Behind Every Strong, Independent Woman
By Karen Chaston
You’ve likely seen the quote:
“Behind every strong, independent woman lies a broken little girl who had to learn how to get back up and to never depend on anyone.”
And while that may ring true for many, I’d add something else to it:
Behind her strength…
Behind her resilience…
Is often a lifetime of silence, survival, and strategies that worked……. until they didn’t.
For a long time, I wasn’t sure if I’d always been strong, or if that strength was something I forged in fire.
But when I look back to December 1973:
Sixteen years old.
In labour for over 33 hours.
Alone in a sterile delivery room.
Doctors and nurses who weren’t kind.
No advocate.
No voice strong enough to say, “This is not going to happen.”
That’s where my version of strength began.
Not from power…
but from pain.
From not having a choice and then having to learn how to live with it.
I walked out of that hospital without my daughter, and I walked into a world that expected me to carry on.
To study.
To work.
To smile.
To get on with it.
And I did.
Because I had no other option.
My counselling was literally:
“Now that’s over, we don’t have to talk about it again.”
So, I didn’t. I just buried it. Deeper and deeper.
I became the strong, independent woman.
Capable. Competent. High-achieving.
I built a life that looked successful.
And in many ways, it was.
But here’s what I’ve learned:
Being strong because you had to be is not the same as being strong because you’re whole.
The “never needing anyone” version of me served a purpose.
She kept me safe.
She kept me busy.
She helped me bury the unbearable.
But she also cost me.
She cost me softness.
She cost me presence.
She cost me connection; with others, and even more so, with myself.
Avoidance dressed itself up as independence.
Control disguised itself as confidence.
And trauma?
It sat quietly in the background, pulling the strings of my life in ways I never recognised…
until in 2013 another life-changing loss made me finally stop long enough to feel.
I used to believe diving into all the pain that lived in my body would destroy me.
But the truth?
Avoiding it was destroying me – quietly, slowly, in ways that success and busyness could never fix.
At one point, I truly felt I was moments away from a stroke, heart attack, or type 2 diabetes.
Thankfully, redundancy gave me a chance to STOP.
Truly stop.
To look in the mirror – really look – and say:
“I don’t like you. Who you’ve become.
Let’s do something about that…
Because if I don’t like living with you, why would anyone else?”
It turns out, there’s a better way.
A gentler way.
A way where you can still be strong…
still be independent…
but from a place of healing, not hurt.
When you do the work – the deep inner work – when you face what you buried and let it surface…
Life doesn’t just feel easier.
It becomes clearer.
Healthier.
More honest.
Because the unconscious trauma that once ran the show?
It loses its grip.
And in its place…
you begin to take the lead.
The healed version of me still knows how to stand on her own two feet.
But now she also knows when to lean, when to soften, when to receive.
And if I could go back and whisper to that 16-year-old girl in the delivery room, I’d say:
“One day, you’ll find your voice.
One day, you’ll stop surviving… and start living.
Though also know… that if you choose to speak up now,
you and your daughter will be OK.
Actually, better than OK – because you’ll have each other.”
Because here’s what I’ve learned:
We don’t have to wear strength like armour anymore.
We can honour the parts of us that were traumatised;
the parts that survived;
and still choose to become the version of us that heals.
This isn’t just a woman’s story.
Men carry this too.
Often in silence.
Often with even fewer places to land the weight they’ve carried since they were first traumatised.
So, I’ll leave you with this:
What version of “strong” have you been holding on to —
and is it still serving you?
#TheEmotionalFingerprint #FromSurvivalToStrength #UnspokenGrief #HealingJourneys #RewritingOurStories
