On the expectations we inherited, the exhaustion we normalized, and coming home to ourselves.
Somewhere along the way, many of us were taught that being a good woman meant being able to handle everything.
Take care of your family.
Work hard.
Keep the house together.
Be available when someone needs you.
Be understanding. Be dependable. Be strong.
And whatever you're going through, find a way to keep moving.
We watched the women before us do it. Our mothers, grandmothers, aunties, and other women in our communities carried responsibilities that sometimes seemed impossible.
And we admired them.
We called them strong.
We called them Superwomen.
But I've been sitting with a question lately.
What did being Superwoman actually cost them?
And what is it costing us?
The expectations we inherited
I don't believe most women consciously decide they want to spend their lives exhausted.
We learn it.
Sometimes through what people tell us.
But often through what we witness.
We see women working through illness. Caring for everyone while neglecting their own needs. Making sacrifices nobody acknowledges. Holding families together while quietly falling apart themselves.
And somehow, those sacrifices become the standard.
We begin to associate being needed with being valuable.
We feel guilty when we rest.
We feel uncomfortable asking for help.
We convince ourselves that if we can just get through this next responsibility, this next difficult season, this next family situation, we'll finally have time for ourselves.
But there's always something else.
Another person who needs us.
Another responsibility.
Another situation requiring our attention.
And before we realize it, we've built entire lives around being available to everyone except ourselves.
I've written about this before in Rest Is Where I Can Hear Myself Again.
Sometimes the hardest part of resting isn't finding the time. It's confronting everything we've been taught about what it means to stop.
It's not all roses for the woman holding everything together
I'm thinking about this differently as I navigate my own season of life.
I'm moving through perimenopause.
My body is changing. My energy shifts. Some days I feel capable of doing so much. Other days, I'm trying to understand what my body needs from me.
At the same time, I'm a mother. I'm working. I'm maintaining a household. I'm caring for people I love. I'm continuing to build Allonia Rose.
And there are things happening in my personal life that are genuinely difficult.
Some days I'm sad.
Some days I'm tired.
And some days, I don't want to have to find another ounce of strength.
But life doesn't simply stop.
That's something I want us to talk about more honestly.
Even the women who hold space for others are living through their own experiences.
We have uncertainties. We experience grief. We worry about our children. We navigate illness, relationships, and bodies that are changing.
Being a healer, teacher, mother, or caregiver doesn't make us immune to needing care ourselves.
And I don't believe we should have to pretend otherwise.
It's not all roses for the healer. And it doesn't have to be.
The Superwoman is a fallacy
Here's what I've come to understand.
The idea that a woman can continuously give, nurture, work, provide, support, and carry everyone else's emotional needs without eventually becoming depleted is simply not sustainable.
No human being has unlimited capacity.
And yet, we continue celebrating women for enduring circumstances that may be hurting them.
We praise the woman who never misses a day.
The mother who always puts herself last.
The friend who's available whenever someone calls.
The woman who can somehow manage everything without asking for help.
But are we asking whether she's okay?
Are we checking on her?
Are we making room for her to be human?
For Black and Brown women especially, strength can become an expectation rather than something we're allowed to choose.
Our ability to endure is often celebrated while our exhaustion, pain, and need for support go unnoticed.
I want something different for us.
I want us to stop confusing exhaustion with devotion.
I want us to stop treating suffering as proof of love.
And I want us to stop believing that being capable means we should have to carry everything alone.
The women before us may have done what they had to do to survive.
We can honor them without making their exhaustion our inheritance.
Rest must become part of how we live
One thing I know is that rest cannot remain something we promise ourselves after everything is finished.
Because for many women, everything is never finished.
There's always another load of laundry.
Another email.
Another appointment.
Another person who needs something.
And for women navigating chronic illness, caregiving, or complicated family responsibilities, the demands may be ongoing and unavoidable.
So when I talk about rest, I'm not suggesting that we can simply walk away from every responsibility.
Some things genuinely require us.
But we can begin examining the expectations we've accepted.
Does everything need to be done today?
Am I the only person who can do this?
Have I asked for support?
Am I continuing something because it matters to me, or because I've been conditioned to believe I'm supposed to?
