Softness
You're allowed. That's the heart of this piece.
Softness is the quiet act of following your own wanting- without shame, without justification. It doesn't have to be grand. It can start with something small.
Listen or Read Below
I have a confession. I love a crisp, well-salted, peppery potato chip.
I know it's not exactly what you expect to hear from an acupuncturist, but it's the truth. And here's another confession. I'll eat the whole bag in one sitting without shame. Why? Simply because I want to. And it's my pleasure.
“This is a small thing, but the small things are where softness lives.”
Softness is not an idea. It's not a personality trait. It's not a mood you cultivate or a posture you perform.
Softness is a nervous system state- what becomes possible when the body stops bracing against life.
When softness is present, the body loosens its grip on constant vigilance. It stops prioritizing survival at all costs. Perception becomes clearer because it's no longer filtered through urgency. Softness is the condition that allows truth to surface without force.
And here's what I want you to understand:
Softness is the original condition.
We're born into trust. We're born soft.
But because of conditioning, because of what the world demanded of us, many women learned that softness is dangerous, that it leads to punishment, loss, invisibility, or harm.
So the body adopted loyalty intelligently. It hardened to survive. This is why softness feels so unfamiliar to many women. Not because it's unnatural, but because it was never safe to live there.
Softness is not naivety. It's not [a] collapse. It's not [a] surrender of discernment or power. It's not letting your guard down in ways that leave you unprotected. Softness is not the absence of strength. It's the presence of safety. Enough safety to stop performing, to stop overriding, to let the body be honest about what it actually needs.
Softness is the body remembering that it's allowed to tell the truth.
Softness doesn't have to be grand. It can be quiet, undramatic, entirely personal.
Softness might look like staying in bed an extra thirty minutes, not because you're lazy, but because your body asked for rest and you listened.
It might look like not answering an email right away, letting it sit, trusting that your response can wait until you're ready.
It might be drinking one less cup of coffee because your body signalled that one was enough and you believed it.
It might be signing up for that class, that hobby, that thing you have wanted to try but have not given yourself permission to pursue.
It might be wearing lipstick on a workday for no reason, just because it delights you.
It might be eating the whole bag of potato chips without shame simply because you want to.
Softness is following the quiet nudges that lighten you up from inside out without judging them, without asking if they're productive, appropriate, or allowed.
Softness
Isn't something you create. It's something you allow when the body finally senses it might be safe enough to do so.
You don't have to earn it. You don't have to be healed first. You don't have to wait until everything is stable and figured out.
You can start with something small. Something just for you. Something that asks nothing of you except that you let yourself have it.
That's where softness begins.
Not in grand gestures of self-care. Not in performing ease for others to witness.
It's in the tiny, private acts of following your own wanting without making it mean anything about your worth, your discipline, or your right to pleasure.
You are allowed.
You always were.
* Images sourced via Pinterest. All rights belong to the original creators.*