A Moment For Softness
Honoring your sensitivity is a sacred revolution.
Hi dear one,
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling rather soft this week. Maybe it’s the Cancer full moon. Maybe it’s because my birthday is on the 16th and this time of year always feels equal parts heavy, contemplative, evolutionary, and unknown for me. Maybe it’s because there’s so much unrest and suffering in the world.
Probably all of it, yeah?
So if you’re right there with me, I want to remind you how special and sacred your sensitivity is. It’s important to actually feel, not just intellectualize and think through your emotions.
I know it can be confusing, scary, and messy because we live in a world that doesn’t value those deeply sensitive, soft parts of ourselves. Just like the Cancerian crab, we’ve learned it isn’t safe to express - to be vulnerable - and so we don a hard, protective shell. But underneath that shell is the magical softness that makes us empathetic, compassionate beings.
It’s easy to get swept up in this false sense of urgency and pushing forward that comes with a new year. Our world doesn’t support us in learning how to carve out pockets of time to just exist, without striving, achieving, producing, and bettering ourselves. But to simply sit and turn within, to observe, to breathe, to feel.
Let this be a space to come back to yourself - even just for a few moments. Let this be an opportunity to place a hand over your heart and ask yourself what you’re holding in that space. What wants to be felt? What needs your tending to?
Listening is just as important as responding. And for most of us, we spend the majority of our time responding (or maybe rather reacting) to the world around us.
Listen.
Slow down.
The world won’t stop spinning.
When we honor our emotions and create space to go within, embrace our sensitivity, and sink into softness, we rebel against everything telling us we aren’t enough simply as we are.
It may feel like a small, meaningless act. But it’s everything.
So, I invite you to carve out even just five minutes of time today, or this week, to sit and feel. This beautiful music always helps me tune into my deeper feeling Self and I can’t help but cry when I hear it. Put it on, breathe, and remain open and curious about whatever comes up. That’s all you need to do.
The song I shared above is a gorgeous mantra to Mama Oshun, a goddess of the waters. If the current state of the world is leaving you feeling helpless, imagine sending healing and prayers to all those in need while the music plays. I’ve been doing this with California in particular and imagine healing flowing to the land and the people there.
May you find solace, remembrance, and sovereignty in your softness.
May you remember how sacred you are.
May you reclaim your sensitivity and value its wisdom.
May you remember to listen deeply.
Go forth and be soft.
With love,
Montoya Miller
The Muse’s Altar