In this solo episode of the Dr. Zoe Show, licensed psychotherapist and life coach Dr. Zoe Shaw explores the misconceptions that many women hold about what it means to be "strong." She opens with a personal "superwoman win" (managing household duties while her husband is ill) and a "superwoman fail" (bailing out her adult son instead of letting him learn from his own struggle), using these anecdotes to illustrate how well‑intentioned actions can reinforce limiting myths. Dr. Zoe then outlines four core "pillars"—time, spirituality, education, friendships, and health—each paired with a common myth (e.g., "I don’t have time" or "I don’t need friends") and a counter‑reframing that emphasizes agency, intentionality, and self‑care. She stresses that time is a matter of choice, that creating mental and physical space fuels growth, that a relationship with one’s soul or God is essential for purpose, that continuous learning is non‑negotiable, and that nurturing supportive female friendships and personal health are indispensable for true strength. Throughout, she offers practical language shifts, actionable steps (scheduling self‑care, reading, seeking community), and motivational encouragement, concluding with a call to listeners to reflect on their own myths and to engage with her community online.
Grab a cup of tea or listen as you go, ladies. This is your hour with Dr. Zoe, your life and relationship coach. With encouragement, on-point insight, inspiring guests, health tips, and advice, Dr. Zoe helps busy women keep their mind in the game by redefining your superwoman. You're listening to the Dr. Zoe Show.
Hey there, welcome to the Dr. Zoe Show, Redefining Your Superwoman. I am your host, Dr. Zoe. I'm a licensed psychotherapist, a life and relationship coach, and a motivational speaker, and I can work with you virtually to help you get unstuck. Connect with me by texting the word strong to 38470. And this podcast is all about helping women stay strong in sometimes difficult relationships, including the difficult relationship with Today's topic is overcoming strong woman myths. But first up, my superwoman win and my superwoman fail. So my fail is that I bailed my son out when I really should have let him figure it out. And I'm not going to go into detail because it's his business, not mine. He's a grown adult now, which is so weird for those words to roll off my tongue. My baby's a grown-up. But don't worry, it wasn't jail or anything like that. Actually, the problem was it really wasn't that serious, and I should have let him figure it out. As soon as I fixed it, I instantaneously was like, wait, I just messed up. I should not have bailed him out. I should have let him figure it out. And he would have. That's the thing. Of course I trust him. I know he would have. I know better, but sometimes I get so busy and it was way too easy to hit a few buttons on my phone and take care of the whole thing. And he was appreciative that I did, but that's not the point. When they're babies, It's a lot easier to pick him up and walk him across the room, but you have to sit there and you have to watch your child struggle as he takes his own steps, or you cripple him. So there's my fail. Maybe that will help another mama today. Let your child fail. And my win is that my hubby is sick. That's not the win, but he's been sick and really just laid up for about a week. And what that means is that I've been holding it down and I've been doing all the things by myself. I feel a I'm a little tired, but all the things are getting done, and so I count that as a win. So on to the topic, overcoming strong woman myths. My mom was a stay-at-home mom and she loved her work. She felt very passionate about her role as a mom, but she also came from a time when the lines were more impenetrable between stay-at-home moms and working moms. Now we have hybrid lives. Things aren't as black and white. We have co-sharing positions, telecommuting, easier opportunities for entrepreneurship, and of course we still have regular traditional 9-to-5s, but we can seamlessly move between work and home, and we can travel the world and still work at the same time if you're lucky. And although my mom grew up in the 1960s and she went to college, she still very much believed that a woman's place was in the home and that women who worked were sacrificing their families because they wanted to be like men, that they were copping out and they were taking the selfish, easy route. Now, I know that that sounds incredulous to even say those things now, but this is the truth of what I was taught. I grew up desiring a career. I've wanted to be a psychotherapist since as long as I can remember, but I was always torn about my place in that. And so when I did start out my career, I started it out in ambivalence. I didn't accept the full-time postdoc at the prestigious hospital because I had a 1-year-old at home and I felt it was wrong to leave him every day to go to work. I walked the wire for years between being a stay-at-home mom and being a professional with an active career. I was in a constant state of guilt, and I honestly feel that both my career and my family suffered as a result. I tried to do it all. I homeschooled my kids. I worked almost full-time. I burned the candle at both ends, all trying to prove that I could do it all. And maybe, maybe you're getting a picture of how the whole concept of redefining your superwoman was born in me. Now, this is my issue. It's probably not yours, but you can see how the lies we tell ourselves about what a woman should or shouldn't be doing, what constitutes a strong woman, can actually hinder our development and significantly affect the course of our lives. I've learned over time that there are not black and whites for everything, that there are fine lines and the line kind of moves and permeates sometimes. I do believe that there are absolute truths, but I also know that those absolute truths are few and far between. And it took me many years to recognize that my truths were lies, that strong women could do both. And although it can be messy, and although there has to be a lot of intention involved, it can be done. Very well. So you want to be a strong woman? The pursuit of true strength is not for the timid. So I'm going to talk today about, I think, 4 pillars of potential strength where we need to check our myths that might exist. I'm going to talk later in the future about the 9 pillars of a strong woman, but today I'm just going to take 4 of them. The first one is time, the time-space pillar. And the myth is, I don't have the time. The reality is, yes, you do. I work really hard to get 2 related concepts regarding this out of my vocabulary. The first one is, I don't have the time. The second one is, I don't have the money, or I can't afford it. They're kind of the same thing. First, it's usually completely false. It's always the case with time, and it's almost always the case with money. Now, can I afford a $10 million