When old maps stop working, depth becomes your compass.
There is a moment after every breakthrough when the world turns strangely quiet.
No crisis, no fight, no deadline—just space. And that space can feel terrifying.
For Hedwig, it came after months of clarity, boundaries, and inner realignment. She had cut the deepest wires, faced her fears, and rebuilt her sense of power. Yet as the pressure eased, she found herself restless again. Her mind searched for the next challenge, her emotions for the next wave. “Why do I feel flat?” she asked in one of our sessions. “I thought peace would feel better than this.”
What she touched was not failure. It was the next threshold: learning to live without the constant hum of adrenaline.
When Direction Falters
In her company, Hedwig was known for strategy. She could sense risk before it appeared, turn chaos into plan. But now, sitting in a leadership off-site surrounded by consultants and spreadsheets, she realized she no longer cared about the old metrics. Growth curves and market forecasts felt like foreign language. Her notes turned into questions: What sustains me now? What do I truly want to build?
That evening she wrote in her journal: My compass used to be results. Now I need a different one.
This was the beginning of her Depth Compass—a new way of navigating that could not be captured in strategy decks or quarterly plans. It was not about efficiency or control. It was about resonance: what felt true in her body, not what looked good on paper.
The next morning, that inner question still pulsed in her. She sensed that if she kept walking by the old map, she would lose herself again. But where to begin when no external direction felt right?
Another Voice in the Orchard
Around that same time, she met Amira, an architect known for designing glass towers that touched the sky. Amira had just left a global firm, saying she could draw the next skyline but no longer feel where she belonged. Over coffee, their conversation drifted beyond careers and into meaning. “I used to think precision was my gift,” Amira said. “Now I wonder if it became my cage. Everything I build stands tall—but I can no longer sense the ground.”
Hedwig listened, recognizing herself in those words. Both women had spent decades mastering structures—corporate, creative, emotional—only to discover they could no longer breathe inside them. Their exchange was brief but electric, a mirror of shared disorientation. In Amira, Hedwig saw what she could easily become: successful, admired, yet untethered.
When they parted, the conversation lingered. Hedwig realized that losing orientation was not failure but an initiation. Perhaps the compass was never meant to be found in the sky at all—but in the soil beneath her feet.
That encounter became the echo that shaped Hedwig’s next phase. It reminded her that the Depth Compass is not a private tool but part of a wider field—one woman finding direction invites others to listen for their own.
The Drama of Feeling Alive
But before she could trust that compass, she had to face something subtler and more stubborn: her addiction to emotion.
For weeks after her transformation, old feelings returned in waves—anger, grief, nostalgia. Each time she believed she had processed it all, another surge came. “I thought I was done with this,” she said, exhausted. “Why does it keep coming back?”
What she was meeting is what I see in so many women at this stage—even in my MasterClass, among those who have done years of process work, deep feeling, energy sessions. We have learned to feel deeply but also to depend on feeling deeply. The emotional body has become addicted to drama as proof of life. When calm arrives, it feels like emptiness. The nervous system, so used to storms, begins to crave intensity again.
Drama masquerades as aliveness. Stillness feels like numbness. And so we unconsciously recreate crisis—to feel something, anything.
This is one of the hardest shifts in the Deep Cycle. To stop seeking highs and instead enter depth. To allow peace without mistaking it for absence. To recognize that stillness can be alive too—vibrant, full, sustaining.
The Practice of Emotional Sobriety
During one session, I asked Hedwig to close her eyes before speaking about a conflict. “Notice what happens in your body,” I said. “Where does it contract, and where does it open?”
Her breath slowed. Shoulders softened. A long silence.
Then she whispered, “I don’t need to fix anything right now. I just need to stay here.”
That is the essence of emotional sobriety: feeling without fusing, sensing without spiraling. The Depth Compass does not chase emotion—it reads it. It discerns: Is this wave real, or a familiar loop of survival?
