Women have said to me: "I know I need to do this for myself. I just... later. When things calm down. When the kids are older. When work slows up. When I have more money. When I have more time." These women aren't lazy or unmotivated. They are drowning in a system that had taught them, since they were children, that their needs were always the lower priority. That self-focus was selfish. That later was always a perfectly reasonable answer.
Except later never comes. And the cost of that delay isn't small.
The "Later" Trap: Why Women Keep Postponing Their Own Lives
The word "later" is a permission slip disguised as a plan. It feels safe. Responsible. Like you're being practical. But what "later" really means is: "I don't deserve this right now." It's the language of the good woman curse, which is the internalized belief that your job is to be endlessly available, endlessly patient, endlessly small, while everyone else's needs move ahead of yours in the queue.
Here's what I see in my work with women over 35: they are extraordinary. They show up for their partners, their kids, their jobs, their aging parents, their friends. They know how to prioritize. They know how to get things done. But when it comes to their own growth, their own confidence, their own wild and feral self? Suddenly they can't find the time. Suddenly it's not urgent. Suddenly it's later.
The patriarchy didn't invent "later," but it absolutely weaponized it. We live in a system that rewards self-sacrifice and punishes self-care. A system that tells women that ambition is okay (as long as it serves someone else first). So we say later. We say next year. We say when I have more bandwidth. And we mean it, in the moment. But the system is designed so that bandwidth never actually arrives.
The curses like the patriarchy, capitalism, diet culture, the hustle hex, the good woman script - they all depend on your "later." They need you to believe that now isn't your time. That you should be smaller, quieter, more patient. That you can always start tomorrow. And the longer you say later, the dimmer you become. The further away from yourself you drift. The more you sparkle leak with that slow, aching erosion of confidence and aliveness that happens when you keep putting yourself at the bottom of your own list.
What "Later" Actually Costs You: The Real Price of Postponement
I want to be specific here, because "later" doesn't feel like it costs anything. It feels like it costs time. But it costs so much more than that.
When you say "later," you're not just postponing a decision. You're postponing yourself. You're telling your own nervous system: "You're not important enough to prioritize right now." And your nervous system believes you. It starts to believe that you're not worth the investment. That your growth, your joy, your aliveness is secondary. Bonus content. Something to get to if there's time left over after everyone else has been taken care of.
The longer you delay, the harder it gets to come back to yourself. It's not that you forget who you were before the taming. It's that you get more used to not being her. You build a life around the smaller version of yourself. You make decisions based on her limitations. You choose jobs, relationships, friendships, and daily routines that all fit around the woman you've agreed to be. And then, after years of that, the thought of changing it all and of taking up more space, of being louder, of going feral...feels impossible. It feels like upending everything. Which it is. But it only feels that hard because you waited so long.
Here's what postponing costs you specifically:
- Lost confidence. Every time you say "later," you reinforce the message that you're not worth your own priority. You erode your own trust in yourself. You train yourself to believe that other people's needs and timelines matter more than yours. That pattern doesn't stay contained, but it leaks into every area of your life. You become someone who apologizes for existing. Who shrinks in meetings. Who can't say no without a four-paragraph explanation. Who has forgotten that she's allowed to take up space.
- A life that doesn't match you anymore. You built your current life around the woman you were told to be. Your job, your relationship, your body, your schedule. They're all designed to fit the good woman script. But the real you is still in there, buried. And the longer you ignore her, the worse the mismatch becomes. You become exhausted not just by the demands of your life, but by the fact that your life doesn't feel like yours anymore. Everything fits someone else's vision. Not yours.
- Invisible momentum in the wrong direction. You're not standing still when you say "later." You're actively moving away from yourself. Every day that you choose stability over aliveness, every choice you make to be smaller instead of bigger, you're building the architecture of a life that doesn't serve you. And the longer you do that, the more momentum you have to reverse.
- A faint but persistent grief. Women who have been saying "later" for years often describe a low-level sadness they can't quite name. A sense that something is missing. A vague feeling of having lost themselves. That's not depression. That's not broken. That's not your fault. That's what happens when you exile your own aliveness. When you keep saying later to the parts of yourself that matter most.
- Time you can't get back. And yes, time. You get one life. One body. One shot at being awake in it. Every year you spend saying "later," you're spending a year of the only life you have. A year when you could have been building confidence instead of eroding it. A year when you could have been coming home to yourself instead of becoming a stranger to yourself.
The cost of "later" isn't theoretical. It's not something that happens to other people. It's happening in your body right now. In your relationships. In your choices. In the size you're allowing yourself to take up in your own life.
The Dangerous Myth of "When Things Calm Down"
One of the most persistent lies we've been told is that things will eventually calm down. That there will be a finish line. A moment when everything settles. When the kids are older. When work slows. When the house is paid off. When you've done enough. Then you'll have time. Then you can focus on yourself.
But here's the truth: things don't calm down. The system isn't designed for them to calm down. Capitalism needs you busy. The patriarchy needs you exhausted. The hustle hex needs you to believe that your worth is tied to your productivity. So there's always another deadline. Another person who needs you. Another reason to put yourself at the bottom of the list. Another reason to say later.
And even if things did calm down (which they won't) you'd have spent so much time saying later that you'd have forgotten why you wanted to come back to yourself in the first place. You'd be so used to shrinking that expanding would feel scary. You'd have built a life so far from who you actually are that starting over would feel impossible.
