Rebuild Your Resilience
Why Modern Motherhood Feels So Hard — and How to Recover
with Rick Hanson, PhD
You’re exhausted, resentful, and quietly convinced you’re failing at something that should come naturally — while everyone else seems to have it figured out.
In this conversation, psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Rick Hanson explains why modern motherhood is objectively harder than it used to be, why your anger is legitimate (not a personal failing), and how learned helplessness quietly creeps in when nothing you do seems to change things.
He shares a practical framework — lower demands, increase resources, build resilience — along with real steps for reconnecting with your own needs when you’ve spent all day meeting everyone else’s.
Rick Hanson, PhD, is a psychologist, senior fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and New York Times bestselling author. Altogether, his seven books have been published in 33 languages and include Making Great Relationships, Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Just One Thing, Buddha’s Brain, and Mother Nurture, with over a million copies sold in English alone. He’s the founder of the Global Compassion Coalition and the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, as well as the cohost of the Being Well podcast, which has been downloaded over 25 million times. He offers free newsletters, and his online programs have scholarships available for those with financial needs. He’s lectured at NASA, Google, Oxford, and Harvard. An expert on positive neuroplasticity, his work has been featured on CBS, NPR, the BBC, and other major media. He began meditating in 1974 and has taught in meditation centers worldwide. He and his wife live in northern California and have two adult children. He loves the wilderness and taking a break from emails.