Podcast Episode #51 - Why Is It So Hard To Stop Being The Strong One?
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[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to yet another inspirational podcast episode brought to you by yours truly, Carina. I'm your truth speaker, truth seeker, truth keeper, and I am so glad that you're here with me today
What if the thing you're struggling to let go of was never actually your personality? What if it was a role? A role you stepped into years ago. A role that helped you survive. A role that kept you safe. Because there's [00:01:00] something I've been noticing in the women I work with lately. Many are beginning to recognize the roles they've been carrying for years.
The peacekeeper, the responsible one, the strong one, the woman everyone relies on, the one who quietly holds everything together. But once they recognize these roles, another question naturally follows. Why does putting them down feel so unsafe? I'm Carina Bull, trauma-aware facilitator and intuitive mentor.
Every week, I invite you into the conversations I'm already having with the women I work with. Together, we'll gently explore the survival patterns and roles we've mistaken for who we are so that you can reconnect with the woman beneath them. Around [00:02:00] here, we get curious, we question survival, and every now and then, I offer you another way of seeing it.
So grab a cuppa, get comfortable, and let's begin. Over the last or past month, this conversation has come up again and again, not just once, not just with one woman, again and again. Women are beginning to recognize that they've spent years living inside roles they never consciously chose. One woman described herself as the strong one.
Another talked about always keeping the peace. Someone else realized she'd become the woman who automatically took responsibility for everything around her. Different stories, different lives, different ages, but underneath them, [00:03:00] I kept hearing the same thing: "I don't know how to stop." And I don't think that's because women don't know what healthy boundaries look like.
I don't think it's because they haven't read enough books or listened to enough podcasts. I think it's because these roles once helped them feel safe, and that's a very different conversation Something that really stayed with me from this month's Soul Medicine Circle was one woman's realization. She'd spent years believing she was simply the peacekeeper, that she'd always been that way, that it was just part of her personality.
But as we gently explored where that role began, something shifted. She realized she learned very early in [00:04:00] life that keeping everyone else calm helped her feel safe If everyone else was okay, she could relax. If everyone else was happy, she wouldn't become the target. If everyone else looked after or was looked after, maybe she'd finally be enough.
And I watched this beautiful moment happen. The role she'd carried for years stopped feeling like her identity and started making sense. Not because she was weak, not because she was broken, because survival had quietly taught her that this was who she needed to become. And honestly, I wonder how many women listening today have mistaken a survival role for their personality[00:05:00]
Can I offer you another way of looking at this? Maybe you aren't naturally the strong one. Maybe strength became the safest role available. Maybe you aren't naturally the responsible one. Maybe responsibility stopped chaos from happening. Maybe you aren't naturally the peacekeeper. Maybe keeping everyone else happy reduced conflict.
Do you see the difference? One says, "This is who I am." The other says, "This is what survival asked of me." That's a completely different conversation again because survival has this remarkable way of disguising itself as a personality. We start saying things like, "I'm [00:06:00] just dependent or independent. I've always been the organized one.
I'm just the one everyone comes to. I don't really need much. I've always been the strong one." But what if you've simply repeated those roles for so long that they've started feeling like your identity Not because they are, but because they've become familiar, and survival loves familiar even when it's exhausting, even when it's lonely, even when it's costing you yourself.
So why has survival created this? Where did this come from? Well, when we're children, we don't choose the roles we play. We adapt because we notice what keeps us connected, what keeps us loved, what keeps us [00:07:00] safe. So maybe being helpful earned praise. Maybe staying quiet avoided conflict. Maybe being capable meant nobody expected anything from you.
Maybe being the strong one meant there wasn't room for your own vulnerability. So your nervous system learned carry more, need less, keep going, hold it together, don't rock the boat, don't disappoint people. And over time, those survival strategies stopped feeling like strategies. They became identity, not because they were true, but because they worked.
Survival doesn't ask, "Is this who I really am?" Survival asks, "Does this [00:08:00] keep me safe?" And if the answer is yes, it keeps repeating the pattern. But sometimes something beautiful happens once you recognize the role. Not judge it, but just recognize it because you stop making yourself wrong. You stop asking, "Why am I like this?"
and instead begin asking, "What happened that made this feel necessary?" That question changes everything because compassion begins where criticism ends. And once you realize the role isn't who you are, you become curious about the woman underneath it, the woman who exists beneath the peacekeeper, beneath the strong one, beneath the responsible one, the woman survival quietly asked you to hide[00:09:00]
You can honor the woman who helped you survive without asking her to keep running your life So here's the question I'd love to leave you with today. What role have you mistaken for your personality? And if that role no longer needed to keep you safe, who might you be without it? You don't need to answer that today.
Okay? Just, just let it sit with you. See what comes up
And this week, simply notice. Notice how often you automatically become the strong one, the fixer, the peacekeeper, the responsible one, before [00:10:00] anyone has even asked you to. Don't try and change it. Don't judge yourself for it. I just want you to notice And gently ask yourself, is this really me or is this survival?
Because awareness always comes before change. If today's conversation resonated with you, I'd love to invite you into next month's Soul Medicine Circle. Over the past month, we've been exploring the survival roles women quietly carry. Next month, we're taking the conversation one step further. Once you've recognized the role, why does putting it down feel so unsafe?
Together, we'll gently explore what your nervous system is protecting, what you're afraid might happen if you [00:11:00] stop carrying everything, and what becomes possible when you begin believing you're safe enough to choose differently. The next Soul Medicine Circle is on Sunday, 9th of August from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time online via Zoom.
You'll find the link in the show notes if you'd like to join us. And until next time, just because it was doesn't mean it always has to be. This isn't your personality. This is survival. With love, Carina.