Embracing the Hidden Burdens of Single Motherhood and the Quest for Inner Calm

On single motherhood, mental overload, and building the calm I needed.

There's a specific kind of tired that single mothers know.

It isn't just lack of sleep. It's the weight of being the only one. The only name on every form. The only one who remembers the dentist appointment, the field trip money, the prescription refill, the fact that we're almost out of milk. Two kids depending on me — and a mind that never, ever clocks out.

People see a mom who's handling it. What they don't see is the marathon running beneath the surface. The mental tabs that never close. The 2 a.m. ceiling-staring. The way my chest tightens in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday because everything lands on me, and there's no one to tap in.

That's the part no one warns you about — not the work, but the overload. The feeling of being stretched so thin you can't find the one quiet moment you'd need to take care of yourself.

And that's exactly the problem I kept running into.

In my most overwhelmed moments — heart racing, mind spinning, a kid calling my name while my own nervous system screamed — I'd think, I need a second to breathe. But every tool that could help required something I didn't have. The meditation app wanted my attention. The breathing exercise assumed I'd remember it. My calming essential oils sat across the room, useless, while I stood frozen in the kitchen holding it all together.

Everything asked me to stop, choose, and help myself — in the exact moments I had nothing left to give.

So I started building the thing I wished existed.

A bracelet designed to notice when the weight is becoming too much, and respond on its own — a gentle breath of calming aromatherapy, right when the overload hits. No app to open. No moment I have to carve out of a day that has none. Just a small act of care that arrives by itself.

Because here's what I've come to believe, as a mother running on empty more days than I'd admit: we shouldn't have to be calm enough to find our own calm. We pour everything into everyone else. Something should pour a little back into us — quietly, automatically, without asking us to do one more thing.

That's what I'm building Sōl to be for me, and for every parent holding it all together with invisible hands.

You carry so much. You deserve something that carries a little of it back with you.

Your body knows the storm. Sōl is being built to bring the calm.

Join our founding members at solmovement.co

— Kristin, Founder of Sōl

Kristin, founder of Sōl, smiling in the snow with her two children, all bundled in winter coats