The Lonely Side of Being the Strong One (For High-Functioning Moms)

You’re the strong one. The capable one. The one everyone relies on.

You hold the emotional tone of your home, keep things moving, and rarely drop the ball. But underneath it all? You feel braced, tired, and more alone than you want to admit.

In this episode, we unpack what “high-functioning” actually looks like for moms—and why being the one who holds everything together often means you’re the least supported in the room. Why you can be surrounded by people, but still feel lonely in the day to day of what you hold. 

We talk about the nervous system patterns behind hyper-independence, why asking for help can feel harder than doing it all yourself, and how deflecting support quietly blocks the connection you actually want.

Sometimes when you are highly capable, you tend to be seen as not wanting or needing the help and support you crave. 

Inside this episode:

•  What it really means to be the emotional thermostat in your home 
•  Why strong women often receive the least support 
•  How minimizing your needs keeps you disconnected 
•  Hyper-independence as a safety strategy (not a personality trait) 
•  What functional fight-or-flight looks like in motherhood + business 
•  Why your kids’ emotions can hit harder than expected 
•  How to ask for help without overexplaining (“dead bird theory”) 
•  Building friendships where you don’t have to be the strong one 
•  Letting gratitude replace guilt so you can actually receive love 

If this hit, send me a screen shot and a dm on IG, I always love hearing from you: https://www.instagram.com/themotherhoodmentor/

If you’re ready for deeper support, this is exactly the work I do with women like you. Click here to apply for 1:1 coaching 

If you’re ready to stop living on autopilot and start leading your life with deep presence, I’d love to work with you. Book a free interest call here: Click Here

💌 Want more? Follow me on Instagram @themotherhoodmentor for somatic tools, nervous system support, and real-talk on high-functioning burnout, ambition, healing perfectionism, and motherhood. And also pretty epic meme drops. 

🎧  Did you love this episode? Be sure to follow and please take a quick moment to leave a review and send this episode to a friend. I'd love to hear from you on how this podcast impacted you, send me a DM or an email. 

