147: 7 Signs There's More to Your Childless Grief Than You Think Artwork

Awakening Worth in Childless Women

You are about to discover how to embrace your life as a childless woman who wanted to have a family and never could. This is where we combine mindset shifting tools with practical tips so you can break free of outdated societal norms that condition us all to believe that women without kids don’t measure up to the moms.

This is where we take action on processing grief and accelerating the healing journey so you can feel free. When childless women awaken their self-worth, they transform from hopeless and inadequate to worthy, accepting and purposeful.

Think of this podcast as your weekly dose of lightbulb moments that will shift your perspective as a childless woman - about yourself and your innate power to change yourself, your future and even the world we live in. If that’s what you want, then start listening!

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Awakening Worth in Childless Women

147: 7 Signs There's More to Your Childless Grief Than You Think

May 25, 2025 • Sheri Johnson • Season 3 • Episode 147

I make a BIG announcement at the beginning of this episode so tune in to find out more about the future of the Awakening Worth Pod. And then, the rest of the episode is for the childless woman who wonders why she still feels stuck in grief after letting go of motherhood. It's not just grief you’ve been carrying. It’s the deep, unspoken belief that your worth was tied to becoming a mother.

In this opening chapter of our final 3-part podcast series, I share the personal realization that changed everything for me: triggers are not just about grief—they’re about self-worth. And when you begin to reclaim yours, everything shifts.

We’ll explore the hidden signs of low self-worth masked as grief, and how your healing journey has always been about more than loss—it’s been about liberation.

What You’ll Hear:

The truth about triggers and grief no one talks about
7 signs your self-worth is calling for attention
Why this podcast was actually about way more than becoming a mother—it was about becoming me and inviting you to become YOU

The doors are open for the last round of the Women of Worth - a guided transformation from grief and triggers to peace and purpose. Email me at sheri@sherijohnson.ca with the word PROGRAM if you want to apply for one of the last spots.

Where to find Sheri:
Instagram: @sherijohnsoncoaching
Website: sherijohnson.ca

Hello! I have a big announcement coming on today's episode a big one.

I'm also going to talk about. The moment that my entire childless journey, turned from grief and triggers to peace and acceptance.

And I'm going to talk about what might be keeping you stuck

the biggest obstacle, keeping you from peace and acceptance, yourself, keeping you from purpose and a full, happy life.

I feel like I'm in a pretty unique position here, because

I was actually pretty ambivalent about having kids. As I look back and reflect on my twenties and thirties, and

what that allowed me to do was to is to

stand in the middle of the childless and the child free, and to bridge that gap to see exactly what's different between

those 2 groups. And what's the same

between these 2 ends of the spectrum.

So this episode, it's going to be such a

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I feel like the word juicy is so overused. But I'm going to use that word because it's going to be full, and there's going to be lots of

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golden nuggets. And if you are ready for that and for my announcement, and let's dive in.

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Welcome back. Welcome to the awakening worth podcast for childless women. If you are new here, I'm really glad to have you. I'm glad you're listening.

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And so today I have a big announcement. I feel like, Okay, before I get into this.

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every client that I have talked to lately, and I would include myself in this is going through

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or feels like they're in this limbo. This transition, like some sort of uncomfortable period where

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they're not exactly sure, not totally feeling aligned.

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Not sure what's coming. Not sure where they've been.

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It's it's actually

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it's incredible how common this is, and I know from my astrologer friends, that there is a lot going on in the cosmos, and this is part of it.

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And there's also talk about awakening worth.

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There's a theory out there that this is also part of the awakening.

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an up level of the earth's consciousness. And women, I think, especially childless women.

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are going to play a big role in that.

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So whether you believe that or not.

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I'm definitely going through a transition right now. And so my announcement.

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I feel like I could keep you waiting until the end, but then you could just fast forward, so I might as well just let the cat out of the bag

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the awakening worth podcast my baby, that might trigger you

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and maybe just sit with that and ask yourself why, if it does, I think of this as

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my baby. This thing that I have created, that I have burst, that I have watched grow.

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and that I have really loved creating is coming to a close.

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I hesitate to say it's closing for good, but it's closing for now.

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and it's not really an ending. Actually, it's an expansion.

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It's an expansion into something bigger, and so it feels very bittersweet to me. I'm excited for what's coming.

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and and I'm also a bit sad for what's changing.

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I think we're all a little bit apprehensive about change, aren't we?

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I mean, I'm sure there are those of you out there who love change. And I'm actually someone who really likes variety. I do like change, but it comes with a lot of

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discomfort.

