What Real Resilience Looks Like (It’s Not What You Think)

What if true strength isn’t about bouncing back—but about slowing down and finally saying “enough”? In this tender, grounding episode, Caroline shares a more compassionate definition of resilience: one rooted in rest, nervous system repair, and returning to your voice. If you’ve ever felt like you had to “hold it all together,” this conversation is your permission slip to soften, reclaim your truth, and begin again.

Through honest storytelling and embodied wisdom, Caroline explores the difference between performative strength and true resilience—and how that shift makes room for your voice to rise.

Resilience Is Not About Bouncing Back

For so long, I thought being resilient meant “pushing through.” But when I was burned out and numb, that kind of strength only kept me stuck. True resilience, I’ve learned, is about allowing. It’s about being honest with what hurts, asking for support, and letting yourself come undone in safe places.

It’s in those cracks—when we stop pretending—that our real voice begins to rise.

Performative Strength vs. True Support

In the episode, I talk about how easy it is to confuse “doing well” with simply coping. Maybe you’re still getting things done, showing up, holding space—but inside, you’re exhausted. Real resilience doesn’t demand performance. It invites softness, nervous system healing, and the safety to begin again from a more honest place.

Returning to Your Voice

This kind of healing opens the door for your voice to return—not the curated version, but the real, raw one. The one you’ve been too tired to speak. When we stop trying to be everything for everyone, we finally hear ourselves. And from that place, new beginnings become possible.

If you’ve been carrying too much, pretending you’re okay, or unsure how to come back to yourself, this episode is for you.

Let’s walk this return together.

✨ Ready to go deeper?
🕯️ Book your Voicekeeper Awakening Session
🌿 Join the waitlist for The Voicekeeper Circle
📖 Download your free Beginning Again Ritual

You don’t have to bounce back.

You’re allowed to begin again.

---

The Transcript for The Voicekeeper Podcast:

009: What Real Resilience Looks Like (It’s Not What You Think)

[00:00:00] For a long time, I thought resilience meant pushing through, holding it all together, getting back up quickly, right? But that kind of resilience left me hollow real resilience. The kind I've come to know now is much quieter. It's tender messy. Sometimes it looks like resting instead of rising. Sometimes it looks like finally saying enough.

If you've ever felt that your strength has been misunderstood or if you're tired of being the strong, the way that you've been taught to be, this episode is for you.

 [00:01:00] 

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Voice Keeper Podcast. I'm Caroline. Today we are talking about resilience, but not the polished hustle kind. The real kind, the kind that helps you reclaim your voice after it's been silenced by survival. So as always, we're gonna start with a breath.

I want you to gently close your eyes. Take a big inhale and a big exhale. Soften your jaw, and I want you to let go. Exhale out the version of resilience you were told to embody.

Let's make space for a new one to rise.

I hope you are all having a wonderful day as you're listening to [00:02:00] this. , I am in my office with a little bit of mood lighting. If you're seeing me on YouTube. Uh, it is storming outside, which is not something, um, we, we paid attention to. So it's very rainy, very stormy today. I think we're in a flood watch, which is super fun.

And I came down to my office and I was like, you know, I don't think I want my big lights on. I've had this light, this, this lamp in my office for a while, and unbeknownst to me it has been plugged in, well, for probably the year or two that it's been sitting there. I thought that there wasn't a plug over here, so it wasn't plugged in.

We don't really have another spot for, it's a very large lamp. It's beautiful. It's, um, was gifted to us and. It's been interesting because now that I know it's plugged in, it's really changed my perspective On my office, I have this really big overhead light that I absolutely detest, and I hate how sharp it makes, uh, my videos look.

It also makes my [00:03:00] eyes very squinty because I have sensitive blue eyes, and so it's been kind of fascinating, like falling back in love with the lighting in my office. And I don't know, I just felt really called to share that, you know, sometimes there are things in front of us that we can't see or haven't recognized, and they're there to be helpful.

And you know, sometimes we just have to look around. Try that button. Even if you don't think it works, it might work. So today we are chatting about resilience and. When I was thinking about my launch episodes, I knew this was something I wanted to talk about because this is a really big piece of like being a voice keeper, finding your voice.

, This is something that I have been trying to figure out what it means to me over the years, you know, especially when I've gone through hard things, [00:04:00] is like, what, what does it actually mean to be resilient? You know, we've been conditioned to believe that resilience is how quickly we recover, how well we keep showing up, how silent we can be about the cost.

