As a trauma therapist, it is easy to feel like the world is constantly sharpening itself against us daily. Let’s face it – people can be scary… not sharks, not snakes, not tornadoes but the very thing that gives us belonging in this world – people. The headlines scream, the crowds surge, and the moments that feel safe and wholesome seem fleeting, swallowed by envy, betrayal, financial hardship, pride and ego. In this harsh world, softness can feel like a relic of another time, something quaint and impractical. Yet, it is precisely softness that holds the key to survival—not just survival, but meaningful, radiant living. How random… your defense mechanisms are not the thing that keeps you safe. Softness is not naivety. It is not weakness. It is rebellion. To stay soft in a world that trades in cynicism is an act of quiet revolution. It is choosing vulnerability when the world insists you harden. It is holding tight to your humanity, your tenderness, even when it seems no one else will.

Softness is Better Than Fear

There is power in gentleness, though it often goes unrecognized. When someone wrongs you, the instinct is to strike back, to armor yourself in bitterness, to prove you cannot be hurt. But what if you resist that urge? What if, instead, you meet cruelty with grace, indifference with care, rejection with self-love? It can be hard right?

If you grew up in a household where boundaries were non-existent or cruelty was frequent this very notion can feel like a foreign language.

Softness is not acquiescence. It does not ask you to endure what harms you or excuse what is unjust. It asks you to remain unbroken. To remain yourself. In the face of all that is sharp and hard, softness is a refusal to let the world change the essence of who you are. To refuse dissociation in the face of hardship and feel the pain of your experience.

What’s Your Narrative

Journalist Joan Didion once wrote, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

In a world where forgiveness seems seldom – you can choose to write a new narrative in a story that feels like a nightmare. The narrative screams, “this will not make me small. I will give peace to this experience. This will not turn me cruel.”

Softness requires you to feel deeply, even when it’s painful.

To let your heart crack open instead of sealing it off. To meet loss, rejection, and heartbreak not with numbness but with an aching honesty. This is not easy—it may, in fact, be the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But in that vulnerability lies strength. In that willingness to feel lies the truest power.

What About My Boundaries

Softness does not mean being defenseless.

On the contrary, softness thrives on boundaries—firm, clear, and kind.

It is knowing where you end and the world begins, protecting the tender places within you while still offering them to those who have earned your trust.

Softness says no to what depletes you and yes to what nourishes you. It honors your limits not as weakness, but as wisdom. To be soft is not to be walked on—it is to walk with grace, even as you guard your path.