Lonely, Tired, or “Stuck”? A 4-Minute Emotional Reset for Mom CEOs | Tera Wages

Manouchka: Hey Boss Mama, welcome back to the show. This is the space where we explore building a business you love, raising your family, and creating a life that works for you. I’m your host, Manouchka Elefant, business coach and fellow mom entrepreneur.

Quick personal update before we dive in. I haven’t published in a while, and I absolutely love interviewing and sharing these conversations, but life got full and something had to give. Behind the scenes, I’ve been coaching moms in business, starting two new family ventures, and doing childcare half the week, which is actually what feels right for our family right now.

But to avoid burnout, the podcast had to sit on the back burner for a little bit. Here I am, though, and I’m really happy to share this conversation with Tera Wages. It hit me in all the right places.

Tera is a mom of four and CEO of Connection Codes. She shares a simple science-backed tool to identify what you’re actually feeling and release it fast so you can focus, lead, and show up at home with more calm. We talk about the core emotion wheel, the real difference between guilt and shame, and how co-regulating with your partner or kids saves energy and clears your brain to execute.

In this conversation, we explore:

The eight core emotions and why naming them precisely speeds up relief.

How to do a four-minute check-in anytime your brain feels flooded.

Practical ways to drain guilt so you can get back to work with clarity.

How co-regulation at home strengthens your confidence at work.

Let’s dive in.

Manouchka: Hi Tera, thank you for joining me on the Hey Boss Mama podcast. I’m really excited to have you here.

Tera Wages: Thank you. I am thrilled to be here.

Manouchka: You have four little kids. How old are they now?

Tera Wages: Yes. I have 11, 9, 7, and 5.

Manouchka: Oh wow. That’s such a range of different needs and stages. How does it work with running your own business?

Tera Wages: I feel like I’ve really turned a corner this year. The youngest turning 5 has made all the difference for me. I’ve been running my own business since I graduated college. I was 21 when I started my first business.

The hardest season was for sure when I had a 5, 3, 2, and a baby. That season was really painful and really difficult. Now they’re all in school, so I’m able to devote my time during the day to the business. Then I have to hold myself accountable that when they get home, the computer is closed and they have my attention.

I think that’s currently the most difficult part. Other than that, we just came out of summer season, and that was really difficult. Working from home while they’re so close, but I’m working, and they’re like, “But you’re not with me.” It’s that feeling of, “I’m with you, but I’m not with you.” That was a really lonely place. So yes, it’s a constant juggle for sure.

Manouchka: Wow. At the same time, you also went through a big transition when your kids were still quite little, because you used to be a photographer and now you’re running Connection Codes. Tell us about that transition. Why did you decide to switch businesses?

Tera Wages: I love that question. As a photographer, it took a lot of weekends. I was away from the kids on weekends, and I really wanted to be home more.

Then when Covid hit in 2020 and everything shut down, a dear friend of ours reached out and said, “Hey, I was going to have these two people speak at my business conference, but that got canceled, so now I’m doing it online. Do you want to join?” They had been clients of ours, so we joined online and learned from this marriage and family therapist and his wife about these tools called the Connection Codes.

My husband and I also did video production for a lot of online thought leaders. We’ve done course creation for Amy Porterfield, worked with Marie Forleo, and other big names who create incredible things. Watching these two people talk, I thought, “Oh my gosh, what they’ve created is incredible. This is as good as what these top leaders have created. I need to help them get this out into the world.”

At the time, they were just teaching it one-on-one. So I kind of nudged my way in with Dr. Glenn and Phyllis, who are our founders, and shared with them what we do. Now I’m running the business full-time as CEO and part owner, helping them get these tools out to other people. They changed my life. They changed my kids’ lives. Now I’m excited to help other entrepreneurs experience the same.

Manouchka: Wow. That’s really incredible. Quite a journey. But there’s something I picked up on here. You’re working with your husband. So not only are you working from home and running a business as a mom entrepreneur, but you’re also working with your spouse. How is that going? Does it add another layer of complexity?

Tera Wages: Yes, absolutely. We’ve really been working together since the beginning, through him doing video and me doing photos. We have always communicated really well, but there’s definitely added complexity.

