9|21|26Hey, Gem! How’s your heart? I pray it’s thriving. Let me tell you what’s been on mine.
Your Needs Are Allowed to Change x K.M.
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Remember the time when you could stay on the phone for hours, listening to someone pour every frustration into your lap? You kept their secrets, helped calm their fears, and made yourself available whenever life became too much for them. Back then, being needed may have made you feel loved. You had the space to hold it all, or at least you believed you did. You hardly realized you were people-pleasing.
Gem, doesn't it feel like things have changed?
Like these days, your body responds before you can explain what has changed. Your shoulders tense when some people’s names flash across the screen. You may stare at the phone and feel guilty for wanting to let it ring. You still love them. Yes, of course, you do. You are love—radiating it from the inside out. But you no longer have the same capacity to be everyone’s safe place while abandoning your own.
I understand because I’m there too.
That change is worth listening to. As women, we sometimes expect our needs to remain frozen while our lives continue moving. We tend to enter new relationships, build careers, raise children, lose people, begin again, care for aging parents, and meet versions of ourselves we could not have imagined years ago. Through every hardship and cycle, we can feel guilty when what once worked begins to wear us down. Sigh.
Research increasingly shows that women’s emotional experiences and stressors change across adulthood. A 2026 study of 415 Black women found that gendered racial microaggressions affected women differently depending on their stage of life. Younger women reported encountering them more frequently, while women between 46 and 64 were especially affected by stereotypes surrounding strength, beauty, and sexual objectification (Erving et al., 2026). The weight may change shape as we age, and our need for protection, rest, language, and support can change with it.
That truth reaches beyond wellness research. You can see it in the friendships that once survived on constant access but now require mutual care. And in the family role you accepted years ago, before you understood how much it would cost you. It rises in the workplace where you used to volunteer for every extra task, hoping your effort would make you valuable. Eventually, exhaustion kicks in and begins asking the questions you have avoided.
Does this still feel good to me? Do I still have room for this? Am I staying because it is healthy, or because everyone has grown comfortable with my sacrifice?
You know, all those types of questions where we realize we are our biggest critic and need to give ourselves a little grace? Yeah, those questions may feel uncomfortable because honest answers often come with responsibility. Recognizing that your needs have changed is a part of self-trust. A big part! Allowing your choices to reflect that change is another. All of the parts matter, complications and all.
You may need more reassurance in this season. And that’s okay. You may crave privacy after years of explaining yourself or desire community after convincing yourself that independence was safer. And that’s okay, too. It’s normal for a friendship that once felt nourishing to leave you emotionally depleted. A dream you chased faithfully may no longer resemble the life you want. That aches, I know. None of these realizations erases the woman you were when you made those choices. It was that same woman who responded with all the wisdom, hope, and capacity she had at the time. The difference is, you know yourself differently now.
Sometimes changing your needs means admitting that being “the strong one” has become painful. Dr. Jeannette M. Wade’s scholarly work on the Strong Black Woman trope describes how expectations of tireless strength can encourage emotional restraint, overwork, and caring for others before ourselves (Wade, 2026). Strength can live within you without requiring unlimited access to your energy. Care will remain part of your nature without requiring you to rescue everyone who reaches for you. They will be fine.
Still, I know that we must add accountability to the conversation. We cannot keep saying we need peace while reopening doors that disturb it. Asking others to honor boundaries we abandon whenever guilt arrives is wild. We cannot claim to have outgrown a pattern while continuing to feed it, because familiarity feels easier than change.
Don’t get me to preaching ‘round here.
May the discomfort reveal where a truer life is trying to take root. Changing your needs begins with one honest check-in. For you, that check-in may mean admitting you need help, asking for an evening alone, returning to therapy, seeking clarity in a relationship, or accepting that an old version of success no longer satisfies you. Every season will ask something different of you. The woman building her life may need courage, just like the woman grieving may need gentleness, or the woman beginning again may need patience.
Get it? Your responsibility is to remain close enough to yourself to hear the difference. Gem, honor the changes that come with growth. The life that once cared for you brought you here. Trust yourself enough to recognize what you need in this season.
May these words find a home in your heart. ♡
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If this reflection spoke to your heart, share it with another woman who may be learning to honor what she needs in this season. Remind her that beauty is allowed to change, grow, and choose what cares for her now.
Until next time, thank you for allowing us to walk beside you through every season. May you trust yourself enough to release what no longer fits and welcome what the woman you are becoming needs to thrive. – K.M.
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