Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to Exudant Rising.
[00:00:03] Let's talk about being called and labeled as a strong one and the burden of being that strong one.
[00:00:17] You know this story.
[00:00:18] You are the one everyone points to when things fall apart.
[00:00:26] You know those lines.
[00:00:28] You are so strong.
[00:00:31] You always manage.
[00:00:33] If anyone can handle it, it's you.
[00:00:39] And it sounds like admiration, but it lands like a sentence, like insult, because what people are really saying is, please don't need anything from me or please stay regulated so I don't have to be.
[00:01:05] Or you can regulate me when I fall apart, or please keep performing resilience so I can keep avoiding accountability. Uh, and that's the trauma we don't talk about.
[00:01:29] That's the part we don't name.
[00:01:32] Being cold strong is often a request.
[00:01:38] It's not a compliment, and it's a request that you keep carrying, keep enduring, keep translating, keep forgiving, keep surviving politely and quietly.
[00:02:01] Sounds m familiar.
[00:02:04] And for us trauma survivors, for us, especially us who survived war, genocide, political violence, exile or family system that were already dysregulated, this strong one identity becomes a second wound.
[00:02:33] It becomes again, you don't belong here because you are othered with this label strong one.
[00:02:42] You are separate from that person or a family or the system in the moment, you are labeled as strong one.
[00:02:55] So the first wound is what happened to us.
[00:03:00] But this wound is how we had to package it so other people could stand to be around us.
[00:03:10] So let's begin.
[00:03:12] Please take the notes, check the all the links in the show notes.
[00:03:17] And as you can see, this podcast is run without ads for the purpose, so we don't have any disruption.
[00:03:26] Please help and donate. The link will be in the show notes. Everything was donated goes in production of this podcast and also as a resource to to run Somatic Trauma Recovery center and help people who are survivors of war, genocide, who are displaced and who have been exiled.
[00:03:47] So let's begin how the strong one is created.
[00:03:55] So strong is almost never the real word for it.
[00:03:59] What we call strength is often very early parentification.
[00:04:07] Okay.
[00:04:09] And it can go as I was 10 years old and I was already the adult.
[00:04:15] I had to be there for my parents or I was a parent for my parents.
[00:04:23] So that's one way how the strong one is created.
[00:04:27] Having emotionally immature appearance where you as a child had to take care of them. Right then we have a silent endurance.
[00:04:41] I didn't make fuss.
[00:04:44] I was never angry.
[00:04:46] So they thought I was okay.
[00:04:50] They thought I can handle it.
[00:04:53] They thought I was a regulated one.
[00:04:58] Then we have loyalty to the family nervous system.
[00:05:06] If I fall apart, everyone falls apart.
[00:05:12] And this is very common. I was seeing this all the time.
[00:05:16] Ah. Living in the world, parents, adults, everyone in the war couldn't fall apart.
[00:05:30] It just couldn't.
[00:05:32] Because if I saw my neighbor falling apart, it will mean collectively we will fall apart.
[00:05:45] And that means we will all die.
[00:05:48] So it wasn't even allowed. It wasn't even allowed in a family system.
[00:05:55] And also in ethnicity. Right?
[00:05:59] In ethnicity. In a race, if you're a minority, you deeply know that it's almost the bond, it's unspoken bond in the system.
[00:06:13] So it's a cultural or survival code.
[00:06:18] Let me repeat this. It's, uh, a cultural, ethnic survival code.
[00:06:29] We don't cry, we work, or we don't fall apart. We survive, we endure.
[00:06:39] And we have this war body. Right? Exile body.
[00:06:49] I learned to scan, to assess, to escape, to not be the problem.
[00:06:59] Okay.
[00:07:01] So in a war or displacement, the nervous system learns move fast, don't complain, don't show fear, don't make it harder for the group.
[00:07:14] And that becomes a somatic moral code.
[00:07:19] It's embodied. This is how your body is running.
[00:07:25] So your body equates visible pain with danger.