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We like familiar, we like comfortable and known.

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And yet for me it's time for a major up level

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for me, personally, for my business, for my podcast, everything

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and over the next 3 episodes.

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today's today's and the episodes coming. I'm going to unfold

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what is coming forth, because it might actually still be right up your alley.

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and I'm also going to unpack

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my. I feel like. There's another and overused word unpack.

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I'm going to unfold for you my decision

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to do this, and showing exactly how all the work that I did on myself

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the work I did with my clients.

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and even with you, my listeners.

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I want to share how all of that

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has led me to this next step.

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but none of that is going to start without finishing out this podcast with a bang.

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So, as I said, I have 3

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epic episodes coming for you today and over the next 2 weeks.

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and I'm also going to be sharing my biggest.

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boldest lessons and secrets for all you women who are still trying to get to your best life.

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even without the kids.

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So if you're ready for that, let's get started.

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I want to start by talking about my pivotal moment.

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The moment that changed everything for me.

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it was a moment that changed my life. It started me on the path to acceptance

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and to living my best life, because really I am. I just moved again.

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this time into our dream house.

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It's on the lake, it's on Georgian Bay.

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It is open and airy. It's cottagey.

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and there are trees all around. There's a forest across the street, so there's nobody even living across the street.

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I just sometimes I have to a lot of the time.

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It's only been a week and a half, and I feel like I have to pinch myself every morning when I look out at the view from my bedroom onto the lake.

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and even one of the days that I came to look at the house before we bought it.

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I saw 2 deer just up the road.

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and if you're into spirit animals

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and what they tell us deer are about new adventures.

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they're they're actually about a lot of things. But that's 1 of them.

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So yeah, it's a dream.

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This work has also been a dream. I work with amazing women. I'm floored by my clients sometimes, and the things that they say, the wisdom they come

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to our group calls with and our one on ones.

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I get to work from home, which I love. Some people don't like that, but for me it's perfect.

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I am married to my best friend, and I have great family around me. I'm close with my family, my friends

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around me, so life is pretty good, and I want that for you.

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and I'll tell you it wasn't always this way.

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I spent most of my twenties and thirties searching for the right man.

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I thought there was something wrong with me. Why was I not being chosen.

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And when I finally did meet Mike.

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and, by the way, you can meet him, too, if you want to. He came on episode number 100 with me.

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So when when we finally met and we got pregnant and then miscarried, and then miscarried again and again.

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and then we had trouble getting pregnant. I I just I wondered why some people have it.

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or seem to have it so easy.

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They find the partner, you know, early in their twenties, and then they have no trouble getting pregnant, and

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it all just seems so easy for some people, it seems so unfair.

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And that's what's happened. That's what did happen? That's the way that I was thinking

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when someone close to me really close to me, someone who I

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couldn't just sort of avoid and shut out of my life got pregnant.

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just as I was trying to grapple

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with the idea of never having kids.

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and I was very triggered by her.

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The fact that she got to get like she got what I wanted. She got to get pregnant.

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and it seemed to be a pretty easy pregnancy for her, and

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I just I couldn't be around her without feeling so much envy and sadness for myself.

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And then I felt guilty for not being happy for her.

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I was happy for her, but I was also really sad for me, and that's a really kind of a hard place to be.

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There came a day when I was with her our families were together.

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and she was out swimming so wearing a bathing suit with her pregnant belly and all I could think of. I couldn't even go in the water.

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and

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you might have heard me say this before, but there was a the pivotal moment was when I said to myself, and this was not even a really conscious thing at the time.

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I asked myself, what can I do about this?

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There must be something that I can do

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because I can't keep living like this. I just don't want to feel this way anymore.

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And in that moment something really critical happened.

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I moved from being a victim of my circumstances.

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Being a survivor of like a miscarriage survivor being a all this life happened to me.

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and I moved into empowerment.

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I moved into this place of power where I could really.

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where suddenly your brain, when you ask that question like, what can I do about this. Suddenly your brain starts to look for answers, for solutions.

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and the universe begins to present solutions to you as well.

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And that's exactly what happened.

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I started using all of these coaching tools and spiritual tools, journaling, meditation, affirmations. Not just that the real

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critical tools, or some very pointed journal prompts

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that, I asked myself, and then wrote out the answers, and something shifted, and

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that was it was all of those things.

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plus these really critical journal prompts

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that made all the difference for me, and it was only about a couple months later

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when I'm thinking about the timing. She had her baby in November

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and summertime was probably like. 3 months later I was able to go to her baby shower.

