Softness is strength. But sometimes we forget.

Our world thrives on the critical. So much so, that when we’re real and soft with each other, it’s suspect.

Lies make all the good shows on TV. Think Preacher, Barry, Game of Thrones, Orange Is the New Black. All depend on lies to spin them forward.

Realness and vulnerability are so much harder to write, let alone act.

That means these are rare, and what’s rare is coveted. Which means you are coveted. Because you are not a lie. 

Take this moment to feel how real and soft you are. It’s a rare and divine commodity these days. Forget what they say about being hard and tough. Hard and tough is easy. It’s walled, shielded, and thick. Bricks are easy to come by. 

The truly strong let their softness walk through their front door, knowing the risk, and they still take it. And because you do that, you are truly strong.

Softness is strength.

Just go ahead and feel how loving you are. What a good friend you are. How much you give. How you give things away that you actually need for yourself.

Notice how if a friend called you in the middle of the night and needed you, you’d go. How when no one else had time for your parent, you’re the one who was there.

See how you try to buy organic, or recycle. How you fret over seeing a lost dog in the road. You actually care. Not perfectly, not all the time. But you do care.

And even more importantly, you are not secretly selfish, who ever told you that?

You’re also not secretly dumber than everyone else, whoever told you that?

You are not incapable of making great money at work you actually like, who made you think that?

You are not doomed to fail because you’re not good enough at what you want to do, so you have to take the safer route. Who told you that?

Who are the people that told you these vile, well-meaning things?

Who said to dumb down your dreams?

And mostly, why did you believe them? Remember, they lie.

Those people were afraid. Those people were hurt and didn’t have the resources to heal from it.

They saw their own dreams die out and slip away. They had their hearts break.

They don’t want you to feel the way they felt. Better to protect you. 

And, sometimes it’s even better to prevent you from actually achieving something they never achieved, since that would just grind their pain in harder. They want you to stop trying before you even start.

They’re the parents who tell their young child, “Don’t even try riding that bike, kid. You’ll just get hurt. Stop now.”

And, “That pretty dress you’re wearing? Who are you trying to make notice you. You got  nothing to show.”

In other words, “Stay down here with us. Because if you stay down here broken like me, then I know I’m ok. I’m protecting you from your own future failure. And, I’m reminding myself that my own failure was not my fault—it was destiny. Our destiny.”

Uh, but, you are not down there. Not yet. Not until you choose to be.

You’re filled with dreams. I don’t care how old you are. A 50-year old is just discovering dreams she’d never have thought of when she was 20. Age is irrelevant. It all about your heart, and softness. And remembering who you are.

You’re smart and fierce and gentle all at once. You’re thoughtful, creative and kind. And yeah, you’re gonna break. 

But look, if you don’t already have the resources to fix that break, then at least you have the ability to look for them. You’re different than the people who told you to back down, stay low, shut up and don’t try to be bigger than your britches..

What a line of crap. But, oh such a very effective line. It’s what maybe made you think it’s only the geniuses, lucky, rich or the truly selfish who get what they really want. Someone convinced you of that. You weren’t born thinking that.

You were born to dance in ballerina slippers, paint rainbows, race trucks up impossibly high mountains and fly like a superhero through the room. All that had to be kicked out of you to get you where you are today.

Doesn’t that piss you off? That you allowed that to happen? That you took it in and believed it and made those other people’s stinky thoughts become yours?

Thinking the genius, lucky, rich, or selfish are the only ones who get the good life is what keeps us all mired in this world we’re in today. 

Believing that also means that success and love are arbitrary and tilted toward rewarding the bad. How unfair. How hateful of life and God and all you believe in.

That can’t be right. And if you believe it is, then you are once again right down in that pit where all those sad sacks are who told you you can’t do those things you dream of doing. 

But wait.

You are soft. You are sweet and open and insightful. You’d rescue a cat out of a tree. You’ve rescue your neighbor from a flood if you could. You’re the heart and soul of this world. And it’s you who have the power.

That power is all wrapped up in your goodness. In your inner strength. In your knowing what’s right. In your dreams and risk-taking. Who ever made you forget that?

And most importantly, when do you want to remember it? 

Your whole life is hanging on the balance of you remembering that. Once you do, it’s all about translating it into action.

Stop doing the safe thing. Instead do the risky, vulnerable, soft thing. Do it with intelligence, and caution, and bravery. But do it. It’s who you are.

Softness is strength, and it’s how we all spin our greatest gifts into the world.

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P.S. Great Flowdreams to help you soften into the power that comes from truth, vulnerability, and embracing your dreams include Awaken My Feminine Power and Super Inner Yumminess.