And perhaps most importantly:
What would happen if I began considering myself in the life I'm working so hard to maintain?
Rest isn't always a long vacation or a perfect morning routine.
And it isn't a replacement for practical help, medical care, or meaningful support.
Sometimes it means sharing responsibilities.
Sometimes it's telling someone we're not available.
Sometimes it's allowing ourselves to admit that we're struggling.
Sometimes it means accepting that our capacity has changed and our lives need to change with it.
We cannot continue treating rest as a reward for reaching exhaustion.
It has to become part of how we care for ourselves along the way.
Coming home to ourselves
Something else gets lost when we spend years performing the role of Superwoman.
We can lose touch with the woman underneath all those responsibilities.
The woman who enjoys reading.
Who loves learning and studying something simply because it interests her.
Who enjoys nature, music, laughter, friendship, and quiet moments.
The woman who has desires that aren't connected to what she can provide for someone else.
I think about this often.
Who am I when I'm not working?
When I'm not caregiving?
When I'm not teaching, facilitating, organizing, or solving something?
What brings me joy?
What am I curious about?
What do I need?
Sometimes coming home to ourselves means allowing those questions to exist without immediately turning the answers into another responsibility.
I don't want reading to become another assignment.
I don't want rest to become something I have to master.
I don't want every quiet moment to require a healing breakthrough.
Sometimes I want to sit with a book because I love reading.
Sometimes I want to listen to music because I love the way it sounds.
Sometimes I want to be outside and enjoy the trees, the air, and the simple experience of being alive.
Those moments belong to me, too.
And they don't have to be earned.
We are allowed to live differently
As I move through this season of my life, I'm becoming more intentional about what I want to carry forward.
Not everything we inherited was harmful.
There is incredible wisdom, creativity, determination, and love in the women who came before us.
But there are also expectations I'm no longer interested in preserving.
The expectation that women should be endlessly available.
That we should suffer quietly.
That asking for help makes us less capable.
That our bodies should keep functioning regardless of what we're experiencing.
That rest is something we deserve only after proving how much we can endure.
I don't want those beliefs to be the legacy we continue passing down.
I want the women coming after us to know that their needs matter.
Their bodies matter.
Their joy matters.
And their worth is not determined by how much they can carry.
Through my Lineage Liberation Method™, I return to three movements:
Witness. Release. Remember.
Witness the expectations we've inherited and what they've cost us.
Release what we're ready and able to put down, without forcing ourselves into another impossible standard.
Remember the women we are underneath the roles we've been taught to perform.
And when life gets difficult again, because it will, we can return to those movements.
Not because we've failed.
But because healing and living are ongoing.
I am still learning this myself.
Some days I honor my limits.
Other days I recognize that I've taken on too much.
I'm not writing this from a place of having it all figured out.
I'm writing as a woman who is living through the very things I teach about.
And perhaps that is what I want you to know most.
You don't have to become Superwoman to live a meaningful life.
You don't have to carry everything to prove that you're strong.
And you don't have to wait until your body forces you to stop before you begin making room for yourself.
You were a whole woman before the world began asking you to be everything to everyone.
You still are.
And you deserve the space to remember her.
What I'm Listening to This Season
One of the things accompanying me through this season is music from my favorite band, Hammock.
Their music gives me room for deep reflection, especially when I'm sitting with thoughts and emotions that don't necessarily need answers.
I've created an evolving Spotify playlist called Soft Hearts Era, and I'll continue adding music as the season unfolds.
If you'd like a little music for your own quiet moments, you're welcome to listen alongside me.
Listen to Soft Hearts Era on Spotify
A Gentle Invitation
If you've spent years being the woman everyone depends on, I want to invite you to consider something:
Who is taking care of you?
Not because you need another thing to work on.
But because your needs deserve consideration, too.
If you're longing for a place where you don't have to arrive strong, you're welcome to join my free weekly Soft Circle on Insight Timer.
We gather on Wednesdays at 10 AM Central. You can listen, reflect, or share if you choose.
You don't have to arrive with answers.
You don't even have to feel okay.
Come as you are.
With love and lineage,
Allonia