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and there was more than one baby there. I held the babies, and I didn't feel those triggers anymore.

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Of course they, you know. This was a process that

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then unfolded over the next few months, when I came up with other triggers, and but I had a process, then a framework

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to use, and that was when it felt like the Titanic started to turn around for me.

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Everything shifted.

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And what I realized this was a really key thing, because I wasn't

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because I I had been a bit ambivalent about having kids. I never. I wasn't the person who.

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I wasn't the the teenager who wanted to babysit all the time. I didn't play with dolls when I was a little kid.

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I just I didn't.

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While I assumed I always assumed I would be a mother.

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I didn't have this deep, burning desire

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and lifelong dream, the way that I know some other women have.

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I was a bit ambivalent. I just sort of thought. Oh, it's going to happen one day.

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and that put me in a position

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to see. Well, at 1st it was quite confusing, because, I thought, what are all these feelings like? Why do I feel so?

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Why do I feel so shitty

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and so emotional. And yet this doesn't feel like I thought grief should feel like.

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And this was the critical thing that I realized

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these reactions that I was having. They weren't about loss, the loss of the dream of being a mother.

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They were about feeling less less valuable, less worthy, less woman. Even so, the root

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of all of your emotions might not be grief. You may be feeling grief as well.

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but there's some other things going on. If you're also feeling envy, feeling like you don't belong, or

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I'm going to get into these in a minute all the things that you might be feeling

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that's actually self-worth.

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Being childless can really highlight areas where your your self-worth might be faltering.

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And you may feel like Nope. That's not my problem. I have a successful career

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have confidence. I don't have low self-esteem.

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I I thought all of those things as well.

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and yet underneath of the surface my self-worth was faltering, because

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well, there's so many reasons why, but I felt less than that was a sign.

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So let's talk about what you might be feeling.

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Really, it boils down to the question.

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Am I enough? Am I good enough.

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or am I actually less than

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this might come up as discomfort at family gatherings, feeling like you don't belong like you don't quite fit there anymore.

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There might be an impulse or an impulse to overcompensate or to prove yourself.

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Yes, I'm busy, too. It's not just you mothers. I'm busy, too.

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might show up in other ways. There's the sting when friends talk about motherhood, talk about their kids.

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and there might be the sense of being outside of the circle outside. Looking in.

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These aren't just grief triggers.

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They are worth triggers, and when you make that distinction.

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It's going to change everything for you.

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This is what's what I think is missing in the childless space.

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There's lots of support, lots of

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lots of places where you can feel like. Oh, this! These people know how I feel, they understand.

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But what's missing is is the the work on these self-worth triggers.

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We're not talking about that enough.

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So I'm going to talk about it today.

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What is happening part of what is happening is patriarchy and prenatalism.

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All of these systems, even political religious ideologies

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that tell us that a woman's worth is linked to motherhood. That is her foundational role.

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It is what she's what her purpose is her legacy is her kids.

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All of that conditioning is at the root of these self-worth triggers, and it's not your fault.

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It's not your fault that you absorb those messages we all did. We all are living in this same

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medium. We all hear the same messages. It comes from every angle.

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not just religion and politics, but from advertising media TV shows people in your life.

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But just because you absorb those those messages.

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Probably since you were a little kid. It doesn't mean you have to keep living by them.

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So this is one of the key.

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This is one of the key pillars inside of the women of Worth, my, my signature program and

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and my rise and reclaim framework.

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It's UN.

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It's unraveling that conditioning so that you can begin to feel

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equal. So you can begin to feel like you are worthy, whether you had kids or not, because it's easy for us to intellectualize that it's much harder

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to actually embody that.

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So let's let's talk about signs

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that you might actually have a self-worth wound.

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because this is really the 1st step I'm going to give you the 1st step today.

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It's it's identification. It's witnessing, noticing where you might have some self-worth. That's that's failing. Or that's slipping.

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And you might think it's grief.

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But I'm going to introduce a few, a few signs here that that self-worth might actually be it

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so. Number one, you constantly feel the need to explain or justify your choices. Your life.

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Maybe this shows up as as proving that you are just as giving, nurturing and selfless as a mother.

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Or maybe it's proving that you're just as busy.

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This happened to me actually, more than once.

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but I distinctly recall a time you're I bet you it was about 10 years ago. Now

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I was in my early forties. I didn't have kids yet. I think I was probably still trying, but but didn't.

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and I was at a dinner with a group of my girlfriends who all have kids. They they had fairly young kids at the time.

