When Survival Is No Longer the Assignment

What Happens When the Strong Woman Gets Tired of Being Praised for How Much She Can Carry

“You’re so strong.”

I fucking hate that sentence.

I know people mean it as a compliment.

For years, I probably received it as one.

Superwoman certainly did.

Single mother of three.

House.

Mortgage.

Bills.

Shitty social-work pay.

College.

Health problems.

A business.

Barely enough money.

Barely enough time.

Somehow, I kept the fucking plates spinning.

People would look at my life and ask some version of the same question:

How did you do it?

And somewhere inside me lived the answer I told myself for years:

What fucking choice did I have?

Except now, at 45, I know better.

I had choices.

I made one.

I chose to survive like fucking hell.

And then I pretended surviving wasn’t costing me anything.

Superwoman Wasn't Born. She Was Built.

I grew up poor.

Not we couldn’t afford the newest shoes poor.

Poor.

Powdered milk poor.

There were times when, as a little girl, I was curious enough that I literally ate fucking dirt.

I knew scarcity before I had language for socioeconomic status.

And when I became a mother, something inside me decided:

Not my fucking kids.

I looked around at other young mothers and judged some of what I saw.

I saw women partying while their parents cared for their children.

I saw women depending heavily on systems I was determined not to depend upon.

I saw choices I had absolutely no intention of making.

Fuck that shit.

I would work.

I would go to school.

I would pay the bills.

I would build a career.

I would keep a roof over my children’s heads.

I would figure it the fuck out.

And I did.

There is shadow in that story now that I can see from here.

I didn’t know those women’s entire stories.

I didn’t know what resources they had or didn’t have.

I didn’t know what trauma they carried.

Some were probably making shitty choices.

Some were probably surviving differently than I was.

But my judgment of them did something important for younger me:

It helped fuel Superwoman.

Dependency became something I did not want associated with me.

Responsibility became moral.

Sacrifice became evidence of being a good mother.

And needing very little from anyone became something dangerously close to virtue.

So I fought.

And fought.

And fought.

Not only to survive.

But to make survival look almost effortless.

The Cost Nobody Saw

There’s something interesting about being called strong when nobody sees the invoice.

People see the house.

They don’t see the debt.

They see the degree.

They don’t see the student loans taken beyond what tuition required because sometimes that money helped keep a family alive.

They see the successful professional.

They don’t see the mother calculating bills and groceries and childcare and wondering how the fuck all of it is going to work.

They see independence.

They don't see what independence costs when there isn't another adult consistently carrying the other end.

There was financial debt.

Sleep debt.

Body debt.

Emotional debt.

Time debt.

Grief debt.

And perhaps the largest debt of all:

the debt I accumulated with myself.

I kept borrowing from tomorrow’s Cathy so today’s Cathy could keep everybody alive.

I’ll rest later.

I’ll take care of myself later.

I’ll deal with my health later.

I’ll grieve later.

I’ll figure out what I need later.

Later.

Later.

Later.

Until eventually there wasn't much left to borrow.

When Superwoman Broke

Around 2014, my first group private practice began collapsing during a major insurance reimbursement crisis.

Money stopped coming in the way it should have.

Clinicians needed to be paid.

The business was bleeding.

People began leaving.

And I fought like fucking hell to keep it alive.

I used business money.

Personal money.

Money my household needed.

Anything I could reasonably find because people had performed work and I felt responsible for them.

Even when contractual realities meant every loss wasn't necessarily mine to personally absorb, emotionally I couldn't separate those things very well.

They're depending on me.

That sentence has cost me a lot throughout my life.

Eventually my attorney told me something I apparently needed another human being to say:

The business needed to close.

I could start another business someday.

But if I wasn't alive to do it, none of that would matter.

My health was deteriorating.

My body was screaming.

And still, closing felt like failure.

Within a remarkably short period, I sold what I could, tried to pay people as much as I could, and watched something I had worked incredibly hard to build disappear.

Then came bankruptcy.

Eventually I lost my home.

My car.

My business.

So much of what Superwoman had fought to create was gone.

And simultaneously, something devastating had happened in my family.

Part of that story belongs to one of my children, and therefore it isn't mine to publicly tell in detail.

But I can tell you what happened to me.

I was already barely holding everything together when a letter arrived containing information no mother ever wants to receive concerning her child.

My children happened to be away that weekend.

And when they left, something inside me stopped.

I don't remember all of it.

I remember enough.

My parents found me the following day curled in a corner of my dining room.

Crying.

Frozen.

In shock.

Superwoman wasn't coming.

She had finally carried more than a human being could carry.

“What Choice Did I Have?”

For years, that was my answer.

What choice did I have?

My children needed me.

Bills needed paid.

Clients needed care.

Employees needed money.

My family needed stability.

