“You deserve to be in environments that bring out the softness in you, not the survival in you.”
~Brene Brown
2024 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. I am still singing my favorite tracks from 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 has 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 IRA 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.
Today feels especially hard. It’s hard to watch the fall of democracy, hard to feel my pride and love for my own country waning, hard to watch powerful billionaires celebrate growing richer and more powerful on the backs of everyone else. I suspect there will be lots of hard times in the coming years. This is a prayer to actively look for the softer moments of quiet tranquility.