[00:07:30] And not just dangerous to you, but dangerous to the group.
[00:07:35] So when people later praise you, you are so strong. I never saw you break. Oh, my God, you survived. I heard so many times.
[00:07:45] Wow.
[00:07:46] You survived three wars.
[00:07:52] But that's a deep shutdown of me, of my existence.
[00:07:58] You know that?
[00:08:04] Because that praise is costing you. Intimacy with someone, it puts you on side.
[00:08:12] And that's the reason why it feels so bad when it sounds, quote unquote, nice.
[00:08:20] It's almost, people are loving that mask, but not who you are.
[00:08:28] And to make clear this, the label of being the strong one is not only born as it was born. For me, coming from war or being exiled in a displacement, it's coming most of the time from your family.
[00:08:55] Right.
[00:08:57] Dysfunctioning family units or being a minority, being that less of.
[00:09:07] In your skin, in your body, in your gender, in your social status, financial status.
[00:09:18] And then we have this strength as emotional labor that you didn't consent to. So this is very important emotional labor that you didn't consent to for all mothers.
[00:09:38] You know that place, you know, oh, you're a single mom. Oh, you must be so strong.
[00:09:50] Oh, you have four kids.
[00:09:52] I can't even imagine.
[00:09:54] You are such a strong woman.
[00:09:59] So strength is not consent.
[00:10:03] It is not proof you were okay.
[00:10:07] It is not proof the harm was small, and it's not proof you didn't or you don't need help.
[00:10:20] And strength was a strategy.
[00:10:25] It was necessity. There wasn't even a choice.
[00:10:29] So this is not a personality trait.
[00:10:33] Strength is coming from deep, choiceless place. Well, you have a choice.
[00:10:40] You have a choice to die, or you have a choice to survive. It's so simple. And to be in that place is the most choiceless place you can be.
[00:10:56] But people around you treat it like a resource, right?
[00:11:04] They could use.
[00:11:08] And then what happens next?
[00:11:12] You become that listener for everyone.
[00:11:17] You can listen and hold the space for your parents, your siblings, your. Your friends, your partner, your co worker.
[00:11:28] But you never get to be the one listened to.
[00:11:34] Why would you? You are so strong, right?
[00:11:41] Does this resonate?
[00:11:44] Let me know.
[00:11:48] Second, you become the de escalator, but never the one de escalated.
[00:12:01] Think about this.
[00:12:04] Why do you always need to de escalate?
[00:12:10] Why do you need to invest your cognitive and, uh, emotional capacities to de escalate other person patterns and behaviors?
[00:12:25] And why is not vice versa?
[00:12:28] Why you don't get to be the one who needs to be de escalated?
[00:12:35] Why don't you have a right to lose it?
[00:12:41] To, uh, lose it?
[00:12:42] Why isn't that a privilege that's robbed by people around you who are calling you the strong one also. You become this translator of pain, but no one translates yours.
[00:13:12] It's deep, lonely place.
[00:13:17] And also what people think is, well, you went through it, and no one has to repair it.
[00:13:28] M. It's over. You went through it. You survived.
[00:13:32] We don't need to go there to hold the space.
[00:13:36] To process, to name, to weep, to grieve.
[00:13:42] To grieve all the losses.
[00:13:45] To collapse rightfully. To collapse under tremendous grief.
[00:13:57] So all of this, your strength became community, emotional labor.
[00:14:07] And everyone has access to it.
[00:14:12] Everyone has access to it.
[00:14:15] So there is no any consent.
[00:14:19] There is no any consent.
[00:14:22] People just think, oh, they can access it, acquire, uh, it, use it, praise you as the strong one, and then leave you in your own silence and pain.
[00:14:39] And that's not okay.
[00:14:41] And that's why I'm saying this label of, uh, oh, you're the strong one. It feels like an insult.
[00:14:55] First, because it's used by others. Second, this is not a trait. This is not something you had a choice.
