Softness is Not a Break

The biggest bump I come up against when I share softness with people is a response like it’s cute, an option like chilling when things are good, an impossible choice for when things are obviously hard. Essentially, softness gets dismissed as unserious, while rigidity, the action of destruction, is held up while those who employ it wait for things to improve.

For whatever reason we all share when we feel a pull to do something illogical with our time and energy, I have felt a sense of urgency and seriousness to share softness, a practice of a better way, for decades. I’ve seen too many people wear their stress as a sign of success, and I’ve noticed in my own confronting of my internal rigidity how, once you go softness, it’s impossible to go back. It’s a better way.

I’m writing this from the back of the car, on our little road trip to Kansas City, where I am leading a weekend of softness for people coming in from near and far. I’m always a little over excited before these workshops because I know how good they feel for everyone, and I know how confronting actually practicing softness is. It’s not easy, but it’s worthwhile to accomplish so much more and feel connected along the way.

Softness isn’t an alternative, a break, or a cute choice to chill before returning to getting things done. Softness is the most effective way to accomplish more. It’s a fact, a universal truth, wisdom.

You can choose to move with force, and you can believe that stress is a sign of success, but it’s not the most effective choice, and the belief is wrong.

Probably the hardest thing to change is your mind, until you experience a better way.

It’s worth understanding, if you choose to understand, that choosing No Pain No Gain is itself a trick. It convinces you that pushing harder is your most effective approach. Carrying extra tension is an addiction, a habit that stays in place until you decide to change it. Often that decision comes through breakdown or burnout, when you feel you have no other choice. But you can also go ahead and choose now.

Softness is being moveable so you can be moved by your breath, by your whole self, and by the world around you.

Rigidity gives you the feeling that you are in control, but it’s a trick that leads you toward breakdown. Softness isn’t easy, but it’s possible to break the rigidity habit when you first understand there is a better way, and then start choosing it.

Soften.

Watch your breath move you.

Notice how you feel.

Respond to what you find with care.

Do this when things are easy so you have it when things are hard.