Softness
I am moved by softness.
Softness that occurs in times of strain and hurt…
The softness we give, even when we are afraid…
A soft hand extended rather than a scolding…
Softness offered to us in the moments of our deepest suffering…
Softness we offer to others in the moments of our deepest suffering.
Softness in a mother’s words describing the necessity of meeting the man who drove the truck that killed her daughter: “We are all in this together; if there is any way to alleviate suffering, let us partake in that.”
Softness doesn’t generally seem to be the way of modern humans.
When I encounter softness, it gives me pause. And it beckons me to practice softness more.
We see anger far more than we experience softness in the world right now.
It took me a while to learn anger, as I grew up being told “Don’t get angry.” I was taught to suppress anger, and that anger is a bad emotion. Despite this, suppressing anger did not mean I was taught softness. How do we allow for both? Does being soft mean losing integrity, or being weak? When we find ourselves angry, can we also hold softness? Can we be soft as anger is being hurled at us? Moreover, can we be soft as we hurl our anger into the world?
In many instances, anger comes from a breach of boundaries or some kind of betrayal. Anger comes up when we say “no” and it is not honored. Anger comes up when we don’t feel heard or respected, or when we are misrepresented. Anger is an emotion that moves: anger can lead to rupture, create change, and completely shift the landscape of a dynamic. Anger can help us move forward and move on when we are in pain. And sometimes we mistake our pain for anger. Anger and pain that do not move will harden us and make us ill.
Constitutionally, in Chinese Medicine, I have a “livery” energy, which is the element of wood. Wood energy needs to flow smoothly and when it doesn’t it gets frustrated. When it gets frustrated, the emotion that can express itself is anger. It is not easy for the wood energy to find softness, as the wood energy is about being determined and having a clear direction and an ability to break through/ break up tensions. Think of the roots of a plant that break up concrete or the insistent energy of a bulb breaking through the soil in the early spring. Wood energy is essential for growth and change. When the wood energy does not get to express itself fully, it feels profoundly thwarted, and it keeps trying. So, a practice for those of us with a lot of wood is to find softness while continuing to allow for flow. But it does not come easily!
For people who care about the world around us, we often feel inclined to fight for what is right and just. We become enraged when our community members behave disrespectfully or vote in ways we believe will be damaging to the world in which we live. This fierceness is necessary to move us forward and to protect that which we cherish. But what about when this protection becomes habitual and we become hardened? We become rigid, unforgiving, and unable to receive. We speak loathingly about anything that threatens our world as we wish to preserve it; we become bitter. We gaze out of icy eyes and cannot see what is actually around us. It becomes difficult to find the humanity in the “other” and most certainly we are unable to find softness.
Softness comes to many of us through practice and age. Softness often has to be cultivated and nurtured. Meditation helps to soften us. S.N. Goenka commands us to “remain equanimous” as we sit in his Vipassana style of meditation. And the more we sit, the more equanimity we practice, the softer we can become. And, with time, I think life naturally softens us. Softness comes just before we tumble into the abyss of losing our minds. Softness comes in those moments when we are too weak to have an agenda, when we feel too broken to hold anything together anymore, when we have purged the last drop of frustration and suddenly the horizon appears clearly again. Softness comes through understanding, dropping judgment, and taking a moment to find another person’s vantage point. No one can bring us to softness; we have to choose it for ourselves.
Softness is available within us when we allow another’s embrace to show our body the immense rest available in becoming soft. In softness, we receive. I feel softness as I recall my son’s hand as a toddler, needing my reassurance as he reached for my hand after a tumble, but requiring nothing more from me than my tender presence. I recall softness when I surrendered the fight for my marriage after my ex-husband had an affair. Softness arrives in making the hard decision to no longer push for something we thought we wanted.
My heart remembers softness in the eyes of someone who loves me coming toward me for a hug. There is softness in being with a lover who wants and invites all of us. There is softness in reaching our hand toward another person’s cheek. In softness, there is an openness and uncalculated readiness for deeply embracing our most tender selves. What happens to us when we soften to others? What does softness yield in the path of our life? What surprises can softness bring into hard and hardened relationships between us and others, between us and the world?
