Your Body Knows: The Hidden Cost of Always Being "The Strong One"

0:00Hey friend, it is so good to be back with you again. Today, if you'll allow me, I want to talk directly to your heart about something that hurts, but it's also something we rarely give ourselves permission to look at. And we're going to start this in kind of an odd way because I want to ask you if you remember a few years back when the Disney movie Encanto came out. Now, if you recall this, there's this character, Louisa. She's the older sister with a magical gift of super strength. And I remember the first time sitting there watching this movie, the room completely dark, and watching her character move mountains, reroute rivers, carry a half dozen donkeys on her shoulder while the townspeople just cheered and piled more on her.

0:52And then her solo song starts. And there is this one specific line where the music drops. She looks completely vulnerable and she sings under the surface. I'm pretty sure I'm worthless if I can't be of service. I can't even say that without tears in my eyes because when that line hit the speakers, it hit my chest with a physical ache. And I remember just looking around in this dark theater and I noticed something beautiful and heartbreaking. And that was almost every grown woman in the room was silently crying. And they weren't crying because of a cartoon character, right? They were crying because Louisa's story isn't fantasy.

1:42Louisa's a mirror. Louisa is the oldest daughter who had to grow up too fast. She's the sister. She holds the family secret. She's holding everyone together. She's the woman, everyone in the neighborhood, the office, the friend group they depend on. She's the one who always answers that late night text, the one who effortlessly coordinates the crisis, the one who handles everything with a smile, the one who never seems to need help, right? Because she's so strong. She's the strong one. And because she makes it look so easy, nobody notices that she's quietly carrying the weight of the entire village on her back until her bones are literally screaming for relief.

2:27So I want to ask you the question that nobody else is probably asking you. What happens when the strong one gets tired? When the strong one can't be the strong one? And I don't mean the kind of tired that like a Sunday afternoon nap can fix. I mean a deep, quiet, soul level fatigue. The kind of tired where your body is moving, your calendar is full, and you're getting things done but inside you feel completely evaporated. if you're nodding your head right now or if your eyes are tearing up because you feel so deeply exposed by that description i just want you to say it with me you're safe here i already did my my welling of tears too you don't have to perform for me for the next 20-30 minutes or so you don't have to be the strong one you can just be you as we move through this conversation together and as you can tell this is a story that deeply resonates with me as well.

3:29I want to welcome you back to the Dr. Brighton show. I'm your host Dr. Jolene Brighton. I'm board certified in naturopathic endocrinology. I'm a certified menopause practitioner, a nutrition scientist, certified sex counselor, and the author of the upcoming book ADHD in Women. But right now more than any of those titles I'm just another woman who sees you and if what I just shared with you resonates with the very fabric of who you are, please take a brief moment to share this episode with a woman in your life who is currently carrying the mountain with a dozen donkeys. She needs to know she's not alone.

4:06So with that said, now let's peel back the layers of how we got here in the first place. We tend to look at our strength as a personality trait, something we're just born with. But if we trace back your story, we usually find that you didn't choose to become the strong one. You were drafted into it by necessity and usually without choice. Maybe you were the oldest child and you realized early on that your parents were overwhelmed. So you became the third parent. Maybe you grew up in an environment that felt emotionally chaotic And you learned that the best way to stay safe and sometimes loved was to be perfectly well-behaved, intensely responsible, and completely self-sufficient.

4:56Never asked for help, never voiced concerns. You learned to tuck your own messy but very human needs into a dark corner because everyone else's needs were always louder, more urgent, more dangerous in ways. and society rewarded you for it, didn't they? You got praised for being so mature, so resilient, so reliable. But here's the trap. At some point across the years, your strength stopped being a tool you used and it became the entirety of who you were. It became your armor, your identity, and your currency for love. And that brings us to the most terrifying question a strong woman can ever face.