There were times when we had an office and we’d walk in after being in an argument the night before or that morning. We had a team too, so trying to set that aside while navigating our marriage and leading a team was probably the most difficult part for a season.

We also had to prioritize time for just the two of us. We have to go on dates. We have to get away once a quarter for a night or two. Prioritizing our relationship outside of the business was a huge part of making it work.

Of course, there were also times when we had different views on how to run things. The business pivoted away from weddings into more entrepreneurial work, and that was painful for me for a season. It has taken a lot of communication and a lot of prioritizing us.

Manouchka: I’m not working with my partner and I could never do that, but I feel like the communication part is so important even when you’re not working together. And making time too. Our son just turned one, and one of the things you’re not told about is how much it changes the dynamic between you.

You’re so tired from having a newborn and all of that, and the relationship can really get pushed aside during that first year. Now I’m like, okay, we’ve gone through the biggest part of the weeds. How do we reconnect now? How do we make time for ourselves when making time even as an individual is already not simple?

Tera Wages: Yes, it is not simple. But that’s exactly what we do at Connection Codes. We teach people how to do just that.

You’re right, it’s really difficult, and I think especially painful for the mom because our identity shifts in motherhood so much. Not that men don’t experience an identity shift too, but the exhaustion. My husband can never fully understand the level of exhaustion I experienced during those years of being pregnant, having newborns, having babies.

And even with my husband being a true partner, there was still more on me than there was on him. At the end of the day, when we had to choose that one of us would stay home during Covid and one of us would work, it was automatically him who worked and me who stayed home.

This is a mompreneur podcast, so these mamas know: we have this fire inside of us. We have this passion inside of us. I never envisioned myself as a stay-at-home mom. I think it’s incredible when women truly want that. For me, I’m a worker. That season of me staying and him going was extremely difficult for our relationship. So yes, there is a huge shift after babies, especially for moms.

Manouchka: Completely. One of your specialties now is overwhelm. How to deal with overwhelm, how to handle it, and how to make it more manageable for mom entrepreneurs. How does that work, and how does it apply with Connection Codes?

Tera Wages: With Connection Codes, we teach people how to re-identify and process their emotions.

When we’re little kids, we start learning to ignore what we’re feeling. I don’t know if anyone has seen the movie Inside Out 2, but there’s a scene where the core emotions get put into a glass jar, a lid gets put on top, and they get shoved to the back of the brain.

When we do that with emotions, we lose touch with what those core emotions are trying to tell us. That’s when anxiety, overwhelm, and all these more complex emotions start taking over our brain.

Our founders created a tool that helps us relearn how to identify what those emotions feel like in our bodies so we can access them, process them, and stay in control rather than being controlled by overwhelm and anxiety.

We lose touch with our emotions because we’re so often told we’re okay when we’re not actually okay. For example, if my son falls off his bicycle and scrapes his knee, the instinct is to say, “You’re okay, you’re okay.” But he has blood running down his leg. His brain is saying, “I’m not okay. I am hurt.” He probably has fear. He may feel loneliness. Several emotions are firing, but I’m telling him to ignore all of that.

That comes from a good place. I want him to know he’s safe and secure and that it’s going to heal. As the mom, I know he is okay. But his little body doesn’t feel that way. So we train ourselves early on to ignore emotions.

The result is that we don’t know how to communicate them. We stuff them down, store them in our bodies, and lose connection to ourselves and to others.

What we teach is a tool where you go through each of the core emotions and share the most recent time you felt that emotion. If you can’t think of a recent time, you can think of a big time. Worst-case scenario, you can make something up. What that does is train your brain to recognize what guilt actually feels like and what fear actually feels like.

So then, on a Tuesday afternoon when you’re sitting at your computer needing to send that email you’ve been dreading, you can realize, “Oh, I’m feeling guilt that I haven’t sent this email yet,” process it, and then send the email. It frees up your brain to move through what you’re experiencing instead of carrying it like a weight.

Otherwise, these emotions just sit in your body. You’re sitting at your computer feeling weighed down, or you’re with your kids feeling anxious and sticky. I call it getting spiky. I get spiky when I have these emotions stuck inside my body.

Manouchka: Then I have to ask, what’s the proper way to respond instead of saying, “It’s okay, you’re not hurt,” to my little boy?

