renegade life
The Conversation
Through essays, reflections, and research, I explore the hidden ways outdated patterns shape our lives—and what becomes possible when we begin living from conscious choice instead.
These aren't articles about becoming a
new version of yourself.
They're invitations to remember
the version of you
that learned to hide in order to belong, achieve, succeed, or be loved — to give yourself permission to have what you want without working so damn hard to earn it.
What would you love to experience more often in your life?
What happens when you're so busy maintaining the life you've built that you feel like you're missing out on living it? I asked accomplished women. Here's what I heard.
What I learned from listening to accomplished women talk about the lives they've built, the weight they're carrying, and what they're longing for.
The Takeaways
Accomplished women are longing to enjoy the lives they've worked so hard to build. They want to feel more present, excited, at ease, and free to pursue what lights them up.
The weight of maintaining a meaningful life can feel like a relentless tug of war, especially when so much time and energy goes toward responsibilities without adequate reciprocity and support.
Resentment can reveal where time and energy are being consumed at the expense of the experiences longing to be enjoyed.
The patterns keeping women exhausted and resentful can change. As they loosen, she can reclaim energy and redirect it toward what matters most to her.
The goal is a life that feels as good as it looks. Reclaiming time, energy, and freedom means having more of yourself available to vividly enjoy the life you've built.
Over the past few weeks, I've been having conversations with accomplished women about the lives they've built, the responsibilities they're carrying, and what they wish could be different. I initiated these conversations because I wanted to hear directly from the women I'm here to serve: what life actually feels like for them right now, what they're wrestling with, what they've tried, and what they long for.
While their circumstances were different, a familiar pattern emerged. These women have worked hard to create lives they're proud of. They've built careers, families, relationships, businesses, and communities they care deeply about. But they're exhausted by what it takes to maintain those lives, frustrated by how much of their time and energy goes toward anticipating needs, managing responsibilities, accommodating others, and picking up the slack, often without receiving the same consideration, care, and support in return. They want more reciprocity and more room for themselves. And many have already spent considerable energy trying to make that happen.
What struck me most was how much these women feel they're missing out on,
and how deeply they long to enjoy the lives they've worked so hard to build.
They ache to feel more present with the people they love, more excitement about what's ahead, more at ease in the daily living in their own skin, and freer to pursue what lights them up. They can imagine how they'd love their lives to feel, but struggle to experience those feelings when so much of their time and energy is already committed to people and responsibilities they deeply value. They want to feel more vividly alive in the lives they already have.
As I listened, I kept coming back to the relentless tug of war between a life filled with things that matter and feeling the actual freedom to enjoy those things. When so much of your time and energy goes toward keeping that life running, often without the reciprocity and support you deserve, it's understandable that resentment begins to build. And that resentment can become particularly painful (unbearable) when you recognize what it's costing you: the pleasure, connection, ease, and excitement you long to experience more often, especially in moments you might otherwise enjoy. That resentment is pointing toward something important: It's the feeling showing her what she wants more of in life.
I want more women to know that the resentment they're feeling can become a starting point for change.
The way life feels today doesn't have to determine how it feels going forward. The patterns that have shaped how she respond to responsibilities, relationships, and expectations are not set in stone. As the patterns begin to loosen, she can reclaim the energy they’ve consumed and redirect it toward what matters most to her.
These conversations have reinforced something I've believed for a long time: the point of this work isn't to help women become even better at managing an overwhelming life; it's to help them reclaim the time, energy, and freedom to experience a life that feels as good as it looks. They're also helping shape a new coaching experience I'm creating for women who are fed up with feeling exhausted and resentful and ready to make that shift. I'm bringing my insight, experience and vetted, highly-effective and deeply personal approach to helping women recognize what's been keeping them stuck, embrace possibilities they haven't yet considered, and begin reclaiming more of their lives for living.
I'll be sharing more about that soon. In the meantime, I'd love to invite you into the conversation that inspired it: If you had a magic wand and could change one thing about how you're living right now, what would it be? And what would you love to experience more of with the time and energy you'd reclaim?
Joy becomes an act of resistance when you decide to reclaim your life-force for what you love and want to contribute, and stop spending it pleasing, perfecting, anticipating, managing, and holding everything together. Outgrowing the Capable Woman Trap means turning toward the pain those patterns once helped protect you from, so you can loosen their hold and make more room for freedom, desire, connection, and the life you’ve been longing for.