The Cost of Being Enough
Exploring What Wellness Influencer Culture and Sister Wounds Might Have in Common
I was seven years old when my best friend called me fat. At the time I didn’t fully grasp the intent behind her words and I doubt she did either. I went home and told my mom. I remember her looking me in the eyes and gently reassuring me: “You’re not…. She must have picked up that idea from somewhere and from someone.” Even her comfort couldn’t undo what had already taken root. That word had done its damage.
I always felt like a sensitive child. Being sensitive in the 90s was not something to be celebrated. By the time I reached middle school, I was known as the "crybaby" which in truth, was just another way of saying my heart felt things deeply. What others didn’t see was the silent weight I was carrying: my older brother’s health was declining, and my world felt less certain. I was a young girl, overwhelmed, trying to find her way through the noise.
There were many months when I rode the school bus home in tears, a daily ritual of quiet suffering. The bullying grew bolder and more physical. I remember being pulled to the ground by a chunk of my hair during gym class. Once, because a girl “didn’t like my red hair and pale skin.” Another time, a girl threatened to push my brother, who used a wheelchair, down the stairwell. I think now of that young girl I once was, trying to survive and hold onto a sense of herself in a world that often felt very unkind.
What I experienced went beyond bullying. It reflected a broader social failure and a collective unwillingness to recognize the tender vulnerability that comes with simply being human. Those moments awakened an instinct in me to protect, not only my brother and myself, but anyone who had ever been made to feel like they didn’t belong.
After high school, while most of my peers went to college, I deferred my admission and spent six months in New Zealand, working as a student teacher in a primary school and interning at a local artist’s studio. It was a necessary departure and a season of restoration. In many ways, it allowed me to return to the parts of myself still aching from the loss of my brother, still searching for meaning. That time gave me space to breathe and begin the slow, lifelong work of healing.
When I moved to New York for college, I arrived bright-eyed and hopeful, ready to begin a new chapter. I felt renewed after spending months in nature. My assigned roommates had already formed a close-knit group the semester before I arrived, and my soft-spoken presence seemed to bother the social dynamic they had built.
In the months that followed, the distance turned into outright hostility. I didn’t party. I didn’t use drugs. I kept to a boring routine and was pretty devoted to my studies. Somehow, my way of being became a threat. I had never encountered such offense for simply choosing to live differently. It was a lonely and disorienting experience.
The breaking point came at the end of my first semester. One afternoon, I walked into the dorm to find my side of the room completely covered in sticky notes. Phrases like “I am a good person,” “I am beautiful,” “I have nice clothes,” and “Want to be friends?” were plastered across my bed, desk, and dresser. At first glance, they might have seemed kind but the tone quickly revealed itself as performative and mocking. As I stood there reading them, my roommates watched from nearby, smirking. One of them called out, “April Fools!” and the room erupted in laughter. I did my best to stay steady as I peeled the notes off each surface, even though I was hurt and furious.
I took the elevator straight to the RA’s office and requested a room change. But there were no openings for several weeks. Unable to endure the environment any longer, I made the decision to move off campus and found temporary housing at the YMCA in Midtown Manhattan. The room was barely bigger than a closet, but for the first time in months, I felt safe. It was a small space but it offered something I hadn’t felt in a long time: a chance to come back to myself.
Unfortunately, the harassment didn’t end when I left. Over the next two years, I continued to receive text messages and phone calls from the same trio of former roommates. Each time, the message was the same: “Hi Keely! We miss you. Want to be friends? APRIL FOOLS! HAHAHAHA.” It was a cruel reminder that my pain had been, and perhaps always would be, a source of entertainment to them.
Experiences like these have made me especially sensitive to the subtle forms of bullying; the kind that hides behind smiles, silence, or superficial kindness. I’ve come to recognize it quickly, often instinctively. I feel especially protective of young girls today. So much of their social world exists online, where cruelty is easily cloaked in emojis and curated captions. The digital space amplifies judgment and comparison while often stripping away empathy, accountability, and real connection. It’s a disorienting landscape, where connection is seemingly everywhere, and yet true belonging can feel out of reach.
I see a troubling correlation between wellness culture shaped by social media influencers and the more insidious forms of control that have been imposed on women. Under the glossy look of empowerment, women’s bodies, choices, and lives are still being policed. It sounds like support wrapped in affirmations and self-care buzzwords but the message beneath is exhausting and familiar: you need to be fixed.
You’re either too much or not enough. And in order to be accepted, you're told to reshape yourself; your body, your personality and even your values. If you choose not to, or simply can’t, the message is still: something is wrong with you.
