For a long time, I lived under the belief that to create the life I wanted, I needed to simply work harder. It didn’t matter how depleted I became; the formula seemed clear: the more I pushed, the more I produced. And so I pushed. Less sleep. Long hours. Meals skipped so I could squeeze in more work. There was a fierce determination that kept me going, but also a quiet erosion happening underneath it all.

I began my adult life with a trial by fire — no resources, no clear direction, and a baby in my arms. In those early years, hard work was not just a habit; it was survival. It was the thing that allowed me to build a business, finish my education, and create a foundation for myself and my child. And for a while, it worked. Hard work got results.

But there was a shadow side to this commitment. I had unknowingly linked my worth to output and my security to sacrifice. Somewhere along the way I internalized the belief that depletion was required in order to succeed, that the road to any meaningful accomplishment had to be paved with this depletion.

The thing about survival patterns is that they work — until they don’t. At first, my version of commitment carried me. But eventually, it began to hollow me out. I became brittle. My patience wore thin. I noticed I wasn’t enjoying the people I usually enjoyed. My body was frail and tired, and with that fatigue came poor decisions and errors in judgment.

I was, in many ways, “committed” — but it was a distorted commitment. It was a commitment born of fear: the fear of losing ground, the fear of not being enough, the fear of what would happen if I stopped. It was commitment as compulsion, not devotion.

And then, like many of us who push too far, I hit a wall. I found myself cracking under the weight of it all. For the first time, my old way of doing things wasn’t working. I had to face the truth: my relationship with commitment needed to be transformed.

After decades of working in one way, I decided to take the advice of those around me and “be normal”—to finish work by 6pm, take weekends off, and pursue the more common pleasures of life. At first, this was difficult, but eventually it became routine. Yet, I did not feel more content. I felt more aimless, more self-indulgent, more dissatisfied. I had no desire to live a life of indulgence. Once again, I found myself at a dead end.

Life, in its wisdom, brought me both support and challenge to shift into a new way of being. I received enough help to keep me afloat — but also enough resistance to push me deeper. Slowly, I began to understand that it was not commitment itself that mattered, but what the commitment was to.

True commitment is not about endurance for its own sake. It is devotion to what nourishes and sustains, to what aligns us with our highest truth. It is about choosing again and again to align with what matters most — even when it is inconvenient, even when misunderstood, even when it asks us to release old ways of being.

Commitment, I realized, is an act of love.

As I looked deeper, I noticed that my distorted relationship with commitment wasn’t only personal — it was cultural. I had learned to survive by doing rather than being, by measuring my value through appearance rather than inner beauty, by caring for others while neglecting myself. Like many of us, I had been taught to suppress the feminine force within — the wisdom of the body, the power of receptivity, the right to be nourished.

What emerged was a new vision: commitment as a sacred balance of the masculine and feminine within. It is the focus and strength to act, yes — but also the willingness to listen inwardly, to rest, to be guided by spirit.

Now I see commitment not as a rigid vow to grind through life, but as ongoing devotion to my soul’s truth. It is choosing alignment over approval, integrity over exhaustion, devotion over compulsion.

Sometimes this devotion looks like saying yes to a big leap of faith. Other times it looks like saying no to what drains me. More often, it is the steady tending of the inner fire — the quiet acts of realignment with the truth of my heart.

Commitment is not about force; it is about fidelity. It is less about gripping tightly and more about returning, again and again, to what matters most.

If you find yourself caught in the old paradigm of commitment — where sacrifice, depletion, and fear are the drivers — I invite you to pause. Ask yourself:

What am I truly committed to?
Is it survival? Approval? Or is it the deeper call of your soul?

Commitment can be an expression of love rather than fear, a path of devotion rather than depletion. It invites us to align, to listen, to return to ourselves again and again. And when we do, commitment ceases to be a cage — it becomes a source of freedom, vitality, and spiritual strength.

Want to learn more about transforming commitment in your own life? Listen to the Podcast : EP 8 The Alchemy of Commitment — Devotion, Discipline, and Transformation