Is Softness the New Badass?
Could softness be the new empowerment? It’s a question that’s been stirring in me for consideration.
Tell a Gen Xer, latch-key kid, to fall into her feminine side/energy and watch her look at you sideways. Huh? Be soft? Let someone else (a man?) take the wheel? Given our experiences we can’t quite wrap our head around the concept or what it even means.
But I find myself curious. Curious about what it might feel like to lean into a softer side of myself. And I wonder — could there be a man, a partner, who might naturally dovetail with me in such a scenario? It sounds old school at first. Remedial, backwards. But what I’d like to know is if realigning to modified traditional male/female roles but in a current, evolved, conscious, kind of way is possible.
Growing up some of us didn’t have parents that said a whole lot about our futures or well, anything. But the message that bled in from society and the culture at the time, was that women could HAVE IT ALL. Not only could we, we should. The Kool-Aid served to women in the 80’s, 90’s and even still is that we can make perfection happen and keep all the balls in the air. Bring home the bacon, fry it up and never let a man forget he’s a man by having his babies and raising them to perfection in a beautifully appointed home. And if that didn’t work out, as 50+% of marriages don’t, we female types found ourselves launched into single motherhood. Another situation where we had to hold up the sky. Which we did, with A+ efforts. But many of us accomplished this with little back up. For me, this meant without extended family to turn to, I operated the majority of the time solo, with no safety net. In fact, most of my life has felt like sink or swim. All that to say, we’ve built up quite an armor, maybe dug a moat around ourselves and now we just go soft?
Lately as I contemplate this shift and how I might achieve it, the message I keep coming across is that first I must love myself as I want the love of my life to. How much do we really accept and love ourselves? I know I’ve been going around and around with an inner mean girl for decades. I’ve finally gotten her to simmer down by calling the meeting of my life to order through healing, embracing her and her fears, and assuring her that I don’t need the protection she offers any longer because I’m good, I’ve got this. Sometimes that secure feeling lasts a while and sometimes it lasts 10 minutes. I’m a work in progress.
My guides have provided the following visual and message about how a hot air balloon rises:
“Drop the sandbags. Think and visualize rising to the place, people, and work you deeply desire. Let those thoughts fill you like helium so your vibration will rise to meet your desired life. Ahhhh – embrace lightness and softness.”
The truth is at this point in my life, staring down 60, I’m ready to lay down my sword and shield and hold the hand of someone who gets me, someone I can feel safe enough with to trust and let lead. And so, let the research and experiment begin.