[00:15:08] As I said, that strength was made from a choiceless place where you had one second. You just knew you won't be able to survive.
[00:15:24] And it was a moment of this. Second place. Second choice from the choiceless place.
[00:15:34] It, uh, was I need to pull through.
[00:15:39] But that wasn't a choice.
[00:15:43] Don't get confused with that.
[00:15:47] And also why it's so hurtful and harmful to give that praise to someone. You're the strong one.
[00:15:55] And this is what I keep educating and teaching all my clients, all my community.
[00:16:05] When someone is praising you for surviving, they're raising what you have survived.
[00:16:16] Right.
[00:16:18] Is importance of and just naming all you survived. This cleans of sound responsibility to hold the space and be accountable of the wound or the trauma you went through.
[00:16:40] And you know, people love that survival narrative because it's very clean, it's tidy.
[00:16:46] They don't wanna this messiness.
[00:16:50] Right. As people who went through trauma and war and genocide, they will just now burst into the pieces. They will explode.
[00:17:01] They won't be able to hold themselves together.
[00:17:05] Right. The panic, the nights without sleep, flashbacks, ptsd, living in two countries at once, being held at the gunpoint so many times.
[00:17:18] Someone who was living with abusive partners or, uh, parents, family secrets, the frozen body, the rage.
[00:17:26] It's like, no, no, this is like a lot. Let's just skip that. Skip that as that. It's almost like they now need to somehow save you.
[00:17:36] Yeah.
[00:17:38] But let's just keep that survival. You survive it. That's the most what's important for them.
[00:17:48] So they praise the part of you that's most convenient for them.
[00:17:56] And if you're calling someone strong one because this is convenience for you and because you don't have capacities, absorb this and stop doing that. But you have right to name.
[00:18:15] I don't have any capacities to even hear you.
[00:18:23] And I'm, um, sorry if I called you strong one.
[00:18:29] Because if you're looking at this, if we are praising the strong one as the most convenient part, that's the composed person, the capable one.
[00:18:42] They will figure it out.
[00:18:45] That's the one who never ask.
[00:18:48] And that praise is actually avoidance dressed up as admiration, as compliment. And it's insulting.
[00:18:59] Let me repeat this.
[00:19:01] The praise of, you're the strong one. You're a capable one. You're a composed one. You're the one who is always figuring things out.
[00:19:12] You're the one who never ask twice is, uh, avoidance of responsibility and accountability dressed up as admiration.
[00:19:30] And they can say, look how strong she is.
[00:19:36] And now they don't have to say, look what I never gave her.
[00:19:43] Uh, look what the state never repaired.
[00:19:49] Look what the family never upset apologized for.
[00:19:55] And that's the trauma we don't talk about. And we have to talk about.
[00:20:03] I'm writing this all in my book, the trauma we don't talk about if you want to get the book, the link is below in the show notes.
[00:20:16] So praise can be very violent. It's passively violent when it's used to replace accountability.
[00:20:29] And that's not okay. That's not just.
[00:20:33] That's not just.
[00:20:36] We also have family. Oh my goodness.
[00:20:43] Most of the wounds are coming from the family system.
[00:20:47] And you know this.
[00:20:50] Don't upset anyone, don't upset your father, don't worry your mother.
[00:21:02] What will neighbors think?
[00:21:07] Mhm.
[00:21:12] So you can literally please check my episode about excuse me, I am drowning, but I will remain silent.
[00:21:22] Where exactly I explain the strong one in action, where you are literally drowning.
[00:21:32] Where people who were saved last second felt.
[00:21:40] Uh, the research was done for the people who were saved last second and who didn't call for any help. And the reason why is they felt ashamed and they didn't want to disturb anyone. That's real. People.
[00:21:53] That's real. Even in the moment of dying M, they felt they have to be the strong ones and they didn't want to disturb the anyone or call for help.
[00:22:13] And that impulse is so strong not to make any waves, not to disturb anyone.
[00:22:21] And that's not the personality of strong one.
