The Cost Of Holding It All Together
It was late 2019 when I took a long, heavy nap after having to put my sixteen-year-old dachshund mix down. She was my best friend—there through some of the hardest seasons of my life.
When I woke up, I rolled over, tears still sitting heavy in my eyes, and checked my phone. I had a notification from the doctor’s office: my test results were in.
For years, my body had been trying to get my attention.
Chronic fatigue.
Gut issues.
Hives.
Rashes.
Shakiness.
Vomiting.
And for years, I pushed through.
At my last interior design job, I was overworked, underpaid, and didn’t have health insurance. But if I’m being honest, that wasn’t new for me. Pushing through had always been my default.
“Just keep going. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
Until there was.
Eventually, things got too loud to ignore. I was diagnosed with:
Type 1 Diabetes (antibody negative)
Over 70 allergies and food intolerances
Benign Fasciculation Syndrome (sporadic muscle spasms)
The hives turned into facial swelling. My body felt like it had changed overnight, and after years of searching for answers with little clarity, I turned to functional and naturopathic medicine.
The first question they asked me was:
“What are you putting in your body?”
The second was:
“What kind of stress has your body endured?”
That question stayed with me.
I talk a lot about survival mode because I lived in it for so long. There are countless studies on how trauma is stored in the body. For me, it showed up in my stomach—and over time, in my overall health.
One of my most memorable therapy sessions didn’t start with anything groundbreaking.
I told my therapist I had just bought a dining table—and I was excited about it.
She looked at me, slightly confused.
“Why is that exciting for you?”
I said, “Because I don’t have anything in my condo except a bed.”
(A condo I owned, by the way.)
She paused, then asked, “Why don’t you have anything else?”
And without thinking, I said:
“I have what I need to survive.”
That was the moment everything shifted.
She gently explained that my home should be a place to relax… to feel safe… to live—not just survive.
After that session, I went home and fully furnished my condo. I decorated. I created a space that felt like me.
And I remember feeling something lift.
Like a cage I didn’t even realize I had built around myself had finally opened.
As women, especially, we’re taught to hold it all together.
For our families.
For our careers.
For everyone else.
But at what cost?
Holding it all together almost broke me. And honestly, I don’t know how much longer I would have kept going if life hadn’t forced me to stop.
Not long after that season, the world shut down in 2020.
For the first time, I was forced to be still.
Before that, I had been constantly moving—working, pushing, ignoring everything my body was trying to say—because I was afraid:
To feel my emotions
To hear my own thoughts
To sit in my body
So what is the cost of holding it all together?
It’s losing yourself.
It’s disconnecting from your body.
From your needs.
From your truth.
And eventually… your body will ask you to pay attention—one way or another.
So maybe the goal isn’t to hold it all together.
Maybe the goal is to finally let it go.
To ask for help.
To let people in.
To stop carrying everything alone.
Because healing doesn’t happen in survival mode.
It happens when you slow down enough to actually see what’s been there all along.
So how does this connect to coaching?
Real transformation starts with awareness.
You cannot change what you cannot see.
And most of us don’t realize how much we’re holding… until it starts costing us something.
Take a moment to reflect:
What are you carrying right now?
Are you overwhelmed—and what does overwhelm actually look like for you?
Do you have support, or are you trying to do everything on your own?
What is one thing you can let go of this week?
It’s okay not to have it all together.
You were never meant to.