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and I was talking about how busy my life had become.

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and you know I had work. I had a new.

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I had a puppy.

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I was volunteering on a board.

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I was.

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My dad was going through something at the time like a health issue, so I was traveling down to to see him. My parents were also moving out of their home of 40 years. So I was helping them move.

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Had all these things going on, and I remember looking around, and

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I felt so ashamed and embarrassed because of the way they were all looking at me.

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and what I realized was that the looks on their faces were skeptical.

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and so I immediately noticed this and realized what I was talking about, and I made some joke about. Oh, I'm so busy, right?

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Nothing compared to what you all must be experiencing, and

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that stuck with me because I felt this shame about not being as busy, but

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wanting to be as busy or talking about how busy I was, and and I was just as busy. I had all this stuff going on.

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this feeling the need to explain or justify your life, to compare, like to show that you compare with a mother's, that

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that might be linked to your self-worth

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and so forth. By the way, is really closely linked to shame.

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They both sit in the sacral. Chakra.

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Okay? Next, you might try to be the helpful, generous, available person in the room

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for me. This showed up as accommodating. I was always the one to say, oh, I'll bring. Why don't I pick up dinner and bring it over there? You're busier than I am.

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and

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or I would offer to go to my friends or my family. I'd offer to do the traveling, because that would be easier for them, not easier for me.

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given my busy life, but I would do that. I would always accommodate them.

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So that's Number 2 trying to be available, too, because

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you don't have an excuse not to be or feel like you don't have an excuse not to be.

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Number 3.

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You overachieve overdeliver over give, and it's still feels like it's not enough

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for me. This sort of came across as perfection

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I always had to have, even at home, like at work. Yes.

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that all came up, but at home I had to have a perfectly cleaned and decorated house when people came over.

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and I remember well, I I'm recovering from this now.

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but I'd be running around at the last minute, changing towels and bathrooms and wiping down surfaces right up until the last minute, when people arrived.

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I'd be doing and doing and doing all day long, day before.

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and I think what was running through my mind was, well, I don't have an excuse to have a messy house, so it better be perfect.

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So this may show up in any number of ways, overachieving over, delivering, over, giving number 4.

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You feel invisible in conversations about womanhood, motherhood, or legacy

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this happens with, I think this happens to all my clients. They all complain about this, that whenever they're in a group of women. They're all talking about their kids, and they feel like, Well, I can't participate in that.

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And they feel invisible.

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Number 5. You dread being asked if you have kids.

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and maybe not even because it hurts, although it might.

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but because it makes you feel less, then

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makes you. It brings up that that wound

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that I have to tell somebody that I'm less than now.

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I have to tell them I don't have kids.

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And so then we here comes the overcompensating, we will

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say, Oh, but I'm a dog, mom, or we have to let them know that we wanted to have kids. So it wasn't a choice.

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So we make sure that they know

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it's not because I'm selfish. It's not because I chose not to have kids. It's because I couldn't or the opportunity didn't arise, or

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I wanted them.

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The next one, number 6.

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Oh, no. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, yeah. 6.

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I don't know why I don't number these in my notes, because I'm always having to count while I'm recording here.

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You overcompensate for not having kids.

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So this showed up at work for me a lot. Picking up the slack at work, especially during

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the pandemic, I would step in and say, Oh, you have kids at home. You need to take care of like I'll do this.

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And then later I started to

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look back and realize how burnt out I was because I was picking up too much slack

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and working crazy hours, and and never thought about it until later.

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I never left at 5. I didn't have an excuse to. I didn't have to go pick up the kids so I'd overcompensate.

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and the last one number 7.

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Maybe you stifle, stifle your voice

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or you you keep quiet when it comes to opinions about anything related to parenting.

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You don't get to have a say.

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and other people might even come right out and say that. Well, you're not a parent, so you don't understand.

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And so you shut up.

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And yet you're allowed to have an opinion.

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But we will stifle our voices, and afterwards that actually feels really

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it feels like being boxed in when you can't release your opinion. You can't say

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what you want to say, because you've maybe you've even had some experience with it as a child.

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and your parents exhibited something, or you've watched another friend go through it, or a family member, or

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your opinion is legitimate. You don't have to have parenting experience in order

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to have an opinion about parenting that would be like

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saying, like, Gosh! All of all kinds of people. We have opinions about

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all kinds of things that we have no experience with.

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You know we have opinions about people that we've never met. We have opinions about politics when we've never done the job of a President or a Prime Minister or a decision maker in the Cabinet.

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and yet we will judge and have an opinion

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about what should have been done instead.