Tera Wages: That’s a great question. Especially with kids, retelling what happened actually helps the brain connect to itself. It’s healing to the brain.

So in that situation, even if I saw him fall off the bike, I still run over and ask, “What happened?” so he can tell me exactly what happened.

Then I ask, “What’s happening in your body?” so he can identify what he’s feeling. He might say, “I’m feeling sad,” or “I’m feeling hurt.” If he’s younger, I can help put words to it. “That looks like it hurt. Did that hurt? Are you hurting? Are you feeling scared?”

I help him see that all of those emotions are normal. Then I say, “I’m here. What do you need? Do you need a hug?”

Those are really our three phrases. First, “What happened?” Then we do what we call the “ooh” at Connection Codes, which is really just holding space for the experience. “Oh, yeah, I see that.” Then, “I missed that,” if it applies. And finally, “What do you need?”

That works with kids, and it works with partners too.

If my husband comes in and seems on edge, instead of assuming he’s mad at me or asking, “Why are you mad?” which puts him on the defensive, I can ask, “What happened?” That invites him in. It makes us curious together instead of adversarial.

Manouchka: So really, it’s open-ended questions that let the other person express themselves.

Right before this recording, I put my baby down on the floor and we were close to the corner of the wall. I didn’t think he was going to bend down from standing, but of course he did, and he hit himself really hard. He has a bump the shape of an egg right now.

The first thing I did was pick him up and say, “Oh my god, this must hurt.” He obviously doesn’t speak yet, so I was trying to show him that yes, I recognize that something happened. I’m the one putting words on it with things like, “This must hurt. It looks really painful.”

I also said I was sorry because I could have been a little more careful and placed him further away from the wall. But I’m also trying to make him feel that yes, it hurts, but you’re safe, you’re being held, and it’s going to be okay.

At the same time, and maybe this would be different if I had a girl, I also say, “You’re strong. You’re fine.” I’m really pushing that strong, you’re going to be okay part. I hope I’m doing it right.

Tera Wages: I totally get that. I really do. And I do think it’s great to speak strength over kids, but I think it’s just as important with girls as with boys.

One of the things I’m seeing with a lot of clients, including some male clients, is that they now view emotions as weakness. They were taught that showing any emotion meant weakness. Now they’re experiencing tremendous pain and disconnect in their marriages because they’re no longer in touch with themselves.

So with my boys, I remind them, “It’s okay to feel hurt. I am with you.” That way they know they’re safe, and they also know they’re strong because they’re going to get right back out there and do it again.

I do speak truth over them, like “You’re so strong,” but I don’t attach that to whether they are emotional or not. I tell them they’re strong even if they’re crying, even if they’re upset. That way they never feel like emotion is weakness.

Manouchka: So really, the takeaway is that understanding ourselves and being able to identify emotions helps us label them and address them in the most productive way.

Tera Wages: Yes, absolutely.

We teach eight core emotions at Connection Codes. I had someone email once and say that she and her husband were in conflict and she told him she was upset. He got angry, and suddenly they were fighting.

Well, “upset” is not one of the core emotions. She said he assumed she meant angry, but she actually meant sad.

We use these complex words with each other, and the other person often doesn’t know exactly what we mean. Stress to you may look very different than stress to me. But sad, I understand sad. That’s something I can connect to.

We help people get to the very core of their experience so they can communicate it clearly. Using this tool in just four minutes, I can understand what’s happening in my husband’s body, in my kids’ bodies, and we’re connected with each other. I’m no longer reading between the lines or guessing what anyone is thinking. I can actually see how to support them.

In terms of entrepreneurship, we talk a lot about how if I’ve had a hard day at work or my husband has had a hard day at work, we come home stressed. People always say, “Leave work at work.” But we don’t talk enough about how often we bring home into work.

That’s actually one of the huge issues, especially for entrepreneurs. If my husband and I had a fight the night before and didn’t resolve it, if I didn’t sleep well, if I’m thinking about painful things he said, then showing up at my computer the next day in confidence becomes much harder. My focus is slower. My tone is sharper. My ability to respond well is diminished.