Transcript

What High-Functioning Really Means

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. Today we are going to be talking about being high functioning, what that actually means, what it actually looks like, and what to do about it. This is 90% of the women who I work with. They are the strong one. And somewhere along the way, they became the person that everyone else relies on. They became the person who always figures it out, the one who holds the room together when everything gets messy. They are the thermostat. They are the energetic emotional leader. And sometimes that didn't happen till motherhood. Maybe it happened for you long before motherhood. You're playing mental and emotional chess to regulate the room, to monitor, to hyper monitor most of the time what is and isn't happening, not only on the surface, but underneath for every individual, so that you can manage the room, so that you can manage the family, so that you can manage the business or your own home. And a lot of times this role of being high functioning is so good. It feels so good. It's so satisfying. It makes you feel so strong, so independent. You feel so sturdy, but it can also feel like you are bracing. It can also feel exhausting and heavy. And one of the things I'm consistently needing to remind the women that I work with is just because you hold it well does not mean that it is not heavy. A lot of times, these strong ones, the high functioners, you look like a duck. Everything on the surface looks so good, but it's underneath that things don't feel good, that things aren't working. And a lot of times, what can be really heartbreaking is your people, the people who genuinely and deeply love you and like you, they don't show up for you or support you in the way that you would for them. And this is such an individual thing because sometimes there is a reality that the people in your life, you don't have enough peers. You have people who can't support you at the level that you are because they're not as emotionally or spiritually mature. They don't have the language or the wisdom or the perspective that you would even want their help or advice. Sometimes that's happening. And another thing that can happen is that you give off such a vibe of you look so strong. You always handle it. You don't ever really ask for help because you've got this. You've got this. You never actually see yourself as drowning. It would take pretty catastrophic events in your life or your marriage or your motherhood for you to look at yourself and go, ah, yes, I could use some help. I could use some support. I could use some validation. I could use to be the person who's crying on someone else's shoulder instead of being the shoulder that someone else is crying on. You give off this energy of, I don't need anything. And so often the strong women are often the least supported in the room because they're the ones always offering support and help and never receiving it. And this is not only a cultural problem, it's it's an individual one in that you avoid vulnerability unless you have it all figured out on the other side of it. You avoid asking for and showing people that it hurts while it's hurting. This is, I'm gonna teach you my dead bird theory here at some point in the podcast. We're gonna come back to it though, because you a lot of times, as the helper, as the holder, as the high functioner, you've forgotten how to receive. And that might be because the current people in your life aren't willing to give. But more often than not, I find with women, is that they have never learned how to be the one who is receiving. Receiving feels uncomfortable. You deflect help, you minimize your needs and you minimize your desires because they feel uncomfortable, they feel inconvenient, and you're worried that it'll create chaos. You're you you volunteer as tribute at any moment of I would rather feel uncomfortable than them feeling uncomfortable. In a relationship, this happens wildly. In business, this is happening. Where you consistently show up with, I'm good, I've got this, it's not a big deal, I can handle it. You can silver line anything. You can silver line the biggest piece of shit. You can silver line everything because you are obsessed with life's potential and you find potential in everything, which is one of your greatest strengths. It is one of the best things about you. And also, this can be extraordinarily hard and exhausting and so very lonely. But it doesn't look like any of those things to other people. So it only doubles on the loneliness because other people aren't seeing and hearing what you're actually experiencing as a human being because you make it look so easy and so good, and you have so much success, and all of that is still true. And you have learned how to use that goodness and gratefulness and success, and you just sweep all of your grief and your struggle and your messy process under the rug. Not just for other people, but often for yourself. For so many women who are high functioners, your nervous system strategy is that competence and control and helping others is the way that you build belonging. It's how you stay safe, it's how you stay good, is by not rocking the boat, by taking care of yourself. It's becoming hyper independent. And so, what I want to teach you is how to reframe your strength and your edges, because I think a lot of women, they're afraid of softening. They're afraid of easing up, they're afraid of having better boundaries and harder conversations because they're terrified that they have to like soften, right? Like we're in this culture that really talks about like your soft girl era. I want to still be a badass at work. Or I can't be a full soft girl era in my marriage because my marriage or my family or my motherhood currently require also a lot of strategy, a lot of systems, a lot of managing. I have to force things in my life because I am the energy that moves my family. I am the energy that makes shit happen. And if I stop making shit happen, shit won't happen. Right? That is that is the anthem of the high functioner. That is the anthem of the woman that we're talking about today, is like you are holding everything together. You are doing everything and needing nothing. But that kind of strength becomes rigidity and it feels exhausting. It is exactly what creates burnout in high functioners because you are all gas and no breaks. You are all giving and no receiving. And the only person you allow yourself to receive from is yourself, because then you still don't need anybody, because needing people is vulnerable AF. Needing people feels raw and icky and weird and foreign to many of you. And for some of you, there's some real deep childhood stuff here. For some of you, you had real good parents. We're just gonna start there. You had really good childhood. You don't have to tell me five times. I'll believe you. And some of you had really good parents who also didn't know how to emotionally regulate. And so you had to emotionally regulate for them. You had to make sure that you were never raw and messy because they couldn't handle your humanity. They couldn't handle your anger or your grief or your confusion or your dislike, your frustration. They could only handle you being good and compliant and sweet. And so you read the room and you realize there's not enough oxygen in this room. I'll learn how to need less. I'll learn how to manage my emotions because you actually, I can't look to you for co-regulation. And so you are continuing that pattern into your current romantic relationships, your marriage, but you also carry that into relationship with your kids. Have you ever noticed that your kids' emotions set you off into dysregulation? Most adults, most parents have never learned emotional and energetic leadership where you are so solid and sturdy as the adults in the room, which is how it should be. This is what kids deserve. Kids deserve to be in a home where the adults are adulting. The