Life wasn't going to stop because Cathy was fucking tired.

So what choice did I have?

Current me answers that question differently.

Sweet Child, you had choices.

You just couldn't see many of them from where you were standing.

And I don't say that to blame her.

Quite the opposite.

Choices do not exist in a vacuum.

We choose from inside our histories.

Our finances.

Our trauma.

Our responsibilities.

Our beliefs.

Our available resources.

Our level of consciousness at that moment.

What appears obvious at 45 was not necessarily visible to the young mother standing in the middle of survival.

She chose what she understood.

And holy fuck, did she fight.

I don't want to shame her for that anymore.

I want to thank her.

And then I want to tell her:

You can clock the fuck out now.

Because Survival Is Not My Assignment Anymore

Life didn't suddenly become easy because I became more conscious.

That would make for a lovely spiritual Instagram post.

It just wouldn't be true.

Financially, this season has been difficult.

Insurance reimbursement for my clinical work has changed dramatically. Some payers have cut rates enough that continuing to build my practice around them no longer makes sense.

My clinical schedule isn't as full as it once was.

Expenses didn't politely decrease because income did.

And once again, circumstances I expected would include shared financial support changed, leaving me carrying substantially more than anticipated.

Old Cathy knows exactly what to do with that.

Panic.

Work harder.

Take everybody.

Say yes.

Fix it.

Rescue everyone affected.

Spend tomorrow's resources solving today's fear.

Build something immediately because the emergency demands it.

But something strange has been happening.

I'm not doing that.

I'm paying attention.

I'm adjusting.

I'm spending less.

Things that used to be routine luxuries aren't routine right now.

I haven't had my nails done in months.

The massages that once happened regularly became rare.

I say no to purchases I don't need.

Sometimes I even tell Starbucks to fuck off.

Not because pleasure is bad.

Not because deprivation makes me spiritually superior.

Because this is what is true right now.

And I am finally learning that responding to reality isn't the same thing as being controlled by fear.

I Am Building Without the Emergency

For more than a year, I have been quietly building The Soma Alchemy Institute.

Not overnight.

Not because I woke up one morning terrified and decided I needed another income source by Friday.

Slowly.

Intentionally.

With patience.

With clarity.

With a foundation.

My long-term intention has been to eventually transition away from private practice and allow this work to become my primary professional home.

And now, while clinical income is changing, the thing I began building before the emergency is beginning to take form.

My first live cohort is launching.

Those teachings can eventually become an on-demand offering.

There are plans for continuing education.

More teaching.

More writing.

More ways for the work I've spent decades developing to exist in the world.

I'm also remaining open to other professional opportunities.

I am not sitting in my apartment chanting abundance affirmations while ignoring the fucking electric bill.

I am acting.

But I am learning to act without terror being the project manager.

That's new.

Sometimes fear still arrives.

A little nervousness.

A flash of panic.

What if?

And then another voice arrives.

My Wise One.

You are always taken care of.

That is not a promise I can prove about the universe.

It is something I have come to believe from living my own life.

I have lost things.

I have suffered.

I have fucked up.

I have been hurt.

I have had circumstances change without my permission.

Being “taken care of” has never meant getting everything I wanted.

Sometimes being taken care of looked suspiciously like everything falling the fuck apart.

But somehow, another path appeared.

Or I created one.

Usually both.

So now I pay attention.

I adjust.

I act.

And I try not to confuse urgency with wisdom.

Guilt Doesn't Get to Make My Decisions Anymore

Recently, another business situation brought an old pattern directly back to me.

A contractor experienced a significant financial consequence from an insurance issue.

I felt terrible.

Of course I did.

But this time there had been conversations beforehand.

The risk had been discussed.

The contract was clear.

She was an adult entering into an agreement with information available to her.

And when the thing we'd discussed actually happened, I felt the old pull.

That familiar guilt.

Fix it.

But I didn't.

I allowed the agreement to remain the agreement.

I allowed another adult to be angry.

I allowed her to make decisions about what she needed to do next.

And I allowed myself to care about what happened to her without assuming responsibility for rescuing her from it.

That might not sound revolutionary.

For me, it fucking is.

Because compassion without boundaries used to turn into self-sacrifice remarkably fast.

I am learning that I can love people without paying every bill their circumstances create.

I can care without carrying.

I can understand without assuming responsibility.

I can feel guilty without treating guilt as an instruction.

Then There Is My Body

My body may be where Superwoman has received her clearest termination notice.

I have had a complicated relationship with my body since puberty.

I developed early.

My curves were bigger than many other girls'.

Even at my thinnest, they remained.

For years, changing my body required enormous discipline.

There were seasons of the gym seven days a week.

Two-hour workouts.

Years of strict eating.

Seven years of keto.

And yes, I accomplished things.

I was strong.

