softness is a superpower
For the past five years or so, softness has been one of my top values. Yes, values. As in, the shit I believe in most. The other two in my trifecta are celebration and liberation, in case you were curious. I spent a lot of years polishing a very impressive exterior and flailing on the inside. So many times, I felt too sensitive or too emotional. Too soft. But I have come to think of softness not as a defect or a weakness, but as a posture, a way of being present to the now, and kind of my superpower.
It bums me the fuck out when I hear people talk about softness as if it were something to be beaten out of a person or left behind in childhood. Softness isn’t weakness. It’s not lying down and taking whatever shitty stuff gets thrown at you. It’s not wussing out.
Softness is a superpower. It’s strength. It’s liberatory. It’s fucking antifascist.
When I say I want to stay soft, here’s what I mean: I refuse to let the bad shit in the world beat me up so bad that I can’t be kind. I mean I try to get still enough to listen to my body and listen for what she needs. I mean that I take the time to understand myself and listen to others. I mean that once I know better, I do better. Being soft/gentle/tender with myself gives me enough charge in my battery to stay soft with others. What if I assumed the best? What if I asked questions instead of immediately getting upset? What if I asked for help? What if I offered some?
True connection begs for softness. I have two incredible kiddos, and I can’t connect with them if I’ve built a hard wall around myself. They need me me to stay soft, to ask questions, to make room for their big feelings, to be a safe place to land.
How is softness antifascist, you might be wondering? Fascism needs control to function. The fascists need neat little boxes for people to obediently fit into so they can continue to exploit them and so they can continue to find folks outside those boxes to demonize. Giving a group of people a common enemy is the fastest way to unite them, of course, and we’re seeing that at work, right now, as the fascists unite against trans people, queer people, immigrants, Black and brown people — the list goes on and on.
But I don’t think hardening ourselves in survival mode is what will get us through this. Of course we have to take care of ourselves, tend to our capacity, recharge our batteries, but we have to make sure that we are not letting ourselves become hardened to the point of not seeing other people as humans. It might sound naive, but I have to believe that staying soft is what helps keep us connected and taking good care of each other.