What’s particularly difficult to watch is how often real people are used as props or examples to prove a point, elevate a brand, or drive product sales. Some influencers position themselves as experts, not because of any meaningful training or lived experience, but because they’ve mastered the performance. Their performance is what’s being monetized; not actual care, integrity or truth.
What gives me hope is the rising voices of women naming this for what it is and speaking out about how wellness culture left them feeling unseen, ashamed, and alone. There’s a bravery in telling that truth, especially when you fear you're the only one who feels it.
For over nine years now, I’ve been sitting with my own grief and rage, watching the harm perpetuated by another narrative: that a “natural” birth or exclusive breastfeeding makes you more sacred, more evolved, more whole. That these things determine your worth. But what happens when birth doesn’t go according to plan? When breastfeeding is painful, or impossible? The blame circles back to the mother. I’ve seen how this wounds and isolates women, creating a gap between who they truly are and who they believe they’re supposed to be. This story robs motherhood of its complexity. It flattens the truth of what it means to be a woman, navigating a messy, unpredictable world. It erases the strength required to live in the grey. There is no single path to motherhood, no moral high ground, and it’s not a purity test.
The idea of the 'sister wound' or, the instinct to diminish another woman, runs deep. I believe it’s something we’ve inherited on a primal level. We were taught that love, success, and belonging were scarce and learned to bond through criticism and exclusion as a way of aligning with the dominant voice. Healing this wound doesn’t require perfection; just a willingness to stand by each other even when it would be easier not to.
What continues to rise in me is a desire to be of real service to women by helping quiet the noise. When opinions, advice, and curated lives start to blur your sense of who you are, the real work is to turn inward. That kind of wisdom doesn’t come from scrolling or a search bar. It comes from from walking among trees, immersing yourself in a body of water, or sitting in the presence of women who hold space with gentleness, not judgment. Reclaiming your voice happens through unexpected tears, grief that's been waiting to be felt, moments of softness, and in embodied connection we share.
There’s a fine line between the belief that “natural is always better” and the embrace of technological advancement. It’s not about choosing one over the other because both have their place and offer value. But it’s also important to acknowledge that technological progress doesn’t automatically translate to personal progress. Just because something is more advanced doesn’t mean it brings us closer to wholeness. In fact, more often than not, I see people feeling more disconnected and uncertain. There are no guardrails for how we’re meant to engage with the digital realm. There is no collective pause. We are constantly plugged in, stimulated, and yet profoundly undernourished.
It matters that we understand the difference between accountability and cruelty as well as honesty and harm. Somewhere along the way, our culture began to confuse silence with peace and politeness with kindness. But harm can be wrapped in kind words, beautiful imagery, and well-meaning advice. When that happens, women end up in conflict with themselves, trying to do it “right” while feeling like they’re getting it all wrong. I don’t think it has to be this way.
I try to create a space through my work, not of fixing, but of remembering. It’s a practice, one you can feel in your body. When you hear something or read something, ask: does this make me feel truly seen, nourished, and at home in myself? Or does it stir that familiar, dull ache that I need to buy, change, or chase something outside of myself to be whole? Anything that makes you feel less than, inadequate, or ill-equipped, I’ve learned to meet it with suspicion. Not because I’m closed off, but because I know how deeply this world profits off our insecurities.
The habit of dismissing or degrading someone else’s experience just because it doesn’t align with our own is frankly, an outdated way of being. We’re navigating a world that’s becoming increasingly hostile toward being human. It feels like we might stand a real chance, if we can set our differences aside, while still holding one another with both compassion and accountability.
We all deserve to feel seen, heard, and held, especially in our most vulnerable moments.
Photograph by Matt Bockal
To hear more of my candid thoughts on the toxicity of wellness culture and the concept of sister wounds, please listen to my guest appearance on the Spiral Deeper podcast.
Hi Keely! This was such a great read, and it soothed parts of my first-time-mom soul in ways I silently longed for. I went through a traumatic birth a few months ago, and remember seeing someone on Instagram talking about how proud she was of herself for choosing and remaining adamant about her home birth; I reached out to her, randomly, and told her I’m happy she got to experience it the way she had intended (in addition to telling her congratulatory things I wish I were able to tell myself at the time had my own birth gone according to plan) and it was so difficult to shake off the smug response I got from her about how natural birth is best, how hospitals are insidious, how she knew to do her homework and not give in, etc. etc. It caught me totally off guard to be in receipt of this weird sense of ‘I knew better’ diminishment from a fellow first time mom. Agree with you that certain pockets of culture in social media end up being degrading and dismissive of one’s experience around birth and motherhood; I can only hope it’s unintentional and can evolve