Right? And I think about this a lot in the different roles that I've had in my life. You know, the role of motherhood, for example. Motherhood requires a lot of resilience. It really does. But there have been some really hard. Hard mom moments. , And there were a lot of moments where I didn't have a lot of emotional support in what I, what I was going through.

I've always been very fortunate to have my own mom and my life helping me out. But, you know, there's a lot going on as a mother. Uh, there's a lot you're trying to figure out. There's a lot in that. Shifts in identity and time and all those [00:05:00] things, and I just remember like all these moments when I was looking back and thinking about this as it was getting in this episode ready, I was thinking back to when my two oldest were little and how difficult that time was for me because it was like a whole new identity, a whole new way of living my life.

And I was flipping exhausted. I was so tired. Um, especially when my sweet second was born. She had a chronic illness that we did not know at the time, and so she didn't sleep, she didn't eat well. It was a lot going on and it was exhausting. And I remember that there was definitely this, this feeling of like, I can't let anybody know how hard this is.

Right? Like, I, like I chose this, I made these decisions. I need to. Own it and, and hold it and do it. And I think the same as with like being a business owner. There's been a lot of that, like performative, like everything's fine when [00:06:00] everything has not been fine at all. , And in fact, I'm in like a little moment of that as well where.

You know, think there are some things in my business that are not going the way I want it to be, and I definitely am feeling this push and pull between like, well, how do I talk about that? You know, how do I show up? How do I keep going? How do I not give up completely? You know, these are the things that I think about when I think about resilience, and I want you to think about the times when you've had to perform strength.

So show outward strength, appear strong. Instead of truly feeling supported. When is a time in your life maybe you have felt that maybe you've hit burnout and you didn't know what to do in that moment of burnout besides keep pushing forward? This is a real common thread that I see with the women that I work with.

You know, they come to [00:07:00] me and they've tried so hard to make something work that isn't working and it's pushed them to the brink. Right. Like they're tired, they're exhausted. They're feeling that burnout. They're wondering like, is this, is this really what life is supposed to be? This feeling of this is so freaking hard and I can't let anybody know.

I gotta keep portraying, right. Performing strong, and it comes up in a lot of different places. Sometimes it's. You know, in content that they're creating. If I'm working with a business owner, um, sometimes it's in the offers that they're offering. Sometimes it's simply in getting up in the morning and feeling like I have a plan for how this day, how my rhythm is gonna go so I could be supportive of my family.

You know, it's not always like these big, big things. It can be little things like, how am I showing up in my job today? You know, [00:08:00] my, my work is burning me out my job where I leave my family and I go to work every day and it's totally burning me out. And when I come home, I feel like I don't have anything left for my family and kids, but I keep showing up.

I keep saying I'm fine, I keep whatever, whatever. Right? There are, there are these moments, these times in life where this happens. And so I really wanna get into like what resilience is. And so if you're feeling. Like, I have to be strong. I need to get through this hard thing. I hope that this gives you some things to think about to help work on, on having true resilience and not just performative resilience.

And again, the reason why this is so important to me is when you are in a state, when you are in a state of performative strength, I feel like that's a new. A term we're going to coin here on this episode. When you're in a state of performative strength, you're really [00:09:00] are unable to connect with your, your, your actual self, with your higher self, your actual self.

It's really hard to form those connections. It's really hard to then establish like, who am I? What am I saying in this world? Who am I showing up as? And so that's why this is so important to me. So let's talk about resilience. In that it's not just survival, it's integration like survival keeps us alive, right?

But resilience helps us live, and this is a really big difference. I, I say this all the time, whenever I'm talking about certain times in my life, I'll say, well, I wasn't thriving, right? I was surviving. And, and you can feel that different. You can tell like when you're in survival mode and when you're actually thriving as a human.

And when we go into survival mode and not resilience, not [00:10:00] thriving, there are things that happen to ourself, right? When you go into survival, like think about these things, what parts of you went into hiding to keep surviving? Right? And maybe you're coming out of a, a phase of survival, or maybe you have been in survival mode for a really long time and now you don't need to be in survival mode.

