Image: Some softly powerful things

In 2017, I started visiting a sex therapist, in part because I wanted to see someone to whom I did not have to explain BDSM — but mostly because I was struggling to think of myself as safe, physically and psychologically, moving through the world in my body. 

Cat calls, interactions with men at stores, even imagined and unreal conversations left me feeling small, terrified, and helpless. 

"If you let your fear of harmful men keep you from doing what you want with your body, you are giving them power," she told me. 

I understood that. But how, I wanted to know, could I reclaim power without making myself vulnerable? 

"Vulnerability is power," she said simply. 

This statement has changed how I live. I knew immediately what she meant: if I armored myself with anger and bluster, if I punched harmful men or put on layers of skin to make myself invulnerable, it would only make it that much harder to peel back, to reveal myself, to become naked and soft and unashamed. I would become what I feared, and move further from who I wanted to be. 

Soft power does not mean giving up power: it means searching for a truer and better source. The glass towers of Wall Street, the crisp navy suit worn to intimidate: we don't need these things when we love ourselves unconditionally.

If we can learn, spiritually as well as intellectually, that love is not earned but is actually in the very dirt we walk on as well as everything else, then our definition of love expands and we know we can protect ourselves in a much more potent way. 

I invite us to seek the feeling of power in the soft loam where we dig our fingers. Let's seek it in the softness of an animal companion's fur. Let's seek it in the gentle slide of water down our throats. 

When we attune ourselves to these more sustainable sources of power, an energetic shift happens: the power moves down from our tight shoulders, our spiraling mind, our clenched abdomen, to settle in our feet, our hips, around our vital organs. It draws us closer to the earth. (I can literally feel this movement in my body as I write.)

Our breath calms. Our tasks become tasks, not proof that our human pace is Too Slow. And we move from a place of right relationship with he earth and ourselves. 

Still afraid to make this change? I promise you, I understand. Shifting to soft power feels like a risk because it is one. In our economic and cultural world of late stage capitalism, we are not rewarded for relationship with Earth, or returning to the old ways of healing and connection practiced by our ancestors. Often we are punished for these things, because they threaten capitalism and the patriarchy. But it's exactly because of that, that soft power is a risk we must take.

I am learning through my work as a village witch that people reward these things. Others who see you and get to know you will reward you with their care, in many forms. Those who want to grow a new, next world (check out this Tarot deck) where safety is equitable will show you, as they've shown me, that your way of living is worthy of support. Interdependent abundance follows. 

Also: Soft power feels good. So good. It becomes its own motivational tool. 

So let's support each other in becoming more gentle, more soft in our expressions of power. The things you need to say, the boundaries you need to set, will bubble up as part of the process — and you'll actually have the energy to say and set them. 

Much love from this softly powerful work-in-progress to you, the same - 

Isabel

Interested in living a life more attuned with these values? Then I invite you to my witchcraft class Elemental Magic, where we'll learn and discuss concrete tools to bring soft power into our lives.