The Softening
Why the work begins long before anyone reads a word. Thoughts on courage, vulnerability, and the quiet transformation of self-expression.
The Softening
There’s a moment I often return to just before I hit publish.
Even now, over a year into writing publicly on Substack, I rarely post without a pause. Sometimes it’s a breath. Sometimes a walk. Sometimes I sleep on it. And sometimes, I schedule the post, only to unschedule it. Not because the words themselves are wrong, but because something in me still trembles at the edge of visibility.
It’s not about the writing itself. I can journal and lose myself in thoughts, metaphors, memories. But publishing—that's different. Publishing means letting myself be seen. Seen beyond the ideas or insights, in the places that feel tender, raw, unpolished. And that requires uncovering a quiet kind of courage.
When I started writing publicly, I thought I was sharing perspectives, maybe starting conversations. But instead, I’ve found myself returning again and again to the vulnerable places—stories about healing, longing, spiritual inquiry, and inner transformation. Topics far from the polished image I once wore in the corporate world. Parts of me that had no slide deck, no bullet points.
And so every post, especially the early ones, felt like a risk.
A risk of being misunderstood. A risk of seeming too soft, too esoteric, too much. A risk of being judged, or worse, ignored. But underneath all that was something more primal: a fear of being rejected, abandoned, exiled for simply being myself.
That’s what made it so hard to click publish. That quiet voice inside that says, Who are you to share this? What if they stop respecting you? What if they leave?
And yet, with each act of pressing that button, something subtle began to shift.
The shift didn’t happen all at once. There was no grand catharsis. But there was something quieter, more enduring.
It began with noticing what didn’t happen.
I’d publish a post I felt sure would be “too much”—too personal, too spiritual, too far from my old professional identity. And then… nothing collapsed. No one publicly shamed me. I wasn’t discredited. A few people even thanked me. Others said nothing, but they stayed.
And slowly, that began to unravel something deeper.
Not just the fear of being seen, but the story I’d built around what it meant to be seen at all.
That story whispered by the inner critic says that visibility is dangerous. That expression equals exposure. That if we show our soft underbelly, the world will respond with ridicule or silence. And maybe, once upon a time, it did. Maybe the body remembers moments of being dismissed or shamed. But the page, I’ve found, is different.
The written page can hold it all.
And more than that, readers can too—when the words come from soul, not performance.
Over time, writing publicly became a kind of ritual. Not a branding exercise, but a practice of showing up as I am. Each post asked: Will you trust that this belongs? That your perspective, even if uncertain, has value? That it doesn’t require validation, because it’s real?
The more I answered yes, the more I softened.
Not weakened. Not diluted. Softened. As in: less defended. Less performative. Less gripped by the need for approval. And in place of that gripping, something else arrived.
An inner rootedness. A quiet knowing that I don’t need to prove or justify—just speak honestly, from where I am.
That’s when the writing changed.
It was no longer just a vessel for ideas, but a mirror for the soul. More than a way of speaking, a way of listening, of witnessing my own unfolding, and learning to move with the mythopoetic rhythm of unraveling and becoming.
The paradox is, the less I needed validation, the more resonance I felt. As if the field itself could tell when something was offered from essence, not ego.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped writing about my life and started writing from it. From something inwardly settled. No longer writing to prove I was here—but because I am.
What once felt like isolated moments began to cohere into something like a myth, a deeper, symbolic truth. Writing this way doesn’t just express who I am, it shapes who I’m becoming.
To write from the soul is to listen to it. To let it guide. To follow where it leads, even when the destination is uncertain.
Each act of publishing, with the workflow behind it, is the practice of becoming more whole. More honest. More rooted. More self-expressed. What looks like a simple post is, in truth, the end of a small rite of passage.
So now, even when I hesitate before clicking publish—because yes, that part still visits me—I can feel the difference. I’m no longer publishing to be accepted. I’m publishing to accept myself. To affirm that what flows through me is worth sharing. That my voice belongs as a living thing. Like a tree, still growing.
What most readers don’t realize is that every post comes with a quiet reckoning.
By the time it lands in your inbox, the real work has already happened inside me. The hesitation, the second-guessing, the voice asking, Who do you think you are to share this?—that’s where the transformation lives.
Each time I share something that still feels a little scary, I chip away at defenses that no longer serve and I soften into being real.
And that’s the part I want to offer you:
There’s power in being seen before you feel ready. There’s growth in sharing what still scares you. And the softening isn’t weakness, it’s the shedding of what no longer protects, so that something more honest can begin to live.
Writing publicly has become that place for me. A space where the personal becomes mythic. Where my experience speaks not just to me, but to something larger, something we’re all remembering together.
If writing has taught me anything, it’s that softening is the slow release of everything I thought I had to be, so that something truer can come through.
It means letting go of the armoring.
It means letting what’s true move through, even when it trembles.
We don’t always know who will read us. Or how we’ll be received. But there’s something holy in the act of showing up anyway—of saying, this is what I see, this is what I feel, this is what I know right now.
And what I keep learning is that we don’t need to wait until we feel certain. We can write, speak, create from within the transformation, as it’s happening. Especially when it’s happening.
So if you’re standing at the edge of visibility, about to share a story, a truth, a part of yourself that still feels tender, this is just a quiet reminder:
That is the work. That’s the alchemy.
And your voice, in all its honesty, may just be the roots someone else needs to grow.
resonating 💞. Thank you. 🙏🏾♥️
Beautifully written. Thank you.