adults are emotionally regulated, not dissociated, not numb, not pretending that emotions don't exist, but the adults in the room acknowledge when and how emotions exist, but they metabolize them and move through them and regulate on their own so that the kid can look to the adult for regulation, for connection, for support. As a high functioner, as the strong one in the room, if this is resonating with you, you witness that this is such a strength of yours. And we're not gonna deny that. We're not gonna demonize what has absolutely protected you, the pattern that has worked. But we also need to bring in this piece of where and when it's not working anymore, where the thing that kept you safe is now keeping you stuck. Or it's keeping you stuck in the way that it feels like your foot is stuck on the gas pedal and you feel like you're missing everything. Because when you are a high functioner, you're very often stuck in this functional fight or flight where you're not feeling deeply connected to the room or to your kids. You're not feeling deeply creative and lit up by your business. You're not feeling like time just feels like it's sped up, but not in the fun way, in the like terrifying, awful way. I often use the example of driving, of I love driving on the highway, going like 75 or 80, right? Like I'm one of those, like I try, I'm I'm a rule follower for the most, for a lot of things, not for everything. But for driving, you know, I'll go like 78 because you know, it's not a ticket, but it's like a little faster. But like driving on the highway with like old school tunes, just like that feels so good and so fun, right? But now imagine that you're driving through a school zone and there's toddlers in the back of your car and you don't know where you're going, but your gas pedal is stuck on 75 and there's traffic. Can you imagine how terrifying that would feel? That is what life feels like often, is it just feels like there is too much pressure, there's not enough space, there's not enough embodiment, there's just it's too much and not enough at the same time. You you have this missing piece of learning how to be the supported one, not just by your own strength, but by other people. And I will say that one of the ways that I have built some of the best friendships in my life that I've ever had, I did not go into those relationships needing nothing. I didn't go into them as a drowning, wilting flower who was desperate for connection. I went in as a fully embodied human who loved myself in my life and who also witnessed that a relationship couldn't just be be built on you needing me. It needed to be me needing you, asking you for something, telling you vulnerabilities. Truly, my best friendships were built out of a season where I started asking for help. I started letting people into the process with me. I stopped figuring everything out before I shared it. Anyone else, like I wouldn't tell you I needed help unless I knew how you could help me and I knew it was convenient for you. I wouldn't call you crying about something with my husband unless you for sure knew he's amazing and I love him. Like I felt like I had to validate all of this. And it's like, I finally found women in my life who they could hold me. They could hold the polarities, they could hold the nuance. I didn't have to bring this perfectly curated gift box of like, here's what I'm struggling with in my business. Here's how exactly how I need help. Like, you know, when you you get into a session or a room, or you know, I've been in a few where someone's like, you know, how can I help you? And it's like, I don't even know. I just know I need help. I used to be so embarrassed by that. And now I have found that that is one of the things that massively changed my life is getting help and support, even when I don't know what I need help with. Letting people see me and witness me and be like, can I just talk about what I'm going through for a minute and you see what I'm missing? I don't have to have this perfect, well-presented gift that I give you. I can come to my husband and say, like, here's the thing that's happening. Here's what I need, here's what I want. But I don't pre-solve it for him. I don't tell him how to fix it or how to solve it. I just tell him, here's what I'm feeling, here's what I'm needing, here's what's hard for me. And then I walk away. That was so hard for me. I used to hyper control and I'd spend so long trying to find the perfect way to help him understand, which, you know, there's a component of that, of overexplaining and trauma dumping on people that I realized was just immaturity. And it was a way to almost like mask and hide the true vulnerability of the ask, of the need. And one of the things I'm working lately in my life is every complaint can become a question. Every complaint can be a request or desire or need. And so this brings me to the dead bird theory. Really, this, okay, and this came about on a call with a client. We were working on some things in their marriage and their relationship. And there would always be this cleaning up every mess before it was shared. It was, I am going to find the perfect timing, the perfect way to say this, the perfect way to package this. I'm going to not only give you the problem, I'm going to give you the exact solution. Do you see how this is like you're you're spending so much mental and emotional energy to try to set this person up for quote unquote success. But the reality is, is that you're terrified that they're going to fail you and you're terrified that it means that you're not lovable. You're you're trying to pre-eliminate the vulnerability of wanting and needing something from them by never giving them the opportunity to either figure it out themselves, to try it, or to fail you. And that actually is probably pretty pretty powerful information that you need to have. So instead of always prettily packaging all of your needs and desires and struggles, I was like, what if you just, you know how like cats just like bring you dead birds and they just set it on your porch and then they just leave? It's like, what if we did that? And this is something that I kind of had just started doing in my own marriage, and I realized it was working so much better than my perfectly crafted and let's be honest, long-winded, where I just would start lecturing and I'd get distracted and I'd bring in all of the issues and I'd try to pre-solve it and I'd try to like validate everything that I needed or explain why I needed it or what was wrong with me or what was wrong with him. And I just started, I would, I would try to condense like what is it that I'm really asking for? What is it that I really want or that I really need or what is it that's not working for me? And can I just say that? Just drop it and then go because I'm a verbal processor. I need to talk about shit to know what, like, to like form a thought or opinion. I usually have to talk about it. I usually have to journal about it or process it with a friend. My husband is not a verbal processor. He has to internalize things before he has a word for it, before he wants to talk about it, before he wants to know what to do with it. And it was a very hard season for me to learn to just bring him stuff, tell him it, and then leave him alone. Give him time and energy to process it and to give the emotional and energetic need of my existence on him. That was so vulnerable to just go and be like, hey, I need this. I want this. This isn't working, and then to just walk away. But it put the energy back instead of like me carrying all of it. I invited him into caring for me in a way that I never let him do before. That is what is happening for so many high functers, for so many strong women. But you have created this persona, even with the people who you love and who love you, you are robbing them of the ability to show up for you in the way that you love showing up for them.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

