From Discipline to Devotion: Honoring the Feminine on International Women’s Day

By Margot Crane, MC, R.Psych | Registered Psychologist | Registered Social Worker | Crane Wellness, Edmonton, Alberta

International Women’s Day is about women. Full stop. It is a day to honor the strength, the resilience, the creativity, and the quiet ferocity of women everywhere — and it is not my intention to dilute that.

But this year, I want to offer something alongside the celebration. Because I think the most honest thing I can say to the women I work with — and to myself — on a day like today is this:

Somewhere along the way, women were told they could have it all. What that actually meant was that they were expected to do it all.

And in order to do it all, something quietly shifted. To earn a seat at the table — in the boardroom, in leadership, in every space that had previously been closed to them — women learned to lead with their shoulders back and their armor on. To match the energy of the room. To push harder, achieve more, show no weakness. To bring their masculine energy (yang, in Chinese philosophy) to the forefront and tuck their feminine energy (yin) somewhere safe. Or somewhere hidden. Or somewhere they eventually stopped being able to find.

And it worked. Let’s be clear about that. That fierce, driven, unstoppable energy built careers, shattered ceilings, changed laws, and created lives that previous generations of women could only dream of. That strength is real and it deserves to be celebrated today.

And — it has come at a cost.

The cost has been something internal and intimate: a disconnection from the full range of who these women actually are. The intuitive, creative, receptive, heart-centred part of them — the Shakti, the yin, the divine feminine — got quietly filed away under “not professional enough” or “too soft” or simply “no time for that right now.”

This isn’t one type of woman’s story. I see it in the executive who can’t switch off. In the helping professional who gives everything to everyone and has nothing left for herself. In the perfectionist who has achieved everything she set out to achieve and still feels like something is missing. The mom  who organizes, plans, prepares and feels guilty prioritizing her own needs. And in the woman whose children have grown and left home, who looks around and quietly wonders —

who am I now, beyond what I do for everyone else?

What all of these women share isn’t a job title or a life stage. It’s that they got extraordinarily good at operating on a fraction of themselves. And their nervous systems, their bodies, and some quiet part of their inner knowing have been sending signals ever since.

So this International Women’s Day, I want to talk about harmony. Not balance — balance implies a static equation, something to achieve and maintain. Harmony is alive. Rhythmic, responsive, dynamic. The push and the pull, the giving and the receiving, the doing and the being — moving together rather than at war with each other. Heart-centred leadership that draws on both the drive that got you here and the wisdom that knows when to soften.

Ancient traditions have been pointing at this for thousands of years. The Chinese concept of yin and yang. The yogic understanding of Shiva and Shakti. Different languages, different belief systems — the same essential truth: we need both. And when one is suppressed long enough, something in us starts asking, quietly or loudly, to come home.

She Got Here By Being Strong

Let’s name something first, because it matters: the drive, the independence, the capacity to push through — that’s not the problem. That’s actually extraordinary. For many of the women I work with, that fierce self-sufficiency is the very thing that got them through. Through difficult chapters, through systems that weren’t built for them, through every moment when they had no choice but to figure it out themselves. That strength is real. It deserves to be honored, not pathologized.

But here’s what I see again and again, both in my clients and in my own life: the very strength that carried you here may now be the thing that’s burning you out.

The same relentless drive that built your career, raised your family, and held everything together is running on a nervous system that was never designed for permanent overdrive. And at some point — often quietly, sometimes suddenly — the body starts sending signals. Exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix. Anxiety that has no clear cause. A flatness you can’t quite explain to anyone, including yourself.

The Brain You’ve Been Living In

Here’s something I find myself talking about often in sessions, because it tends to land immediately: most high-achieving, driven women are living almost entirely in their left brain.

The left brain is the analytical, sequential, logical, planning part of you. It’s the part that writes the to-do list, evaluates whether you’ve done enough, and immediately identifies what still needs fixing. It’s an incredibly useful part of you. It’s also, for many of us, running almost constantly — narrating, assessing, organizing, criticizing — with very little rest.