Over time, Hedwig learned to recognize the difference. When a decision arose from contraction, it drained her. When it came from inner spaciousness, it carried power. The body became the instrument of truth—a compass that never lies.
What Can Be Released Quietly
Her next test came when she was invited to join a prestigious board. Every part of her old identity wanted to say yes. It would have looked perfect on paper—status, recognition, influence. Yet something inside her stayed still. No expansion, no warmth. Just quiet.
She declined.
No drama, no announcement. Just a gentle release.
Some wires dissolve not with scissors but with breath.
That decision became a turning point. She realized not every new opportunity meant growth. Sometimes, growth means saying no to what no longer resonates—even if the world applauds it.
What Wants to Grow Through You
Weeks later, a young woman who had applied for an internship at her company approached Hedwig for mentorship. In earlier years, she would have prepared notes, advice, perhaps even a career plan. Now, she simply listened. When the woman finished speaking, Hedwig said quietly, “What do you feel is true for you right now?”
Tears came—not from pain, but from being seen.
That moment marked Hedwig’s real beginning as a depth leader: not teaching only from expertise, but also guiding from presence. She was no longer leading from performance, but from connection. Her compass had shifted from strategy to sensing.
The Essence of the Depth Compass
Depth navigation is not about more work. It is about deeper listening.
It asks:
What can be released quietly?
What is ready to grow through me?
What wants to be reshaped into the essence of who I am now?
It does not promise constant clarity. But it does build trust in life’s timing. It returns authority to the body, not the system. And it opens the doorway to leadership that no longer needs to perform.
This is where Female Power begins to mature—from awakening to embodiment.
And a few months later, that young intern returned. Her project proposal—rooted in sustainability and quiet innovation—had just been approved by the board. She came to thank Hedwig, saying, “You didn’t give me instructions. You gave me courage to believe in myself.” Hedwig realized this was the deeper purpose of her compass: not only to guide herself, but to become orientation for others. One woman’s steadiness had already begun to shape the next generation of leadership.
Practice: Calibrating the Compass
This week, before you decide or react:
Pause. Breathe. Let the first wave of emotion pass.
Sense. Notice what contracts and what expands inside you.
Choose. Follow the movement that feels steadier, not louder.
Trust. The Depth Compass does not shout. It hums.
Each time you choose presence over performance, the wires loosen a little more.
The Orchard After Winter
One morning, Hedwig stood on her balcony. Below, the orchard trees were bare, their branches dark against the early light. Yet beneath the stillness, sap was rising. Life was already on the move.
She smiled. Somewhere below, the young intern’s laughter drifted across the courtyard—another branch beginning to bud. And she knew, of course, that the orchard she so often imagined was not of trees and soil at all, but a living field of women, each learning to grow in her own light.
Not everything needs an answer, she thought. But everything needs my presence.
This is where the Deep Cycle turns again—from strategy to sensing, from emotion to essence.
The beginning after the end.
✨ If this resonated with you, I invite you to stay in the Orchard — a space of reflection on women, female power, and leadership.
More of this work lives inside my e-book Unapologetic Power— a companion for women who lead from depth.
About the Author
30 years of international leadership responsibility, 15 years empowering women in top positions. She opens spaces where the inner architecture emerges — an architecture that not only carries, but anchors women in their feminine power. Renate Hechenberger | Female Power Architect · Trusted Advisor for Women in Leadership
Too often, women are placed in leadership when the ground is already shaking — celebrated at the top, yet without real support. The so-called glass cliff is not empowerment, but exposure.
The recent nomination of Evelyn Palla as CEO of Deutsche Bahn carries this signature in another form. Officially, she is hailed as a “renewed mandate.” Yet even before she had entered her office, voices are already questioning her record: What great achievements can she really claim?
It is a question almost never asked of men stepping into the same role. Their authority is assumed until proven otherwise. Women, by contrast, are celebrated with headlines and undermined with doubts in the same breath. Suspicion precedes trust.