People love to help you.

Finding Peers Mentors And Safe Rooms

How To Reach Out And Share

Learning Gratitude Instead Of Guilt

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Now, I'm sure each of you has a person in your life. Maybe it's even your parents. I work with a lot of women who unfortunately, their parents for a myriad of different reasons, can't show up for them, won't show up for them, don't show up for them. And that is so hard. It's so hard. There's there's just grief. It's a dead bird that, like, there is no pretty bow for this. There is just grief and that hard, that's hard and that sucks. And then there's this question: where do we find that for you? Where there are people, there absolutely are people who want to see you and love you and hold you and show up for you. Where do we put your energy and attention on those people? And sometimes that's a paid thing. For example, for me, I have a coach who I pay. And there are met there have been many seasons where I don't have a specific thing that I need help with. I just know that I need a regular space in my life where I show up to a space in a container where I am being held. My only job is to show up there and process or be vulnerable or work through something or get help or get confirmation or affirmation or just to be seen and held and understood and to talk things through. I need that space. I have amazing friends and family, and I still massively benefit from having a paid specific time and energetic commitment on my calendar. The only purpose of that is for me to be held and seen and cared for and supported where I'm not the person doing the holding. I'm the person being taken care of. Now, for some of you, that feels massively uncomfortable. The paid, but especially the unpaid, the friends and the family. And I'm not gonna lie, it's awkward. It's hard to learn how to just receive or how to feel grateful instead of guilty. This is something I have to laugh of like I laugh because I have a friend who I like. We joke that I bully her into just being grateful because she loves to give, she loves to help. And I'm constantly telling her, I know you love to help. And I've learned how to love receiving that help. And like when you want to buy me a coffee or you want to pick up my kids, and there was this season where she was doing so much for my kids. It was ridiculous. And when I offered to, it wasn't a reciprocation because I wasn't keeping score. I wasn't keeping tabs on I owe her this. I was just receiving and being grateful for having a friend who was a village to me. And then when I went to reciprocate, when I wanted to give, when I wanted to pick the kids up or drop the kids off, she was like, no, no, I'll come get it. And I was like, you will let me love you. Receive my love for you. Okay. Like, let me love you back because, like, yes, I love when you do things for me, but I also love doing things for you. Like that, that is a reciprocal friendship. Many of you need to go find women in your life who are not keeping score of who owes who, but who also are the ones who will reach out, who are also going to be the ones who have this. And listen, this is hard in our season because so many women are way too busy. We're just way too busy. There's way too much on our plates, our attention is scattered. And sometimes we make it a story that people don't love us. And the reality is that they're so busy taking care of their lives that they're having a hard time showing up for us. That's hard for, I would say, for most women right now. Even when we have a village, even we when we have people that we can rely on who we can go to, we tend to only save those for extraordinarily circumstances, right? Of, yeah, sure. If Something in my life was catastrophically happening, people would show up. And I'm going to encourage you, find people in your lives who you can start being human with. This can look really simple. Like the other night, I hosted a book club locally, and one of the gals came early. And I know her. She's a friend and we have business stuff together. And she was like, Hey, how was your day? And I almost said, Oh my gosh, it was so good. How was yours? And I paused and I said, Oh my gosh, actually, this morning was devastating. And I was wondering if I was just gonna cry all night. And she's a person who I didn't mind sharing what happened with. So I like shared a little bit about like why it was hard, how it was hard for me, and how it was feeling. And I got a little emotional, and then we were able to move on. But like I chose in that moment to connect with her and let her see my humanity instead of just. And here's the thing in the reality, in that moment, I was good. I'm holding it fine. I'm not collapsing. We we got some, it was it was a hard day. It was a hard moment, and it was one of those things where it it opened up a whole like, oh, this is gonna be a whole season of hard. This isn't just like a hard moment. This is like hard after hard. And in that moment, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna need people who know me and see me and who can help me with this hard stuff. And she's one of those people. I'm not gonna tell the store grocery clerk that. I don't need to tell someone, but like that is often how we deepen relationships, how we deepen friendships, how we create reciprocity is we allow ourselves to be messy, to be human, to be in process to tell the nuanced, complicated, long-winded truth instead of trying to fit ourselves in these neat little tidy options. And so there's nothing wrong with being high-functioning and being the strong one. And the strongest women I know are not the ones who carry everything alone. They're the ones who have finally learned how to lead. And then also they have intentionally made room and relationships in their lives where they can be led. They are the strongest and healthiest and most in integrity practitioners and helpers and healers and leaders and coaches and therapists and pastors that I know, they are not just leading rooms. They get themselves in rooms where they can be led. They get themselves in rooms where they