The Emotions We Swallow: Why Women Need to Stop Being the 'Strong One' All the Time
For generations, women have been praised for their strength.
"She’s so strong." "She holds it all together." "She doesn’t let anything break her."
And while those words are meant as compliments, for many women, they become a quiet, crushing expectation. An unspoken agreement that they will carry everything: the pain, the pressure, the parenting, the performing and never let the mask slip.
I know this story intimately.
As a mindset coach, I work with women every day who are exhausted from swallowing their emotions to be the 'strong one.' Mothers, professionals, daughters, carers all doing what they’ve been conditioned to do: hold it together.
Stay calm. Don’t show the cracks. Just get on with it.
And here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud:
Swallowing your emotions isn’t strength. It’s survival.
And survival mode isn’t where we thrive. It’s where we slowly disappear.
The Myth of the Strong Woman
Strength, in the way it’s often defined for women, is about endurance. Enduring pain. Enduring unfairness. Enduring exhaustion. Enduring emotional suppression.
We wear it like armour. But armour is heavy. It rusts. It isolates.
When a woman constantly suppresses her emotions, anger, grief, shame, resentment, even joy, she disconnects from her truth. Her body stores what her mouth doesn’t say. Her mind filters what it can’t process. And eventually, she starts to feel like a stranger to herself.
Sound familiar?
We’ve been taught that showing emotion means we’re weak. That crying in the middle of a workday, screaming into a pillow or admitting we’re overwhelmed means we’re not coping.
When in reality, that honesty is the first crack in the mask and often the first real breath we take.
The Cost of Always Holding It Together
One of the women I’ve worked with recently, let’s call her R came to me after years of being the emotional rock in her family. She handled her kids, supported her partner’s career, cared for her ageing parents, all while working part-time and being the friend everyone leaned on.
From the outside, she looked like she had it all together. On the inside, she was drowning.
It wasn’t until she started getting migraines, unexplained fatigue and panic attacks that she realised something had to change. And in one session, after years of holding it all in, she finally said it:
"I don’t want to be the strong one anymore. I want to be the real one."
And just like that, the healing began.
Releasing those swallowed emotions didn’t make her weak. It made her honest. It made her human. And, slowly, it made her powerful.
Real Strength is Soft
What if we started celebrating softness instead of stoicism?
What if strength looked like:
Saying "I’m not okay" and letting someone hold space for you
Screaming in the car just to release what your body has been gripping for years
Letting yourself grieve things that were never fair in the first place
Asking for help and not apologising for needing it
There is no medal for emotional suppression. No award for being the one who feels the least. What there is, however, is freedom for the woman who chooses to feel it all.
When you release suppressed emotions, you don’t fall apart. You come back home to yourself. You begin to live from truth instead of performance. You connect with your body, your desires, your intuition, the parts of you that have been waiting for you to listen.
A Call for Radical Self-Love
Releasing emotions is not indulgent. It’s not dramatic. It’s not dangerous.
It’s self-love.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from my personal healing and coaching hundreds of women through theirs, it’s this:
A woman in touch with her emotions is a woman in her power.
Not power as the world has defined it, cold, detached, performance-driven.
Real power. Grounded. Present. Deeply connected.
So, to the women reading this who have been the strong one for too long, I see you. I honour you.
And I invite you to stop performing and start feeling.
Because everything you’ve been suppressing is not your weakness.
It’s your truth. And it’s time to let it speak.
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Chandni Arora is a Certified Mindset Coach, Master NLP & Hypnosis Practitioner, Emotional Change Technique Expert and a proud mum of two who loves her coffee and runs towards big dreams. She’s the founder of Inner Calling Coaching, where she helps women break free from suppressed emotions and limiting beliefs so they can reclaim their self-worth and rise into the bold, confident, unapologetic version of themselves. Chandni’s mission is rooted in one powerful truth: every woman deserves to feel seen, heard and powerful. Through deep mindset work, emotional rewiring and transformational coaching, she helps women stop playing small and start leading lives they’re proud of filled with confidence, clarity and purpose. With a warm, no-fluff approach grounded in compassion and courage, Chandni creates safe spaces where women can heal what’s been hidden, speak their truth and rewrite the story they’re living. She believes in the ripple effect of empowered women and she’s here to help more of them rise.
