Women who’ve been through these 8 struggles carry a strength that’s impossible to fake

I’ve spent over twelve years sitting across from women in my counseling practice, and I can spot genuine strength from a mile away.

It’s not loud. It doesn’t announce itself. But it’s unmistakable.

The women who carry this kind of strength have something in common. They’ve been through things that would break most people, and they came out the other side changed. Not perfect. Not without scars. But undeniably stronger.

If you’ve faced any of these eight struggles, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

1) Losing someone who shaped your world

Grief has a way of cracking you wide open.

When you lose someone who mattered, whether through death, distance, or the slow fade of a relationship that couldn’t survive its own weight, something fundamental shifts.

The world becomes less predictable. Your sense of safety takes a hit.

But here’s what happens in the aftermath. You learn that you can survive the unsurvivable. You discover reserves of resilience you didn’t know existed.

I witnessed a friend go through a devastating divorce years ago, and it reinforced something I already believed: early intervention matters, but so does knowing when to let go. She emerged from that experience with a clarity about her own worth that she’d never had before.

Women who’ve navigated profound loss carry a quiet understanding that life is both fragile and remarkably durable. They don’t take relationships for granted. They know how to hold things lightly while still loving deeply.

2) Walking away from toxicity

Leaving a toxic relationship, whether romantic, familial, or professional, requires a specific kind of courage.

You’re not just walking away from a person. You’re walking away from the version of yourself who thought you deserved that treatment. You’re closing the door on familiar patterns, even when the unknown feels terrifying.

In my practice, I’ve noticed that many clients confuse intensity with intimacy. They mistake drama for passion. Breaking free from that confusion takes serious strength.

The women who’ve done this work understand boundaries in a way that can’t be taught from a book. They’ve learned through experience that saying no to what diminishes you is the same as saying yes to yourself.

And that’s a lesson that changes everything.

3) Facing professional failure or rejection

Career setbacks hit differently when you’ve invested your identity in your work.

I remember a workshop I led early in my career that went poorly. Really poorly. I left that room feeling like a fraud, questioning whether I had any business helping people at all.

That failure led to a complete redesign of my teaching style. It forced me to get humble, ask for feedback, and rebuild from the ground up.

Women who’ve experienced professional rejection or failure develop something invaluable: the ability to separate their worth from their performance.

They learn that one closed door doesn’t define them, and that resilience is built in the space between falling and getting back up.

They also tend to be more compassionate leaders and colleagues, because they remember what it felt like to struggle.

4) Rebuilding after health challenges

Your body’s betrayal teaches you things nothing else can.

Whether it’s a chronic illness, a mental health crisis, or a sudden medical emergency, health struggles strip away the illusion of control. You learn that your body is not a machine you can optimize into submission.

Through my yoga practice and my work with clients, I’ve seen how physical and mental health challenges force a reckoning with vulnerability. You can’t fake your way through a panic attack. You can’t hustle your way out of chronic pain.

You have to do the work, even when it’s painful, even when your mind just wants to give up. 

Women who’ve faced these battles understand the connection between body and mind in a lived, embodied way. They’ve learned to listen to whispers before they become screams.

They also know that asking for help isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom.

5) Overcoming people-pleasing patterns

This one’s personal for me.

I spent years operating from a place of over-functioning and approval-seeking. I said yes when I meant no. I bent myself into shapes that made other people comfortable while I quietly eroded from the inside.

Learning to overcome those patterns required me to practice direct but kind refusals, even when it felt excruciating. I had to learn that disappointing others was not the moral failing I’d been taught it was.

Boundary-setting is the most common skill gap I see among high performers in my practice. These are capable, accomplished women who can manage complex projects but can’t tell their mother-in-law that Sunday dinners don’t work for them.

Breaking free from people-pleasing creates a strength that’s rooted in self-respect. Women who’ve done this work know their limits.

They protect their energy. They understand that you can’t pour from an empty cup, and they’ve stopped apologizing for that truth.

6) Surviving financial hardship

Money problems create a specific kind of stress that seeps into everything.

Whether it’s student debt, job loss, medical bills, or the slow grind of barely making ends meet, financial hardship forces you to make impossible choices.

Do you pay the electric bill or buy groceries? Do you take the job you hate or risk everything on the job you want?

Women who’ve navigated serious financial challenges develop resourcefulness that goes beyond budgeting apps. They know how to make something from nothing. They understand delayed gratification. They’ve learned to ask for help and to accept it without shame.

They also tend to have healthier relationships with money later in life. They know that financial security matters, but they’ve also learned that your worth isn’t measured by your bank account.

7) Recovering from self-worth issues and comparison traps

The voice in your head that says you’re not enough? That voice can be relentless.

I went through a period of burnout where I had to learn to separate self-worth from productivity. My entire identity was wrapped up in being useful, being needed, being productive.

When I couldn’t keep up that pace, I crashed hard.

Recovery meant learning to forgive myself for past boundary slips and move forward without the weight of shame. It meant recognizing that I was practicing generous assumptions with everyone except myself.

I’ve been reading Rudá Iandê’s new book “Laughing in the Face of Chaos: A Politically Incorrect Shamanic Guide for Modern Life, ” and one line really struck me: “We live immersed in an ocean of stories, from the collective narratives that shape our societies to the personal tales that define our sense of self.”

That’s exactly what happens when you’re stuck in comparison and self-worth issues. You’re swimming in stories that were never yours to begin with. Stories about what makes someone valuable, successful, or worthy of love. And until you question those narratives, you’re trapped.

Working through deep self-worth issues requires self-compassion, which can be really difficult when you’ve lived for so long with an unkind inner voice. 

8) Starting over after everything fell apart

Sometimes life doesn’t just hand you a setback. It hands you a demolition.

Maybe your marriage ended. Maybe you lost your job, your home, and your sense of direction all at once. Maybe the life you’d carefully built just stopped working, and you had to start from scratch.

I’ve navigated a difficult year when career demands outpaced connection in my own marriage, and rebuilding intimacy through intentional effort taught me that starting over doesn’t mean you failed. Sometimes it means you’re brave enough to choose differently.

Women who’ve rebuilt their lives from the ground up understand that rock bottom can be a foundation. They know that endings create space for beginnings. They’ve learned that you don’t need to have it all figured out to take the first step.

They carry the knowledge that they’ve survived before, and they can survive again.

Final thoughts

Strength isn’t about never struggling. It’s about what you do with the struggle.

The women who’ve faced these challenges carry something that can’t be manufactured or faked.

It’s in the way they hold space for others who are hurting. It’s in their refusal to pretend everything is fine when it isn’t. It’s in their ability to be both soft and strong at the same time.

If you’ve been through any of these struggles, you’ve earned your strength. Not despite what you’ve faced, but because of it.

And if you’re in the middle of one of these struggles right now? Keep going. The strength you’re building is real, and it’s yours to keep.