Choosing Ease in a Hustle-Driven World

What if the strongest way to begin the year is the softest? We open with a candid look at why so many of us default to urgency, perfection, and the myth that struggle is proof of worth. Then we pivot toward a calmer blueprint: choosing ease, listening to the body’s cues, and honoring winter as a season for roots rather than blooms.

Together we unpack how hustle culture quietly shapes identity, especially for women juggling shifting expectations at home and at work. I share the difference between living mostly in doing mode and leading with being: how masculine energy brings structure and momentum, and how feminine energy restores intuition, receptivity, and magnetism. This isn’t about abandoning goals. It’s about refusing to trade health, relationships, and presence for a finish line that keeps moving. Practical ideas surface throughout: one easeful choice each morning, simpler priorities, generous buffers, movement that nourishes, and white space that protects creativity.

As the year begins, we invite a slower start—less proving, more trusting. Nature is sleeping; your plans can, too, without losing power. When energy rises later, you’ll move with clarity because you’re resourced, not running on fumes. If you’ve carried a hard shell to survive criticism or pressure, this is your permission to set it down, layer by layer. Softness is not fragility. Softness is strategy. If that resonates, press play, breathe, and let this be your gentle reset. If the conversation supports you, subscribe, share with a friend who needs permission to slow down, and leave a review to help others find the show.

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Chapters

• 0:03 New Year Reflections And Intent
• 0:45 Letting Go Of “Life Must Be Hard”
• 2:18 Pressures On Women And Perfection
• 5:36 Masculine And Feminine Energies 101
• 10:02 Choosing Softness As A Daily Practice
• 12:29 Winter’s Rhythm And Slower Starts
• 15:27 Flow, Trust, And Gentle Beginnings
• 16:18 Closing Blessings And Encouragement

