My nine-year-old walked into my office shaking, convinced we'd have to move house. What came out over the next 97 minutes on my lap changed the way I understand what it means to hold space for your child—and why you can't offer what you don't have. This is the episode about co-regulation: what it actually looks like, and the sentence my son said that I will carry for the rest of my life.

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“Mama, I cleaned up the mess." His voice was so small. This is the repair — the knock, the hug, the ugly cry. And then the second rupture I didn't see coming: the piano, the flashback, the moment I heard my father's voice in mine and had to let go of the thing I thought made me a good mother. This is what unhurried actually means — not as a mood, but as a way of moving through your life at your own pace instead of the world's.

We were already late. The bowl tipped. Coconut milk—the last of it—spilled all over the floor. And I snapped. This is the story of what happened next—the shame spiral, the bathroom floor, and the moment I heard a knock I wasn’t ready for. Why your blow-ups aren't character flaws — they're biology. Window of tolerance, and what it actually means to notice you're leaving it, and how to start coming back.

This is the first episode of The Unhurried Mama. I'm Michelle, and I'm launching this podcast on my daughter's 12th birthday because she's the reason I started asking: What does it mean to parent from a nervous system that isn't running? The choice I made that changed everything—saying yes to homeschool—the tornado years that followed, and the question I'm still sitting in: What am I trying to outrun by staying busy? If you've been sprinting through motherhood and don't know how to stop, this is for you. I'm still figuring it out, but I'm doing it out loud. Your body already knows the path. This is the work of coming home to yourself.