29/08/2025
Can you stop betraying yourself in the name of “strength”?
How many times have you said yes with a smile, but inside you were exhausted?
When did you learn to push through with caffeine, willpower, and a quiet panic no one sees?
On the outside, looking “strong.”
On the inside, betraying self.
I know this pattern, because I lived it.
For years, I pushed beyond what was reasonable because I thought that’s what strength looked like. Or maybe it was “I should because I can”.
Either way, in the process, I rode the full wave of survival responses: fight, flight, freeze, fawn, flop.
Each one a way of overriding myself. Each one rooted in the same driving force: the belief that being “too much” or “not enough” made me unworthy of rest, space, or No as a complete sentence. This sounds dramatic but most of it was totally subconscious and I wouldn’t have been able to name it without doing the deep work I did.
Here’s what I’ve learned on the other side:
👉 Every time you abandon yourself, you erode your trust in yourself. That doesn’t work out well for you or those around you in the long run.
👉 Every time you over-give, you drain the energy you need to create the life you want. You habitually accept mediocre as good enough.
👉 That false strength? It’s costing you your health, your clarity, your joy. Oh, the underlying dissatisfaction was the worst!
Real strength isn’t in the smile or the quiet endurance.
Real strength is in reclaiming your No.
In saying yes only when you mean it.
In aligning your energy with your truth.
This is the work I now do with people every day: helping them untangle from “performing strong,” and step into the kind of strength that actually sustains them.
If this felt like a slap, you’re not alone.