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Hello everyone, welcome to the second episode of 2026. This is my first episode that I'm recording for the new year, but when you listen to this, it will be my second. I am just enjoying the first few days of the year. The new year was a few days ago, and I've just been sitting here. I've been really reflecting and grounding into the energy that I've want to invite more of this year, and how I really want to move through 2026. So that is what this episode is gonna be about today, and it's something that I have been opening myself up to more and more over the last few years of my life, but I feel like more so in the last year, and it's really wanting to live a life rooted in softness and ease. And I used to be the type of person that was so proud to constantly be doing and overextending herself, and definitely lived in that work hard, play hard mentality. I'll live life like after I do all these things that I want to do, like there's no time to live in the present, all of these things. And if you are not new to the podcast, you've heard some of those stories over the last few years, but I have really been opening myself up to the notion that life doesn't need to be hard, and this is something that I invited into my life. This idea, this belief, maybe two years ago or three years ago, but it was still at the time something that I was very much still trying to figure out in my life. That's not how I was moving through my life every single day. And these are like beliefs that sometimes we don't even know are there, but I started now. I look back and see how like the belief that I have to work hard and it needs to be hard and I need to suffer along the way, like how that showed up in so many different parts of life. But now I'm really at a place where that's no longer my truth, and now I just want to live this life of ease. That is really what I want to invite more of. Why can't it be easy? And I've realized as well that when I've leaned into this more, it's actually what my soul craves, and it's as if living a life in this way is what is meant for me, you know. That's what feels right for me. But why do we feel like it needs to be hard? You know, that we need to suffer along the way. There's so many of us that struggle with those beliefs and we hold on to them throughout our life. And for all of us, they come from very different places, you know. I feel like as women in society, for as long as we can go back in time, we've always had all of these pressures put on us to be a good mother, to be a good wife, to take care of a house. And now it's if you want to have a career, you know, to be a career woman or to work or to devote yourself to your work. We have all of these things that we need to focus our energy on, and it does, you know, we feel like we need to do them all perfectly, like we need to perform, and it's always been expected of us, even if the expectation of what exactly we're performing to do has changed over time, but that belief that you need to struggle for what you want now, I feel like in our modern world is almost like a badge of honor. You know, people pride themselves in not sleeping and focusing all their time, energy, and devotion on building their career, making money, all of these things. And I'm not saying that it's you know, it's not good to want to work towards something or have goals or all of these things, but it's also about not overcompensating, not throwing your body, you know, aside as an afterthought, or your relationships with friends or people in your life, you know. We should be striving to have a balanced life, a life that invites and prioritizes all of these other things, not just our career or not just you know our family or all of these other things. It's about having a balance in life. But hustle culture in the US is just so prevalent, and this is something that is always pushed towards us, especially right now in January, right? When everyone wants to turn a new page, start something new, they have all of these dreams and ambitions that they want to go and pursue, you know, and they're gonna try and focus their hardest to do every single day. They're gonna go all in. And when I think of this energy, I just like in astrology, I think of the energy of a Scorpio, this all or nothing energy, this intensity that we go about doing our things, re-devoting ourselves to our goals, to all of these aspects of life, and where struggle is part of that process. And I feel like a lot of this is also tied to women being and living more through their masculine energy. This need to perform, this need to do, to be in action in this way is women being more and more in their masculine energy. And we are seeing the rise of the feminine right now, right now, as a world, as a collective, we are seeing a change in this play. And you've probably heard a lot about feminine and masculine energy now because we are seeing the rise of the feminine, and the way that these energies have been off balance for so long has played a role in women feeling the need that they need to be in their masculine energy, and I'm gonna make an episode on this as well: the masculine and the feminine energies in an episode to come. But for the sake of this episode, I just want to highlight that masculine and feminine energies are two sides of the same coin. They are yin and yang, they coexist. So we all have both of the energies inside of us, regardless of whether we are a woman or if you are a man, but we tend to stay in one over the other, and a lot of that has to do with the environment that we are in, how we were brought up, our society, different things like that. And a lot of women live more from their masculine than their feminine energy. But as women, we tend to thrive more when we are predominantly in our feminine energy. And it's not about not having or being in our masculine at any moment in time, but that not being the primary energy that we come from. And masculine, like I mentioned, is the yang, it's the doing, the productive, it's the active part of us, the analytical aspect of us. And the feminine, which is the yin, is the being part of us. She is receptive, passive, feeling, she tunes into her emotions. And when you look at these characteristics of the feminine, this energy of being, of being receptive, this is the energy of magnetism. And more women are beginning to wake up to this, to realizing that one, this is actually our innate energy as women, and how powerful that is. We're seeing so many more women talk about living in alignment with this energy and their innate being, honoring their ebbs and flows as women, their energy that changes all the time, and how it's more about being and less of doing. And this is really the energy that I'm holding on to and inviting more of, really, as I move not just through 2026, but also just through the rest of my life. This concept of ease and softness has been something that has become so highlighted to me that this is something that I just want more of in my life. This is what I am calling in, what I'm leaning into, and I'm gonna keep leaning into embodying that because I've been off balance and I've lived in my masculine for so many years. It has been exhausting, and I know that I am not alone when I say that. I know that there's so many other women listening to this who are just tired of the constant need to perform, to do, you know, because we're expected to do that. And it's not that you can't work towards something and be in this energy. It's a balance, it's a balance that we're always going to be striving for. But the more that I have invited this energy in, the more my life has felt full and light. It's been easeful, and it has felt so nourishing, which has been what my soul has been craving in this chapter of life. I've feel like I've let go of so many layers over the last couple of years. I had created this external shell to protect myself from the world. And as every year has gone by, I've just let go of that masculine shield that I had around me. This shield that I had created as a form, as a way to protect myself from the world. And every year I've let go of a layer of that, and I've felt lighter and more in tune with myself, and it's been so wonderful to discover. And when you're listening to this, we're all going to be hearing and seeing around us, people setting goals and doing things for the new year and all of these things. But we are in the middle of winter right now. Nature is sleeping. This is a time of being, of resting, of introspection. It's not necessarily a time for us to feel the need to perform or to do. So, what I invite you to do these first few weeks of January of the new year, if you've always felt the need to maybe set all of these goals for yourself or start off the year strong and hard with this intensity and this need to want to go do, maybe we do something different this year. And why don't we allow ourselves to really just be in this energy of ease and softness for the first few weeks of January, maybe even to February, you know, till you feel like maybe you want to switch to a different energy? But rather than starting the year off, how a lot of us do, with this very intense energy, why don't we have this this energy of softness and openness and really invite that in every single day into your life? How does it feel to move through your day easily, to trust, to feel just peace and knowing that this is where you're meant to be, this is the energy that you're meant to be in. How does it feel like to move through life in that way? And I really invite you to notice how that feels. And whenever you feel like you want to start moving the energy a little bit more outward and start working towards some things, if that's what feels right for you, some of your goals and ambitions for the new year, then I invite you to do so. But let's start off the year off soft and grounded instead of overwhelmed, full of anxiety, and with a need to perform. Because so much of the time, those things are coming from fear, and it's a fear like we're not in control, and therefore we want to, you know, try to control what we can, which is our actions, but you're not behind. Life is unfolding exactly as it should, and there is a season for everything, and even though the new year is now in January, in the dead of winter, by nature that's actually not when we feel the the want or the desire to perform as humans, because this is a time to be more introspective. So let's just flow more over the next couple of weeks. Let's flow more, let's open our heart up to tuning into a new energy than we normally would in other years past, if you've never done this before, or if you're already in your soft girl era, yay, I am right there with you. And this is gonna be a beautiful year. And if you start off the year a little bit slower, nothing's gonna happen. You know, you're not gonna fall behind, you're not not gonna accomplish the goals that you set out for yourself. Giving yourself the time to be in this energy is just as important as that time and those moments in your life when you go do and perform and you're more in your masculine energy. But I am sending you all such a big hug. I hope this year is full of all the beautiful things that life has to offer. I feel like 2026 is really gonna be such a transformative and incredible year for all of us. I am rooting for that for all of us. And we're all on this journey together. I am looking forward to talking to you all in my next episode. Until then.