The Woman Who Is Loved Easily -VANTA Coaching reflection

There’s a moment that happens to many high-performing women in midlife, and it often arrives quietly. From the outside, we are the reliable ones. The steady ones. The women others look at and think, “She’s strong. She’s sorted. She’ll always land on her feet.” And in most ways, they’re right. We hold a lot. We balance work, relationships, parenting, health, and the long list of responsibilities that grow bigger every year. We’re leaders in our families, at work, and in our friendships. People trust our advice because it comes with lived experience, not theory.

It’s funny, isn’t it? How other women look up to us. How they call us for clarity. How they say, “I don’t know how you do it.” How they feel calmer after speaking to us. We become the emotional reference point in their lives, the one who listens, steadies the energy, brings perspective, and makes chaos feel manageable. 

But behind all that external strength there is a quieter, more private reality that high-performing women almost never talk about. It’s the truth that most of us carry far more than we ever admit. Not out of weakness or poor boundaries. We carry it because we can..... Because we learned early in life that the safest path is competence. Because it feels easier to take charge than to risk things falling apart. Because we’re used to being the one who anticipates needs before others notice them.

This is the secret life of strong women: the entire emotional architecture of our world sits quietly on our shoulders. We’re the ones who feel shifts in a relationship long before anyone else. We’re the ones who read tone, subtext, energy. We’re the ones who know when someone is carrying something unspoken. We’re the ones who keep the emotional connection intact, who prevent distance from widening, who initiate the conversation that saves the day. We are the emotional leaders even in relationships where the man is loving, emotionally aware, and connected. Not because he can’t lead, but because our radar simply picks things up sooner and with more depth.

By midlife, this emotional leadership blends with everything else we carry: children, careers, hormones that feel like a lottery, fitness, business dreams, financial planning, and the constant mental load of making sure everyone in our orbit is okay. We hold it together at home, work, in friendships, and inside ourselves. It’s no wonder that so many women quietly feel tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. It’s not physical exhaustion. It’s the weight of constant responsibility.

And here comes the paradox we rarely acknowledge: we are loved easily, but supported inconsistently. People adore strong women. They admire us. They compliment our resilience. They trust our judgment. But admiration isn’t the same as relief. Being loved isn’t the same as being held.

Sometimes it feels like the world is leaning on us without noticing how much we’re carrying already. And because we’re good at holding it together, most people never see the strain. They just see competence. Stability. Strength.

But here is something important – something many of us forget about ourselves. We are loved easily not because we’re unbreakable, but because we’re deeply human. Because we care fiercely. Because we have emotional depth that others instinctively trust. Because we move through the world with a blend of strength and softness that feels rare.

The truth is, nothing about our strength disqualifies us from support.
We don’t need to stop being high performers. We don’t need to lessen our ambition, tone ourselves down, or walk away from leadership. But we do need to stop carrying everything alone.

This isn’t about slowing down. It’s about creating space, the kind of space that feels like finally exhaling after holding your breath for too long. Space to rest, even if briefly. Space to ask for help without feeling like it’s a sign of weakness. Space to let others take the lead sometimes. Space to recognise when you’re carrying something that was never yours to hold in the first place.

We don’t lose our power when we ask for support. We deepen it.
We don’t become less capable when we let someone else carry part of the load. We become more whole.
And we don’t become less impressive when we soften. We become more honest.

Midlife asks us to evolve. Not by grinding harder, but by refining how we live. It invites us to trust that we don’t need to earn love through effort, that we don’t need to be the backbone every day, that we can be strong and still be supported.

Because at the end of the day, the woman who is loved easily is also the woman who deserves to feel held, not just admired. And that shift, more than anything, is what frees high-performing women to live with clarity, vitality, connection, and ease.