Dear leader,

Stop measuring your strength by standards that no longer serve you.

You may be a woman who's disciplined, someone who's built her career on consistency. Someone who shows up, delivers results, and doesn't make excuses when things get hard.

But what others don't see is the part of you arriving at the office early for that leadership meeting despite pregnancy exhaustion and morning sickness, because you’re terrified of appearing weak. The part of you that’s eight weeks postpartum, pretending that your body isn't still bleeding, still healing, still fundamentally different than it was before.

You've completed the advance your understanding stage of The S.M.A.R.T. Journey to Parenting™. You've learned your body's language, mastered discernment, and built your support team. You understand what's happening and why.

Now we move into the fourth pillar: rise with strength. But not the kind of strength you're used to measuring.

This stage isn't about bouncing back or maintaining your pre-pregnancy pace. It's about redefining what strength means in each season of your life. When you build capacity that aligns with your body's current reality rather than forcing it to perform against its natural adaptation, you create sustainable power that serves you through every transition.

I see this transformation regularly in the women I work with, especially those I teach prenatal and postpartum yoga sessions. They arrive in various trimesters, often still trying to maintain their pre-pregnancy workout routines. I've also supported professionals like you as their doulas, using the same physical practices and breath work to navigate labor contractions or unexpected complications during birth. In all cases, all of these women are also juggling their work lives.

However, the most powerful moments are when they return with their baby. That continuity, from pregnancy through postpartum, shows how strength isn't about returning to a previous state. It's about evolving through each phase with practices that honor your body's current wisdom.

Strength isn't forcing your body to perform—it's building capacity that sustains you through transformation.

I learned this lesson across three very different pregnancies. With my first daughter, I approached pregnancy the way I initially approached my 20+ year pharmaceutical career—pushing through, maintaining my usual routine, ignoring every signal that my body needed something different. I gained more weight than recommended, felt completely disconnected from the changes happening, and had no tools to work with the intensity of labor. I was trying to force my body to perform rather than learning to partner with it.

By my second pregnancy, I'd discovered prenatal yoga. For the first time, I learned that strength wasn't about maintaining any capabilities, it was about building capacity that aligned with my body's current needs. Those yoga practices taught me to breathe through contractions during labor. And when an unexpected placental abruption occurred, those same breath techniques helped me stay present and calm through an emergency situation. I wasn't stronger because I was forcing my body to perform. I was stronger because I'd learned to work with my body's wisdom.

My third pregnancy showed me what aligned embodiment truly means. I practiced prenatal yoga throughout, combined it with HypnoBirthing techniques, and the birth was an entirely different experience. I was so deeply connected to my body's intelligence working with every sensation that I felt nothing physical and my baby was born in my bedroom unexpectedly. I realized that I built strength through alignment, not force.

But this practice is essential beyond pregnancy because I'm now in perimenopause, and I feel the strongest I've ever been—both physically and mentally. When I experience heart palpitations or joint aches or shifts in energy, I don't push through or ignore the signals. I adjust my day, modify my movement practices, honor what my body needs. The strength I'm building now isn't about forcing my body to stay the same, it's about working with these changes to create sustainable capacity.

So what does this actually look like in your day-to-day life?

• Build from where you are and celebrate different wins. Not "I ran 5 miles today" but "I walked twenty minutes without hip pain". Not "I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight" but "I have energy for the things that matter most".

• Translate this to your work life without the guilt. When you leave on time instead of working late to "make up" for the prenatal appointment you attended earlier in the day, or when you protect your pumping schedule without apologizing, you're not being difficult, you're being strategic about building sustainable capacity instead of depleting it.

• Remember this isn't just about pregnancy. You will use the body literacy you're developing now as part of your journey to lifelong pelvic health. You'll use it again during postpartum recovery, when you face health challenges, when your life shifts in ways you can't predict. Learning to build strength that evolves with you isn't a pregnancy skill—it's a life skill.

Take time this week to notice what strength may look like to you. Are you comparing yourself to who you were before this transition, or are you building from where you are right now? What would it feel like to define strength by alignment rather than force?

In my next entry, we'll explore how to reclaim your body as a source of wisdom—because once you've redefined what strength means, you need to rebuild trust with the body that's carrying you through this transformation.

Your body isn't betraying you. It's inviting you to redefine what strength means.

From my desk to yours,
Dr. Michelle El Khoury

P.S. Ready to build sustainable strength in a way that honors your pregnancy journey? Get my free 5-minute daily prenatal yoga practice at https://programs.yogamazia.com/daily-prenatal-yoga and move with both intention and presence.