The Journey

The way I see it is, we can use life’s challenges to make us soft or we can use them to make us hard. I think the world’s tendency is toward hardness. We’re given the impression that hardness equals protection, equals safety, equals “smart.” This makes sense in a lot of ways. The tortoise retreats into his hard shell to protect his soft, vulnerable body. We see it in nature itself, so that must be the way, right?

In my experience, true power, true strength and true badassery comes from choosing to defy life’s blows–the darkness, the pain and the suffering–with the fearless choice to let it make you softer, to let it make you more vulnerable, to let it make you more open. The auto-response is to shut down and close off. While that response comes with its own pain, true bravery is required in order to NOT give in to the auto-response, to willingly and consciously choose differently.

I think choosing to let hardships make you softer looks like staying open to the world. Allowing yourself to continue to be vulnerable. Keeping your heart open to others and to goodness. Continuing to offer goodness to others.

To accomplish this level of openness in the face of a scary and brutal world seems to require that we allow ourselves to fully feel and experience our pain. And that is one of the most terrifying things you can possibly do. That is why it is the path less traveled. It takes raw guts and sheer determination to consciously and willfully traverse the pain, turmoil and fear of your inner world, especially after enduring a fresh wound.

Don’t get it twisted. In no way am I advocating for tolerating abuse or toxicity in your life. I have had to do my share of cutting certain people and situations out of my life because it is the self-loving, wise and responsible thing to do. To be clear, that is not the sort of thing I am suggesting it is brave to stay open to.

But to keep your heart open to life, to the world, to the divine and to the abundance of goodness in others–rather than throwing in the whole towel and writing the world off out of pain–that is true heroism. Learning to do this takes practice. In my case, a whole hell of a lot of practice.

But what I am finding is that when I choose to take up that torch, again and again, to choose to let myself fully feel the pain of the blows and to still take another step forward with my heart fully open, Life rewards me with so many blessings of love and grace and abundance. It may not be visible in the same instant, but just give it a moment and you will see. When I thought I couldn’t go any further, but I gritted my teeth and did it anyway–a little while after that–is when the shift in my surroundings began to take shape. That is the active work of faith in the unseen.

I can feel myself growing softer with every passing year, the walls shrinking lower after my initial backlash auto-response is put back in the drawer. My heart is getting bigger and my core more vulnerable, to the point that others seem to notice and even comment on it. It doesn’t mean that I’m no longer terrified. Indeed, that would be a ridiculous claim to make. The fear is still there, it is just getting less and less of a say in how I proceed.

I know we keep being told and shown out in society that hardness is the way, that it provides safety and respect, that it shows intelligence. But yet again, here I am finding that the mainstream way, and what it has taught me, does not lead to the promised results. The truth is, we all know the difference because we can feel it. The people who leave the greatest, positive, beautiful marks on our hearts and our life are ones who wear the scars of traversing that inner path and now bear the fierceness of inner softness.