strengths and what makes us flourish. It helps us to feel happier. Not happy, but happier - which means that we can use positive psychology at any stage of our lives, when we’re down, as well as when we already live a happy life.

And this is exactly what I need to prepare for my 40th, and the life afterwards. This is exactly what we all need in this wild world.

With great pleasure, I’m diving into the studies of positive psychology. As a working mum, I’m learning when I’m solo-driving, during gym training, or most often in the evenings, when everyone’s asleep. I’m fascinated by applying new knowledge in everyday life. I’m eager to open this new chapter and share my findings with you here. Every week, a new technique, a new tool, or a new perspective on how to make a happier life.

Are you with me?

Every Sunday morning, I'll share one Positive Psychology tool, one insight, or one perspective for working mums navigating this wild world alongside me.

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