So creating a space at home where we feel connected to our spouse and connected to our kids also relieves a lot of the guilt when we’re sitting at our computer trying to crush it and reach our goals. We’re not feeling like, “I don’t even know my kids anymore.” This tool helps us stay connected.

Manouchka: There’s an emotion I’d love to explore with you, and it’s guilt. I feel like that’s something a lot of mom entrepreneurs really have to grapple with.

We tend to have big objectives for ourselves, and we often disguise that as perfectionism, but really what we’re doing is creating expectations that aren’t very reasonable. Then when we don’t meet them, we feel guilty. How do we deal with that?

Tera Wages: That’s a great question.

First, guilt is not a bad emotion. None of the emotions are good or bad. They are neutral, and they’re all there to send us a message.

Guilt is based in action. Guilt and shame are very similar. Both are saying, “I need to show up better tomorrow. I need to do better next time.” But shame is based in identity, in “I am.” Something is inherently wrong with me. Guilt is based on action. “I did something I feel like I shouldn’t have done,” or “I didn’t meet the expectation I had for myself.”

The problem is that we often can’t identify it as guilt. We just feel yucky. We feel like a failure. We feel dread.

In those moments, we’re carrying guilt everywhere. It feels like a rock in the body. But when we can actually identify it as guilt and say, “I have guilt that I didn’t respond to this message in time,” we can process it and get it out of our body.

Over time, that helps us show up better next time. It actually informs our behavior. It lets us ask, “How can I show up? What do I need to do?”

My husband is a really safe space for me. I can say, “I feel guilt. We had this goal for our launch and we didn’t meet it. I feel a lot of guilt about it because maybe I didn’t send the right emails, or my open rate was low. It feels like it was on me.” He can hold space for me. He can say, “Oh yes, I hear you. I get that.” Then it’s out of my body. I’m not drowning in it anymore.

Co-regulation helps us burn far less energy than just holding it all by ourselves. I think that’s where a lot of mompreneurs are struggling. We’re carrying so much in our bodies, especially guilt, and it weighs us down, which then creates even more guilt because we’re not performing the way we want to perform.

Manouchka: Quick pause. If you’re carrying stress today, my free Mompreneur Reset Guide will help you breathe, reset, and get your brain back. It’s packed with simple exercises I share with clients to help them feel calmer, clearer, and more in control, even on their busiest days. Download it now at heybossmama.com/reset.

I find that taking the emotion out is so powerful. Personally, I love to write, so I’ll have a little journaling session when I feel like I need to offload all of that stuff. That really helps.

I also find this interesting in relation to the to-do list because there are so many ways of tackling it. Being realistic and understanding that we can’t do it all, but that we can optimize what we spend our time on, makes such a difference.

At the end of the day, even if we have a team, the work we have to do is still on us. So how do we decide to be rational about it? There’s the whole part about emotions and feelings and how they impact how we look at the world and how present we are in our work. But if we’re starting off with unrealistic expectations, then of course everything gets blurry and nothing functions the way it should. So it really comes down to awareness, right?

Tera Wages: Yes, absolutely.

For me, being able to identify my emotions helps me understand what even needs to go on my task list.

For so long, I was that person who thought, “I’ve got to get it all done, and it has to be me.” Now I get curious with myself. “What’s driving that?” Oh, it’s fear. I feel like I need to do all of these things because I’m afraid that if I don’t, no one else will, or we won’t meet the deadline.

Then I can backtrack and ask, “What actually is the deadline? What am I actually working toward?” Then I can prioritize things day by day.

So even being in tune with my emotions helps me create and prioritize my task list in a much more achievable way, and that helps diminish a lot of that guilt. I’m no longer looking at everything that has to be done today or in the next three months. I’m looking at what I need to do today to get where I want to be in three months.

Manouchka: Yes, exactly. I’m using a kind of project planning tool, and it’s something I’m also using with the women I’m working with in the mastermind.

The idea is that you have an objective that makes sense for moving your business forward, but it needs to be broken down into very small pieces, from the stage level down to the minute tasks. That way there’s no overthinking. You just know, “This is the next thing I have to do, this is roughly how much time it will take, and this is when it needs to get done.”