home? No. That's accurate. I can't. But that's not usually what I'm talking about. Can I afford that vacation or that car, or can I afford to take a day off? Of course I really can. I just don't want to sacrifice whatever I might need to sacrifice in order to get those things. So let's speak honestly. Whenever I feel like I want to say I can't afford that, I correct myself and I say it's not worth it to me, or I don't want to invest in that. That's the truth. It may sound like a subtle shift, not worth doing, but your brain believes what you tell it. And if you tell it you can't afford it, it finds a way to manifest that as truth. And when it comes to time, same thing. We all have the same amount of time. Of course, we all know that, but sometimes you need to sit and think about that. We all, every single person in this world has the same amount of time in a day. It's just what we choose to do with it. So it's never that we don't have time for anything, and I try so hard not to say that. Instead, I say, it's not worth the time to me, I don't feel like doing it, or I don't want to invest my time in that. That is honoring that you choose how to spend your moments in life. Life doesn't choose you. Also, I'm learning that when it comes to personal time, Strong women make time for space. Now, this is sometimes a really hard one for me because I've been conditioned, or I've conditioned myself, that space is a waste. And a lot of clients that I talk with about the concept of space and being quiet feel this way, but it's not true. Space multiplies, busyness divides. I'm going to say that again. Space multiplies, Busyness divides. Space is growth. A woman of strength recognizes that she has to create space in her life to breathe, to reflect, to think, in order to have the things in place in her brain and her psyche that she needs to be able to move forward in her purpose. Speaking of purpose, I want to talk about the spiritual myths. You have to have a connection with God who created your soul, otherwise you're missing out on an entire aspect of who you are. You are equally soul and body. If you ignore your soul and your relationship with God, you're cutting yourself off from yourself and you're curtailing your ability to follow your purpose. Now I've created a ton of myths about God and who he is to me. And you need to ask yourself about your myths that you create about who God is and isn't in your life. The next is the education pillar. So let's be super clear here. I am not talking about any degree, certificate, or credential, and I have all that stuff and I I can say with certainty that none of it ensures that you are well-educated. You ensure that you're well-educated. If you believe though that you've made it or you've studied enough in your life and you no longer need to read, study, or be educated, then you are wrong and that is a myth and you aren't growing. A strong woman needs to read, and if you can't read, you need to listen. In this information age, you have no excuse to be uneducated. A woman of strength never stops learning. She purposefully seeks knowledge because she knows she can never have enough. She understands that she's constantly growing and changing, and so is the world around her. Stagnation stinks, and that's what happens when you don't educate yourself, and before you know it, you're stinking and others have passed you by. The next one is the girlfriend pillar. The myth regarding that one is, I don't need friends. Now I've had 2, maybe 3 episodes about friends on this podcast for a reason, because I believe in them very strongly and their necessity in a woman's life. But the myth can be, I don't need friends because friends carry drama. But a woman of strength has girlfriends. I want that to sink in. A woman of strength builds up her character and she builds up her ability to be vulnerable So that she can have healthy relationships. I'm reading a fantastic book called Daring to Live by Sheri Hunter, and she talks about her group of women, her warrior women. This is a great book about friendship and really rediscovering yourself as a woman and, you know, really rediscovering your purpose in life. But anyway, what I love is that she doesn't sugarcoat this journey between she and these 3 other women in her life. Sheri, Anjanette, Mia, and Brenda. If you guys are listening, I want you on my podcast. In her book, Sheri gets real about some of the drama that happens when you get a couple women together or more. But she called it what it was, and she owned up to her part. And instead of throwing in the towel on a really meaningful, deep friendship, she dug in, she got a little messy, and she did the hard work— all of them did, really— of maintaining relationships. My best friend Rosie and I have been doing life together for 18 years now, and there have been times when we didn't like each other. I don't think we ever looked at each other and said we don't like each other, but we value our friendship and we value the benefit of it in our life to such an extent that we're willing to say the hard stuff, lay ourselves out so that we can come back together in love. So I'm not saying it's easy. I know relationships with women Can sometimes come with drama, but I can tell you that no truly strong woman walks alone. Our friendships sharpen us. The skills we need to navigate and maintain them are the same skills that we need to succeed in life. So if you want to be a strong woman, you need to cultivate relationships with other women. It's just a myth that you don't need friends. And the last one I'm going to talk about today is the health pillar. And the myth is, I don't have time to take care of myself. I'm raising my hand right now because I'm guilty of it. And my friend Rosie and I call each other out on this stuff all the time in ourselves. But once again, this goes back to the time myth. Yes, you do have time to take care of yourself. You're just putting yourself last on the priority list. Put yourself first. Take care of you. You already know why. You've heard it before. But Just do it. Make the doctor's appointment, schedule your workout time, schedule your me time. Don't fall into that myth that you don't have time to take care of yourself. So I hope you're addressing some of these myths in your life. And thank you so much for listening to the Dr. Zoe Show. New shows go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode and hit me up. Let me know what you think of the episodes. I look forward to connecting with you amazing women on social media throughout the week. Have a super week.
You've been listening to the Dr. Zoe Show, Redefining Your Superwoman, with your host, Dr. Zoe Shaw. Don't forget to sign up for her monthly newsletters to get encouragement, tips, and skills for keeping your mind in the superwoman game. Connect with her now at www.drzoeshow.com. drzoeshaw.com. Tell your friends and subscribe to her podcast on iTunes. Join us next time for another edition of The Dr. Zoe Show.
