The Exhaustion of Becoming a Healed Woman
There seems to be a woman we are all supposed to be becoming.
She is healed.
Regulated.
Embodied.
Self-aware.
She has boundaries.
She knows her worth.
She doesn't people-please.
She doesn't seek validation.
She recognizes her triggers before they become reactions.
She rests without guilt.
She communicates her needs clearly.
She has made peace with her past.
She doesn't abandon herself to keep other people comfortable.
Presumably, she drinks enough water too and she sounds wonderful.
She also sounds fucking exhausting.
Because somewhere inside a culture that has given women more language than ever to understand themselves, I wonder if we have quietly created another impossible standard for them to meet.
The healed woman.
And perhaps the strangest part is that she arrived disguised as freedom.
We finally have language for things we couldn't name
There is so much about therapy, coaching, mental-health awareness and conversations about emotional wellbeing that is genuinely valuable. We have words for experiences women once simply endured:
Boundaries.
People-pleasing.
Burnout.
Emotional labour.
Attachment.
Rest.
Desire.
Trauma.
Nervous-system regulation.
Generational patterns.
The beliefs and behaviours we learned because, at some point, they helped us belong, feel safe, feel significant or be loved. That language can create recognition. Sometimes simply discovering that something has a name can feel like someone turned on a light.
Oh.
That's what I've been doing.
That's why this feels so familiar.
There can be enormous freedom in understanding ourselves. But something changes when understanding becomes expectation. When this might help you understand yourself quietly becomes: This is what a healthy woman should look like.
And suddenly we have another set of rules.
Perfectionism learned the language of healing
For generations, women have been handed instructions for how to be good.
Be pleasant.
Be attractive.
Be useful.
Be nurturing.
Be capable.
Be a good mother.
Be a supportive partner.
Build the career.
Take care of yourself.
Stay young.
Don't be selfish.
Don't be needy.
Don't be difficult.
And many of us have spent years questioning those expectations. But I'm beginning to wonder whether some of them simply changed what it was wearing.
Now perhaps the good woman is emotionally evolved.
She has done the work.
She has healed her wounds.
She has excellent boundaries.
She doesn't need external validation.
She has processed her childhood.
She is connected to her body.
She knows exactly what she wants.
She protects her peace.
Different vocabulary.
Same quiet possibility underneath it:
There is a correct way to be a woman, and you're not quite there yet.
We took perfectionism and dressed it in softer clothes.
The finish line keeps moving
This is one of the most seductive things about self-improvement.
There is always another layer. You identify the people-pleasing. Then you ask where it came from. Then you examine the belief underneath it. Then you learn about boundaries.
Then you notice how uncomfortable boundaries make you. Then you wonder why discomfort feels unsafe. Then someone tells you to regulate your nervous system.
And somewhere along the way, a woman who started by trying to understand why she says yes when she means no has acquired twelve books, four podcasts, a meditation app and a nagging suspicion that she still hasn't dealt with her mother.
There is always somewhere else to go.
Another pattern to uncover.
Another wound to heal.
Another behaviour to change.
And because there is always another layer, there is always another reason to believe:
I'm not there yet.
But where, exactly, is there?
When nothing triggers us?
When we stop caring what other people think?
When our boundaries never wobble?
When we no longer repeat patterns we understand perfectly well?
When we never lose our shit?
If that's the finish line, I have some disappointing news. I don't think we're getting there.
Understanding something doesn't mean you stop doing it
One of the more humbling experiences of becoming self-aware is discovering that awareness does not automatically change behaviour.
You can know exactly why you people-please and still say yes. You can understand your relationship with achievement and still overwork. You can recognize that you're seeking validation while actively seeking validation. You can understand why a particular relationship activates something in you and still become activated by it. You can have an excellent boundary and abandon it on Wednesday. You can know better. And still not always do better.
This does not necessarily mean you need another layer of healing.
Sometimes the behaviours we want to change have served us for decades. Sometimes the need underneath them still exists. Sometimes we make different choices depending on whether we're rested, frightened, lonely, secure or exhausted.
Sometimes we fuck up.
Self-awareness can give us more choice.
It does not turn us into perfectly optimized human beings.
What if you don't need to heal everything?
There are wounds that need care. Patterns that cause real harm. Relationships where boundaries are necessary. Behaviours we may genuinely want to change. None of this is an argument against therapy, coaching, reflection, growth or healing. It is an argument against turning healing into another prerequisite for wholeness.
You don't need to heal every single thing that ever happened to you.
You don't need to trace every behaviour back to its origin.
You don't need to resolve every complicated feeling about your parents.
Every insecurity doesn't require excavation.
Every reaction isn't evidence of an unhealed wound.
Sometimes you're tired.
Sometimes someone pissed you off.
Sometimes you make a choice you don't particularly like.
Sometimes you miss someone you know isn't good for you.
Sometimes you care what people think.
Sometimes life fucking hurts.
And we can absolutely allow some of those experiences to be human before turning them into evidence of what remains unfinished within us.
Reflection doesn't have to lead anywhere
We ask women questions here. A lot of them.
Who are you beneath everything you've learned to be?
What do you want?
What do you miss?