It also ensures the things you’re working on are actually contributing to the end goal. I see a lot of mom entrepreneurs feeling like, “If I have a business, I have to be on Instagram, I have to show up on LinkedIn,” but they’re wasting a lot of time because it’s not making a difference to their bottom line.

Worse, they’re adding pressure on themselves because they feel like they have to appear a certain way, and it’s taxing. Instead of contributing through their business, they’re actually depleting their own energy.

Tera Wages: Yes. All of that added pressure creates a whirlwind of emotion in the brain, and that drains your energy tremendously.

We call it a flood. When your brain is flooded with emotion, your cognition actually slows down. You show up as a lesser version of yourself. That makes it even harder to achieve the tasks than it was before you set them for yourself.

Manouchka: Definitely.

I’m also curious about something else. You mentioned that you joined Connection Codes after seeing what the founders had created and recognizing the potential to make it something much bigger. How did that happen? Because as an entrepreneur, when other people are already involved, that’s a completely different dynamic.

Tera Wages: That’s a great question because it really is a unique circumstance.

I had a skill set that they needed. Our founders are brilliant. Dr. Glenn is a marriage and family therapist and clinical sexologist. Phyllis takes his brain and helps create the products and systems around it.

But they had no online business experience. Running systems, programs, video, podcasting, none of that was in their wheelhouse, and it wasn’t something they were interested in learning.

So I was able to bring the missing puzzle piece.

They still could have said no. They could have decided not to bring anyone else in, and I think that speaks highly of them because when you’re the founder, it’s your baby. Letting someone else step in is scary.

I started by saying, “Hey, I’ll do this video for you at no cost. Let me film it.” I spent time earning their trust and showing them what I was capable of.

Over time, we were in a meeting and Phyllis said, “I don’t want to run any of this. We created it, but I don’t want the business part.” That’s when they asked me to be the CEO and run it for them.

They still teach it in private practice. They were in Hawaii this last week doing a private intensive for a couple. They love the one-on-one setting. I’m the one saying, “Let’s get this out to everybody.” So we created courses, online content, a podcast, and group coaching programs to help more people access these tools.

Manouchka: Beautiful. It sounds like a really good match.

Tera Wages: Yes, it has been.

Manouchka: Tell us a little more about when you were still in the weeds with your kids. How did you do it before? Did you have any techniques or strategies that helped you balance it all and still give them the attention they needed? Because I feel like it’s not easy with one, and with four kids it must have been even more complex.

Tera Wages: That’s a great question.

Truthfully, we were lucky enough to live somewhere we could afford to have a nanny. We didn’t live in the city, we lived in a college town, and we had a nanny who came during the day and helped. I really don’t know that I would have made it through without her.

The other piece was that my husband and I truly partnered together on tasks. It wasn’t like everything was just up to me.

But honestly, if I could go back and do those years differently, I would. I did a poor job of knowing how to connect in a playful way with my kids. I was there, but I was not a very playful mom. I didn’t know these tools at the time.

When my oldest was throwing tantrums at two and three, knowing this would have dramatically changed how I showed up for her.

So I don’t know that I have amazing advice for that season other than: slow down with your kids, really see them, and get curious about what they’re experiencing. Be a safe space for them.

Manouchka: I find that my energy level shifts so much in how I relate to my son. If I’m tired, I have so much less patience.

Sometimes I have to check in with myself and remind myself that he’s only going to be little once. There will be plenty of time for him to do stuff on his own later.

What you said about having a nanny really resonates too, because I see such a wide spectrum in what we’re able to achieve depending on how much help and organization we have.

I’ve spoken with some women who are just alone, and that’s often what leads to depression, burnout, and all the rest. Then there are others who are able to ask for support or who have access to childcare or kindergarten early on, and that can be difficult too because it means you’re less present, even when part of you wants to be.

So it really is about finding our balance, and that takes time. I’m still in the process of it. But I feel really lucky because I’ve been able to tell myself and tell my business that it’s going to wait. That first year, I just wanted to spend as much time as I could as a mom.

Even then, I could still hear that little voice saying, “Don’t take too much time, because nothing will happen if you don’t work.”

He just turned one a week ago, and I’m not ready to have strangers take care of him. There are so many feelings to unbottle and understand, because what we feel inside has such an impact on the people around us, whether it’s our partners or our kids.