Fit.

Disciplined.

There are parts of that body I miss.

A fucking lot.

But I don't want the life required to maintain her anymore.

And now my body has been through enough that brute force is no longer an option I am willing to glorify.

Major surgery.

Vascular issues.

Blood-pressure problems.

Blood-sugar instability.

Lipedema and lymphedema.

Joint pain after years of heavy lifting.

Scars.

Changes I didn't request.

Changes I don't particularly fucking like.

I would love to tell you I've reached some enlightened state where I look naked in the mirror and adore every inch of myself.

I haven't.

Sometimes I hate what I see.

There is sadness there.

But something has changed.

I care for her anyway.

My body no longer has to become visually acceptable to me before she becomes worthy of my care.

Today, My Body Asked. I Listened.

This week I went to the gym three days in a row.

I've also been dealing with a migraine.

My sleep has been shitty.

I've been grieving.

Crying.

Thinking.

Waking throughout the night.

This morning I woke up intending to go to the gym again.

The old voice kept entertaining the possibility.

Maybe later.

Maybe I'll feel better.

Maybe I'll still go.

By noon I realized something.

The loving thing was not to go.

So I took a long salt bath.

I practiced self-massage and gentle lymphatic work.

I used my vibration plate.

I stretched.

I breathed.

Gently.

I ate leftovers from the meal I had prepared earlier in the week.

I watched a show.

I used essential oils for the discomfort I was experiencing.

I cried.

I wrote.

I worked on the things that matter to me.

And when I still felt restless later, I didn't force myself into the gym so I could check a box.

I took a drive.

I got some fresh air.

And I called all of that my workout.

Years ago, I probably wouldn't have counted it.

Today I do.

Because today my body did not have to collapse in a dining-room corner before I gave her permission to stop.

She asked.

I listened.

Strength Isn't What I Thought It Was

Maybe that's why I cringe when somebody tells me I'm strong.

They aren't wrong.

I am fucking strong.

But I don't want strength defined exclusively by how much pain I can withstand without dropping anything.

I don't want another award for surviving.

I don't want someone standing beside me while I struggle with something heavy saying:

Damn, you're strong.

Grab the other fucking end.

That's what I want now.

Not rescue.

Partnership.

I don't need a man to save me.

I know how to survive without one.

I've demonstrated that experiment thoroughly enough.

I want someone who doesn't need me to save him either.

I want two adults who are capable of standing independently and still choose to build a life interdependently.

I don't believe partnership is 50/50.

I believe we both bring 100% of what we actually have.

Sometimes my 100% may look like 20% of my usual capacity.

Maybe I'm sick.

Maybe I haven't slept.

Maybe work destroyed me that day.

And perhaps his 100% has plenty left.

So he says:

I've got us today.

And another day, his capacity collapses and mine doesn't.

I've got us today.

No spreadsheet.

No scorecard.

No future weaponization.

No:

Remember what I did for you?

Care doesn't come with an invoice hidden behind it.

I want to be cared for.

There.

I said it.

I fucking want to be cared for.

Not because I am incapable.

Because I have been capable for a very, very long time.

Being Needed Is Not the Same as Being Loved

This may be one of the hardest things Superwoman has had to learn.

Being indispensable can feel remarkably similar to being loved.

People need you.

They call you.

They rely on you.

They trust you to fix it.

You become the mother.

The therapist.

The organizer.

The rescuer.

The crisis manager.

The person everybody knows can handle the fucking thing.

And somewhere inside all that usefulness, it can become difficult to ask:

Would you still choose me if I weren't doing anything for you?

I don't want to be needed like that anymore.

I want to be wanted.

I don't want a partner because neither of us can survive independently.

I want a relationship in which both of us know:

I could do life without you.

I just don't fucking want to.

There is a profound difference.

And Sometimes I Still Become the Bull

None of this means I have become some perfectly regulated spiritual creature floating around my apartment smelling like frankincense.

Fuck no.

External crisis?

I'm often remarkably calm.

I orient.

Assess.

Regulate the initial shock.

Figure out what needs done.

Move.

But relational harm can still find another entrance.

Sometimes something happens that feels so unnecessarily hurtful, disrespectful or incongruent that I feel the fire come from somewhere deep inside me.

The Bull.

That's my language for her.

Sometimes it feels almost like energy rising through my body.

Sometimes underneath the rage is an almost childlike protest:

How the fuck could you do this to me?

Especially when I believe I have been trying to show up consciously.

Lovingly.

Honestly.

Accountably.

But consciousness never promised me immunity from other people's choices.

And it certainly never promised that I would stop fucking up myself.

I hurt people.

Sometimes intentionally.

Sometimes unintentionally.

Sometimes through words.

Sometimes through behavior.

Sometimes the ugliest thing I contributed never even left my own fucking mind.

