More Softness, Less Survival

“You deserve to be in envi­ron­ments that bring out the soft­ness in you, not the sur­vival in you.”

~Brene Brown

Twenty-twen­ty-four brought me plen­ty of mag­ic and good­ness. I led a sold-out yoga retreat in an amaz­ing resort in the jun­gles of Belize. I saw my Quarters for three sep­a­rate long week­ends. I joined a pick­le­ball team. I walked on my favorite North Carolina beach as the sun rose. My god­daugh­ter got engaged. I hap­py cried through read­ing All the Colors of the Dark and watch­ing Wicked. 

But it had more than its fair share of woe and heartache as well. My sweet father-in-law died. My own father got can­cer. To pay for my daughter’s school­ing, I added pri­vate yoga ses­sions that cur­rent­ly have me teach­ing around 25 class­es a week. The elec­tion results left me feel­ing very, very wor­ried for the future of, well, every­thing. My menopause jour­ney keeps limp­ing along. And to top it off, I am actu­al­ly owed a tax refund – the first time in many years – but the IRS seems to believe I no longer exist (So weird how they knew exact­ly who the OM place was when I owed them money).

All in all, 2024 was hard, requir­ing strength, per­se­ver­ance, and resilience, lots of deep breaths and stand­ing my ground. I am burnt out. 

This is a prayer for more soft­ness in 2025.

From the Old English softe, mean­ing smooth and agree­able to the touch, sens­es, or mind, a soft life sounds like the per­fect anti­dote to my cur­rent exis­tence of over­com­mit­ment and overwhelm. 

When I googled #soft­life, I learned that the con­cept orig­i­nat­ed in the Nigerian influ­encer com­mu­ni­ty in 2021, then became a TikTok call for Black women “to let go of the astro­nom­i­cal expec­ta­tion that they do it all.” Since then, it has expand­ed beyond the Black com­mu­ni­ty as a move­ment for all women to find more bal­ance in their lives. 

While the media rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a soft life is fun­da­men­tal­ly a cost­ly life, for me it isn’t about a life of lux­u­ry. It’s about carv­ing out more time for rest, about mak­ing a con­scious effort to tend to my own needs. Just as nature takes a break from being pro­duc­tive, so can we slow down enough to par­tic­i­pate in the abun­dant joy around us at all times. 

As we enter 2025, I think we all deserve more smooth­ness, gen­tle­ness, and kind­ness. More moments of qui­et tran­quil­i­ty, and less exis­ten­tial dread.