> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://sacharusso.com.au/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # What did you pack without knowing? - URL: https://sacharusso.com.au/letters/what-did-you-pack-without-knowing/ - Published: 2026-10-10T21:30:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-10T21:30:00.000Z - Description: The idea of what a good mother looks like sits in us long before we ever hold a baby. This week, I want us to gently open that bag. - Author: Sacha Russo Hello Beautiful, Last week I gave you a word, matrescence, for the shift that begins the moment you become a mother and keeps unfolding through every season after. Near the end of that letter, I left you with one thought. So much of the hard part comes from expectations we never chose. The idea of what a GOOD mother looks like sits in us long before we ever hold a baby, and most of us carry it without knowing we packed it. This week, I want us to gently open that bag. ## The bag we didn't know we packed Think about the picture of a good mother you grew up with. Maybe it was your own mum, always on her feet, the last to sit down at dinner. Maybe it was your nan, a mum from the telly, or the mother at school pick up who always seemed to have it together. Maybe it was a picture of everything you swore you would do differently. Without ever deciding to, most of us took that picture and turned it into a rulebook. A good mother is always available. A good mother doesn't need anything for herself. A good mother keeps the house running, the kids happy and everyone fed, and she never complains, because complaining means she wants too much. None of us sat down and wrote those rules. We absorbed them, from our families, our culture, and the systems we live and work in. So we walk into motherhood not even aware of what we are carrying. We just feel the weight of it. ## I should, or I want? Here is something I notice again and again. As mothers, we live our days by "I should". I should say yes to the school fundraiser. I should host Christmas again this year. **I should be *grateful*, so I shouldn't feel like this.** Very rarely do we stop and ask, what do I WANT? And when we do far more than we need to, it is often because the doing is where we are looking for our **value** and our **worth**. If I'm busy, if I'm needed, if I'm holding it all together, then surely, I'm a good mother. The world doesn't make this easy. As Dr Oscar Serrallach puts it, "We live in a world that expects her to work like she doesn't have children and raise children like she doesn't work." If we go back to work, we justify it. If we stay home, we hear ourselves saying "**I'm just a mum**", and somehow, we are expected to be available at the drop of a hat for everyone, not only our own family. Whatever we choose, we feel we have to explain it. ## Where I learned this the hard way By 2019 I was overwhelmed, depleted and really unhappy. I wasn't the mum, the wife, the woman or the friend I knew I could and so deeply desired to be. That year I was doing a values exercise, and we were talking about integrity. I sat there thinking, yes, that's me. I live with integrity. I keep my word. Then the conversation turned to SELF integrity, keeping the promises you make to yourself, and I felt it right in my heart. Oh, my goodness, this is why I'm so miserable. *I did all the things I said I would do for everybody else. I committed to everybody. But I had almost no commitment to the things I wanted for myself and my life.* Self-integrity is now my number one value. ## Your values may not be your own Our values are the beliefs that guide our decisions. Many of them were instilled in us from childhood, and some of them were never ours to begin with. They are not set in stone either. Your values in your 20s aren't the same as in your 30s, and they aren't the same as in your 40s. Our values change as we evolve and change. What mattered to you before you became a mother isn't most likely what matters to you now, and as your children move through their own seasons, your values will shift again. That is matrescence too. Every season is an invitation to look at what you are carrying and choose, this time on purpose, what you pick up and what you leave behind. You don't have to tip the whole bag out. Some of what you packed is beautiful and worth keeping. You simply get to choose. ## Your invitation this week Small and doable. If we start big, we crash and burn, so we start small. 🌿 Health: Make yourself one small promise and keep it. A glass of water before your morning coffee. A 10-minute walk. Bed by 10\. Something so small you know you can do it. Every promise you keep to yourself builds trust in yourself. 💛 Heart: Catch one "should" this week. When you hear yourself say it, pause and ask, whose voice is this? Mine, my mother's, or the world's? Then ask, what do I want? 🏡 Home: Choose one thing you do at home only because a good mother "should", and let it go for a week. The beds don't have to be made. The lunchboxes can be packed by the 10-year-old. Never do for others what they can do for themselves. Notice how it feels. And if you can find 5 quiet minutes with a cup of tea, take a pen and finish this sentence: "A good mother is..." Write whatever comes, without judging it. Then read each line back and ask, did I choose this? **You are not failing at motherhood. You are living by a rulebook you never wrote. And it is never, ever too late to write your own.** I would love to know. Hit reply and tell me one "should" you are ready to put down. I read every one. With love, Sacha x P.S. If you would like to go deeper into your values, my free guide, [Four Ways Back to You](https://sacharusso.com.au/#guide), has a whole section on them, with journalling prompts to help you find which ones are truly yours.