Strong Women Need Safe Spaces Too
Good morning Beautiful,
Hello there I want the email blog to look more like a book and sound more like this without so many spaces in it. I want the blogs to look more like sentence, more profound and more like a author going on a journey.
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from always being the strong one. It is not necessarily the kind of tiredness that sleep can fix. It is the exhaustion that comes from being the person everyone depends on while quietly carrying things of your own. You are the one people call when they need wisdom. You show up when others are falling apart. You pray when someone else cannot find the words. You keep building, leading, serving, nurturing, believing, and somehow finding enough strength to keep moving forward. People see how well you carry it, but they do not always see how heavy it has become.
I have learned that one of the difficult things about being a strong woman is that people can become so accustomed to your strength that they forget you need strengthening too. They see what you accomplish, what you produce, how you lead, and how you continue to show up. What they may not see are the private moments when you are trying to figure out who you can talk to, where you can exhale, or whether there is anywhere you can go and simply not have to be the strong one for a while.
Strong women need safe spaces too.
Not because we are weak, incapable, or unable to handle life. We need safe spaces because strength does not remove our humanity. The woman who encourages everyone else still needs encouragement. The woman who listens to everyone else's heart still needs someone who will listen to hers. The woman who reminds everyone else to keep going sometimes needs permission to stop, breathe, and be still.
Somewhere along the way, I believe we started confusing strength with self sufficiency. We began celebrating the woman who could carry everything, manage everything, fix everything, take care of everybody, and somehow still walk into the room smiling. We admired her ability to keep going, but we rarely stopped long enough to ask an important question: Who is carrying the woman who carries so much?
There is a difference between being strong and never allowing yourself to need anyone. There is a difference between being responsible and believing everything is your responsibility. There is a difference between being called to pour and believing you must constantly pour without ever allowing yourself to receive.
Even Jesus understood the importance of withdrawing from the demands of people. Luke 5:16 says, “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” I have always found something powerful in that scripture. Jesus could love people and still withdraw from them. He could serve people without giving everyone unlimited access to Him. He could fulfill His assignment and still make room to be alone with the Father.
If Jesus made room to withdraw, pray, and be replenished, why have so many of us convinced ourselves that stopping somehow means we are failing? Perhaps strength is not always about how much you can carry. Sometimes strength is having the wisdom to recognize what you need to put down. Sometimes strength is saying, “I am tired.” Sometimes it is allowing someone else to pray for you instead of always being the one doing the praying. Sometimes strength is receiving the same grace, patience, love, and care that you have spent years giving to everyone else.
Every woman needs a place where she does not have to perform. You need relationships where you do not have to prove anything, explain everything, or pretend everything is fine. You need people who know the woman behind the title, the responsibility, the ministry, the business, the family, and everything else you carry. You need somewhere you can laugh again, cry if you need to, think clearly, pray deeply, rest without guilt, and simply be. There should be moments when no one needs an answer from you. Moments when you do not have to fix anything. Moments when you can take off the titles and remember that before you became everything you are to everyone else, you were still a woman who needed to be loved, covered, cared for, and poured into.
You are a woman, not a machine.
God created you with a heart that needs care and a soul that needs renewal. There will be seasons when God strengthens you through His Word and seasons when He strengthens you in prayer. But I also believe there are seasons when God strengthens us through the people He sends, the relationships He allows us to build, and the spaces He gives us permission to enter.
This is why community matters. This is why healthy relationships matter. This is why safe spaces matter. We need places where women can come together without competition, comparison, judgment, or the pressure to appear as though we have everything figured out.
This is part of the heart behind the BAM TransformHER Retreat. I did not want to simply create another event for women to attend. I wanted to create an intentional space where a woman could step away from the noise of everything she carries and have an opportunity to hear God again, hear herself again, breathe again, and receive.
A place where she can sit among other women who understand what it means to be building while becoming, believing while waiting, leading while healing, and trusting God while still trying to understand what He is doing in her life.
But this message is bigger than a retreat. I want you to think about your everyday life and ask yourself some questions that we do not ask ourselves enough. Where is my safe space? Who can I call when I do not have the answers? Who knows me beyond what I do for everyone else? Where can I go when my soul needs somewhere to exhale?
And maybe the most important question is this: Do I have anyone in my life who gives me permission not to be the strong one?
If you cannot answer that question, perhaps God is revealing something to you in this season. Maybe the next thing you need is not another responsibility, another accomplishment, or another thing to carry. Maybe what you need is the courage to create room in your life to receive. Because the woman who is always pouring deserves somewhere to be poured into. The woman who carries so much deserves somewhere to lay the weight down. And the woman who has spent years being strong for everybody else deserves moments when she can simply be.
Strong women need safe spaces too.
Receiving does not make you less powerful. Rest does not make you less productive. Needing someone does not make you less capable. Sometimes allowing yourself to receive is the very thing God uses to restore the strength you have spent so much time giving away. If something in your spirit has been saying, “I need this,” I would love to have you join us for the 2026 BAM TransformHER Retreat, October 8 through October 10 in Gulf Shores, Alabama. There are very limited spaces remaining, and you can visit www.tonyaharden.com to learn more.
Whether I see you at the retreat or not, I want you to remember this: You do not have to prove your strength by carrying everything alone. Give yourself permission to be poured into. Give yourself permission to rest. Give yourself permission to have people and places where you can simply be you.
You have been a safe place for so many people. Make sure you have somewhere safe for you, too.
Your Sister in Christ, Love & Prosperity,
Tonya Harden
