A Black Girl Wrote This

There was a time when I believed that being soft made you easy to break. That vulnerability was a liability, that showing emotion meant giving people the blueprint to destroy you. I saw strength as being impenetrable, untouchable, unshaken. I thought survival meant hardening myself, refusing to let people see my cracks, and carrying the weight of the world on my own.

But I wasn’t always in that mindset. Before my first relationship, I was just a girl—trusting people, believing them, always assuming the best. Very much the girl next door. My mom used to swear I was trying to bring home every kid I met, convinced I could save them from whatever they were going through. I had a soft heart, and I didn’t see that as a flaw. But I heard a lot about how I ‘didn’t have a backbone.’ My ex said it. His family said it. My own mother said it. I was too nice, too forgiving, too naïve. And for a long time, I let their words confuse me. Because where was the line between softness and being a pushover?

I was taught that to be strong was to be invulnerable. That emotions made you easy prey. That the moment you let someone see your fears, your sadness, or your exhaustion, you were handing them ammunition. And so I armored up. I swallowed my tears, bit my tongue, and held my breath. I equated silence with power, mistaking endurance for strength. But what I didn’t realize was that shutting myself off wasn’t making me stronger—it was making me smaller.

Softness is not weakness.

Softness is a choice. It’s the ability to hold space for yourself and others without losing your own foundation. It’s resilience in a world that tells you to be tough. It’s standing in your truth without the need to raise your voice or prove yourself to anyone. Softness is understanding that there is strength in rest, in boundaries, in knowing when to say no and when to walk away. It is being firm in your decisions while staying open to growth.

To be soft is to be in control of your emotions—not by suppressing them, but by understanding them. It is knowing that anger and defensiveness are not the only shields available to you. That peace, grace, and patience are just as formidable. Softness is learning that you don’t have to fight every battle to win the war, and that sometimes, walking away is the strongest thing you can do.

I used to think power meant control, that it meant never bending, never giving in. But real power? Real power is knowing who you are, embracing all of your complexities, and refusing to shrink yourself to fit someone else’s definition of “strength”. I’m so over the “strong Black woman” narrative and I want us all to move the hell away from it. Real power is allowing yourself to feel, to heal, and to love deeply, without fear of what the world might say.

Softness is revolutionary. In a world that conditions us to be guarded, choosing to remain open, kind, and compassionate is an act of defiance. It is rejecting the idea that strength is synonymous with hardness. It is the refusal to let past wounds keep you closed off from the world. It is the radical belief that you are worthy of peace, of ease, of love, without having to earn it through struggle.

Softness is power. And now, I move through life with that power in every step I take.

I am not easy to break. I am not easy to manipulate. I am not easy to control. Because I have found a strength that doesn’t require me to be unfeeling, closed off, or hardened. I have learned that my ability to be soft—to love, to care, to rest—is what makes me dangerous. Because I am free.

And nothing is more dangerous than a woman who is free.