The Hidden Consequence of Career

Stolen Legacies Blog #4

Hey Everyone,

I remember hearing a statistic once that heart attacks were the number one killer of women in their forties. At the time, I was in my twenties. But I knew there was a good chance I’d be one of them.

Heart attacks ran in my dad’s line, though so far it had only affected the men. Still, I’d been hyper-stressed for years. In school, I felt like a failure if I didn’t get a perfect A. On top of that, there was softball—where every strike, miss, or mistake felt like proof that I wasn’t good enough. Perfectionism had me on high alert all the time.

I had insomnia so bad, I’d go weeks only getting 2–3 hours of sleep a night. Mostly because I needed to decompress by writing—but I wouldn’t let myself do that until school, softball, and homework were all done.

As an adult, I just wanted to ease my stress. I thought taking a lower-paying job would mean a lower-pressure life. But that didn’t happen either. The first year of a job would be okay. But the more I learned—and the more my boss saw what I could handle—the more responsibility I took on. By year three, I was taking work home and barely sleeping. It became a pattern. I started quitting jobs every three years, thinking the next one would be better.

But my body wasn’t fooled.

I carried all the signs of chronic stress. The biggest one was obesity. I turned to food constantly for comfort. And at 38, a chiropractor told me I was at stroke levels and needed to quit my job immediately. I scoffed. I thought chiropractors just worked on backs—not something serious like stroke risk. (No offense to chiropractors out there. I’ve since changed my tune.)

By 39, I landed in the ER with a migraine that wouldn’t go away. I’d been under high stress for most of my life, but I’d never had headaches before. This one lasted three days. I started wondering if that chiropractor had been right.

After hours of trying different medications, two spinal taps (the first one didn’t work), and no answers, a third doctor finally came in and said, “Take muscle relaxers. Stop exercising. Drink caffeine. Don’t go to work.”

I’m pretty sure she became my new best friend.

I went home. And it wasn’t long after that I realized the problem hadn’t been my jobs.

It had been me.

That fear I had in my twenties—about becoming one of those heart attack statistics—was going to come true if I didn’t figure out what was really going on with my stress.

2. Rooted Assumption – “I’m Just Not That Kind of Woman”

I used to think I just wasn’t cut out for domestic life.

I heard other women talk about finding joy at home—raising kids, organizing meals, doing crafts—and I genuinely thought something was wrong with me. Not in a self-pitying way. Just in a practical, “I’m wired differently” kind of way. I thought maybe I didn’t get the gene for home-making. Maybe I was one of those women better suited for the workforce. You know, the driven, type-A kind that “needs to be challenged.”

And for a while, it made sense. I liked working. I liked being good at things. I liked getting paid. I liked finishing projects and being known as dependable.

But over time, I started realizing that just because something feels familiar doesn’t mean it’s a good fit. And just because I was succeeding didn’t mean I was thriving.

What if the problem wasn’t that I was wired wrong for home—but that I had been trained for something else entirely—and trained so thoroughly that I didn’t even realize I was trading my design for a paycheck?

We tell girls from the time they’re five years old to sit still, raise their hands, get perfect grades, join the team, stay busy, get a job. And when we grow up and feel “more comfortable” in career mode than home mode, we assume it’s a personality thing.

But it might not be personality. It might be programming.

And we don’t just train girls this way—we reward them for it. We celebrate hustle and perfection. We hand out scholarships for achievement. We ignore creativity unless it turns a profit. And we treat domesticity like it's optional—or worse, regressive.

The underlying belief? That value comes from contribution. And contribution means work. And work means career.

But what if that’s not the full picture? What if our bodies and our lives are telling us that assumption isn’t working?

3. Re-examined Evidence – Our Biology Isn’t Buying It

At some point, I had to reckon with the fact that my body wasn’t on board with my lifestyle. I was tired all the time. I gained weight without trying. I carried stress in my jaw, neck, and back. My sleep was off. I was always anxious, but I didn’t know how to slow down.

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one.

For many women, career doesn’t just take energy—it takes priority. It becomes the center. And when it does, something else gets pushed to the margins: home, relationships, health, rest. We tell ourselves we can balance it all. But in practice, one thing almost always wins. And career is designed to take the best hours of our day—and the best years of our life. The truth is, most careers don’t build your home—they build someone else’s dream. And without realizing it, we start handing over 80% of our lives to something that was only meant to be 20%.

When you look at the data, there’s a clear pattern. Women under chronic job stress aren’t thriving. They’re burning out, getting sick, and falling apart—not because they’re weak, but because their design is being ignored.

Here’s what the evidence shows:

🧠 Chronic Stress Disrupts Hormones

• Work stress increases cortisol and testosterone in women—which disrupts their natural estrogen/progesterone balance.

• Elevated testosterone in women has been linked to increased risk for heart disease, metabolic issues, and even cancer.▸ Source: ScienceDirect (2024), JACC, News-Medical.net

  
  

❤️ Cardiovascular Risk Goes Up

• Job stress increases women’s risk of heart disease and stroke by 40–56%, especially when they face both work and home pressure.

