The Weight We Carry: Unburdening the Modern Caryatid

She Carries the World, Quietly

Look closely at the foundations of any home, any business, any country -and you’ll find her. A woman, not merely managing, but upholding. Balancing the roof of the household while juggling receipts, raising futures, and internalizing shame that was never hers to begin with.

In ancient Greece, architects sculpted women into pillars. Caryatids, they were called. Carved into stone, backs straight, eyes forward -baskets on their heads. Sculpted, upright, dignified, used to hold up temples and structures with nothing but her posture, her grace… and her basket. But what’s often missed is this: It’s never just one. They stood in rows.
Multiple women – all bearing the weight together.

Rows of women, carrying the weight of civilization. They weren’t decorative. They were functional structure.

Each one subtly shifting her weight from one foot to the next, because even in stone, the load had to be balanced. That is what we have done – across generations. They held the unborn, the next generation, the memory of the matriarchs. They didn’t just carry structures.
They carried futures.

Today, the load hasn’t changed much.
We still carry.
We shift the weight from one foot to the other;
between childcare and care work,
between salary and side hustle,
between budgeting and self-abandonment…

 

The Myth of Productivity = Worth

Most women don’t end up in debt because they lived large. They end up there because they lived for others. They gave. And gave. Until there was nothing left but guilt for wanting a moment’s rest.

We’ve been taught that rest is laziness. That investing in ourselves is selfish. That our value is tied to our output. That we only deserve softness once the work is done -and the work, let’s face it, is never done.

“If I don’t fold the laundry, if I don’t check the budget -who will?”

This is where the freeze begins. The invisible freeze that leads to burnout, to shut down, to debt. Shame creeps in. Not because of irresponsibility -but because of the lie we believed: that we are only valuable when we’re producing.

Whether it’s debt, overextending, abuse, or just saying yes one too many times – it always starts the same way:
A woman convincing herself this is just temporary.

Debt doesn’t just happen on a spreadsheet.
It starts when a woman says, ‘I’ll just put my needs aside this once.’
And before she knows it, her whole identity is running on borrowed time.

Overspending is rarely about luxury.
It’s often a desperate negotiation for dignity – in a world that keeps her poor in permission. When the truth is, that productivity without self-worth is just high-functioning depletion.

 

The Tipping Point and the Unseen Descent

Debt isn’t always the start. Often, it’s the result of years of chronic over-functioning. The perfect egg given to someone else’s sandwich. The 16-hour day carried alone. The silence during the sacrifice.

This is the part no one tells you: by the time most women enter debt review, they’ve already stripped everything non-essential. They’ve already gone without. Already done the math, skipped the skincare, stretched the meals.

Debt isn’t shame. It’s a symptom of surviving everyone else’s expectations. We don’t notice the tipping point until we’re upside down. Motherhood will ask you to put others first.
That’s not the danger.
The danger comes when no one notices you’ve disappeared in the process.

 

Patterns Passed Down, Futures Written Quietly

Our children don’t learn their relationship with money from schools. They learn it from how we cope in the kitchen. How we react to debit orders. How we cry in secret. How we whisper: “we can’t afford that” when what we mean is “I’ve given everything to keep you warm.”

This is how generational patterns are passed down -not with words, but with absorbed realities.

When we change our financial habits, we don’t just change our budgets. We rewrite our children’s future scripts. It can break the transmission of shame.
It offers a pause button long enough for the next generation to see something new:
A woman reclaiming her voice.
A parent saying, ‘I’m done just surviving. I’m reprogramming the future.

 

Medusa Wasn’t the Monster. She Was the Mirror.

Women have been trained to fear being called the villain. To avoid confrontation. To not be too much. Debt shame works the same way. You’re told not to speak of it. Not to confront it.
So it festers until you start to believe the silence is your fault.

But Medusa (like debt) didn’t become a monster by choice. She was punished for being seen. Her story is one of transformation -from victim to warning. From shame to sovereignty.

“Freeze.” That’s what people do when they see a woman who refuses to shrink.

When you’re drowning in bills, juggling kids, and carrying emotional baggage that isn’t yours –
you don’t get the luxury of calmly budgeting. Your brain goes into survival mode.
You freeze. You numb. You delay opening that envelope like it might bite you.

And that freeze response? That’s where shame lives.
And shame is a liar.

Debt shame works the same way. It silences. It isolates. But the moment we look directly at it… the power begins to shift. It’s not the debt that breaks us.
It’s the silence we carry while trying to survive it.

 

Inanna’s Descent: The Sacred Underworld of Self-Facing

In Sumerian myth, Inanna descends into the underworld. She’s stripped of everything -her crown, her jewels, her status -until she stands raw before her shadow self, Erishkigal.

This is the feminine journey: not one of escape, but of facing the shadow. Of descending into discomfort. Of understanding why we gave so much, and to whom.

Debt review, in its highest form, is not punishment. It’s pause. A chance to reorganize not just money -but meaning.

Debt counselling gives women what no one else does: breathing room.
Not more debt. Not another product. Just clarity.

It allows time for shadow work. Pattern breaking. Truth telling. It’s not magic. But it’s meaningful.

A lawful way to stop the bleeding and begin again- in strength.

 

The Basket and the Legacy

The Caryatid’s basket isn’t just burden. It’s harvest. It’s the womb. The carrier of grain, of hope, of future generations.

When women lay down the burdens of debt, they don’t just put down interest rates and instalments. They release the weight of generations. They plant different seeds.

They raise children who say, “My mother was tired. But she chose truth.”

 

No More Competing. No More Proving.

Women of worth don’t need to fight other women for space. They don’t need to scream to be seen. They already are.

The ones who rage incoherently, who compete loudly, who degrade others? They’re at war with their own reflection.

The woman who refused to carry the heavy burden that does not belong to her? She observes. She analyzes. She transforms.

She doesn’t beg to be heard. Her truth restructures the room.

Because it’s only when we stop hiding from ourselves, that we become the kind of woman who can shift society. And it’s about time it does just that.

 

This Is the Movement.

This Women’s Month, we don’t just share stories. We break silence.
We build new blueprints.
We remember that women were never the weakness -they were the architecture all along.

And now, we unburden.
Not just our finances.
But our futures.
Our daughters.
Ourselves.

#Undebtify #CaryatidRising #WomenOfWorth #DCASA #IntuitivePDA #DebtReviewWithDignity

By Nadia de Weerdt | Upcoming Women’s Month Feature for DCASA and Intuitive PDA 

– DCASA Western Cape Representative &

– Co-owner of Sandton Debt Counsellors https://www.sandtondc.co.za/