It turns out that I have been living the “Soft life” for years and I didn’t even know it. If you haven’t heard, the soft life is a social media term that many women are claiming for themselves. According to Google, it is a lifestyle of comfort and relaxation with minimal challenges or stress. But having practiced it for several years now, I can honestly say that the soft life has been the best medicine for me, and my life is so warm and comfy that there is no going back. I’m committed to the soft life for life.

I had been dealing with anxiety and panic attacks since childhood. After an unfortunate incident at work 20 years ago, a therapist twisted my arm into meditating as a way to learn to regulate my out of control emotions. And, meditation turned out to be the most powerful tool I have in my Goddess arsenal. Over the long term it has helped me reduce stress, shift my perspective, stop chasing people, milestones, situations, and start valuing every breath. Once I learned to calm, I also learned to stay balanced longer, and pay attention to the kinds of things that disturb my peace.

There were unhealed friends who never dealt with their own traumas. There were cheap men who brought no value to my life, instead they put me through emotional roller coasters to distract me from seeing they have no self-worth. There were bad habits, and bad beliefs like goal-setting, then feeling sorry for myself that I could not meet my own low goals. There were high stress jobs, that later turned into a work-from-home sanctuary I have now. All these changes came from meditation and becoming familiar with a better, more peaceful, softer energy I wanted to embody.

You don’t have to meditate, you just have to commit yourself to yourself, then pay attention to how you feel in every moment. If it feels good and peaceful, it is a yes. If it feels uncomfortable, potentially stressful (like a wild night out with loud music, a crowded club and drunken friends), then it is as easy no. The more I paid attention to how I truly feel, and the more I started to honor that, the easier it was to say No, without any excuses given.

I also started following my bliss without turning my life and career upside down. Rather than quit a stressful job in the financial industry, I eased into working from home, and investing in creating an easy travel business which was my true passion. I started doing what I love on the side. The best part is that after 5 years, I even started saying No to potential travelers. Yes, I turn down business, and there is no greater luxury that saying no thanks to money. What a pleasure! I do this for my own well-being. Imagine what it is like to be on tour in a far-off destination, having to deal with grown adults creating drama, breaking up arguments, catering to toxic people. Very quickly I realized, if I am to enjoy my own travels and truly experience that bliss I was craving, I had to be in good company. At first I struggled to say no to customers, but the more I kept saying, “No you can’t travel with me- last year you created too many stressful situations for me”, the more my other travelers appreciated my efforts too. When you appreciate your peace more than you need the money, it is easy to keep your table clean and enjoy it with quality people who bring you joy.

That effort crossed over into my romantic relationships. In 2020, at the beginning of lockdown I quit dating, sharing my mind, body,personal space and internal peace with just any male who was asking for my time. Any invitation is now met with a fast and easy No thanks. Have I regretted not dating or missing out on a potential prince? Nope. Not at all. Instead, I loved how I felt at the end of that year of honoring my own needs, that I committed myself to not dating unless I meet a person who I am interested in first. (This is a long story that requires a long explanation, so I will elaborate in another post). But, I decentralized men and relationships from my life, and tossed a 1000 lb weight I had been carrying on my back. I feel healthier and lighter than ever. I am not opposed to men, but now one would have to be honorable, respectable, and highly evolved in order to get my attention.

Softening my life has made me sensitive to my own needs, and I really pay attention to how people make me feel, what they bring to my table, do they value me as a friend? In 2021, I let go of a nutty, gaslighting, temperamental, ungrateful, imbalanced “friend” as soon as I noticed the crazy-making, that my needs were being ignored, and no amount of polite talking was getting through. I did it quickly and easily, and I have no regrets. Peace is my top priority.