What have you outgrown?
Where did you learn the rules you're still following?
But there is something important underneath all of those questions:
You are not required to produce an answer.
And if you do find one, you are not immediately required to do anything with it.
Reflection can simply be reflection. Understanding can simply be understanding.
You can recognize a pattern and decide you aren't ready to change it. You can become curious about a relationship without leaving it. You can question a career without resigning.
You can notice that something doesn't feel good without knowing what would feel better. You can ask Who am I now? and answer: I don't fucking know.
There does not have to be a transformation at the end of every question.
Sometimes noticing is enough.
You are not a project
There is a strange contradiction in telling women they are enough exactly as they are while simultaneously handing them an endless list of things they should be working on.
Love yourself.
But work on yourself.
Accept yourself.
But heal yourself.
Trust yourself.
But interrogate your patterns.
Rest.
But make sure you're resting intentionally.
Be present.
Be embodied.
Set boundaries.
Regulate.
Reflect.
Grow.
Become.
Heal.
Improve.
No wonder we're tired.
What if, for a moment, we put down the clipboard?
What if there weren't a more evolved version of you that today's woman needed to catch up with?
You are not a project.
You are a person.
A complicated, contradictory, changing human being.
You will understand yourself beautifully in some moments and completely confuse yourself in others. You will repeat things you thought you'd moved beyond. You will change your mind.
You will occasionally behave in ways that make absolutely no sense given the amount of self-awareness you possess.
None of that disqualifies you from being whole.
Who benefits when women believe they are perpetually unfinished?
I think this question is worth asking. Because there is an enormous industry built around the idea that somewhere between the woman you are and the woman you could become lies the thing you need to buy, learn, practise, heal or understand.
And Sacred Soul exists inside that world too.
I am a coach.
We create Practices.
We hold spaces designed for women to reflect and ask questions.
So I think we have a responsibility to be especially careful about this. I never want to build a place that first convinces a woman she is incomplete and then sells her the solution.
I don't want you to need Sacred Soul. I want it to be somewhere you can come when you want space.
Perspective.
Questions.
Conversation.
Challenge.
Rest.
Connection.
A place to hear yourself more clearly.
But the authority on your life remains you.
And there should never be an imaginary healed woman standing between who you are today and your right to believe that you are already enough.
Maybe there is no healed woman
Maybe there is no final version. No woman who has processed everything.
Resolved everything.
Understood everything.
Mastered every boundary.
Regulated every response.
Stopped repeating every pattern.
Maybe there are simply women who know themselves a little differently than they did before.
Who sometimes choose differently. Who sometimes don't. Who recognize their patterns and can laugh when they catch themselves halfway through repeating one. Who become more compassionate toward the parts of themselves they once tried desperately to fix.
Who ask better questions. Who give themselves room not to know.
You can want to change and still be enough now.
You can have things you want to understand and still be enough now.
You can go to therapy and still be enough now.
You can repeat an old pattern and still be enough now.
You can be confused.
Contradictory.
Restless.
Certain one day and completely unsure the next.
Still enough.
There is no healed version of you that gets to inherit your worth someday.
It belongs to you now.
And maybe becoming yourself isn't about finally reaching the woman who has nothing left to heal. Maybe it's simply learning how to stay beside the woman who is already here.
A Practice: Nothing to Fix
For this practice, we're going to do something that may feel strangely uncomfortable.
We're not going to improve anything.
Find ten quiet minutes. Sit somewhere comfortable. No special setup required.
Take a breath. Notice your body in the chair. Your feet on the floor. Your hands.
Your shoulders. Don't try to relax them. Just notice them.
Now think about one thing you've been telling yourself you need to work on.
Maybe it's a behaviour.
A relationship.
A boundary.
Your confidence.
Your need for approval.
Your productivity.
Your ability to rest.
Something you've quietly placed on your internal list of Things I Should Probably Fix About Myself.
Then ask:
What if I didn't have to fix this today?
Not forever. We're not pretending our choices don't matter or that change is never necessary.
Just today.
What if there were nothing you had to accomplish with this information?
If you want to write, finish these three sentences:
Something I'm tired of trying to fix about myself is…
What I understand about it now is…
What I could offer myself instead of correction is…
Maybe the answer is compassion.
Maybe patience.
Maybe humour.
Maybe rest.
Maybe absolutely nothing.
There is no correct response.
And when you're finished, don't make a plan. Don't create three action steps. Don't promise yourself you'll do better tomorrow.
Close the notebook. Finish your coffee. Go live your life.
You are allowed to know yourself without making yourself your next improvement project.
And for today, that is enough.
Cheryl
Founder, Sacred Soul Collective
A LITTLE SPACE TO HEAR YOURSELF THINK
Some conversations deserve more than a passing moment.
Every Sunday, I write a personal letter about the expectations we carry, the questions we rarely ask aloud, and the complicated business of being a woman.
Not another list of things to fix.
Not advice about becoming someone better.
Just an honest conversation about who we are, what we've come to believe, and what we might choose differently.
I'd love to have you join me.
One thoughtful letter, delivered every Sunday. No noise. No pressure.
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When You Got What You Wanted and It Still Wasn't Quite Right
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