There’s a version of womanhood that has been sold to us as empowerment, but feels like slow suffocation.
The version where you are the caretaker, the provider, the planner, the therapist, the lover, the homemaker, the brand, the body, the calendar, the cleaner, the cook, the emotional regulator, the family glue, the money manager, the dreamer, the doer.
The version where you’re expected to be a one woman village.
And then we wonder why we’re tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix.
We’re not lazy. We’re not broken. We’re not failing at life.
We’re living inside a system that asks women to hold everything while looking like we’re holding nothing at all.
We’re meant to make it look easy.
We’re meant to stay grateful.
We’re meant to keep producing.
We’re meant to keep smiling.
We’re meant to keep our bodies soft and our calendar full and our nervous system quiet.
Meanwhile, your inner world is screaming for something simpler. Something truer. Something that actually feels like you.
Humans are wired for ritual, but many of us were raised in systems that replaced devotion with disconnection and discipline. This is my return to the ancient rites, the priestess path, and a direct relationship with Source.
– Marly Grace
If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t keep up with the pace you once convinced yourself you needed, I want to say this plainly.
You or your body are not the problem.
The pace is.
The expectation is.
The way we’ve normalized chronic overwhelm as a personality trait is.
And I know this from the inside.
I grew up with fight or flight as my standard operating system.
Hypervigilance felt normal. Being “fine” while bracing for impact felt normal. Pushing through felt like the only option.
When that’s your baseline, you don’t always notice you’re living in survival until your body starts collecting the receipts.
You can only run on stress hormones for so long before it begins to show up everywhere.
In your nervous system, always on, always scanning, always one small inconvenience away from snapping or shutting down.
In your cortisol levels, rising and crashing like a wave you can’t predict.
In your hormones, shifting, dropping, misfiring.
In your cycle, heavier, irregular, missing, painful, or emotionally ruthless.
In your digestion, your sleep, your skin, your energy, your mood.
In that wired but tired feeling.
In that foggy head that makes you feel like you’ve lost your sharpness.
In the body that feels inflamed, tense, or like it can’t fully exhale.
This is what survival does over time. It doesn’t just affect your mind. It affects your biology. It affects how you live inside yourself. And this is why I’m so passionate about naming the difference between discipline and devotion. Because somewhere along the way, discipline became the altar.
Discipline became the proof that you’re good enough. That you’re serious. That you’re worthy. That you’re not falling behind. Discipline is what we reach for when we’re afraid. Afraid of being judged. Afraid of disappointing people. Afraid of losing control. Afraid that if we stop, everything will fall apart.
So we keep going.
We override hunger. We override exhaustion. We override grief. We override intuition. We override our own no. We override the ache that says this life doesn’t fit anymore.
And we call it strength.
But there’s a difference between strength and survival. There’s a difference between devotion and discipline. Discipline says push through. Devotion says listen.
Discipline says your value is in what you produce. Devotion says your life is allowed to be led by your inner truth.
Discipline says stay consistent or you’re failing. Devotion says come back when you can, and let that be enough.
Devotion is not a perfect morning routine. t’s not a productivity aesthetic. It’s not another set of rules you have to follow to become the best version of yourself.
Devotion is when you stop treating your body like an inconvenience.
Devotion is the moment you choose to regulate instead of perform. The moment you realize your nervous system has been living in a constant state of bracing.
The moment you stop calling it normal to wake up tired, to feel wired at night, to have your mind running like a browser with fifty tabs open.
Devotion is when you ask yourself, with honesty, what it has cost you to hold it all.
Because it has cost us.
It’s cost women their softness. Their creativity. Their libido. Their patience. Their friendships. Their ability to feel joy without guilt.
it’s cost women their relationship with their own bodies.
We’re so used to pushing past ourselves that rest starts to feel unsafe. Stillness starts to feel like failure. Silence starts to feel like something is wrong. Even pleasure starts to feel like something we have to earn. And I don’t think we’re meant to live like this. I don’t think your purpose on this earth is to keep up.
I think your purpose is to come home. To build a life that actually supports you. Not a life that looks impressive. A life that feels regulated. Meaningful. Creative. Free. And yes, that might require you to disappoint people. It might require you to stop being the reliable one. It might require you to let the laundry sit, To say no without explaining, To take your hands off the wheel and trust that the world will not collapse because you chose yourself.
That is devotion & Devotion is not discipline.
It’s not another way to control yourself into worthiness. It’s a relationship. It’s you learning your own signals again. It’s you becoming fluent in your body’s language. It’s you treating your needs like sacred information, not inconvenience. It’s you choosing a different operating system. One where you don’t have to burn your life down to deserve rest. One where you don’t have to hit rock bottom to ask for support. One where you stop waiting for permission to live differently.
This is the work I’m devoted to.
Not fixing women. Not polishing women. Not turning women into better women.
Supporting a return, back to self trust, back to louder internal guidance, back to nervous system safety, back to a life that doesn’t require you to abandon yourself to be successful.
If you’re in a season of holding too much, I want you to know this. You are not behind. You are not failing. You are responding intelligently to a life that has been asking you to be everything for everyone.
Let this be your reminder. You don’t need a new version of you. You need space. You need support. You need a gentler way. And you need devotion, not discipline. If you don’t know where to begin, begin small. One honest sentence in your journal, one hand on your heart, one deep breath that tells your body, we are safe now, one “no” that you don’t explain, one “yes” that you actually mean.
That’s where the return begins.
Quietly. Truthfully. In your own timing.