The right brain is its counterpart: creative, intuitive, sensory, relational, present-moment. This is the part that knows how to play, to feel, to be fully in an experience without immediately evaluating it. It’s where joy lives. Where rest actually lands. Where creativity comes from. And for many high-achievers, it barely gets a word in.

When I sit with a client who can’t stop thinking, can’t slow down, feels guilty the moment she rests — what I’m often witnessing is a nervous system that has learned to equate left-brain activity with safety and identity. Thinking, planning, and doing feel productive and therefore okay. Feeling, resting, and simply being feel dangerously close to falling behind.

This isn’t a personal failing. It’s a completely understandable adaptation to societal pressures and our conditioning. And it is also, over time, profoundly exhausting.

Masculine Energy (Or: Why You Keep Signing Up for Spin Class)

Across wisdom traditions — from Chinese philosophy to Ayurvedic medicine to Jungian psychology — there is a recognition that we all carry two fundamental energies within us. You might know one of them as masculine energy (called yang in Chinese philosophy as noted earlier): the active, structured, goal-oriented, outward-moving force. This is the energy of achievement and direction. It’s the part of you that makes the plan, executes it, and immediately starts on the next one. Sound familiar?

Masculine energy, when healthy, is genuinely remarkable. It gives us focus, integrity, the ability to hold a vision and move toward it. We need it. It has an important and honoured place. The issue isn’t the energy itself — it’s when it becomes the only energy we know how to access, and when it starts running us rather than the other way around.

There’s a concept in Ayurveda that I find quietly profound: like increases like. We are naturally drawn toward what already dominates within us — even when it’s the opposite of what we actually need. Which means the woman already running on adrenaline? She’s probably also the one booking the 6am spin class, the hot yoga, the high-intensity everything. And honestly, I’ve been there. Those choices feel good. They feel like you. They’re probably part of what’s made you successful.

And. They may also be keeping you locked in one gear, at the exact moment your nervous system is quietly asking for something different.

Feminine Energy and the Yin Yoga Revelation

The counterpart to masculine energy is feminine energy (yin in Chinese philosophy): receptive, inward-turning, fluid, still. This is the energy of receiving rather than reaching. Of feeling rather than fixing. Of being rather than doing. And it maps almost perfectly onto that underused right brain.

I remember the first time I went to a yin yoga class. For those unfamiliar: yin yoga involves holding long, slow, passive postures — sometimes for three to five minutes at a time. You might move through four or five poses in an entire hour.

My immediate, visceral reaction was: what a complete waste of my time.

Four postures in an hour? Where’s the sweat? Where’s the burn? Where’s the workout? I spent most of that first class mentally running through my to-do list, wondering why anyone would choose this when they could be doing something productive.

That restlessness, that resistance, that almost panicked need to keep moving — that was the information. My nervous system had become so accustomed to activation that stillness felt not just uncomfortable but almost threatening. Slowing down didn’t feel like rest. It felt like falling behind.

Feminine energy — the yin, the right brain — is where we receive rather than produce. The right brain is also the home of creativity, sensuality, and flow that state of effortless absorption where something in you comes fully alive, where time disappears and the inner critic goes quiet. Not indulgences. Intelligence. The kind that comes from the whole of you. Where we listen to the body rather than override it. Where rest is not a reward for productivity but simply a need, as valid as any other. For many high-achieving women, access to this energy has been so limited, for so long, that it genuinely feels foreign. Not because it’s absent. Because it’s been quietly waiting, underneath everything.

Integration: Holding Both

The goal here is not to trade your ambition for a slower life, or your left brain for your right. It’s not about becoming soft or giving up the drive that brought you this far. That would just be swapping one imbalance for another.

What I’m pointing toward is integration — the capacity to be structured and soft, driven and present, analytical and intuitive. To honour both the part of you that wants to build something meaningful and the part of you that needs stillness in order to sustain it.

