Being a Single Mum Was Never the Plan

Photo by Elana Mullaly Photography

Being a single mum was never the plan.

Twelve years. A farm I'd worked for. A future I could see clearly. Then I left suddenly, my two-year-old on my hip, for my little sister's room at my parents' place, with no idea what came next.

I don't need to list everything that came after. If you've done it, you already know. And I was lucky, I had a village. My parents held me up in a hundred ways. But Emmi had been through such a huge shift that I was the only one she was okay with, for a long time. So there was no escape, not even into the chores. I couldn't duck off to fold the laundry, because she needed me, all of me, all the time. I always had to be the best mum, always on, and with everything else I was carrying, it was exhausting.

The afternoons were the worst of it. That stretch from the five o'clock coffee to bedtime, when there was nothing left in the tank and a small person still wanted me to play.

I knew it wasn't her. I just couldn't manage it yet.

Deep down, I always knew it wasn't about Emmi. The whining, the not-listening, the asking for one more thing when I had nothing left, none of it was really about her, and I knew that even in the moment.

But knowing it didn't mean I could manage it. I hadn't learned yet how to process everything I was carrying, so it spilled over anyway, usually onto my parents, the people closest to me while I was living under their roof.

That was the harder truth to sit with. It was never about finding someone to blame. It was about learning to feel what was underneath, and to steady myself before it spilled.

A witchy catch-up changed everything

The turning point wasn't a book or a plan. It was a witchy catch-up with a friend and some women I'd never met. That afternoon I was introduced to energy work, and something in me remembered: I used to love this. And because I was single now, I felt allowed to explore it, all of it, without anyone's judgement.

So I did. I read Joe Dispenza's Becoming Supernatural, then Sue Morter's The Energy Code, then a whole stack of books on energy work and healing. I found my way back to meditation, which I'd loved for years before I had my daughter and lost somewhere in the baby fog. I started seeking out good guided meditations, and feeling that deep, clear state again, the one that opens up in the slower brainwaves.

Underneath all of it was one quiet realisation: I could choose my own path. My own spiritual path, and my own way of parenting. Nobody got to dictate it to me. And as a single mum, I was free to build my days around what actually mattered.

So I did that too. I stopped forcing the things I thought I was supposed to do and started walking the paddocks with my daughter instead. Barefoot on the grass. Audiobooks in my ears. Dance parties in the kitchen. Collecting rocks, building fairy gardens, the sun on my skin. I used those walks as my own regulation time, not performing motherhood, just being present while she wandered beside me.

Healing that happens with your kids, not away from them

Here's what I wish someone had told me earlier. You don't need an hour alone to come back to yourself. The thing that steadied me didn't happen away from my daughter. It happened with her right there, in the ordinary middle of the afternoon.

Those last few hours before bed, the ones I'd been gritting my teeth through, are some of the most important attachment hours of her whole day. And it turns out the small things that regulate me also give her exactly what she needs. I don't have to choose between us.

There's good science underneath this, not just a nice feeling. Children don't take in our intentions, however heartfelt; they take in our tone and our body. A 2023 Stanford study found that five minutes a day of slow, sighing breath lifted people's mood more than meditation did. And gentle, affectionate connection with our kids is linked to a rise in oxytocin, the hormone of bonding and calm. None of it needs a babysitter, a quiet room or money you don't have.

This is the work I've trained in, as a holistic counsellor and someone who teaches early childhood development to student teachers. But honestly, I didn't need the qualifications to feel it working. I needed to be shown how small it could be.

You don't have to leave your kids to come back to yourself

If you're in the unstable part right now, tipping between really good and really bad with no steady ground, I'm not going to tell you it's fine. I'll tell you it's survivable, and that you can come back to yourself without stepping away from your children to do it.

It starts smaller than you think. One breath. One walk. One song in the kitchen.

I've pulled together the seven I lean on most into a free guide, Sanity at Sundown: 7 Ways to Stop the Sundown Meltdown. They each take five minutes or less, you can do every one with your kids nearby, and I'll show you how. [Grab it here.]

And if you're near me in the South West, I'm holding a Samhain Mask and Fire Circle on my farm on 31 October: an evening for women and their children, around the fire, marking new beginnings. Kids are welcome, always. [The details are here.]

Being a single mum was never the plan. But the woman I've become inside it? I wouldn't hand her back.

With love from the farm, Anna