Living the soft life isn’t difficult at all. We all waste time chasing people and situations, apologizing, trying to build relationships with people who don’t value us. We are all wasting time on something. Many of us are wasting time chasing goals that mean nothing to us, we just thought that attaining them would feel better. Some goals are good, but what’s truly important is that they actually balance you, not stress you out. For me, the biggest time-wasters were dating, and connections with people who don’t even respect themselves. I never liked dating, I always hated the getting to know someone process. I never liked the dating apps- I still insist that they are a toxic pool I will never swim in. And connecting with someone just to go through the motions because right now I have nothing better going for me is a hideous waste of my own precious time.

Many of you have relationships you are constantly trying to fix. We all value our family members and people who have been in our lives forever. So we are more likely to get stuck fixing people who don’t want to be fixed. I totally understand. I have been trying to “repair” my sister for years, but she doesn’t want to be repaired. No matter what I do trying to connect and reconnect and grow with her, she shuts me out (for good reason), She doesn’t try to have a relationship with me at all. We get along just fine, but there is a coldness and an emotional wall there. I have no right to break down her wall, nor climb over it, I have no right to interfere, I have no permission to fix somebody. and it is not my place. So, I have to accept, and let go. I still have a sister, and we have some sort of a distant, sterile situationship, and maybe that is all I can have. I accept and I move on.

Here are my suggestions for softening your life:

1) Go at your own pace, take plenty of rest and take time to envision what the soft life means to you.

2) Make yourself your top priority, and by all means, be more selfish. Give generously to yourself. Give yourself alone time, give yourself gifts, give yourself therapy, or meditation, or a good self-help book. I buy myself high-end jewelry, African safaris, a sports car, and fine wine that I don’t share with anyone else.

3) Clear your table, and make sure only healthy people get to sit at it. This is something I learned during lockdown. Those of you who know me in real life know that I run an east coast party network. Being friends with everyone is draining. You feel obligated by other people’s expectations, never knowing whether they actually qualify for your attention. During lockdown, we were forced to tighten our social circle, and only invite the healthy, the vaccinated, the soft and gentle friends, who bring laughter, support, encouragement, good wishes to my home. I am keeping it that way. A small, supportive, healthy circle is softer and more meaningful that a big, loud one.

4) Boundaries are king! I say no unapologetically and I don’t care who is pissed. No means no, no matter who is asking.

5) Tune out media. I have no TV. I haven’t had one since 2009. I watch no violence, no politics, no commentary, and yet I am still informed. My job requires financial news, and politics affects that, but I do not have to have media pollute my silence every day of my life.

6) Take care of your mind and body. I would love you to meditate, but if you can’t, at least cut out the noise, connect to nature alone

7) Invest in yourself: Go back to school, sharpen your skills, learn a new language, hire a therapist, get a new hobby. I challenge you to take at least one solo trip abroad per year.

8) If you are a woman, stop dating. Please! Heal yourself, drop out of the race, trust me, you will feel so much healthier. I wrote many posts before about getting on a man diet, and in the past taking year-long breaks from dating has been invigorating. But, I do think that the dating apps and social media are toxic and they attract low quality people. You will never meet a price or princess swimming in a toxic swamp, you will only catch warts or an STD. I really believe that marathon dating, and constantly putting yourself out there is unhealthy, and a lot of women are draining themselves participating in that. Just say no.

Just before New Year, I was telling my friends that I have achieved internal peace. I am happy, I am satisfied, I am relaxed, I have everything. The things I don’t have, I don’t truly need, and I am not willing to chase them. More and more things are falling into my lap, because I am receiving, not chasing. I am grateful for the life that I have created for myself, and I am grateful that I have earned the right to say No. I reject business from clients who are hard to deal with, I say no to work projects that are likely to drain me, I say no to friends who don’t respect my boundaries, I think long and hard will something bring me pleasure before I agree to it. So many things that are being offered to me are not good enough, and I recognize that now. So many people who are asking for my attention can’t compete with a decent glass of wine I buy for myself. I’ll choose the wine, not some dusty who texts me ‘Hey’ at 8pm on a Friday night. For the record, I never text back.