Healthy masculine energy creates the container: the direction, the boundaries, the commitment. Healthy feminine energy fills that container with meaning: the intuition, the creativity, the wisdom that comes from actually being in your life rather than perpetually managing it from a distance.

A sprint has its place. So does a slow walk. The question isn’t which one is better — it’s whether you have genuine access to both, and whether you’re choosing freely or running on autopilot.

Shiva and Shakti: The Wholeness That Was Always There

In the ancient Shaiva traditions of India, this same truth is described through the union of Shiva and Shakti — two forces that together represent the totality of existence.

Shiva is pure consciousness: vast, still, the steady witnessing presence beneath all movement. Shakti is the dynamic creative force: energy, aliveness, passion, the power that animates everything. Neither is complete without the other. Shiva without Shakti is stillness without aliveness. Shakti without Shiva is movement without ground.

What makes this framework so quietly beautiful is this: in the Shaiva tradition, both of these forces live within you. This is not about finding something outside yourself or becoming something you’re not. It’s about remembering what was always there — a wholeness that no amount of achievement can manufacture, because it was never actually absent.

The work, then, is not addition. It’s recognition.

Discipline vs. Devotion: A Different Relationship With Yourself

Everything above — the left and right brain, the yin and yang, the masculine and feminine, the Shiva and Shakti — is really pointing at one thing: the quality of your relationship with yourself.

Discipline says: I have to go to the gym. I should eat better. I need to be more productive. I’ll rest when I’ve earned it.

Devotion asks: How do I want to tend to this body today? What does she need to feel nourished right now? What would feel like care, rather than correction?

Discipline keeps score. Devotion stays curious.

Discipline is rooted in the belief that you are not yet enough — that if you just push a little harder, you’ll finally arrive somewhere safe. Devotion is rooted in the recognition that you are already worthy of care, and that the way you treat yourself is either reinforcing that truth or quietly contradicting it, every single day.

And devotion doesn’t abandon structure. Some mornings, devotion looks like getting up early and moving your body with real intention. Other evenings, it looks like choosing rest without negotiation, without making yourself earn it first. The difference isn’t the action. It’s the energy behind it. One comes from fear. The other comes from love.

What This Looks Like in Real Life — and in Healing

In my work as a trauma-informed, holistic psychologist in Edmonton, I see the discipline-as-punishment dynamic show up in so many sessions— in how people talk about food, sleep, exercise, productivity, and rest. I hear it in the language they use about themselves: I should be doing more. I’m so bad at this. I just need to be better.

This inner dialogue is often the residue of earlier experiences where love felt conditional, where being enough required performance, and where stopping wasn’t safe. The nervous system learned: keep moving, stay vigilant, don’t slow down. And then it kept running that program long after the original circumstances had changed.

Healing doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it’s the quiet moment when you notice the self-critical voice and, instead of obeying it or fighting it, you simply ask: what do I actually need right now? And then, radically, you listen.

Trauma and somatic informed approaches to therapy support exactly this kind of integration. When we work with the nervous system — not just the thinking mind — we begin to create new experiences of safety in the body. The body that was once managed and overridden becomes a source of wisdom. The relationship shifts from adversarial to collaborative. From discipline to devotion.

An International Women’s Day Invitation

To every woman reading this: your strength is not the problem. Your drive, your capability, your refusal to give up — those are not things to be fixed or softened or apologized for. They are part of you and they are magnificent.

But you were not designed to run on one frequency forever. The Shakti — the wild, creative, passionate, generative feminine force that lives in you — needs space to breathe. Not because you’re fragile. Because you’re human. Because even the most powerful river has banks. Because rest is not the opposite of strength. It is what makes strength sustainable.

The yin to your yang. The stillness beneath the movement. The harmony your nervous system has been quietly asking for, perhaps for a very long time.

This International Women’s Day, the most radical thing you might do is not push harder. It might be to play. To create. To receive. To laugh until something loosens. To follow curiosity without justifying it. To let yourself be fully alive in a way that has nothing to do with output.