This is the quiet bargain that has repeated for decades: women are invited into positions of power, but too often without equal backing, resources, or confidence. They are placed visibly in the light, but on ground already unstable. When the structure falters, the blame falls swiftly on their shoulders — and if they succeed, they are often replaced by men again.
My counter-narrative begins here: not sending women to the cliff, but creating spaces where they can lead with clarity, integrity, and full support.
Hedwig After the “No”
For Hedwig, this bargain was also real. She had carried her company through its IPO and was celebrated as founder and CEO. Yet support around her was fragile, and loyalty often conditional.
In the last chapter of her story, you saw her draw a sovereign “No” in the boardroom — refusing to lend her authority to a project that violated her sense of integrity. That moment cut one of the deepest wires that had bound her: the belief that survival meant compliance.
But the real transformation did not end there. The “No” was only the doorway. What followed was quieter, less dramatic, but ultimately more decisive. It was the inner shift that would change how she led from that moment on.
Doubts at the Doorstep
The night after her refusal, Hedwig sat in her car in the dark garage, hands on the steering wheel. Her heart still pounded. She had spoken against the tide. She had held her line. But the harsh opposition she faced — the long, drawn‑out fight to get them to agree with her version of the proposal — haunted her.
Would they eventually sideline her? Would they erode her influence in subtle ways? Could the board diminish her role, even with her majority stake? These questions crowded her as she drove home.
And yet, when she entered her apartment and caught her reflection in the mirror, she noticed something unfamiliar: her own eyes, steady and unflinching. No migraine. No tight jaw. The pulse that had hammered through her throat all day was gone.
For the first time in years, she felt not depleted, but strangely clear. Something fundamental had shifted — not in the system around her, but in her own ground.
Beyond Resistance
In the days that followed, Hedwig discovered the difference between resisting pressure and not being defined by it.
For years, her leadership had been measured by how much weight she could carry, how much pressure she could endure. She had trained herself to survive under impossible loads. That was the old pattern: leadership as endurance.
But now, something subtler unfolded. The pressure did not vanish. The expectations, the politics, the voices of dissent were still present. What changed was her reference point.
She was no longer measuring herself against the weight of external demand. She was drawing strength from a steadier source within.
This shift did not make her untouchable. Fear still visited her. Doubts still rose. But they were no longer the ground she stood on. The ground had moved inside.
The Architecture of Power
This is what I call the inner shift of power. It is not about becoming harder or invulnerable. It is about relocating the seat of decision-making.
– No longer reacting to pressure.
– No longer borrowing authority from the system’s approval.
– No longer defining competence by crisis endurance.
Instead:
– Leading from clarity that lives in your body.
– Becoming the source of presence that steadies others.
– Standing on ground that cannot be withdrawn by shifting loyalties.
For Hedwig, this was not a single revelation, but a practice. Each day, each decision, she tested the new ground:
What if I do not act to relieve pressure, but to embody presence?
When she answered from that place, her actions carried a different weight. Meetings no longer drained her. Negotiations no longer left her hollow. Even conflict, though uncomfortable, did not strip her energy.
The Trellis and the Cliff
In orchard language, this shift is the moment when the trellis loosens its hold.
The glass cliff and the trellis are two faces of the same architecture. Both bind women into roles of proving worth under conditions designed to undermine them. Both reward survival but punish sovereignty.
Generations of women have carried this bargain: bound to wires of compliance, elevated to shaky ground, then faulted when collapse came.
Hedwig’s shift shows another possibility. Even when the system does not provide equal ground, you can still root your leadership in an inner architecture. That root is not given by others. It is reclaimed — not as a vague memory, but as the lived recognition that power was never absent, only covered. To act from it is what changes reality.