My spiritual worldview asks me to take even that seriously.

Because I believe what I bring into relationship matters.

I believe intention matters.

I believe energy matters.

I believe what we put into the world has consequences.

Someone else doesn't have to share those beliefs to understand the behavioral truth beneath them:

How we treat people matters.

Consciousness, for me, does not mean I never cause harm.

It means I remain willing to look at myself when I do.

Being Harmed Is Not the Same as Living as a Victim

This distinction matters deeply to me.

There have been times when I was authentically harmed.

Calling something harmful does not automatically mean I have entered the Victim Trap.

Healing does not require me to rewrite reality so I can prove how evolved I am.

That would just be self-gaslighting wearing spiritual clothing.

Something can have happened to me.

Someone can have hurt me.

I can be angry about it.

I can grieve it.

I can demand accountability.

And I can still retain agency.

Healing did not require me to deny that I had been victimized.

It required me to stop making victimization the end of my agency.

That's different.

Grief Doesn't Mean I've Gone Backward

Sometimes grief arrives while I'm doing absolutely nothing profound.

I'm watching television.

I look over.

He's not there.

I roll over in bed and some part of my body expects another body to be there.

It isn't.

And suddenly grief enters the room.

Sometimes I cry.

Sometimes a lot.

There is a part of me that has wanted companionship for a very long time.

Not someone to rescue.

A partner.

Someone who wants to do life beside me.

Someone who doesn't run from difficult things.

Someone who doesn't need to numb himself out of his own life.

Someone who can care for me without turning that care into ammunition later.

Someone who can receive my love without requiring my labor to prove it.

And yes, sometimes something inside me screams:

I'm 45 fucking years old. When do I get that?

I don't have an enlightened answer.

I don't know.

So I let myself cry.

Then the Wise One comes.

Not to shut the grieving girl up.

Not to tell her she's complete by herself and therefore shouldn't want anybody.

Not to give her some fucking Pinterest quote about divine timing.

She sits with her.

I know.

You wanted him here.

I hear you.

I see you.

I love you.

Sometimes that's the soul retrieval.

Not transcending the grief.

Staying with myself inside it.

Maybe This Is What Comes After Survival

I used to think strength meant overriding myself.

Keep going.

Do more.

Carry it.

Fix it.

Push through.

Don't let them see you fall.

Figure it out.

Today I wonder if strength sometimes looks like something entirely different.

Stop.

Listen.

No.

Not mine.

Not today.

I need help.

I need rest.

I am sad.

I want companionship.

I can't afford that right now.

My body doesn't want that right now.

I can care about you without fixing this for you.

I can love you without abandoning myself.

I can change the fucking plan.

Survival taught me how to override myself.

Consciousness is teaching me how to hear myself.

And perhaps that's why survival can be so difficult to relinquish.

She worked.

Superwoman got me here.

I will never dishonor her by pretending otherwise.

She raised children.

She earned degrees.

She built businesses.

She paid bills she didn't know how she was going to pay.

She walked through betrayal.

She survived poverty.

She rebuilt after losing things she had worked years to create.

She carried me until she literally couldn't anymore.

I fucking love her.

But she doesn't run this place now.

The Wise One does.

And when Superwoman comes rushing into the room screaming:

Give it to me. I'll handle it.

I can put my hand on her shoulder now.

Sweet Girl.

I know you can.

That's not the question anymore.

The question is whether it's yours to carry.

Today, I Know

I am strong.

I am also tired sometimes.

I am capable.

I am also deserving of care.

I can survive alone.

I am also allowed to want partnership.

I can make money.

I can also change how I work when the old model no longer serves me.

I can move my body.

I can also rest before my body forces me to.

I can love people deeply.

I can let them experience consequences that belong to them.

I can be harmed without surrendering my agency.

I can make mistakes without making myself a monster.

I can grieve without turning grief into an identity.

I can miss someone and still continue living.

I can dislike what I see in the mirror and still lovingly care for the body reflected back at me.

I can be afraid and still refuse to let fear become the fucking project manager.

And maybe the greatest shift of all is this:

I no longer need to wait until everything breaks before I give myself permission to choose differently.

My body doesn't have to collapse.

My bank account doesn't have to hit zero.

My relationship doesn't have to destroy me.

My business doesn't have to fail.

I don't have to be curled in a corner before my needs become legitimate.

I can listen sooner.

I can choose sooner.

I can love myself sooner.

I can put something down before it fucking breaks me.

Superwoman did her job.

She got me here.

I don't need to destroy her.

I don't need to be ashamed of her.

I don't even need to stop being strong.

I simply need to remind her:

Survival is no longer the assignment.

Living is.

And I have spent enough of my life proving that I can survive.

Now I want to find out how much of it I can actually fucking live.

— Soma Alchemy