When softening feels like a threat or a weakness, remember this.. an article for the woman who is learning to find safety in the process of her feminine softening, healing and embodiment. 

In both my lived as well as coaching experience, I have found that when feminine-hearted women begin removing their hard masculine shields of perfection, performance and numbness, softening into their most natural essence feels quite vulnerable. 

It feels like an inner threat of losing control over the flow of their lives. 

It feels like an outer threat of being perceived as weak and silly for no more following the heart-hardening masculine ways of living. 

It feels like laying bare to be seen for who they truly are, which can feel very scary if they are in an environment that doesn’t value the feminine way of being. 

Almost every woman who I have interacted with in my feminine softening and healing work, has felt this at least once. 

In the process of honoring this sweet desire of her heart to live more softly and move at her own pace, she has found herself questioning the legitimacy of this gentler way of living. 

She has found herself wondering if she will be left behind in the apparent race of life.    

She has found herself fearing how will she be perceived by the people around her now that she is feeling called to a way of life that is not as celebrated, most times not even accepted in spaces she is used to be in.

But the more she has allowed herself to trust this quiet inner calling, the more she has found herself grounding in the truth that..

..she will find people who will love, value and support her for choosing this path, who will cherish her sensitivities and her gentle essence, and

..she will be able to create a career path, earn a living and live a fulfilled life while honoring this desire of her heart to slow down and soften the hardness that’s been weighing her down for as long as she can remember. 

From this assurance, it becomes easier for her to recover from the exhaustion she has felt in hiding her heart’s truest desires behind a masculine shield of nonchalance or indifference. 

It becomes easier for her to drop the pretence that she can do it all on her own. 

And above all, it becomes easier for her to decide that she is not going to strive, force or push herself through life anymore. 

If you’re at a point in your life, relationships or work where you’re feeling called to soften and shift the way you have been living and being but are scared of losing yourself in the process, please know that you’re not alone and that this is a very natural and valid fear. 

The hyper-masculine design of our world has trained most of us feminine-essenced women that the only way to feel our power is through striving, forcing, exerting and in proving ourselves worthy of our existence. 

Time and again, it has conditioned us to believe that our nature is ‘too emotional’, that our sensitivities and intuitive nudges are not a gift but something to fix, to hide, to contort into something more logical, something that makes sense to those around us. 

It has made us lose remembrance of the truth that as deeply feeling feminine-essenced women, we cannot be pushed by logic, or what seems to ‘make sense’. That we have our own way of knowing, and it has little to do with shoulds and timelines and logical progressions.

It has trained us to oversee the fact that the masculine ideals of moving through life were never ours, that as feminine beings we blossom when we flow through life with a softer strength.. 

Something I often find myself thinking about is how different our relationship with our softness might be if we had grown up seeing the right role models in the women who came before us.

Would we still see our softness as a weakness if we had grown up watching women express their disappointments to their partners calmly and gently, resolving conflict as if it were simply a problem to solve?

Would we still see our softness as a weakness if we had grown up watching our teachers or mothers teach the value of discipline without raising their voice? 

When I look back on my own journey of feminine softening and embodiment, I realise how hardening makes it so much easier for us to break and fall apart. Whereas softening, it strengthens our ability to survive, take a different shape and become someone new, someone even more beautiful..each and every time. 

There’s a memory from my past corporate days that I still vividly remember.. a spring afternoon when I stood in the cabin of my department head telling me how I was “too soft to become a good manager” (looking back, I realise what she actually meant was that I was too soft to be successful in that highly-masculinised work culture). It felt so much easier to believe her then because she too was a woman, quite successful one at that. And I remember how from there on, I consciously started placing shields after shields on my heart that would continue to remind me that I’m never allowed to be seen as my softer self again. What I didn’t know then was that I would also be shutting down my empathy, my natural gift of connecting with people by taking on this new role of hyper-masculine toughness.. 

But as is the natural progression of life wherein those who are lost will one day find their way back, I too years later while still in that workplace, despite all my success just couldn’t carry the weight of those shields that had grown so much out of proportion. And so, I came back to the same softness in me but with more conviction this time as I had more experience with life, work, and my relationships with people now. I witnessed myself turn this gift of my feminine softening into my biggest strength that slowly yet surely repaired my relationship with the same people who had put up with my hardness for all those years in that workplace. And with that, I also came back home to myself, to my essence as a woman and never left my side again.  

When I reflect upon my 1-1 work with women now, I find how common this trajectory is for women who feel called to the softening path.

For women who have experienced the harsh impacts of their masculine-focused conditioning, softening feels like a big exhale, like a respite from a way of life that they never really resonated with.

Deep in their bones, they know the difference between the heart-hardening masculine way of life and the softening and nourishing feminine way of living. 

They have walked the path of doubting their feminine value of softening only to realise a few steps later that it is their biggest and deepest strength.

They know how good it feels to soften into the trust of knowing that their life will unfold perfectly for them when they’re following their heart, instead of continually striving, pushing, forcing and proving themselves to meet the ideals set by their outer world. 

And most of all, they understand that the art of truly softening into their feminine essence isn’t some outer social trend that they’re being drawn to, but it is in fact a deep inner calling of something unseen and only felt by them in their body, heart and soul.. 

If you too are in a season of life where you’re feeling this inner call, then just for today give yourself the permission to soften without guilt. 

Just for today, allow yourself to soften in the trust that your sensitive, feminine nature has a place in your life and in this world. 

Allow yourself to soften in the trust that your relationships, your deepest wishes and ambitions will blossom even more once you start embracing your heartfelt desire for a softer approach to living and being.

And in case you find yourself desiring more support around this, you may explore my feminine softening course or work with me privately in one of my feminine softening 1-1 sessions. 

Navdeep 💗

P.S. visit here to read more articles on feminine softening in life and in love.