The Long Story of Female Power
Power sourced inside is not new. It has always been there. But over centuries it was systematically buried. When humanity shifted from the goddess to the god, from cycles to hierarchies, female power was suppressed. Religion, law, and social order agreed: the female was to serve — with no legal entity, no independent voice, nothing outside the authority of father, husband, or brother. Even today, women still battle for power over their own bodies.
What cuts deepest: women themselves became guardians of this code. Ancient survival rules, once carved out under oppression, were passed down as unquestioned law: Do not fight men, rule, or custom. Be a good woman — confined to family and children. Keep the peace at any cost.
Mothers taught daughters these codes not out of cruelty, but protection. And so the wires became woven through generations.
Every woman is bound to the trellis from her first breath. Compliance is presented not as choice, but as nature. To cut a wire and reclaim inner power is to step outside an unseen ancestral contract — a millennia‑old membership agreement. Once protective, it has hardened into a curse. The ancestral voices echo: You will be alone if you do not comply. It is terrifying because it is not merely personal, it is a collective rule of belonging.
And when overt legal restrictions faded, focus shifted to the battle of appearance — body, clothes, make‑up, jewellery. The Barbie, the Stepford wife, and their modern equivalents. Women compete relentlessly on that stage, told that looking fantastic is power. But it is not. It keeps women divided, their energies never united, ensuring the old structures remain intact.
This is why the inner shift is radical. It is not just a personal change but a breaking of ancient codes. These rules may once have offered protection, but today they must be left behind — wire after wire.
The Patterns Women Inherit Today
These ancient codes still echo in the psyche of women in leadership. They show up again and again in three patterns:
– I am invisible.
– I am not good enough.
– I am alone.
Each of these wires is a direct descendant of the survival laws passed through generations. They drain energy and isolate women, even at the height of their success. Naming them is the first step to loosening their grip.
The Social Price of Success
The more successful a woman becomes, the more she is judged as unlikeable. This social price is unique to women: what is admired as authority and ambition in men is labeled coldness or arrogance in women. It is another form of the hidden bargain, punishing women for claiming space, and it keeps many from stepping fully into their power.
Female Power as Source
This is the heart of Female Power as I define it.
Not power borrowed from position.
Not power granted conditionally by a board or a system.
Not power proven by carrying pressure until your body breaks.
But power reclaimed inside — as source.
This is why I say Female Power is not performed, it is remembered through action. Once the inner architecture aligns, presence flows without depletion. It nourishes instead of draining. It steadies instead of exhausting.
Practice: Source One Decision
This week, I invite you to try this:
Notice one place where you feel pressured to perform — a meeting, a negotiation, a family demand.
Pause. Instead of reacting, breathe into the question: If I were the source here, what would I decide?
Take one small action from that answer.
It might feel risky. It might feel like nothing at first. But your body will register the difference. Each time you act as the source, the wires of pressure lose a little more hold.
The Orchard Beyond the Cliff
Hedwig’s journey is only one thread in the orchard. But her story shows what is possible when women stop accepting the glass cliff as destiny.
The orchard is full of women who are cutting wires, refusing to be defined by pressure, and rediscovering the ground beneath their own feet.
Not heavier. Not harder. But steadier. Clearer. More whole.
This is the counter-narrative I stand for:
– No more sending women to the cliff.
– No more applauding with one hand and undermining with the other.
– No more equating leadership with exhaustion.
Instead:
– leadership sourced from within,
– anchored in clarity,
– carried with presence.
This is Female Power.
And it begins with the inner shift.
About the Author
Renate Hechenberger works with women in high-stakes roles — from board seats to executive leadership to founder journeys. And with those whose influence takes other forms: in the arts, academia, or public life. Wherever the stakes are high, presence and integrity are non-negotiable.
There comes a point in every Deep Cycle journey when rhythm is not enough.
Now comes the hard work: You can release ambition that exhausts you, cut old wires, and breathe in a new cadence — and still the question presses: What will carry me, when performance alone no longer does?