[00:22:25] That's the trauma training because of this label as, yeah, don't upset anyone. You're the strong one, you can handle it.
[00:22:38] So where does it come from?
[00:22:41] 1, you were raised around overwhelmed adults or you survived around people who were already grieving.
[00:22:51] If you were that child or a teenager who lost a parent, you witnessed other parents falling apart and grieving and you had to step up.
[00:23:08] Right.
[00:23:10] Or you were a, uh, child, adolescent, adult of war, exile, migration, poverty, colonization, minorities.
[00:23:32] And you learned very early, my pain is now too much compared to everything what we need to face and then what we do, we regulate before we speak out or we remove the potency from our experience as, oh, it was nothing. It's okay, it's okay. Let's move, let's move. It's okay.
[00:24:11] Take that in.
[00:24:13] These are the big, big, big stuff here.
[00:24:18] Important denying your own experience because of this label, the strong one.
[00:24:32] Also, it's very common. You can present your pain, your grief, your state of panic in an educated, spiritual or clinical tone.
[00:24:48] It has this quality of detachment from self.
[00:24:58] The extreme would be people who are talking about themselves in a third person.
[00:25:09] So they wouldn't say, I had bad day, but they would say, and, um, usually jokingly, oh, Mary had a bad day.
[00:25:29] Very common.
[00:25:31] When you're talking about horror, trauma, bombing, gun violence, rape, assault, softly or you would cut out or you would just keep your headlines. Not even that.
[00:25:55] It would be so minimized and detached.
[00:26:01] And then people around called this strength instead of strength. It wasn't strength, it was you being considerate.
[00:26:16] So you are being considerate to people who should have been considerate to you.
[00:26:26] Let me repeat this. This is very important because I bet if this is touching you, you have this personality trait where you cannot tolerate when people are inconsiderate.
[00:26:48] It'll trigger you. Unconsiderate people will trigger you. Because one of the base traits of your system is being considerate to people who should have been considerate to you.
[00:27:07] Vice versa.
[00:27:11] So look at those themes.
[00:27:14] If you're in dynamic with someone, partner, parent, siblings, family, if your 95% or 100% feel as you need to be considerate, but there is no reciprocity, it's time maybe to leave that relationship or to adjust how you feel about this relationship.
[00:27:48] Because that relationship clearly is not respecting your being.
[00:27:54] It's outdated and it does not deserve you.
[00:28:03] So let's go to the political lens.
[00:28:08] As you know, I'm somatic experiencing therapist for PTSD and trauma recovery.
[00:28:13] And big part of Somatic Trauma Recovery center is advocacy.
[00:28:20] It's repairment through the justice. Justice is crucial in healing because it's relational.
[00:28:29] So look at this.
[00:28:30] Systems, they love strong survivors.
[00:28:35] Okay?
[00:28:36] They love strong survivors.
[00:28:39] Systems loves it because it's abusing the most.
[00:28:48] Right?
[00:28:49] The system abuses strong survivors, it feeds off of them.
[00:28:56] So families, communities, churches, institutions, even nations, they love the strong survivor archetype because it proves their narrative.
[00:29:14] It proves their narrative. It proves their agenda.
[00:29:18] It proves their tyranny.
[00:29:21] It proves their harm. It proves their genocide. It proves their war. It proves proves inhumane treatment.
[00:29:33] They can say, look, we made it. Our people are resilient.
[00:29:40] Hmm. M. It's easier to send people to the war this way.
[00:29:45] I saw that many times.
[00:29:49] Right. Proves the narrative.
[00:29:51] You are the resilient one.
[00:29:56] Also why? System loves it because it hides their harm. And it can look like this.
[00:30:04] Well, if she's doing well, it couldn't have been that bad.
[00:30:10] Yeah, it's hiding the harm.
[00:30:15] Abusing churches, abusing homes in families, sexual assaults.
[00:30:22] We know what happened with kids in the churches.
[00:30:28] We know what happened with indigenous people in churches, in schools run by Catholic churches in Canada.
