Returning to Work After Maternity Leave: Finding Your Footing Again
Something happens when you return to work after maternity leave that no one really talks about. People ask how you are sleeping, how the baby is doing, whether you are ready to be "back." But very few understand that you are not returning as the same person who left. You step back into the same office, the same role, the same expectations, while your inner world has shifted in a way that doesn't fit the old structure anymore. And because everything around you looks familiar, it can be deeply confusing when your confidence feels off, your instincts feel louder, and your limits feel sharper.
For many women, this is where the real identity shift begins — not the one about becoming a mother, but the one about becoming a different kind of professional, someone who is more true to themselves than ever before.
Why returning to work after maternity leave feels so disorienting
You see things more clearly now. You have less tolerance for noise. You notice the places where you used to stretch yourself thin just to fit in, you feel the weight of the invisible emotional labour you have carried for years, and you suddenly understand that your time and energy are not endless resources to give away without consequence.
When I came back from parental leave myself, I thought I could return to the exact person I had been before. I had built a team, I knew my value, and I had always been the one who could push through anything, so I tried to step right back into that version of myself — only to discover that she no longer existed. I couldn't feel the spark I used to have. The politics that once felt manageable now felt heavy, and the cultural undercurrents hit differently. I didn't have language for it at the time, but something had changed, and I was beginning to sense who I actually am and what boundaries I have in an entirely different way. The job had warped into something else too, something I explicitly didn't want, and I kept trying to force myself to be okay until my body gave in before my mind caught up. I broke, and I ended up on sick leave for three months.
What feels like lost confidence is often honesty
What I learned the hard way is that losing confidence after returning to work doesn't mean you are weaker. It means you are more honest. What is really happening is that you are being asked to reconcile with who you truly are, and you can now see the gap between who you were trying to be and who you have actually become. Your old ways of working — the long hours, the perfectionism, the emotional caretaking, the "I'll handle it" energy — no longer match the person you are. The instinct many women have in this moment is to blame themselves, to assume they have fallen behind and need to work harder to catch up. But you are not out of shape professionally. Your work is simply out of alignment with who you really are and what you are actually capable of.
This is why confidence feels fragile during this transition. The story you built your work identity on is outdated, and the new one hasn't fully formed yet, so you are operating from an identity that no longer fits while the emerging one is still taking shape. It creates a kind of internal wobble, a sense of standing between two rooms: the one where you know all the rules, and the one where your truth lives. And because nobody teaches women how to navigate this kind of shift at work, you end up feeling like you are doing something wrong, when in fact you are growing into a clearer, stronger version of yourself.
You start to see the system, too
For many returning mothers, this is also the first time they really see the system they have been part of. You notice who gets protected and who doesn't, the people who can afford to be unavailable and the people who can't. You notice the small comments that used to slide off your back but now sting, and you see where the structure relies on women over-giving. Once you see it, it becomes impossible to unsee. That can shake your footing, and it can also lead you toward a more grounded way of working: one rooted in clarity, boundaries, and the values that actually matter to you.
Finding your footing again
Finding your footing after maternity leave isn't about getting back to who you were. It is about getting honest about who you really are. You may move slower for a while, you may feel unsure, you may feel like you are rebuilding yourself from the inside out — and that isn't failure, it is transition. Your story has shifted, and you are letting yourself catch up to it.
You don't need a five-year plan right now, and you don't need to make big decisions before you are ready. You just need space to hear yourself again, so you can move forward from truth rather than pressure. If you want a gentle, structured place to start, take the free self-assessment at helene-christensen.com/feeling-off. It gives you time to listen inward and reconnect with your own voice.
If you are standing in this moment, where everything around you looks the same but everything inside you is different, you are not alone, and nothing about you is broken. You are becoming the person, and the professional, you were always growing into.