Not instead of everything you've built — but in harmony with it. Because the woman who hustles and slays and knows when to put the sword down? She's not choosing between strength and softness. She's learning to hold both.

And that, I think, is worth celebrating.

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If this resonates and you’re ready to explore what a more harmonious, integrated relationship with yourself could look like, I’d be honored to support you. As a holistic and integrative psychologist, I work with high-achieving individuals across Alberta — in person in Edmonton and virtually throughout the province.

Learn more at cranewellness.ca or connect here

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are so many high-achieving women burnt out even when they love their lives?

Because loving your life and being overwhelmed by it are not mutually exclusive. Many high-achieving women carry what researchers call the ‘mental load’ — the invisible labour of tracking, planning, and anticipating everything — on top of full professional and personal lives. The nervous system doesn’t distinguish between chosen and unchosen responsibilities. Over time, chronic overdrive leads to exhaustion that rest alone can’t fix. Therapy that addresses the nervous system, not just the schedule, can help.

What is the mental load and how does it affect women’s mental health?

The mental load refers to the cognitive and emotional labour of managing household, family, and relational life — the remembering, anticipating, coordinating, and worrying that often happens invisibly. Research consistently shows this falls disproportionately on women. Over time it contributes to chronic stress, anxiety, resentment, and a pervasive sense of never truly being off duty. Recognizing and naming the mental load is often one of the first steps toward genuinely sustainable change.

What does yin and yang have to do with women’s burnout?

In Chinese philosophy, yang energy is active, outward-moving, and achievement-oriented — and yin energy is receptive, restorative, and inward-turning. Most high-achieving women are significantly over-indexed in yang energy, partly because the modern world rewards it and partly because carrying the full weight of everything has left little room for yin. When yin is chronically depleted, the nervous system suffers. Reintegrating rest, receptivity, and genuine stillness is not a luxury — it’s a physiological need.

What is a holistic or integrative psychologist and how is it different from regular therapy?

A holistic or integrative psychologist works with the whole person — body, mind, nervous system, emotions, and sometimes spiritual wellbeing — rather than focusing only on symptoms or behaviours. Rather than applying a single fixed model, an integrative approach draws on multiple evidence-based frameworks to meet each person where they are. This might include trauma-informed approaches, somatic work, EMDR, Compassion-Focused Therapy, and ACT, depending on what the person needs.

Can therapy help with people-pleasing and the pressure to do everything?

Yes — and this is one of the most common things I work on with clients. People-pleasing, perfectionism, and the inability to stop are rarely just habits. They are often deeply rooted adaptive responses — ways the nervous system learned to stay safe or earn love in earlier environments. Trauma-informed therapy, EMDR, and Compassion-Focused Therapy can help you understand where these patterns came from and build a genuinely different relationship with yourself, grounded in self-trust rather than self-monitoring.

Do you offer therapy for women dealing with burnout and anxiety in Alberta?

Yes. I offer trauma-informed, holistic therapy for high-achieving women, people-pleasers, and perfectionists across Alberta. In-person sessions are available at my Edmonton office, and virtual therapy is available throughout the province. Learn more here

About the Author

Margot Crane, MC, R. Psych is a Registered Psychologist, Registered Social Worker and founder of Crane Wellness, a private practice based in Edmonton, Alberta. With over 14 years of clinical experience, Margot specializes in working with high-achieving women, people-pleasers, perfectionists, helping professionals, and spiritually-minded individuals who are ready to move beyond anxiety and self-doubt toward authenticity, integration, and alignment — and to embrace their own evolution.

Her approach is trauma-informed and holistic, drawing on EMDR (including Advanced EMDR and N.E.S.T. certification), Compassion-Focused Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and somatic-informed interventions. She works with clients in person in Edmonton and virtually throughout Alberta, and provides provisional supervision for psychologists registered with the College of Alberta Psychologists.

Learn more at cranewellness.ca