Tera Wages: Absolutely. That sentence is so powerful. What we feel on the inside has so much impact on those around us.

You’re right. When we show up exhausted in our bodies, it affects everything. Tiredness shows up as this dull sadness. We become sharper with our kids.

When I look back at those years when mine were five and under, I was exhausted in a way that I still don’t know how I functioned. My husband says, “You didn’t sleep for eight years.” And he’s right.

What made me a much better mom was having someone else I knew, loved, and trusted step in with them.

I’m an outlier in this, but I do want my kids to be influenced by other people, as long as they are people I know, trust, and love. We had a nanny, and my kids were literally talking about her this morning. They haven’t seen her in three years, and they were saying, “She was the best. She was amazing.”

She would show up to the house with her Mary Poppins bag full of crafts and coloring books. She’d take them to the park and for ice cream. Her influence on their lives was so positive and beautiful, and I’m so grateful we had her.

You mentioned how lack of support can lead to depression and burnout. That is loneliness. Research has shown that loneliness is as damaging to the body as smoking cigarettes every day. The message of loneliness is, “I need support.”

So when a mom is feeling that, her body is telling her she needs help. The question is, in what area does she need help? A lot of women experience so much guilt in asking for help that they don’t. We have to be able to identify that and process it.

Manouchka: Yes. We get this image of online moms who seem able to do it all and still look really put together, when it’s not that simple and we don’t see what’s behind the scenes.

Tera Wages: Exactly. I saw an image online once showing how many people it took to make one bag. It was something like 50 people. Every little element had a person behind it.

That’s how it is with the moms we see online. We can’t see how many people it took to create what we’re looking at. There are people behind the scenes helping them.

I always love seeing entrepreneurs’ teams because it reminds me that it’s never just one person. There are people all around helping get those things done. Comparison becomes really painful when we can’t see that.

Manouchka: Completely. One of the reasons I wanted to start this podcast is that being a mom and being an entrepreneur are both very lonely and isolating experiences.

We’re sitting next to each other metaphorically, online, without really seeing each other. We need communities and bridges where we can express ourselves, advance, find solutions, and ask for support. That’s really what I’m hoping to create with Hey Boss Mama.

Tera Wages: I love that. You’re 1,000 percent right.

Manouchka: I have one last question for you, Tera. In a few years, when your kids are all grown up, what do you hope they would say about you?

Tera Wages: I hope they would say that I always stopped to hear them. That they felt seen by me and heard by me. That’s what I want. I want them to feel really seen and really heard, and Connection Codes has definitely helped me learn how to do that.

Manouchka: Wonderful. I love that. Where can everyone find you and connect with you?

Tera Wages: On Instagram, we’re at Connection Codes. And you can download our four-minute tool, which teaches you how to identify your emotions and communicate them with yourself, your partner, and your kids in just four minutes, at connectioncodes.co/HeyBossMama.

We made a special link for your listeners so they can access the tool and start using it for themselves.

Manouchka: Wonderful. I’m actually going to try it myself because I feel like I’m going to get a lot of value out of this.

Tera Wages: Yes. My youngest, by the time he was three and four, could tell me when he felt lonely and when he felt sad. Last year at school, he pushed a girl, came home, and told me he felt guilt about it.

To have a four-year-old be able to communicate guilt like that was really mind-blowing. My nine-year-old processes shame with me too. Hearing them communicate with words what they’re experiencing instead of just screaming or having intense outbursts has been so impactful to our relationship.

I highly recommend it for any Boss Mama out there.

Manouchka: Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Tera Wages: Yes, thank you.

Manouchka: All right, let’s all take a breath together. If you remember one thing from today, let it be this: a four-minute check-in can change the rest of your day. Name what you’re actually feeling, say it out loud, and watch your brain clear. Carry the lesson from guilt, not the weight. Then take one small step that truly matters.

If you want company while you’re doing it, come hang out with us in The Mompreneur Space, our Facebook group for networking, support, and real talk. It’s where you can ask for help, swap ideas, and celebrate the tiny wins that add up.

Share your one small step from today, or look for an accountability buddy and tag me so I can cheer you on. You’ll find the link in the show notes.

Until next time, Boss Mama, you’ve got this.