The Exhausting Business of Being the Strong One

“At what point did being strong stop being something you were, and become something you felt you had to prove?”

There’s something I’ve come to recognise after spending much of my professional life working with actors, and more recently, mentoring women through some of the most significant transitions of their lives.

Some of the most convincing performances I’ve witnessed have never taken place on a stage or in front of a camera. They’ve happened in everyday life.

In the woman who appears to have everything under control. The one who navigates a crisis, makes difficult decisions, holds everyone together and somehow still finds the emotional capacity to support everyone around her. She’s intelligent, intuitive, accomplished and, by most people’s standards, incredibly strong.

She’s also often the woman nobody thinks to ask if she’s okay.

I’ve always been fascinated by the identities we unconsciously construct. The behaviours that earn us recognition, the roles we become so accomplished at inhabiting that eventually, we stop recognising them as roles at all.

For some women, that identity is strength. Not necessarily the kind that comes from inner security, but the kind that develops when life teaches you that being capable is safer than being vulnerable. When independence becomes less of a choice and more of an expectation.

The interesting thing is that these identities are often rewarded. People admire your resilience, praise your independence and celebrate your ability to keep going. Eventually, you begin to believe this is simply who you are.

Yet being exceptionally good at carrying something doesn’t necessarily mean it was ever yours to carry.

I understand this more personally than I once did. There have been chapters of my own life when I’ve mistaken my ability to keep going for evidence that I was genuinely okay. It’s a curious realisation that something you’ve always considered one of your greatest strengths might also be preventing you from experiencing something different.

Because sometimes the identities that keep us stuck aren’t the ones we dislike. They’re the ones we’re most proud of.

The successful one. The independent one. The dependable one. The woman who doesn’t need anybody. The woman who always finds a way.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable question isn’t whether these qualities have served us. Of course they have. It’s whether we’re still choosing them, or simply continuing to perform a version of ourselves that once made perfect sense.

There’s an important distinction between having strength and feeling responsible for demonstrating it. One gives you freedom. The other can quietly become an obligation.

I see this particularly in accomplished women who have built extraordinary lives, yet privately find themselves craving something different. Not necessarily more success, but more space to simply be.

This is where the deeper work of identity becomes so fascinating. Recognising the difference between who we authentically are and who we’ve learned to become.

I don’t believe strength needs to be abandoned. I believe our relationship with it can evolve. You can be capable without being constantly available. Independent without being emotionally inaccessible. Successful without allowing your achievements to determine your worth.

So this week, I’d like to leave you with one question.

If you no longer needed to be the woman who could handle everything, who might you finally give yourself permission to be?

Perhaps the most significant transformation isn’t about becoming somebody new. Perhaps it’s recognising that the woman you’ve spent years perfecting is no longer the one you wish to inhabit.

With love,

Jenna ✨

P.S. These are the conversations at the heart of my private mentoring work. If something in this letter has resonated with where you find yourself today, you’re always welcome to reach out. Sometimes the most important conversation begins with acknowledging that something is ready to change.