Let’s Talk About Sacrifice

Let’s Talk About Sacrifice

When Giving Costs Too Much

This might not be the most popular perspective, but I’ve come to it honestly—through story after story in my coaching practice.

Sacrifice shows up often. My clients are deeply generous women. They sign up. They show up. They step up. They bring the extra dish. Remember the birthdays. Say yes to the last-minute requests. They are praised for their resourcefulness. They are admired for their selflessness and how much they give.

When we talk, though, I repeatedly hear them share how much their sacrifice is costing them. It’s more than they can afford. It’s not just time, money, or energy—it’s costing them. Their needs. Their voice. Their dreams, their rest, their presence. Sometimes even their identity.

As we wander through conversations about sacrifice, it seems they’ve forgotten they have options. Somewhere along the way, they’ve adopted the belief that “good women” give until they have nothing left. Eventually, these conversations wind around to a truth that gives them hope: Sacrificing doesn’t have to mean abandoning yourself. You’ve probably heard the old airplane safety advice: put your own oxygen mask on first. But so many women are trying to put on everyone else’s masks while they quietly run out of air.

The Cupcake Moment

Maybe you’ve lived your version of this.

It’s 11 p.m. The kitchen is a disaster. You’re elbow-deep in frosting for a school event. Everyone else is in bed. You have an early meeting tomorrow, but you’re doing this because, “This is what good moms do.”

Could we pause for a minute and shed some light on what else is in the room?

Maybe a little fear?

Fear of being unreliable. Fear of disappointing someone. Fear of not measuring up to some imaginary standard of “woman who has it all together and makes Pinterest-worthy baked goods at midnight.”

You might want to call it sacrifice. But in moments like this, it’s more like self-abandonment.

When Sacrifice Stops Serving Love

Sacrifice isn’t always noble. In a world full of ways to contribute, we’ve been sold a story: If it costs us, it must be good. We’ve been taught that sacrifice is holy—and sometimes, it is. The expectations we place on ourselves, what it should look like, how often we should say yes, are often impossible to live up to. And instead of making us whole, it leaves us hollow. Disconnected from what we want. Disconnected from what we need. Disconnected from who we truly are.

We forget that you don’t have to sacrifice to the point of exhaustion. You don’t have to give up all your dreams so others can chase theirs. That’s not love. That’s fear. It’s fear that you’ll never give enough.
Fear that you’ll never be enough.

What If Sacrifice Came from Love?

Let’s flip the script: What if sacrifice came from love, not fear?

Then it looks like offering something because you want to—not because you feel like you have to.
It stretches you, but it doesn’t break you.
It creates connection, not resentment.
It expands you—it doesn’t leave you feeling small, isolated, or not enough.

Sacrifice from love flows from being enough.

“I am enough—so I can give freely, not because I am proving myself.”

Love will still ask us to give more than we think we are capable of sometimes, and we want to be able to do that.

But a sacrifice of love includes you. The whole you, not just the you that performs and provides. 

An Invitation

This week, notice one place where sacrifice feels tricky, where it costs you peace or where it stirs up resentment.  Ask yourself:

“Am I giving from love? Or from fear?”

I’ll be cheering you on as you begin to notice the difference—and choose love instead of fear.

Want to Go Deeper?

I recommend reading Try Softer by Aundi Kolber if you want to explore this shift further.
It’s a beautiful, gentle guide for untangling performance-based patterns and returning to presence, compassion, and true self-awareness.