[00:30:40] Of course, hides their harm.
[00:30:47] Hides their harm.
[00:30:51] Because system loves strong survivors, meaning quiet and silent survivors.
[00:31:03] Also, it justifies under support.
[00:31:10] He is so capable, he doesn't need days off, he doesn't need therapy.
[00:31:20] Especially if you're a person of color, you better be strong and resilient. You don't need anything.
[00:31:30] Take a look at your grandparents and grand grandparents.
[00:31:34] Don't you dare to seek for any help, right? And that keeps the target quiet.
[00:31:46] It keeps a person, oppressed person, minority, people with disability less off, exiled people, cut out people quiet.
[00:32:09] They know that one and it can look as strong woman, don't complain.
[00:32:18] Devoted woman, she doesn't complain.
[00:32:25] So being called strong is often a silencing technology and it's almost like it keeps you in this realm of your uh, inspirational one. You're that hero we admire.
[00:32:44] You're this mystical indigenous woman.
[00:32:49] So quiet and so inspirational and yet not disruptive.
[00:32:59] Same goes for black people.
[00:33:02] Oh, strong one, inspiring one.
[00:33:09] As long as you're not disruptive.
[00:33:16] Me being a Serbian, you are allowed to live only quietly as long as you endure and do uh, not disrupt.
[00:33:37] This is very serious. People healing is relational. It's collective and requires justice.
[00:33:47] So let's move to the somatic layer, right?
[00:33:52] So what strong feels like in the body. And this is what I'm seeing with clients.
[00:33:58] It's your soma, right? Your body patterns. So observe this.
[00:34:05] Your shoulders are slightly elevated, carrying. So there is so much burden and weight around your shoulders. And your neck, jaw can be clenched or it can be. Smile can be on.
[00:34:19] Breath is usually high and shallow.
[00:34:22] Pelvis is very tightened and legs are ready to move.
[00:34:29] Eyes are always scanning, always.
[00:34:34] Please listen. Episode trauma J. Bond about this hyper vigilant state.
[00:34:40] Speech is very organized. It's not messy. It's very direct.
[00:34:46] It's very, very direct.
[00:34:49] And this is a body in this performative regulation.
[00:34:54] It's saying I will manage this. I uh, will hold it. Don't worry. It's almost like a robotic, rigid, stiff, stiff body. That's the tone, that's the undertone of the strong ones.
[00:35:10] Neck is not moving freely.
[00:35:14] It's more like in a micro segments moving left or right. It doesn't have a flow.
[00:35:21] And that body is extremely tired.
[00:35:26] Dead body wants to lean.
[00:35:29] Dead body wants to co regulate with someone else nervous system who is not afraid to hold that body.
[00:35:41] That body wants to cry without being told or expected to be inspiring.
[00:35:51] That body just wants to fall apart and rest and rest and rest.
[00:36:08] How we work with body to move into resting place where we can come to place of self regulation.
[00:36:20] Please check the links below. I'm running distilled somatic lessons for PTSD recovery and for the people who are labeled as the strong ones.
[00:36:34] And what I really Want you to remember here is resilience.
[00:36:41] So the same as strong one. Resilient one is the most abused words nowadays.
[00:36:47] You're the resilient one, right? You're the strong one. What that means?
[00:36:52] Because resilience without rest is violence against the self.
[00:37:00] Let me repeat this. Resilience without rest is violence against the self.
[00:37:08] And there is no accountability.
[00:37:12] M. What does that mean? Resilience says you go through it. Amazing, keep going. You are the resilient one.
[00:37:22] And accountability says you shouldn't have had to get through it like that in the first place.
[00:37:32] That's accountability. What's missing, we are missing accountability.
[00:37:40] It's almost like no one even exists around you to take that responsibility and accountability and that resilience. The strong one puts the work on the survivor, and that's not your work, that's not your work.
[00:38:05] And accountability puts the work on the relationship, on the family, on the community, on the system.