When you begin to notice the wires on the trellis you cling to — you can start loosening them. With every release, your own pulse comes back, bringing relief and a first taste of freedom.
Every cut wire will be tested in real life. Doubts may surface when the old wire is gone — when you can no longer lean on your old ways of performing.
For Hedwig, that question arrived one autumn morning, in the place most familiar to her: the boardroom, where she now sat as founder and CEO, leading the company day to day — the woman who had taken the company public and carried its future in her hands.
The decision
The agenda was heavy. The project had first been proposed by certain board members and developed by outside consultants. Support spread quickly, many eager to push it forward. The politics were thick, and everyone watched Hedwig, knowing that as majority shareholder, her word would set the course.
On the outside, she sat composed, pen in hand. On the inside, her body rebelled.
Her stomach tightened before the meeting even began. Her jaw locked as she scanned the briefing papers. She felt her pulse hammering in her throat, not as fear, but as insistence: This is wrong.
She knew the expectation: add her authority, lend her credibility, keep the momentum. She had done it a hundred times before. That was how you survived, how you climbed. That was how she had taken the company all the way to an IPO.
But as she looked around the table, something in her, long pressed flat, was no longer willing.
In our work
She had brought this dilemma to me the week before.
We looked at outcomes not only in logic, but in resonance — the way the body itself testifies when conviction is near.
What happens in your body if you comply?
Her breath shortened, her shoulders folded.
What happens if you say no?
Her eyes widened. Fear, yes. But her chest lifted. Her whole frame seemed to remember space.
We spread it out like a constellation exercise — mapping each player into the field to see their dynamics, with obvious desires and hidden agendas alike. This is part of my work as Trusted Advisor: reading the deeper field, seeing the invisible architecture behind choices. I sense where loyalties are tangled and where pressures are concealed. One by one we placed them on the map until the political landscape was visible.
For Hedwig, the map was clear. Compliance drained her. Resistance, though frightening, pointed to the road she needed to take.
The sovereign No
Back in the boardroom, the moment came.
All eyes turned to her — the founder whose voice would decide.
She felt the old wires scream:
Her mother’s law: Don’t upset them. Keep the peace.
Her father’s warning: Never outshine, never dominate.
The corporate mantra: Performance is everything. Stay in line.
And yet beneath the noise was a deeper rhythm, steady and alive.
She spoke with an even, steady voice — not apologetic, simply clear: „I cannot support this.“
Silence fell. Some faces stiffened. One person exhaled, almost relieved.
She braced for backlash — anger, resistance, counter‑moves and critique. But direct attack did not come.
What followed instead was the harder part: she had to present her own version of the project, secure buy-in and agreement, and, not least, make the case convincingly.
Because we had explored the entire scenario in depth, she knew the hidden agendas and was prepared for the counterarguments she already anticipated. One by one she met them, countered them effectively, and steered the decision in her direction.
When the discussion finally closed and the board moved with her, she noticed her own body: back upright, breathing calm, the migraine that had shadowed her all morning gone.
This is what sovereignty feels like. Not triumph. Not rebellion. Her refusal had drawn a line in the room — not a wall, but a clear edge of what she would and would not carry. The quiet strength of a boundary that carries power — not a wall to shut others out, but the edge that defines where you stand.
What Female Power is
For years, Hedwig’s power had come from performance and via her family’s social standing — the traditional kind of power tied to status and external results. It was the language of corporate life: endless hours poured into work, every gesture rehearsed, value measured in compliance with the codes. A power that rarely considered people or values, even when marketed as such. At its core it was always ‚power over‘ rather than power with or from within. That kind of power drains, devouring body and spirit alike.
What rose in her that day was different. It did not demand recognition or approval. It did not leave her hollow. It steadied her. It nourished her.
This is Female Power.
The kind of power I wrote about in my brand-new E-Book — Unapologetic Power — because one article could never hold it. Female Power is not borrowed or performed. It is remembered. It flows when the inner architecture aligns, when conviction rises from the body instead of collapsing into fear.