And you're like, well, I don't. Really know like what's next. And this is where this next question comes up is what do you now want to reclaim that you didn't have space for before? I think mothers especially can really connect to this because when we're raising kids, there's definitely periods where it's more surviving and thriving.

, Just because raising kids takes a lot out of you and. You know, as your kids get older, there becomes this moment where they don't need you quite as much as they did before. And it's like, oh my gosh, now I have time [00:11:00] again. And what do I do with this time? You know, that's a really good example of kind of what that looks like.

, I had somebody even reach out to me recently that said this exact thing, you know, what, what comes next? And that's really like the part where we start to lean into. Resilience and reclaiming that feeling of thriving. The other thing that I think is really important that we underestimate is that true resilience makes room for slowness.

So when we. Are trying to force resilience to force that strength. We try to force a lot of healing. And let me tell you, the strongest thing I ever did to was stop rushing my healing. And this is so hard because I know that like you wake up and you're like, I wanna be healed, and you want it to happen all at once, but.

You have to take the time [00:12:00] to really address all the systems. And there are a couple that I wanna highlight because I think these are really, really important. , The first one is nervous system repair. Holy moly. Can we please do an entire episode on this? Maybe we will. But when you are in survival mode.

You actually like damage your nervous system. Now I am someone who has experienced trauma, so I have like an added layer of nervous system issues. My nervous system like actually functions differently than say someone who hasn't been through trauma. Right? And so, I mean, let's layer that on as well, but.

Your nervous system actually takes quite a hit when you're in survival mode. , And so that's one of the things that I think is really important. And, you know, and it, it's also something that I've tried to grit my teeth through. Like, you know, when your nervous system needs help, like when you feel, you know, you [00:13:00] hear people say, oh, that triggered me.

Right? But that is a real thing. I think. Like, you know, if somebody yells, I get very triggered. . If I hear a loud noise, I jump, and then my heart like beats forever. You know, that is your nervous system responding to a stressor, and so are you able to come out of that and feel good? Are you, or do you not have any tools in your tool belt to help you with that?

And there's a, I'll just name a couple things that I love to do for nervous system regulation. , Meditation is huge for me. Meditation and breathing. It's so, so freaking huge. Like when I can feel my nervous system getting all, if I can just go breathe somewhere for a few minutes, it makes such a difference.

, My daughter has a chronic illness. I mentioned this and one of the things we have been working on with her is getting her nervous system regulated because stress can actually cause, , some of her [00:14:00] symptoms. And so it's like, well, if stress is causing symptoms, how do we help regulate your stress? Well, it's by regulating the nervous system.

And so she's been meditating and it's been kind of fascinating to watch how it's been keeping her symptoms from popping up. And when she does start to feel a little symptom pop up, she goes and does meditation. As a part of other things, and it really, really helps her. You know, all of this is really important when we talk about honoring your body's wisdom.

Like your body knows your body carries stress, your body carries, , a dysregulated nervous system. And like if you sit down and actually like go, Hey body, how you doing today? It'll tell you like, Hey, I'm stressed, you know, or, Hey, I need like a walk. Or Hey, I need some extra water today. Like, start listening to your body and that's gonna help you feel so much better and so much in like, in tune with what's going on [00:15:00] to help you, um, create that slowness to help you create that nervous system repair.

Another part of, um, stop rushing healing and, and making room for slowness is that there is a huge difference between coping and reconnecting. And one of the things that I have noticed in my own journey is the many, many years of coping, right? Like, like getting through, just managing whatever, actually taking the time to reconnect with yourself, who you are, what you believe, what makes you tick, what makes you happy, what makes you fulfilled, what makes you feel like you.

It, it doesn't happen overnight. It's definitely a process. And this goes back to, I've mentioned in a couple of my episodes, um, that how I saw the TikTok video where someone said, dressed to make your 15-year-old self proud. That has been like a six month journey for me. Like it doesn't happen overnight, right?

And so I want you to really think about like, am I coping or am I [00:16:00] actually reconnecting with myself? And those things like nervous system repair, honoring your body's wisdom. Acknowledging the difference between coping and reconnecting are gonna help you build true resilience in a way that is not gonna be rushed or performative.

Right? And then the final thing I wanna talk about with resilience is that reclaimed resilience leads to voice. So this is like, you know, a part of the framework that I work in, a part of what I do, what's important to me. Um. I cannot state enough how incredibly important I think it is that people feel that they can act accurately and authentically use their voice in whatever way.