• Women under 50 are twice as likely to die from heart attacks as men the same age.

• Even Sunday-night job dread (“Sunday scaries”) has been linked to heart attack risk.▸ Sources: NDTV Health, McKinsey, The Sun UK

  
  

🦥 Metabolic & Immune System Breakdown

• Stress eating, weight gain, and inflammation are common responses to chronic workplace pressure.

• Women in high-stress jobs are more likely to develop obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

  
  

🧬 Nervous System Fatigue & Burnout

• Long-term stress leads to “inflammatory brain” patterns: migraines, fatigue, gut issues, sleep disruption, and anxiety.

• Women burn out faster than men in most high-responsibility roles, especially when also managing home or caregiving.

• Burnout often leads to early menopause or fertility struggles, even in women under 40.▸ Sources: Le Monde, Heart.org, TIME

  
  

All of this tells a story. Our bodies are not built to live in constant fight-or-flight mode. And most careers—especially those modeled after male productivity cycles—require us to do just that.

We were made for rhythm. Not adrenaline.

4. Reframed Belief – The Job That Was Mine to Do

Looking back, I think I misunderstood what strength was.

I thought strength meant pushing harder. Showing up even when I was breaking. Taking care of everything myself. But sometimes strength is knowing when you’re doing a job that was never yours to carry and choose to stop despite everyone else's opinions or what society deems correct, responsible, or valuable.

In the garden, Adam was given the role of protector, cultivator, spiritual covering. But he went passive. He didn’t speak. He didn’t act. His sin was omission.

Eve’s sin was commission—she took on a job that wasn’t hers. Not because she was evil. But because someone had to do something. And ever since, women have been filling in the gaps—doing the work of others, carrying the burden of provision, performance, and pressure.

But when we’re always doing someone else’s job—when career becomes our source of value and identity—we don’t have time, energy, or capacity to do the work that actually brings wholeness.

I believe God gives women real, individual purpose. We’re not baby-making machines. We’re not barefoot-and-bored in the kitchen. We were made to bring beauty, order, and life to everything we touch.

And beauty isn’t about appearance. It’s about wholeness—something that nourishes all five senses. And wouldn’t you know, there are five core areas of life we’re called to nurture too:

• The body

• The soul

• The spirit

• The home

• And relationship

  
  

We were made to cultivate all of them. Not perfectly. Not performatively. But intentionally.

And when we’re buried in the wrong kind of work, we lose access to that design. We become efficient, but not whole. Productive, but not present. Strong, but not well.

And here’s the thing: science backs this up.

Beauty isn’t a luxury—it’s a biological need. Studies in neuroaesthetics show that when we experience beauty—in nature, music, color, or environment—our brains actually calm. Blood pressure drops. Inflammation decreases. Even our immune systems respond. We become more creative. More relational. More resilient.

Softness and sensory nourishment—things like color, texture, peaceful sound, natural light—they aren’t just “nice to have.” They regulate our nervous systems. They help children develop. They increase empathy, focus, and emotional safety.

In other words, the things women have always been wired to bring into their homes? Science is finally catching up to their value.

But instead of being trained in these areas, we’re often pulled away from them. We aren’t taught how to manage a family budget—how to plan food, clothing, celebrations, or daily rhythms. We aren’t taught how to make space for our own joy—to create without needing to monetize it. We aren’t even taught to rest without guilt.

So when women spend, it's often impulsive. When they work, it’s often for identity. And when they stay home, it’s often with resentment—not because they hate their family, but because no one taught them how to bring joy into that role.

But when a woman finds her true purpose—buried underneath all the training—she becomes a force of peace, beauty, and wisdom. And that’s not fluff.

It’s foundational.

5. Reflective Invitation – What Were You Made to Carry?

If Eve’s mistake was taking on a job that wasn’t hers, maybe our restoration starts by asking: What is the work that is mine to do?

We live in a world that defines women by what we produce. Not who we are. And when the only thing we’re trained for is career, it makes sense that we’d confuse purpose with paycheck.

But you weren’t made to survive a system. You were made to cultivate life.

Careers aren’t bad. In fact, a job can be a small part of your calling. But it’s just that—a part. And when it becomes the whole? Something vital gets crowded out.

That something is you.

Your softness. Your wisdom. Your creativity. Your ability to bring rhythm and beauty into the spaces you touch. Your power to nourish—not just through meals or decor—but through atmosphere. Through joy. Through presence. Through rest.

And if you feel disconnected from all that… it’s okay. That doesn’t mean you’re broken. It might just mean you’ve been trained away from who you are.

So here’s a simple place to begin:

What did you love before you were rewarded for performance?

What made you lose track of time as a child? What did you create, tend, or imagine—before someone told you it wasn’t practical?What felt like you, even if no one clapped?

Because the truth is, your spirit was strongest then.

Not yet buried in performance. Not yet hijacked by identity. Just… whole.

You may not be able to quit your job tomorrow. You may not even want to. But you can begin to notice where your career has crowded out your calling.

You can start asking again: What was I made to carry? And what am I finally ready to set down?