“How on earth am I supposed to do this?”

I remember thinking that while sitting trapped in the same spot for what felt like the hundredth time rocking one baby in a bouncer with my foot while cradling the other in my arms.

Contributor Article by Suneeta Johnson, Registered Clinical Counsellor

The Reality of Motherhood and Entrepreneurship No One Talks About

I was four months postpartum with twins and barely surviving. Sleeping felt impossible. Eating and showering felt optional. My body didn’t feel healed mentally or physically from pregnancy or birth, and I was moving through waves of postpartum anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and exhaustion I had never experienced before.

And still, in the middle of all of that, I knew I needed to restart my counselling practice.

Not just when maternity leave was “finished.”
As soon as possible.

Everyone talks about maternity leave as this beautiful season of slowing down and bonding with your baby. But for many women balancing motherhood and entrepreneurship, the reality can feel emotionally, physically, and financially overwhelming.”

I remember wondering what happens when you have two babies who need more and more daily? Mentally, physically and financially.

What happens when your nervous system feels completely overwhelmed in a new way?

What happens when your identity changes overnight, but the pressure to continue building your career remains exactly the same?

Why So Many Working Mothers Feel Like They Have to Spilt Themselves in Two

I had paused my counselling practice while on leave, passing clients to other therapists while I stepped into motherhood. Returning felt less like picking up where I left off and more like starting over entirely.

To rebuild my business, I knew I needed visibility. I needed to network, connect, and show up again professionally.

“Motherhood doesn’t remove ambition. It changes capacity.”

But I couldn’t separate that from the reality that I was also deeply in the trenches of new motherhood.

And that’s when I started questioning something larger:

Why are women so often expected to separate themselves from motherhood in order to be seen as successful professionally?

Why do so many entrepreneurial and professional spaces still quietly assume babies should remain invisible?

How do women continue building businesses while still existing fully as mothers holding babies, carrying diaper bags, nursing between conversations, functioning on little sleep, and trying to regulate both themselves and tiny humans at the same time?

Motherhood Doesn’t Remove Ambition- It Changes Capacity

As a counsellor, I talk about capacity with clients all the time.

Our capacity is our ability to hold, process, and respond to the world around us emotionally, mentally, and physically.

But I don’t think I fully understood what stretched capacity truly felt like until I became a mother.

Specifically, until I walked into my first networking event running on four hours of broken sleep with two six-month-old babies.

Why Safe Spaces for Mothers in Business Matter

A few days before the event, I remember messaging Christine from YVR Creatives asking if I could bring my babies with me.

I hesitated before sending it. I had never asked that question before, and part of me worried it would make me seem less professional or less committed.

She responded:

“Yes, of course. Many women attend with their babies.”

I remember physically exhaling.

For the first time, I felt like both versions of me were allowed to exist in the same room.

I was welcomed as a mother and as a business owner.

That experience stayed with me because so many women are silently carrying the grief of feeling like they have to split themselves in two in order to belong professionally after becoming mothers.

The Invisible Mental Load of Motherhood

This tension shows up in my client sessions constantly too the coexistence of conflicting emotions.

Grief and gratitude.
Love and resentment.
Relief and overwhelm.

Motherhood asks women to hold multiple truths at once, often while pretending they are only feeling one.

As our nervous systems shift in motherhood, we are not only learning to regulate ourselves within an entirely new identity we are also helping another little human (or two) learn how to regulate too.

The truth is, so many mothers are trying to hold it all at once—raising children, nurturing relationships, building businesses, chasing dreams, and figuring out who they are becoming in the middle of it all.

It’s okay to grieve the freedom, space, spontaneity, or capacity you once had before becoming a mother.

That grief does not mean you love your children any less.

Productivity in Motherhood Looks Different

Sometimes productivity is not answering emails, building business plans, or attending meetings.

Sometimes productivity is getting everyone fed, bathed, comforted, and safely through the day.

That is still work.
That is still labor.
That is still worthy.

Women are often expected to continue showing up professionally as though motherhood hasn’t fundamentally changed their internal world.