5:39Who are you allowed to be when you're not being strong? When I ask my patients this question in the quiet sanctuary of my clinical visits, they often look at me with absolute panic in their eyes. And this is a safe place where they can just be themselves. They don't have to have an answer for me. Because if you aren't the caregiver, the fixer, the planner, or the anchor, who are you? If you drop the donkeys, right? Do you still have value? I want you to let this truth settle deep into your spirit right now. Your strength is a beautiful part of you, but it's not the whole of you. You're allowed to be tired.

6:20You're allowed to be messy. You're allowed not to know the answer. Your worth was never dependent on your ability to carry the world without breaking. And there is a real intersection between the strong one, the one who gets things done, and the woman living with chronic disease, like an autoimmune disease. There's also this devastating loneliness that walks hand in hand with being the capable one. Have you noticed that people rarely ask if you're genuinely okay? When people ask how you are, it's usually just a polite formality, right? Before they launch into telling you about their problems or asking for your help.

6:58And why wouldn't they, right? You're always fine. You always figure it out. You always land on your feet like a cat. But this creates a beautiful gilded prison if we're being honest with ourselves. The stronger everyone believes you are, the less support they think you need. People look at your life. They see your competence. They assume your shield is made of solid iron. They're never realizing it's actually made of glass that has these micro fractures that are just, they're just webbing under all this pressure. The role that earns you the most admiration from the world is very often the exact role that costs you the most authentic connection.

7:42When you are always the one holding the bucket, nobody thinks to check if your hands are cramping. Capable women become entirely invisible in plain sight. It's not because the people around you don't love you. It's because this dance has trained them to believe that you don't possess vulnerability. This pattern of behavior has built this world where you are everyone's safe harbor and you don't have any harbor of your own. Let me ask you a question that might sting a little, but I ask it with so much love. When was the last time someone took care of you without you having to orchestrate it, ask for it, schedule it, or pay for it?

8:30When was the last time someone noticed your exhaustion before you had to completely fall apart to show them? If you're feeling an ache right now, the ache, when you think about that question is very valid. It's the grief of being profoundly needed but deeply unseen. And this is where my doctor brain enters the chat with us. I want to look under that armor that you wear every single day because your psychology and your biology are locked in a constant unbroken conversation. What actually happens to a female body that spends 10, 20, or 30 years operating under the subconscious belief that it is legally forbidden to drop the ball?

9:17When your personality dictates that you must constantly anticipate threats, manage everyone's schedules, keep everyone happy, your nervous system is forced into a state of chronic hypervigilance. You are running on low-grade perpetual drip of cortisol and adrenaline. Your body believes you are permanently being chased by a predator, even when you're just sitting on the couch, trying to watch a show, trying to enjoy a movie. This is why you may feel that intense wave of guilt the second you try to rest, the second you try to kick your feet up. Have you ever sat down to read a book or watch a movie and within five minutes your brain starts screaming that you should be maybe cleaning, working, checking on someone, that it's not safe just to sit still.

10:08That's not just an active mind. That is a dysregulated nervous system that equates stillness to danger. Your body genuinely believes that if you lower your guard to rest, the predator's then going to catch you. Eventually, because your spirit refuses to stop running, your biology is forced to intervene to save you. The stress physiology begins to speak through your physical health. This is that intersection I talked about between the strong one and the chronic illness. And maybe what this looked like for you is what it looks like for so many women. It starts with chronic sleep disruption. Your brain won't shut down because it's still on guard duty.

10:50Then it becomes unexplained digestive issues, grain fog. sudden hormonal crashes, or an autoimmune flare-up, where your body literally starts fighting itself because it has nowhere else to direct that constant unexpressed tension. Too often in medicine, we treat these symptoms as isolated issues. We give a pill for sleep, a supplement for the gut, a cream for the rash, but as a doctor who looks at the entire woman who's in front of me, I see the truth very often. It is that your body keeps a meticulous physical score of every single emotional burden your personality tries to carry. Your symptoms aren't a sign that your body is failing you.

