CEO Mama Newsletter: 25th Edition

Time gets treated like a currency, .

Something to budget, optimize, and spend wisely.

But for many women, time is more than a resource.
It’s how care is expressed.
How love is shown.
How devotion is proven.

Time becomes a love language.
And in motherhood, it becomes the primary one.

Without even realizing it, women are often taught that to love someone well is to give them time. Presence. Energy. Availability.

It starts early… being there for others, making time for what matters, putting others first. But in motherhood, it deepens. Time becomes the invisible thread holding the whole system together.

You’re the one remembering the snacks.
Coordinating the calendar.
Choosing to wake up early so everyone else’s day runs smoother.

You give time to make things work. To show you care. To hold everything in place.

And yes, there are moments you carve out space for yourself. 

• A workout squeezed in between calls. 

• A creative hobby pushed to after bedtime. 

• A quiet hour before the kids wake up. 

You’re doing something for you, but it’s often rushed, deprioritized, or compromised the second someone else’s needs feel heavier.

And the deeper truth?
It’s not always about logistics.
Sometimes, it’s about identity.

Because when time is how love is expressed, choosing yourself can feel like a betrayal.

Like someone will be disappointed.
Like you’ll lose your place in the system.

So you justify the imbalance under the badge of CEO, or mother, or partner.
But underneath it, there’s a deeper story:
That your worth is still measured by how much of yourself you give away.

It’s not that you never take time for yourself.
It’s that the time you do take still comes with guilt, or justification, or the unspoken agreement that you’ll make up for it later.

The deeper issue isn’t logistics - it’s worth.

Somewhere along the line, many of us internalized the belief that being needed makes us valuable. That our ability to stretch, show up, pour out, and keep going is proof of our love… and our strength.

But when time becomes the primary way you express care, and you rarely offer it to yourself without permission or apology, you start to believe that your own needs are negotiable.

This isn’t about learning to “balance better.”
It’s about disentangling your identity from self-sacrifice.

Because reclaiming your time isn’t just about creating white space on a calendar.
It’s about coming home to the truth that you don’t have to earn care, even from yourself.

You are allowed to give your best energy to what lights you up.
You are allowed to build a life where your joy isn’t a side effect - it’s a signal.
You are allowed to hold time as sacred even when it doesn’t produce anything.

When you lead from that place, the place where time is offered from wholeness, not obligation, everything you build becomes more alive.

This is where a lot of ambitious women hit an invisible ceiling.

They’re doing “all the right things” in their business…
but still feel resentful, foggy, overextended, or constantly behind.

Not because the strategy is broken, but because their time boundaries are still rooted in survival patterns.

They’re still proving, pleasing, or protecting others’ comfort with how they spend their time.

But leadership - true, sustainable leadership - requires inner clarity.
And you can’t access that clarity if you’re constantly abandoning yourself in the name of being useful.

What shifts everything isn’t more efficiency.
It’s deeper alignment.

When your time reflects your actual values, you stop over-functioning.
You stop over-justifying.
And you start building from enoughness, not urgency.

Start noticing when you rush.

Rushing through the workout.
Rushing through the lunch you made for yourself.
Rushing through the quiet time you finally created just so you can get back to everything else.

These micro-moments tell the truth.
They show where your nervous system still doesn’t feel safe being with yourself unless it’s productive, impressive, or efficient.

So the reset isn’t just in time management.
It’s in nervous system attunement.

Can you slow down… and stay?
Can you pause without performing?
Can you allow yourself presence, without earning it first?

That’s where the recalibration begins.

This week, try this:

Track the moments you rush yourself, not because of time constraints, but because of discomfort. Ask yourself:

Where do I feel unworthy of my own time?
Where do I dilute my presence in order to be useful?
Where do I still treat my needs as optional?

What might change if the way I gave my time to myself became the new standard for how I lead?

Because how you give your time - especially to yourself - isn’t just a habit. It’s a mirror for what you believe you’re worth.

P.S. If time has become your love language to everyone but yourself…
If you’re realizing that reclaiming your calendar is really about reclaiming your worth…
our CEO Mama Membership was built for this exact conversation.

Inside the membership, we’re not just helping you grow a business — we’re helping you build a life where your time, energy, and joy matter just as much as the ones you give to everyone else. Apply now and join a community of mothers rewriting what leadership looks like.