But the invisible emotional and mental load of holding both business and motherhood is enormous.

Can Women Build Businesses Without Sacrificing Themselves?

So maybe the conversation shouldn’t be about how women can continue doing everything exactly as they did before motherhood.

Maybe the question is:

How do we build spaces where women no longer feel forced to choose between visibility and caregiving?

Because there is something deeply healing about being welcomed fully as both a mother and a passionate business owner building something meaningful.

Redefining Success After Motherhood

Success looks different to me now.

Each new client feels more meaningful because of everything it took to get here, not just building a business, but building a life and a family at the same time.

My timelines have softened.
I give myself more grace.
I allow for flexibility, breathing room, and the understanding that my capacity shifts from day to day.

The world around us is not always as forgiving. Entrepreneurship often still rewards urgency, constant visibility, and productivity at all costs.

But motherhood has made me question so much of that.

If I can build a business from the ground up, can I not also build workflows that honour my life now too?

Can success include bedtime routines before evening clients?

Can ambition coexist with slower seasons?

Can visibility look different after motherhood?

I think it can.

The Future More Women are Trying to Build

Motherhood has not made me less ambitious.

If anything, it has made me more intentional about the kind of success I want to create and the cost I am willing to pay for it.

Because mothers should not have to disappear in order to be professionally accepted.

Visibility in entrepreneurship should not require separation from caregiving.

There is something incredibly powerful about communities and spaces that make room for the full scope of women’s lives; ambition, caregiving, creativity, exhaustion, brilliance, children, and all that we hold.

Maybe that is the future more women are trying to build:

not one where motherhood and entrepreneurship compete against each other, but one where women are finally allowed to exist fully as both.

About the Author

I’m Suneeta Johnson but you can call me Sunny. I use she/her pronouns and I am a heterosexual, cisgendered female, Canadian born to Fijian Indian/Australian settler parents. I am a mum to twins, wife and fur momma.

I believe that each client is the expert in their own life experiences. Being a Registered Clinical Cousellor (RCC) brings both my Master’s level education and first hand client experience together. On top of my experience in the field of Social Work for 8 years previous, I have a passion for supporting Youth, Women and Parents navigate life.

I strive to guide clients through, any part of their journey, with empowerment and gentle support. Clients who work with me can expect to come to a safe space to process their life with the option to work through a variety of counselling techniques. 

I have experience and training in:

• Body Positivity/Internalized Fat Phobia
• Bariatric Surgery and Obesity 
• Nervous System Regulation & Polyvagal Theory
• Medical System Self Advocacy 
• Reproductive Mental Health, Fertility, Pre & Postpartum Mood Regulation
• Youth and Adolescents
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) & Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

Credentials:

• Masters in Counselling 
• Bachelor’s in Child and Youth Care Counselling with a specialization in Child Protection
• First Nations Social Work Delegation Training through the Aboriginal Perspective Society
• Mental Health First Aid
• Non-Violent Crisis Intervention

I acknowledge that I live and work on the unceded and traditional territory of the sq̓əc̓iy̓aɁɬ təməxʷ (Katzie), sc̓əwaθenaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsawwassen), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) and S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō) First Nations people.

Connect With Suneeta

Website: www.solarrowcounselling.com
Instagram: @solarrow_counselling
Email: solarrowcounselling@gmail.com

About YVR Creatives

Stories like Suneeta’s are exactly why spaces like YVR Creatives matter. So many women are quietly trying to navigate business, motherhood, visibility, caregiving, and personal growth all at the same time, often feeling like they have to figure it all out alone.

Through our monthly events, virtual meet-ups, and The Creators Society membership, YVR Creatives exists to create spaces where women can show up fully as themselves — ambitious, evolving, overwhelmed, inspired, exhausted, creative, and everything in between.

If you’ve been craving deeper connection, support, accountability, or simply a room where you feel understood, we’d love to welcome you into the community.

View Upcoming YVR Creatives events, here
Learn More about our Private Membership, The Creators Society, here
View our Creators Society Member Directory, here