Aftermath
That No did not end the story.
Later that evening, Hedwig sat in her car in the dark parking garage, hands on the wheel, heart still racing. She replayed the silence of the room, the faces unreadable. Even with her version approved, a flicker of doubt rose — she knew she had crossed some powerful people. What would be the repercussions, the hidden cost to her? Had she risked too much, shifted the ground too far?
Yet when she drove home, she noticed something new. For the first time in years, she did not rehearse her words, did not berate herself for being too sharp or too soft. She felt strangely clean inside. She had not compromised.
The next morning, she looked in the mirror, half expecting regret. Instead, she saw her own eyes steady, unflinching.
This is the cost and the gift of sovereignty: you cannot hide from yourself anymore.
In her following session with me, we deep dived into these worries. We looked at the protagonists again — I read the energies of the field once more — and together we developed a strategy for how she could counter possible repercussions.
The trellis runs deep
And one big No certainly does not dismantle the trellis. A boundary protects the new space opened when wires are cut — it holds the ground, but it is the cutting itself that will eventually dismantle the trellis.
The wires are not only corporate codes or family rules. They run through a long line of female ancestry, through generations of women told they had no value, no voice, no rights, no claim to anything. Survival meant binding themselves to the trellis and remaining there — a lesson passed from mother to daughter, appearing as compliant trees, carrying the right fruit, staying silent and small, because that was the only way to endure. Some wires come through family rules, others are inherited laws older than memory. The entire female lineage is wired to never outshine men, to submit and be quiet — and often it is the women themselves who ensure this code is obeyed.
Getting off the trellis is a long road requiring patience and endurance. Women who have walked with me for over ten years still find new wires to cut. This is not failure. It is the nature of a system woven through centuries. To grow beyond it requires more than simple clarity. It requires the courage to return, again and again, to the wires that still hold, and to cut it with your own hands.
Not lost — covered
Someone implied recently that I work with women who are ‚lost.‘ None of the women I work with are ‚lost.‘
Hedwig was not lost. She had founded a company, taken it public, navigated politics, survived storms. That is not the work of someone lost.
What women discover are the layers— coverings of expectation, code, and inherited voices. Their essence was always there but lying deeply buried underneath the version they were shaped into on the trellis.
You have to commit to get off the trellis because once you become conscious of each individual wire, you can’t ignore them. Covering up becomes intolerable.
The work is to cut them, one by one, and peel back the layers of expectation and code until your true feminine essence can breathe again. To free what has always been whole, waiting beneath.
Practice: Training a boundary
Sovereignty grows in practice. One choice at a time:
• Say no to a demand that drains you.
• Mark an evening for rest, even when the calendar insists otherwise.
• Speak one truth without polishing it for applause.
Each act feels risky. Each tests the wires. But with practice, the body learns: this boundary does not isolate you — it carries you.
The Deep Cycle
The journey of Hedwig is part of the Deep Cycle — my one-year program for women ready to step beyond performance and redesign the inner architecture of their lives. In this work, female power becomes tangible: leadership that nourishes instead of draining, and a way of living that feels lighter, freer, more joyful, with identity and presence restored.
Now Hedwig is deeply motivated to do the work because she sees results emerging. Each time she cuts a wire, honours a boundary, her leadership shifts — from optics to essence, from performance to conviction.
Perhaps you recognize yourself in her story. If you do, remember you are already powerful and whole — you are just waiting to uncover what has been hidden. The orchard is full of women waking up to their long buried true feminine power. Not heavier. Not harder. But clearer. Steadier. Freer.
Practice for this week:
Train one boundary to carry power.
Choose where you will stand — not against others, but for yourself.
About the Author
Renate Hechenberger works with women in high-stakes roles — from board seats to executive leadership to founder journeys. And with those whose influence takes other forms: in the arts, academia, or public life. Wherever the stakes are high, presence and integrity are non-negotiable.