The women I work with who have gone through Find Her Again tell me the same thing: they thought they had to wait for the right time. They thought they had to earn it somehow. They thought they had to be perfect before they could start the work. But the right time doesn't exist. It's not waiting for you at some future point. The only time that's ever available is now.
Why Now Is The Only Answer That Actually Works
You don't need things to be different before you start. You don't need to be in a different phase of life. You don't need your schedule to open up or your kids to be older or your paycheck to be bigger. You need to start exactly where you are, right now, with exactly what you have.
Here's why: the curses don't get weaker with time. They get stronger. The longer you live inside the patriarchy, inside capitalism, inside the good woman script, the more normal it becomes. The more you believe it's true. The more you forget that there's another way. So waiting for the right time doesn't actually make the work easier. It makes it harder. Because the longer you wait, the more deeply you've internalized the lie that you don't deserve to come home to yourself.
Starting now isn't about having everything figured out. It's about beginning to witness yourself. Beginning to name what's been taken from you—not as personal failure, but as systemic theft. Beginning to meet your inner Goblin, the voice that tells you to stay small. Beginning to excavate the parts of yourself that are still in there, still wild, still hungry for aliveness. And that work can start right now. Not when things calm down. Not when you're ready. Now.
When you choose now instead of later, you're not making a small decision. You're making a declaration. You're saying: I deserve to come home to myself. My aliveness matters. My wildness matters. My joy matters. And I'm not waiting anymore.
The Ripple Effect of Coming Back to Yourself
Here's what happens when women stop saying later and start saying now: everything changes. Not because the circumstances change. Not because the system suddenly becomes fair or capitalism suddenly stops demanding. Everything changes because she changes. And when she changes, everything else has to reorganize around her new boundaries, her new confidence, her new refusal to be small.
I've watched it happen in my coaching work. A woman comes in exhausted, dimmed down, apologizing for taking up space. Within weeks of starting the work, she's setting boundaries in her marriage. She's having conversations with her boss that she never thought she could have. She's buying the outfit she wants instead of the outfit that fits her role. She's saying no without a paragraph of explanation. She's sleeping better because she's not carrying the weight of everyone else's needs anymore.
And here's the thing: she's not selfish. She's not abandoning anyone. What's actually happening is that she's stopped abandoning herself. And when you stop abandoning yourself, you have more energy, more clarity, more actual capacity to show up for the people you love. You're not running on fumes anymore. You're not performing aliveness while being dead inside. You're actually alive. And alive people are better partners, better parents, better friends, better colleagues.
The work of coming home to yourself isn't just about you. It's about everyone around you. Because when you stop saying later, you're giving other women permission to stop saying later too. When you raise your unicorn horn (in other words: when you set a boundary from a place of full authority instead of apology) you're showing the women around you that it's possible. That you can be feral and still be kind. That you can be wild and still be loved. That you don't have to shrink to be worthy.
What Stops Women From Saying Yes Now (And How to Move Past It)
I know why you're hesitating. I've heard every version of it.
"I don't have time for coaching." What you mean is: I don't have time to prioritize myself. And that's exactly the problem. The good woman curse tells you that your time belongs to everyone else first. So the idea of carving out time for you feels impossible. But here's what I know: you have time for the things you believe you deserve. And you don't believe you deserve this yet. That's what we work on in Find Her Again. We start by helping you understand that you do deserve this. That your time, your energy, your aliveness is not a luxury. It's a necessity.
"I can't afford it." What you mean is: I can't justify spending money on myself. Capitalism has convinced you that your worth is tied to your productivity and your ability to earn money for other people. So spending money on your own growth feels frivolous. But consider what you're actually affording with your inaction: a life that doesn't feel like yours. A diminished version of yourself. Decades of sparkle leak. Relationships built on the foundation of your own self-abandonment. The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in yourself. The question is whether you can afford not to.
"I don't know if this is for me." What you mean is: I'm afraid that if I start this work, I might have to change things. I might have to set boundaries. I might have to disappoint people. I might have to become someone my family doesn't recognize. And that's terrifying. But here's the truth: you're already changing. You're already becoming smaller, quieter, more tired. The only question is which direction you're changing in. You can change inward, toward yourself, toward your own aliveness. Or you can keep changing outward, away from yourself, toward a life that gets smaller every year. Pick one.
"I'll do it later." And there's your pattern. Right there. You're already saying it. To me. To yourself. Later. Next month. Next year. When things calm down. When you're ready. And I'm going to be gentle and also direct: later is a lie you've been told. It's the excuse the curses want you to make. It's how the system keeps you small.
The First Step: Saying Yes to Yourself Right Now
You don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to be ready. You don't have to know exactly what you're stepping into. All you have to do is say yes. Yes to coming home to yourself. Yes to meeting your inner Goblin. Yes to beginning the excavation of who you were before the taming got loud. Yes to the possibility that your aliveness matters. That you're not broken. That you were never meant to be this small.
When you say yes now, you're not signing up for a program. You're making a declaration. You're saying: I'm done saying later. I'm done making myself small. I'm done waiting for permission to come back to myself. I'm done being a dimmed-down version of who I actually am. And I'm starting now.
The Feral Unicorn is still in there. The wild, confident, hungry, alive version of you: the one who knew how to take up space before the system taught her to shrink. She's not gone. She's just buried. And she's waiting for you to come back to her. Not later. Now.
0 Comments