What If the Problem Isn't That You're Not Trying Hard Enough? The surprising lesson a house full of phorid flies taught me about motherhood, anxiety, healing, and learning to trust the process.

As moms, we're taught that if something is wrong, our job is to fix it.

If our child is struggling, we intervene.
If our home feels chaotic, we work harder.
If our health falters, we research, analyze, worry, and problem-solve.
If life feels out of control, we grip tighter.

Because surely the answer is more effort. More vigilance. More doing.

But what if the reason you're still stuck in your biggest challenge isn't because you haven't worked hard enough?

What if it's because you've been working too hard?

That sounds almost irresponsible, doesn't it?

I feel that way too…

However, I have a story about an infestation of flies that illustrates how doing “too much” may actually be part of the problem.

The Summer We Brought Home an Unwelcome Guest

Last summer, my family and I went camping in the beautiful Uinta Mountains at a campground called Ledgefork.

The trip itself was wonderful.

What we didn't realize was that we packed up more than tents, sleeping bags, and camping gear.

We also brought home phorid flies.

If you've never heard of phorid flies before, count yourself lucky.

They're tiny—smaller than fruit flies. They don't bite. They don't sting. They don't make noise.

At first, they seem harmless.

Until suddenly they're everywhere.

Within days, they had spread throughout our house. We learned that they love moisture and organic material and can nest deep inside sink drains and shower drains. Worse, they reproduce at an astonishing speed.

And no matter what we did, we couldn't get rid of them.

When Fighting Harder Doesn't Work

We tried everything.

We killed them as we saw them.

We scrubbed every surface.

We emptied garbage constantly.

We wiped counters obsessively.

We poured boiling water down the drains.

We tried Drano and even biochemical enzyme cleansers.

We set out apple cider vinegar traps.

We removed standing water.

We cleaned more thoroughly than our family had ever cleaned before.

And still...

The flies kept coming.

It felt like we were losing an uphill battle.

Honestly, I'd never felt so invaded in my own home.

And perhaps even harder than the flies themselves was the feeling of powerlessness.

Because isn't that what drains us the most as mothers?

Not necessarily the problem itself.

But the feeling that despite all our effort, we still can't make the problem go away.

The Surprising Thing That Finally Solved It

About three or four exhausting weeks later, we had a family trip planned.

But I didn't feel like I could leave until I had fixed the problem. It felt irresponsible to leave our home with an infestation that felt so out of control. I worried about what might happen if we just left without getting it taken care of.

However, we realized that our absence might actually be a blessing.

Maybe if we weren’t around living in our home, using the sinks, preparing food, creating garbage, etc., that might foster a better environment for the bugs to truly disappear.

So before leaving, we did one final round of intervention.

We cleaned every surface.

We poured the enzyme cleaner down every sink and every shower drain in the home.

Then we closed each drain so no new flies could get in or out.

We set sticky traps throughout the house with apple cider vinegar and pieces of fruit to attract the remaining flies.

We removed every source of food and standing water.

And then...

We left.

Not for an hour.

Not for an afternoon.

For five whole days.

I remember walking out of the house with a prayer in my heart and a strange feeling of surrender.

It felt difficult to let go and stop worrying about it; but it also forced me to, because for the first time in weeks, there was literally nothing else I could do.

The Miracle of Stepping Away

When we returned home five days later, I nervously checked the traps.

They were full.

And the flies were gone.

Gone.

After weeks of constant fighting, worrying, scrubbing, checking, and obsessing, the thing that finally allowed the solution to work was stepping away and doing nothing.

Giving the process time.

Allowing the environment to reset.

Trusting that what we'd already done was enough.

Who would have thought that “walking away” from the problem would be the best way to solve it?

It feels contradictory, right?

But guess what?

It’s no different from our everyday challenges and worries as a mother.

Moms, We Do This With Everything

How often do we approach our hardest problems exactly the way I approached those flies?

We obsess.

We research.

We replay conversations.

We overthink decisions.

We try harder.

Push harder.

Analyze harder.

Fix harder.

We become convinced that if we aren't actively worrying about the problem, then we're being irresponsible.

But what if our constant emotional scrubbing is actually keeping us stuck?

What if we're so busy fighting the problem that we're preventing the solution from emerging?

The Answers Often Come in Stillness

One of the greatest paradoxes of life is discovering how often solutions arrive when we stop chasing them.

More often than not, the solutions we need most come when we’re not thinking about the problem.

The insights come while driving children to school.

The answers appear during a walk.

Ideas surface in the middle of the night.

The conversation I needed happens unexpectedly.

Not because I forced it.

But because I finally created enough space to receive it.

When our nervous systems remain locked in panic, we lose access to creativity, intuition, wisdom, and trust.

But when we soften...

When we stop fighting for just a moment...

We create space for flow. We make room for the miraculous.

We remember that we are not solving life alone.

Maybe Life Is More on Your Side Than You Think

As mothers, we carry an unconscious belief that everything depends on us.

That if we stop pushing, everything will collapse.

But what if there are forces already working in your favor?

What if wisdom, support, healing, solutions, and unexpected opportunities are already moving toward you, even while you rest?

What if your job isn't always to fight harder?

What if sometimes your job is simply to prepare the environment, release the panic, and trust the process?

That doesn't mean doing nothing.

It means doing what you can...

And then allowing life to do what only life can do.

A Gentle Question for the Mom Who Feels Stuck

So I invite you to consider:

What are you over-scrubbing right now?

What problem has consumed your thoughts?

What challenge feels impossible to solve?

What are you trying to control through sheer grit and constant vigilance?

And what might happen if, just for a little while, you took a step back and walked away?

Not forever.

Maybe for five days.

Maybe for five hours.

Maybe even for five minutes.

Long enough for your nervous system to remember that you are supported.

Long enough to trust that solutions often arrive in stillness.

Long enough to discover that perhaps you were never carrying this alone.

And maybe that's where the real healing begins.