There comes a moment after clarity when silence lingers.
The first pruning wires have been named, the cage has been seen, but the question remains: what now?
For Hedwig, that moment did not arrive as triumph. It arrived as unease.
Clarity had stripped away the illusions — the masks she wore, the roles she performed — and left her raw.
She was not yet free, but she was no longer blind.
The wire of “never disappoint”
Hedwig had grown up under the constant hum of a simple rule: a good girl does not disappoint.
Her mother carried it like gospel — not as cruelty, but as survival. “Don’t upset them. Keep the peace. Do what’s expected. That way, you remain safe.”
Her mother also taught her other survival codes: never let men see you are actually a bit cleverer; be super efficient and supportive, but never dominant. Above all, supportive — as her father had drilled into her. Become a good little man, but not better, never ever!
That wire ran through Hedwig’s body like steel.
It was why she stayed late polishing presentations no one would remember.
It was why she smiled politely when investors interrupted her mid-sentence.
It was why she offered more than was asked, and then resented the exhaustion that followed.
Each time she tried to loosen that wire, guilt and deep programming tightened its grip.
She feared becoming careless, selfish, exposed. How would she survive if she dared to break those rules?
The wire of “always visible”
Later came another strand — woven in during her rise through corporate ranks: Visibility is everything.
Speak up. Take the stage. Own the spotlight.
But over time, it became another form of bondage.
Every outfit chosen for optics, every word calculated for effect, every gesture rehearsed.
The performance never ended.
Hedwig sometimes wondered if there was any self left beneath the projection.
She could no longer tell where the show stopped and she began.
And beneath that confusion lay another battle. The new ideas of empowerment, suggested by previous coaches and learned from books, promised freedom, yet fought with the ancient law of conformity — the base code that whispered you must stay wired, cling to the trellis, never break free. This inner battle left Hedwig torn between the call to step out and the fear of losing the very structures that had once kept her alive. She also felt guilty, because she did not feel empowered at all — so she assumed something was wrong with her, that she was not good enough to “get it.” Nobody told her about the trellis and how every woman is connected to it in her own way.
All of this came at a cost. These wires had built her success, but they had also stolen her own rhythm, liveliness, joy – in a way her life.
Her body kept score: migraines, sleepless nights, blood pressure that hammered in her ears.
Her mind whispered of freedom, but her calendar spoke only of duty.
This was when she turned more fully toward our work together.
She had called me in the moment of her public triumph, desperate for clarity.
Now, clarity alone was not enough.
She needed something deeper: anchoring.
The slow work of rhythm
Anchoring does not arrive in a weekend retreat or a sudden epiphany.
It is the slow re-weaving of inner threads.
For Hedwig, it began in the smallest of choices.
One evening, she declined an invitation to yet another gala.
Instead of polished laughter and strategic conversations, she sat barefoot on her balcony, listening to the wind.
The world did not collapse.
Her absence went unnoticed by most.
But in her body, something shifted. A tiny pulse of relief. A new rhythm, fragile but alive.
Another time, she spoke her opinion in a meeting without calculating how it would land.
Her voice trembled, unused to such naked honesty.
But when she finished, the room was quiet — and then someone said softly: “Thank you. That’s exactly what needed to be said.”
In that moment she felt again the wire — never be too clever, never outshine, never dominate. Speaking her truth so openly went against everything her parents had pressed into her. And yet, here she was — the words landing, not breaking the world apart, but making it more whole.
She began to experiment.
A morning walk without her phone.
Speaking her opinion before weighing the politics in the room.
Letting her children see her tired, instead of pretending she could do everything.
These were not grand gestures.
They were daily steps, fragile experiments.
Each time she chose differently, she felt both terror and relief.
It was as if her heart, long pressed under borrowed rhythms, was beginning to beat in its own time.
The resonance of others
In sharing her struggles with me, Hedwig also began to hear echoes from others.
