let life be really good

some thoughts on softness

Some years are made for fighting shadows, some years are made for dreaming dreams, some years are made for wholly living, some years are made for falling in love, some years are made for heartbreak, and some years are the dark, rich spaces in-between that tie all the other years together.

There are moments in every woman’s life 𓂃 often subtle, always significant 𓂃 when she realises she’s been waiting for life to feel good later.

I am that woman, too.

After the move.
After she’s earned it.
After the next launch.
After she’s healed enough, achieved enough, grown enough.

It’s not that she doesn’t want goodness now.
It’s that her nervous system doesn’t recognise it as safe.
She’s built her identity on high-functioning self-reliance, on holding it all together, on always preparing for the next hit of chaos.

Goodness feels foreign. Untrustworthy. Fleeting.

But there comes a point when you get tired.
Not just tired in your bones, but soul-tired.
Tired of bracing for bad news.
Tired of living on emotional adrenaline.
Tired of feeling like peace is something you can only visit in short bursts.

This moment is an invitation: what if life gets to be good now?

your body doesn’t lie

If your system is used to surviving, “good” can feel unsafe.

Calm can feel like a threat.
Pleasure can trigger shame.
Stillness can summon panic.

We don’t override that reality by shaming it. We honour it. We meet ourselves there.
Letting life be good begins with learning how to stay with good. To recognise it. Receive it. Regulate in the presence of it.

This isn’t just a mindset shift. It’s a somatic one.

Which is why I ask myself:

What are the tiny signals of goodness I can practice noticing?
✧ the softness of my sheets in the morning
✧ the kindness in a stranger’s eyes
✧ the miracle of a moment with nothing to prove

The more I notice, the more I can hold.
The more I hold, the more I trust.
The more I trust, the safer it feels to expand into joy without sabotage.

you don’t have to earn softness

So many of us were raised on invisible contracts that said:

Be good, then you’ll get love.
Work hard, then you’ll get rest.
Suffer well, then you’ll get your reward.

It creates a rhythm of deprivation, where we become addicted to proving our worth through pain. It keeps us stuck in cycles of over-functioning, over-giving, over-efforting.

But what if we broke the contract?

What if softness wasn’t a prize at the end of your endurance?
What if it was the starting point?

This is the paradox of receiving: you can’t force it.

You have to soften enough to allow it. That softness — that capacity to receive life fully — is a practice of presence, not perfection.

It asks:
Can I let myself enjoy this moment without earning it?
Can I stop bracing for it to be taken away?
Can I let it be this good, this easy, this free?

practicing your way into goodness

Letting life be good isn’t about bypassing the hard stuff.
It’s about refusing to let pain be your only portal to meaning.

Here are some ways I’m practicing:

1. Noticing where struggle has become identity.
Do I feel more real when I’m suffering?
More valid when I’m busy?
More lovable when I’m useful?

2. Replacing performance with presence.
Instead of performing wellness, I’m allowing mess.
Instead of performing peace, I’m regulating in real time.
Instead of performing power, I’m rooting into truth.

3. Setting up small rituals that remind me I’m safe to enjoy.
A slow morning. A spontaneous dance break. A walk without my phone.
Tiny practices that say to my system: this is safe, this is safe, this is safe.

4. Choosing environments that don’t require me to shrink.
The people, spaces, and structures I choose are part of the goodness.
They reflect back the truth that I don’t have to abandon myself to belong.

a closing truth

There’s a quiet rebellion in letting life be good.
In refusing to rehearse old wounds.

In choosing to orient toward pleasure, peace, and enoughness, not as a reward, but as a right.

And like all rebellions, it takes practice.

But the more we choose it, the more it becomes familiar.
The more we hold it, the more it grows.
And the more it grows, the more we remember: this is what we were always meant for.

Let your life be good, not someday, but now.

Not because you’ve earned it.
But because you’ve remembered how to receive it.