11:36It is your body loving you enough to stage an intervention. It is crying out on your behalf saying, please, we cannot carry this village by ourselves anymore. And underneath all this hyper competence, there is a core lie that keeps us chained to our burdens. It's that whisper that says, if I stop, everything will fall apart. And I want to challenge that belief today, just gently, but we do need to challenge it together. Because what if the world doesn't actually need you to carry everything? What if things do fall apart a little bit? And what if that is exactly what needs to happen so that other people can learn how to pick up their own pieces by over-functioning for everyone around you?

12:24You might actually be denying them the opportunity to grow, to step up, and to show how much they love you through their actions. You know, this takes me back to thinking about Luisa in Encanto. Her greatest terror wasn't that the donkeys were heavy. Her terror was that if she lost her strength, she would lose her place in the family. She feared she would no longer be worthy of love if she wasn't useful to the people who were offering that love. And that is the core wound for so many of us. We have conflated our usefulness with our worth altogether. We believe that people only love us because of what we provide, what we can fix or what we can endure for them.

13:11But I want you to just take a deep breath right now because it's like heavy. Okay, let's get our shoulders away from our ears. Let's just like open up our chest. And I want you to hear me. You are not a machine. You are a living, breathing, sacred human being. You are not put here on this earth merely to be an emotional pack mule for everyone else's convenience. You are allowed to exist just because you are you. Your value is inherent. It's written in your DNA, friend, and it remains completely unchanged whether you are saving the day or lying flat on your back, and you're the one who needs help.

13:50My beautiful friend, we are not here just to focus on the pain of all of this today, okay? We are here to also transform it. I just, I don't want to just give you information. I want us to create an entirely new contract for your life right now. I want to offer you three deep reflections that I want you to carry in your heart like a shield this week. So reflection number one, strength is not your capacity to swallow your tears, endure mistreatment, and carry an impossible load until you break. True strength is the willingness to look the people you love in the eye and tell the absolute truth when you're struggling.

14:32Admitting you need help isn't weakness, it is the ultimate act of courage. Reflection number two, please write this one down. Have it somewhere near where you can look at it daily. Being needed is not the same thing as being loved. You do not have to perform. fix, or manage life for people just to earn your seat at the table of human connection. The people who truly love your soul, they want you, not just what you can do for them. And reflection number three, you are allowed, and I'm giving you permission here, to be supported, rested, and held before you reach a state of absolute medical burnout.

15:16You do not have to wait until you receive a diagnosis or until you're sobbing on the kitchen floor to finally earn the right to say, I can't do this alone anymore. You are allowed to ask for help when you are simply tired. I don't want to be the one overwhelming your already full brain with a 10-step checklist today. You have enough to do. I'm only giving you one small action tonight. Before you close your eyes to go to sleep, I want you to take a piece of paper, sticky note, or just the note on your app on your phone and write down this single sentence and read it to yourself. I do not have to earn my rest by finishing everything first.

15:57Read that sentence out loud to yourself three times. Quiet room, just you talking to yourself, saying nice words to yourself and let your nervous system hear those words. Because for you, embracing that one belief that rest is your birthright, not a reward for your perfect performance is the exact place where your physical and emotional healing begins. Now, as we close this time together today, please hear me in this. The goal of our conversation was never to convince you to stop being a powerful, capable woman. You are. You badass. I love you for it. The world needs that beautiful strength. The goal is to completely redefine what strength actually means.

16:42Strength isn't proving you can carry the entire village all by yourself until your body breaks down. Strength is having the love for yourself to finally put some of those donkeys down, look around, and let other people carry them with you. Even Louisa wasn't meant to hold the mountains up alone, and neither were you. And I want to congratulate you because you've done an incredible job today by just showing up, allowing yourself to be seen, and sticking with an uncomfortable conversation. I'm so incredibly proud of you. I'm standing right here with you. I struggle with these things as well. And until next time, please take care of yourself the way that you are consistently showing up and taking care of everyone else.

17:29You deserve that exact same tenderness. And as always, I am so grateful that we get to share this time together every single week. And I will see you next time on Dr. Brighton Show.