Being Strong Is Overrated: How Releasing the Need to Hold It Together Sets You Free

Episode 23

If you've ever been affirmed for being “so strong” when you were silently falling apart, this episode is for you.

This one’s raw and real—an unfiltered look at grief, emotional honesty, and why it’s time to finally tell the old story of needing to be strong in spite of our feelings to gtfo. I’m sharing what happened this weekend as I said goodbye to my 22-year-old cat, Nina—and how I found unexpected healing the moment I dropped the mask of strength, invited my heart to open and gave myself full permission to feel it all.

In this episode, I’m arguing that being strong is overrated—and how emotional suppression, often rooted in patriarchal conditioning, leads us to feel disconnected, to manifest dis-ease, and to numb out what’s desperate to be felt. I talk about the danger of “holding it all together,” what it cost me after my dad died, and why it’s one of the myths we must break to fully heal and recover

You’ll also hear:

• The connection between suppressed emotions and dis-ease (with insights from Dr. Gabor Maté & The Body Keeps the Score)
• Why I cry in front of my kids—and how it’s changed how I parent
• What Inside Out teaches us about the power of feelings
• The difference between wallowing and allowing
• Ways you can actually be strong without suffocating your emotions 

This episode is for you if you’ve been carrying it all and trying to just “be strong.” And it’s an invitation and an insistence that you don’t have to be strong anymore. You get to feel, to express your emotions, and to be held by those closest to you. That is the biggest form of strength.

Let this conversation free something inside you.

Resources:

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
  When the Body Says No by Dr. Gabor Maté
• Inside Out
• You Can Heal Your Body by Louise Hay
• Breathwork practitioners I love
  • Siri Baruc Thornton, Jack Fontana, and Kate Becker

If this resonated, share it with a woman you love who needs the reminder: you don’t have to be strong. You just have to be with what is.

💫 And if you’re ready to let go of ideas that are keeping you stuck and do the thing you’ve always wanted to do, I’d love to support you. Book your free 1:1 Breakthrough Call, where I’ll help you get clear on what you’d love to do (or have, or be), identify what’s really holding you back, and take the first best steps to take the leap.

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Hey gorgeous.

I love you.

I'm so proud of you.

And I believe in your ability to create a life you absolutely love.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Girls Who Recover podcast with Dana Hunter Fradella, where incredible women just like you, go to transform life's biggest setbacks into your most powerful comebacks so that you can live a life you. Love. I'm your host, Dana Hunter Fradella, transformational coach and founder of Girls Who Recover, and my mission is to pull back the curtain on our mistakes, failures, shame and personal disasters, and light the way for how to use those to create your biggest and most gorgeous comebacks. Follow the show now. Grab your iced coffee and turn up the volume for girls who recover. Let's light it up. Whoa. Did you just feel what I felt? There's a whole lot of that and so much more to inspire you to create miracles in your own life on upcoming episodes of the Girls Who Recover podcast. And if you loved this episode, be sure to follow the show. Give it a five star rating and a gorgeous review, and then share it with your best friend to be a light in her life. And the fun doesn't have to stop here. Grab my latest workshop for free in the show notes. Designed to help you create a career you love and book your free breakthrough call with me one-on-one when you're ready to be supported in transforming your life. You can find and message me on Instagram at Girls Who Recover. And in case you haven't heard it today, I love you. I'm so proud of you, proud, and I believe in your ability to create a gorgeous life you love starting right now, and I'll see you in the next episode.