A colleague confessed that she, too, was tired of performing competence when all she wanted was space to breathe.
A friend admitted she had forgotten what joy felt like, caught in the grind of endless demands.
Together, their stories revealed a hidden truth: the trellis was not personal, it was systemic.
Women everywhere had been shaped by wires they did not choose.
To anchor differently was not indulgence. It was the first steps of defiance — a quiet kind of rebelling.
It was survival — not of the old trellis-program, but of her true self breaking through.
The work with me
Our sessions became her ground — and she began to understand that this would be a journey requiring steady investment of time and presence with me.
Sometimes she arrived with fire in her eyes, ready to cut a wire.
Other times, she collapsed in exhaustion, unsure she could take another step.
Anchoring, I reminded her, is not about perfection.
It is about practice.
About choosing presence over performance, even when the wires scream.
We mapped the invisible architecture together — tracing which voices belonged to her mother, which to the boardroom, which to fear itself.
We breathed into the moments her body wanted to collapse, teaching her nervous system that rest was not failure but foundation.
Bit by bit, she began to distinguish between the trellis pulling her back and the inner rhythm calling her forward.
The long road ahead
Anchoring is not a finish line.
It is a lifelong rhythm, a practice of returning — again and again — to the pulse inside.
Some days, Hedwig still finds herself back on the wires, caught in guilt or performance. The old teachings resurface too — don’t outshine, don’t be too clever, don’t dominate — whispering that she should retreat. But now she notices them for what they are: inherited voices, not her truth. She names them. And each time, she chooses a little differently.
Slowly, quietly, she begins to grow beyond the trellis — every day a bit, a step.
✨ Practice: Prune Ambition Notice where your ambition has overgrown into exhaustion. Choose one branch to prune this week:
Say no to one demand that serves only appearances.
Speak one truth without polishing it.
Allow one moment of visible imperfection. Small cuts, repeated patiently, free your rhythm to breathe.
The deeper cycle
She is beginning to realize this is the beginning of freedom. Not the glossy kind of freedom sold in lifestyle magazines — retire to Mallorca, meditate in Bali, drop out and start over. Only to find out that the wires follow everywhere. And most women cannot abandon their lives and careers even if they wanted to — so they stay, sink into resignation. Depression creeps in, silent but heavy.
No, the raw truth is harsher and more liberating: freedom is not about escape. It is about staying in your life, in your career, and ripping out the wires one by one, with your own hands if you must. It is bloody work, and it is daily work. But only this kind of work lets you live, step by step, from your own pulse, right where you are.
I know this truth in my own body. Years ago, I left my corporate role not out of courage, but because I had nothing left: sick, disillusioned, exhausted. And even now I carry the practice of anchoring — learning day by day to live more from my own rhythm. The collapse was also an opening, and the deeper rhythm keeps calling me forward. In my case, it meant letting go of my old world completely so I could heal and discover my true calling.
What Hedwig is discovering is not a quick fix.
Not a passing relief.
But the beginning of a deeper cycle — one that will carry her further than any trellis ever could.
The Deep Cycle is not about chasing another IPO, stock price spikes, or soaring valuations from the markets.
It is about learning to live from the steady pulse of your own female source of power — your real self, your identity, your truth.
Hedwig’s story is only one thread in this unfolding.
Perhaps you recognize yourself in her — the invisible wires, the exhaustion, the longing for a rhythm that is finally your own.
If you do, know this: you are not alone.
The orchard is full of women ready to step out of the trellis, one branch at a time. And even as old wires still whisper — don’t outshine, don’t be too clever, don’t dominate — more and more women are learning to recognize those voices, and to choose their own pulse instead.
PS: This is the second chapter of Hedwig’s journey. The next will unfold as she steps into sovereignty from inner conviction.
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, phases, or new forms of power. She clarifies the inner architecture of their female power, enabling decisions grounded in meaning, presence, and integrity.
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.