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And it's usually, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, that we have our opinions. So

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we're all entitled to have an opinion. We don't have to know everything about it, or have experience

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being the Prime Minister to have an opinion about the decisions that he or she makes.

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and the same goes with parenting.

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I would ask you at this point just to consider, and maybe even rewind and go through those 7 things again. There's actually a lot more

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people pleasing perfectionism, overthinking. Those are all signs

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that you're very worried or too worried about what other people think and worrying about what other people think

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is a self-worth problem.

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So reflect, ask yourself which of these is showing up for me. Which of these am I doing.

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and all that to say that

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your grief deserves to be held? So if you are someone who is feeling grief.

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Yes, that deserves to be acknowledged and honored, but so does your worth.

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and that's what we're missing in the childless space.

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Now let's talk about what happens when you reclaim it.

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So, reclaiming wholeness, reclaiming self-worth, not trying to fix our loss.

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What happens for my clients. I'll give you a couple of examples.

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One of them who could actually enjoy mother's day. We just passed mother's Day here in Canada and the Us. And a few other countries.

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and and one of my clients specifically wrote me a text on Mother's Day to say.

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last year, the year before, and the year before, that were all disastrous, and this mother's day, she could actually enjoy it.

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One of my clients, she she called it.

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I stopped hustling for my worth at work.

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So all of those things that we do to compensate at work as childless women all the things we.

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all the things we do.

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That's a ripple effect of reclaiming your worth.

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It doesn't just make you feel worthy as a woman who doesn't have kids.

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It changes the way you behave and the way you feel about yourself in other environments at work

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in your friendships, in your marriage, in your family.

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and that's that's big like, you will notice your entire life will change

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another. One of my clients realized

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that she could actually give herself permission to have an opinion about parenting

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when she felt like she had to stifle her voice.

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That's a big change that changes your life

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when you feel like you can participate in conversations.

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When a woman believes that she's enough.

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not just because of what she produces or

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gives, or who she serves or cares for, but simply because of who she is.

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Everything changes, and that's by the way, the core of the confidence code

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and some bold belonging. Those are 2 frameworks inside of my women of Worth program.

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where I teach you how to stop hustling for work at work, how to

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give yourself permission to have an opinion about parenting, how to have the confidence to respond

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to all the questions.

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Maybe the insensitive comments.

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That's the confidence code that's bold belonging. That's the unbecoming of from the patriarchy.

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So let's circle, back and talk about the podcast again, in general. This, this, podcast the awakening worth. Podcast

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it was never really about grief

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in the very beginning. Actually, if you go back to the 1st 40 episodes I recorded when I was calling the podcast Love and loss, and it was all about miscarriage.

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and it was about grief. It was about about a lot of other things, and then I shifted to.

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to really guiding you back to your worth, guiding you back to yourself, because underneath of the pain.

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the longing, the proving, the envy, the compensating, the over delivering.

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You are there.

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You are worthy.

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Even without kids.

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You didn't need to become a mother to become a meaningful, valued woman.

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and you don't need to earn your belonging. You don't need to earn

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your worth by doing other things. You don't have to create something big to make up for not having kids.

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You can just be you.

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I'm going to leave you with a couple of things

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I invite you to reflect on or journal on

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these questions, where in my life have I been trying to prove that I'm enough?

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And what would it mean to believe I already am enough?

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So take those away. Reflect, journal.

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maybe get out your journal and just write out what came up for you as you listened to this episode. What came up for you as you listen to those 7

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different signs that maybe your self-worth could be coming into play here

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and needs a bit of a boost, and if it does.

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There's still time to get into the women of Worth program.

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We're just in the midst of our last live cohort by the time this episode is published.

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And so this is kind of a last call to get in on it.

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And because that's closing down as well, and it's different.

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If you listen to this full episode. You will know why.

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because it's not just about the grief that's there that's in the program.

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But we're gonna unravel decondition, all of this

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programming that tells you that only mothers are worthy.

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and that you're less than because you're not one.

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So if you're ready for that.

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if you're listening to this. You probably are. It's a sign.

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Send me an email with the word program

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and I will get you the details. You can check it out and join us, and also come back

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for the last 2 episodes. The next 2,

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as a final part of this final 2 episodes in this epic series to wind down this podcast I'm going to unfold for you more of what's coming

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and what's next for me, and how you might want to get involved in that as well, and so come back and listen to those last 2 episodes

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they'll be dropping next week, and the week after that, is it? For now.

People on this episode

Sheri Johnson

Host