Strong Is Just Another Cage
My personal status quo created a version of me who walked into any room and owned it.
She was fierce. Fearless. The kind of force that made people step back or step aside. She sucked the air out of every room she entered. Boardrooms, stages, ugly negotiations where grown men tried to play dirty. She ate them alive.
I called her ROBOBABE.
She wasn't born. She was built. Piece by piece, experience by experience, programmed by every moment that taught me one status quo above all else: strength was the only safe option.
The childhood that nearly killed me taught her the first lessons. Be perfect. Be untouchable. Never let them see you flinch, because flinching means more punishment. My little girl mind figured out that if I could just be strong enough, fierce enough, perfect enough, maybe they'd stop. Or at least I’d have a chance of surviving.
They didn't stop. ROBOBABE got stronger. Even after I was an adult woman.
She carried me through Silicon Valley. Through boardrooms full of men who wanted me smaller, quieter, gone. Through clients who tried to run me and my ethics out. Through a career that looked unstoppable from the outside.
She kept me alive. I owe her that.
She wasn't really me.
She was the one who held me and everything around me together. The one everyone called when it fell apart. The one who handled the crisis at work and the crisis at home and somehow still showed up looking like she had it all under control.
She was proud of it. Of course she was. It's who she was. Rather, thought she was.
Many women were taught to be strong, to push, to make it in a man's world.
It doesn’t really serve us. I believe it makes us less. Women’s brains are designed to be the softer, caring, nurturing side of humanity. The side that feels deeply, communicates and nurtures with ease, blends logic with compassion. That’s a special and oh so needed perspective. Now more than ever.
Ask yourself:
When was the last time you felt soft, gentle… and didn't immediately shove it down?
When was the last time someone asked how you were and you told the truth?
When was the last time you felt like YOU, not the you that everyone expects?
If those questions hit a nerve, hang with me.
I'm about to share something that changed the way I understood my entire life.
It might just do the same for you.
The "strong women" we became wasn't a choice. It was the status quo of what others believed could make us acceptable in a man’s world. A program installed by society and experience, assumption and frustration. Reinforced so often that it became indistinguishable from who we actually are.
This status quo is fueled by two forces. Most people only talk about one. Both matter.
The first force is reward. We got praised for being tough. Admired for handling everything. "You're so strong," they said, and it felt like love. Like validation. Like proof that we were doing life right. So we did more of it. Our minds took note: strength gets rewarded. Program installed.
The second force is the one nobody talks about. Avoidance.
Somewhere along the way, we learned that softness was dangerous. Maybe we cried and got laughed at. Maybe we were vulnerable and someone used it against us. Maybe we watched our mothers open their hearts and get crushed for it. Whatever the specifics, our minds recorded the lesson: vulnerability equals pain. Avoid at all costs. Status quo in action.
Our minds don't really care which force is in charge. Reward or avoidance, praise or pain, the program is identical.
The girl who was celebrated for being tough and the girl who was punished for being soft end up running the exact same software.
Two completely different experiences. One status quo in our mind’s operating system.
Our minds are always creating programs. Doing it right now. They take what we repeat often enough and turn it into a belief. That belief becomes our status quo, and in turn, who we think we really are.
After enough repetition, our minds can’t tell the difference between who we are and what was created by status quo.
We're not wearing a mask. Our minds accept the mask as our truth. The program and our identity merge.
That's one reason we resist the idea of change. It feels like losing ourselves.
I lived with ROBOBABE as my protector for decades. She was magnificent. She was also a cage.
I learned yet another lesson.
The same status quo programming that created "strong" can change it.
Our minds don't care what program we’re running. They care about repetition and focus/attention. Whatever we repeat and pay enough attention to, we strengthen. Whatever we stop repeating, we let fade.
That's not a theory. That's how our minds' software actually works. Scientists call it neuroplasticity.
I call it the most powerful truth I've ever learned.
It shows us that our minds are powerful enough to create our own personal operating system, aka our status quo, from lived experience.
That same power can create a new one.
I found a way to let ROBOBABE know I was safe and in charge. Dozing by my chair, pampered and protected. She did her job. She did it magnificently. I sure as hell want her if I’m ever in a dark alley with two big dudes coming at me.
I simply didn't want her to run my life anymore.
Beneath her, I found a me I barely recognized. Softer. More open. More ME than I'd been in decades. So much like my blessed mother.
She'd been there the whole time. Waiting for me to let her step into the light of my life.
I did, and I’m so grateful.
A question to ponder this week.
Which strong parts of you serve you well?
Which strengths force you into doing and being things that aren’t really you?
Then, give the best of your strengths a lot of focus and attention. Step into them, be them, feel how right they are for you.
The others? Ignore them. Completely. Just look away and stop allowing them to act like you.