When I Finally Stopped Performing: A Journey Back to My Heart
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
By Sophia Schell
On the outside, my life looked whole. I was a wife, a mother, and a respected leader. I carried myself with competence and confidence. But behind that polished exterior, something in me was unraveling.
I wasn’t just tired. I was spiritually hollow. I had spent years performing, striving, and proving my worth. A whisper followed me everywhere: be better, do more, earn your worth.
One Saturday, long after midnight, I was still working in my home office. My husband peeked in and said, “Sophia, you look exhausted. Come to bed.” Without looking up, I offered the familiar line: “I’m fine. I just need to finish this one thing.”
But I wasn’t fine. I hadn’t been fine for a long time. After he went to bed, I sat alone surrounded by deadlines and expectations I could no longer carry.
I told myself that a new job with fewer hours would fix everything. So I opened my résumé. And then I froze. My mind went foggy, my chest tightened, and the passion that once fueled my leadership disappeared. I stared at the screen and felt only emptiness.
A little while later, my husband returned and asked gently, “Do you want me to proofread your résumé?” Something in me broke. Through tears I whispered the two words I had avoided for years: “I can’t.”
Those words felt fragile, but they became my first moment of honesty. Naming my breaking point opened a doorway to transformation.
In the weeks that followed, I began hearing the quiet messages beneath my exhaustion, whispers from my heart and from God. On a silent walk in the park, I finally faced the truth: I was no longer driven by passion. I was driven by fear.
As the daughter of immigrant parents who worked tirelessly to build a life for our family, I grew up surrounded by sacrifice and love. Yet their long hours created a distance my young heart couldn’t understand. I knew they loved me, but their way of showing love didn’t reach me. I often waited in the quiet of our home, hoping someone would walk through the door, ask about my day, and hold me close. In that silence, I made sense of their absence the only way a child could: if they were too busy for me, maybe I wasn’t worth their time.
That belief took root. I pursued achievement not for joy but to quiet the ache of feeling unseen. I led with excellence but not from wholeness.
But that day in the park, something shifted. I began separating what happened to me from what I believed about me. Yes, my parents worked constantly. But it wasn’t true that I was unworthy of their time or love. It wasn’t true that I had to perform for belonging.
Holding that belief to the light of God’s truth softened something in me. I began seeing myself not through striving, but through the eyes of a Creator who never asked me to earn love.
Healing came gently, an invitation to rest, breathe, and return to myself. My leadership transformed with it.
I began leading with less pressure and more presence, with less perfection and more purpose, with less fear and more love.
Heart-centered leadership isn’t about hiding wounds; it’s about healing them so we can lead with clarity and compassion. For years, I chased success to prove I mattered. But healing began the moment I said, “I can’t,” and allowed God to rewrite my story.
If you feel the weight of performing, you are allowed to stop. You are allowed to rest. You are already worthy.
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