Like I'm not talking about like standing on a soapbox and, and I'm preaching or anything like that. I'm literally talking about being able to speak your truth in your own life, right? And here's the thing about [00:17:00] this. You can't hear your voice if you're still holding your breath. Right. Like if you are in that coping mode and not that reconnecting mode, if you're in survival and not thriving, you cannot hear your true voice.

Because when we are in survival and performative resilience, right? So showing, showing strength, even when we need a freaking break, our, our brain and our nervous system are running the show. But when you're able to slow down and reconnect and let your heart take a little bit more of the lead, that's really when you're able to go, oh, there's something inside of me that's been wanting to be said and I haven't acknowledged it.

Right? Real resilience creates enough safety for your truth to come through, and that's why I think it's so, so important that we acknowledge the difference between [00:18:00] real resilience and forced strength. So I want you to think about a couple things. You know, what is your voice trying to say now that you've slowed down?

So, if you're coming out of a time of coping or coming out of a time of surviving, have you heard any intuitive nudges? Has your voice been trying to say something to you? Right? And then think about what truths are ready to arise when you stop performing strength. You know, when you're not trying to put on a mask for everybody and you're actually like in your, your room or your cozy corner reading, you know, the latest romantical uh, fantasy sensation, what, what, what is your voice telling you in that moment?

I think probably one of the biggest skills that I have learned and one of the biggest skills that I work with, with my clients. Is starting to listen [00:19:00] to your inner voice because so, so often we listen to our head, not our heart. There's a huge disconnection there and we don't hear these things. And when we do hear them, our brain goes, nah, right?

Because we've been so conditioned by the outside world. And so, you know, take these two reflection questions and, and maybe write 'em down and put 'em somewhere for when the moment feels right. But what is your voice trying to say now? What truths are ready to rise when you stop performing strength.

So just a reminder, like you don't have to keep surviving to be worthy of rust reconnection or visibility. You are allowed to reclaim your voice on your terms. And I just, I really wanna emphasize that you are on your own schedule your own time. You wear your own full liping, amazing human person. [00:20:00] So like, reclaim your voice, reclaim what resilience means to you, and it's gonna make such a huge impact on how you go through your day-to-day life.

Just a couple of notes before we close. , You know, working with people on resilience and voice is. Such a huge thing for me. It it, it's what drew me to this work. It's what, it's what I wanna do with my time. So if you're interested in having some one-on-one guidance, I do have spots open. You can head to carolinehull.com and uh, check out my work with Me page and you'll see the different ways that I work with people.

, And then if you're interested in just booking like one session to see how it works. If this is for you, you can book a Voice Keeper Awakening session that's a one hour session. It's like a, it's like a mini coaching moment, and it's a really great way to get a taste of what.

Spiritual coaching can do for your life, and so you can head to [00:21:00] carolinehull.com/awaken The wait list for the voice keeper circle is open. This is gonna be a community healing container. I'm really excited about it. I will have more information coming up really soon because the first cohort will start in August, so be on the lookout for that.

I'll put the link in the show notes and then lastly, I know what else. Call to actions. , I actually have a free gift for you all. So since this is a special week for me, this is a relaunch of my podcast and really this is me staking my claim in the world and being like, this is what I'm gonna be doing, right?

It is really important to me that this be a fun week, and I have a free gift for everyone who is. Going on this journey with me this week. So I have created a, , so I have created a short ritual for you. I thought it'd be really fun if I created something around beginnings. , [00:22:00] Episode eight was all about beginnings.

This, that leads into this episode and leads into the next episode. And so I created a ritual for beginning again. It has a meditation and some journal prompts, and you can head to carolinehull.com/begin to get your free gift. As a thank you for being here and being with me, and if you are on Insight Timer, I am hoping to have that meditation on Insight timer very soon as well.

Okay. I think that's all my notes. I feel like I'm teaching a yoga class. You know, when you go to yoga and they're, they have like the notes they have to get through. , I kind of feel like I stepped into that for a moment. So thank you for hanging out with me. But I wanna end in a grounding moment because there was a lot in this episode.

So may you remember that your softness is not weakness. Your slow, your slowness is not failure. And your voice is sacred, especially when it returns through the cracks. [00:23:00] You've got this. I'm here for you. I'll see you next time.

---