There are moments when the structures we thought were holding us up begin to press against our ribs.
When success, so carefully built, feels less like freedom and more like a cage.
For Hedwig, that moment came the night her company went public.
The façade of success
On the outside, it was everything she had dreamed of. Flashbulbs, handshakes, the sharp scent of champagne. She stood on the stage as the markets opened, her name splashed across the financial press. A woman in leadership, celebrated for what she had accomplished.
But inside her body, another reality was unfolding. Her temples pulsed with a headache that had shadowed her for weeks. Her stomach was a knot, pulled tighter by years of policing what she ate, how she looked, how much space she was allowed to take. Later that night, alone in her hotel room, she collapsed onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Her heart raced. Her blood pressure was so high she could hear it in her ears. The applause still echoed, but she felt hollow.
No one saw that part.
No one asked.
That was the time she called me; at the height of her success, she felt the lowest of lows. She had carried my contact for a little while with her, given by an acquaintance, but she never had time before — or so she thought. Everything went into preparing for going public.
The trellis
For generations, women have been trained like espaliered trees: planted with promise, then bound to invisible trellises of family duty, social approval, corporate codes. Each branch pruned when it reached too far. Each blossom measured against an external standard. From a distance, the orchard looks perfect — a clean wall of green, every fruit trimmed to the right size and shape. But the hidden cost is that the tree can no longer grow in its own direction. This image alone could fill an entire article — a deep dive into the trellis itself, how order disguises constraint. Here, it marks the beginning of Hedwig’s awareness, with the deeper exploration waiting for another chapter.
The hidden cost of the cage
Hedwig had been pruned since childhood. Told to watch her weight. Criticized for how she dressed. Complimented only when she looked thin, polished, compliant. The message was clear: her body was not hers, but a billboard for others’ approval. By the time she was thirty, she had perfected the routine: brutal workouts, skipped meals, nights ending in shame as she erased what she had eaten. Outwardly, she was slim, stylish, impeccable in her suits. Inwardly, she carried the secret wars of a body never allowed to simply be.
In the boardroom, the pruning continued. Male colleagues joked about her “killer heels.” Investors praised her “image” as much as her strategy. She learned to keep her voice even, never too sharp, never too soft. Always threading herself into the narrow space allowed: competent, attractive, unthreatening.
Why she came
By the time we met, Hedwig had everything society told her to want: power, recognition, wealth. Yet her body was breaking down. Migraines, insomnia, rising blood pressure — the same symptoms that had driven her to call me at the height of her success. The public triumph had left her privately hollow, and her nights were filled with staring into the dark, wondering why she felt more caged than ever.
She didn’t come to me because she wanted more success. She came because she knew she could not survive another year of living like this. She longed for clarity — yet that was not the real reason she reached out. Most women do not seek me because they crave clarity; they come because they are often on top of their career but also in pain, exhausted, or desperate to reclaim their lives. Hedwig was no different. She feared what clarity would reveal because it meant looking directly at the structures inside her: the rules she had inherited, the lies she had repeated, the cage she had not only been placed in but had also locked from the inside.
The painful beginning
The first steps of the Deep Cycle are rarely comfortable. Hedwig discovered that quickly. In our work together, she began to notice the subtle weave of her inner architecture — all the ways she had entangled herself in voices that were not hers. Her mother’s constant reminders about how she should present herself — always polished, always slim — as if her worth lived only in the surface image. Her father’s insistence that showing feelings was weakness. The invisible demand of the corporate world to stay polished, flawless, untouchable.
Seeing it hurt. Naming it hurt even more. But slowly, she began to realize: uncoupling meant breaking out of the trellis — and the beginning of self-discovery.
The uncoupling
One day she arrived to our session exhausted, after another sleepless night. She said, almost whispering: “I see now how much of my life has been borrowed. I’ve been carrying rules that were never mine. It feels like I’ve been living in someone else’s skin.”
That moment was clarity. Not the triumphant kind, but the raw, unvarnished kind. She was not wrong for feeling trapped. The trellis was real. The pruning had been relentless. But the tree inside her was still alive.
Uncoupling for Hedwig did not mean tearing her life apart overnight. It meant pausing long enough to see: this thought is not mine, this pressure does not belong to me. It meant learning to distinguish between the echo of old rules and the quiet truth of her own inner voice.
It was not easy. Some days she wanted to run back into the safety of the old structure, to shut the door of the cage again. But little by little, she began to let one branch move freely, to reclaim one small piece of space at the time for herself.
The courage to see
Clarity is never just intellectual. It is embodied. It is the courage to admit: I have been complicit in my own confinement. Hedwig discovered that part too — the uncomfortable realization that she had enforced the rules on herself, long after no one else was watching. That she had locked the door from the inside because she didn’t know another way.
Looking at that truth brought tears, sometimes rage. But it also brought the first taste of freedom. Because once you admit that you are holding the key, you also realize you can unlock the door.
A new beginning
The night her company went public will always be part of Hedwig’s story. But it is no longer the climax. It is the backdrop against which she began her real journey: the Deep Cycle. A journey not into more, but into who and what you really are.
Clarity & Uncoupling was only the first step. The beginning of a slow, fierce process of reclaiming the branches that had been forced into rigid lines, throwing off the pruning wires altogether and discovering how her tree truly wanted to grow.
This is the first chapter of Hedwig’s story.
The next step will unfold as she learns to anchor in her own rhythm — no longer performing for the expectations of others, but finding the pulse that has been hers all along. An extra article may later explore the trellis metaphor more deeply, as it is a vast story shared by all women.
If Hedwig’s journey speaks to you, share it with your friends and colleagues – many women in leadership are still trying hard to leave the trellis behind, to step out of the cage they never chose.
About the Author
Renate Hechenberger works with women in key positions — board members, top executives, founders, supervisory board roles — and with women navigating transitions into new roles, new phases, or new forms of power. She clarifies the inner architecture of their female power, enabling decisions grounded in meaning, presence, and integrity.
👉If this resonates, you are welcome to explore more with me in a private Power Talk.
© 2025 Renate Hechenberger. All rights reserved.
Credit: Image created with Canva Pro and DALL·E (AI-generated), customized by Renate Hechenberger.