are not the helper. They are not the healer, they are not the strongest, smartest one where someone wants and needs something from them. They get to be in a room where they are not just a professional persona, they are not just successful, they also get to just be a human in process. They get to just be a girl. They get to have all of this nuanced stuff. They don't have to deny their high functioning. They don't have to deny how strong they are, because that also happens, right? You get in these rooms where women compare themselves to you and it creates this pedestalized leadership, this thing where you feel like you just have to always be good. You're not allowed to struggle. You're not allowed to like have these heartbreaking human things happen to you because other women would kill for your life. And so you feel like you just have to keep it up because people would talk or because you have to protect your reputation. You need to be in rooms where you are with peers. You are not just with people who are your clients, you are not just with people who aren't your clients, but like they kind of are. You need to be in rooms of people who can sharpen you. Who, you know, there's not this hierarchy of better than or less than, but they are your peers. They talk about and think about things in a creative way. They have emotional and mental and spiritual maturity at or above the same level of you. They have curiosity, they are self-contained, but also connected. You need a room of peers. And then I also think you need a mentor or a room where you can be led and not be the leader. So, like I am always very intentional that I'm putting myself in rooms where I'm not the one leading or holding the room. I get to just be an attendee. I get to be the client, right? Perfect example with coaching. I am for me, if I am coaching other people, I also need to be in spaces where I'm the client. I need to be in spaces where I'm not always the one holding space. I'm getting space held for me. I'm making room for my stuff, my process, my humanity, because I cannot just become a pillar of strength. I have to have flexibility. I need a space to process and be held for my humanity and just be soft, just be receiving. Maybe this next season for you is learning how to be more vulnerable, learning and intentionally seeking out and investing in rooms and spaces and places where you aren't the one holding it. You're being held, you're being supported, you're being understood or validated or seen and really pouring into those relationships, those friendships, those peer groups. And for me, I really found those in masterminds, in retreats, in the coaching world. It's just where I found them. I think you can find them anywhere. I found some of those relationships at school drop-offs. But I, you guys, I I think of, I'm blessed with a really amazing family. And I had no idea how rare that actually is. But even within my own family, I realized like I needed to start telling them the truth. I would not tell people things until I was on the other side of it. I would figure it out on my own. And a lot of my friends and a lot of my village, a lot of like my people who are just like my people who show up for me, who show up for my family. I think of a lot of those relationships and I asked for help. I asked, hey, can you pick up my kids? Or when someone offered, I said yes. There was a season where when people would offer, I would just, no, no. Like I would feel just uncomfortable when people wanted to be kind or love me. And I really had to learn how to receive. When someone wanted to buy me coffee, I had to learn to just be grateful instead of feeling guilty. Because guilty doesn't just make you feel shitty. Like that's not fun for them. Like my husband, my husband is one of the most gracious people in the world. He drew, he truly, genuinely is just, he's so gracious. He is so phenomenally giving, and he has the biggest heart. And he would say things or do things or buy things, and I would feel guilty. And it's like that robs him of the joy of getting to love me too. And then it robs my joy of getting to enjoy the thing and appreciate it and feel grateful and just soak it in and then take that gratitude energy and give it to someone else to like reciprocate it to someone else. Like it's you're denying not only for them, but for yourself. You're blocking the energetic flow, which is probably not a thing I think I've ever said, blocking the energetic flow. So I really want to end this podcast with the invitation of you don't have to stop being strong. You don't have to stop being capable. You don't have to stop thinking of yourself as a fundamentally phenomenal person. You don't have to be a wilting flower or this strong one. You can also like lean into, I am, I am this person. And I would love to be in rooms where those hard parts, those vulnerable parts, those sad parts, those messy middles, those transition points, those stuck points are held and seen and witnessed. If you loved this podcast today, I would love to hear from you. Send me a DM. Tell me what resonated, tell me what stuck. If you want some good book recommendations, I've got some good book recommendations on this. Also, if if you're this high functioner and you're like, okay, how do I stay high functioning while also learning how to like have some ease to receive, to stop like bracing, to stop feeling like I'm always on and don't know how to like slow down or take it easy or enjoy life. This is exactly who I love to work with in coaching. So definitely reach out. And also if this podcast resonated with you, follow along, leave a review. Leaving a review means so much to me. I love to hear about what you love about the podcast. And it also helps other moms and other women find this great information. And if you have a friend and you're like, okay, I think we're both high functioners, and I think we both need to be a little bit more honest and learn how to like give and receive in a little bit of a different way, send this to her. But I would love to hear from you. I hope this is supportive, and I'll see you next time on the podcast.