[00:38:15] And this is what you're missing. And healing requires accountability. It seeks justice.
[00:38:23] Also, um, check the episode.
[00:38:26] We need justice, not breath work, where I'm talking about this as well.
[00:38:34] So when people call you strong and stop there, they're choosing convenience for them over accountability.
[00:38:46] And they're saying, your capacity is the solution instead of, let's repair. That's the solution. That's the healing I got you.
[00:39:02] And even if I don't know, let's figure things out.
[00:39:06] And you don't have to heal alone.
[00:39:10] And many people nowadays, they are lost in their own self healing, going from one retreat to another, buying so many courses, doing the work on their own.
[00:39:21] But that healing, if the trauma is done in relational field, healing requests relational field.
[00:39:33] So also what's very important here is what happens when that strong one has a right to finally break.
[00:39:41] We have right, right, because the strong one can keep a family, keep the relationship for 10, 20, 30 years where everyone was praising them.
[00:39:55] And then when we have, when collapse happens because of health or divorce, of grief, betrayal, then nobody knows what to do with them because everyone around you had a relationship with your strength, what they perceive as strength, but not with the real person.
[00:40:20] And then when you come to this place of expressing and saying, I can't, I need money, I need care, I need you to take care of me.
[00:40:38] I'm not over it, or I don't want to be the one who forgives, uh, again and again people pull away, uh, because they see you as presentation of strength. They don't see you as a person.
[00:41:02] So also how to let go of, uh, this Narrative.
[00:41:09] We will be doing this in a course. So again, please check the links. How we will set up the boundaries and express through very precise statements.
[00:41:24] When this performance required, performance from someone else stops.
[00:41:34] Because if your relationship depends on your strength, you will experience abandonment the first time you choose to rest.
[00:41:44] So the work starts with you, you stopping this and expressing.
[00:41:56] Expressing.
[00:41:57] No, I don't get to be called strong one. It's insulting.
[00:42:03] It's not. Okay, it's time for you to take the responsibility on your shoulders as well. How we run this family, how we raise these kids, how I'm treated in this work, in this church, how I'm treated with my sisters and brothers in this community, in this country.
[00:42:22] Okay?
[00:42:24] So please again check the links below. And the work is here. How do we reclaim softness?
[00:42:32] Oh, boy, that's not going to be so easy. But it's in you because it's permission to stop performing for belonging, for acceptance, for love.
[00:42:50] And was the medicine. Medicine as, uh. I will close this episode today.
[00:42:58] Let this stay with you.
[00:43:00] You can start by saying I was never strong.
[00:43:06] I was alone.
[00:43:11] I wasn't being inspiring.
[00:43:14] I was being careful and considerate.
[00:43:23] I don't want to be strong.
[00:43:25] I want to be held.
[00:43:34] I m didn't have exceptional capacities.
[00:43:40] I didn't have a choice but to survive.
[00:43:46] If you have been the strong one, I want you to hear survival was brilliant.
[00:43:56] And it's still brilliant.
[00:43:59] But it was not free because it wasn't with your consent and your choice.
[00:44:08] And you paid for it with softness, with, uh, visibility, with deserving to be helped.
[00:44:17] And you don't owe anyone another decade of holding.
[00:44:25] And let someone else be impressive and also teach others who are the strong ones, resilient ones, quote unquote, to let that go.
[00:44:40] Someone else needs to take their accountability, but not you.
[00:44:45] You get to be a human.
[00:44:47] The strong one is not a compliment.
[00:44:52] It is a survival role that everyone depended on except you.
[00:45:05] As I end today episode, please check all the links in the show notes support so we can have more of these episodes.
[00:45:20] And be gentle with yourself.
[00:45:24] Be gentle with yourself. You're not alone.
[00:45:28] You're not alone.
[00:45:31] I'm on a mile.
[00:45:33] This is excellent. Rising.
[00:45:36] Until next time.
[00:45:39] Much care.
[00:45:41] Much care.
