The Weight and the Softness: Healing Generational Fear as a Woman

On women, worth, and learning to receive again

Now, while I’m sitting by the window listening to the rain, I’m doing something that soothes me — writing affirmations in my diary to clear away the fears I’ve carried for too long: fear of financial insecurity, fear of never truly having enough, fear of not being enough.

In this quiet, reflective moment, I find myself wondering when exactly I lost my trust in life. Was it when the war began, and I watched my parents lose everything they had worked for? Or did it start even earlier, in the way they used to quietly argue over money, in every small tension I witnessed as a child?

Years later, I heard a teacher speak about “poverty of mind”—the idea that no matter how much you have, you can still be ruled by fear. That phrase landed deep. Because even now, after everything I’ve built, I sometimes live like I’m still waiting for the next loss.

And it’s not just me. So many strong, accomplished women I know still carry some form of money anxiety. We’ve worked so hard to become independent, but somewhere inside us, we’re still bracing for collapse.

Is it the Balkans? Is it the weight of our history, woven through generations of instability and survival?

When I think about the women in my family—and women across this region—I feel that heaviness. This is a land marked by war, sudden loss, and rebuilding from ashes.

For decades, women have been the ones holding everything together: raising children alone, stretching too-little food too far, offering warmth where there was none. Their strength became legendary.

But even now, in 2025, they are still fighting for space. Still proving they deserve rest, joy, softness.

Patriarchy isn’t just something that lives in laws. It lives in the air we breathe. And for women, that means inheriting not only trauma, but also silence around money, around worth, around desire.

In my family, the pattern was clear. My mother spent years unemployed, and even when she worked, my father was the one who held the money. The power. And yet, the daily weight of making ends meet still fell on her. Before her, my grandmother lived under the silent authority of my grandfather, a partisan fighter who made every decision in the household. No one questioned that.

My own father wasn’t harsh. He was gentle in many ways. But when it came to money, it was his domain. And no one ever taught us women—my sister, my mother, me—how to manage money, how to claim it, how to believe it belonged to us, too.

Then came the 1990s, and everything changed. Fast money. Flashy cars. Corruption. A collapse of values. Those of us who were raised with dignity, honesty, and sacrifice suddenly felt irrelevant in a world that rewarded speed, greed, and performance. And those of us—especially women—who had internalized survival now didn’t know how to thrive.

At 46, I sometimes feel that little girl inside me—afraid of asking, afraid of needing too much, afraid of being alone. She lives in my stomach, in my throat, in the early mornings when I stare at the ceiling and wonder: will I be okay?

Being single, paying the bills, fixing things around the house, and making every decision alone.

Some days, it brings pride; on others, it’s pure exhaustion.

And underneath it all, a quiet longing—longing to be supported, to share the load, to not always be the one who knows what to do next.

Sometimes, I long to be taken care of, to rest, and not always be the strong one. To exhale fully. To soften.

And lately, I’ve begun to understand that this longing is not a weakness—it’s an invitation. An opening into my feminine energy, where receiving is just as powerful as doing.

Maybe healing means allowing myself to be held by life, not always holding it together.

Maybe this is part of the return: naming the ache, embracing the softness, and still choosing to show up, trust, and open myself to receiving—not just responsibility but also support, grace, and love.

And maybe just maybe this is how we begin to change our inheritance:

Not just through healing, but through choosing.

By choosing softness.
By choosing to trust.
By choosing ourselves.

May your story become a doorway—not to the past, but to the life you are still brave enough to imagine.