Soft Life Vs Strong Friend: Cultivating Radical Self-Love

You’re the go-to. The glue. The one everyone leans on. But what happens when the “strong friend” wants to slow down, rest, and live softer?

In this episode of Shift Happens with Shay, we explore the tension between being the emotional anchor in your relationships and your desire to embrace the soft life. We’re unpacking what it means to choose radical self-love and intentional softness without guilt—because rest is not a reward, and softness is not weakness.

You’ll walk away with:
 💭 Permission to stop performing strength
 💡 A deeper understanding of what soft living actually looks like
🛑 Tips for setting boundaries that protect your peace
💖 A gentle nudge to start putting you first

Because you’re allowed to be both strong and soft. And you’re worthy of care—just as you are.

🎧 Tune in now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & more.
 #SoftLifeEra #RadicalSelfLove #StrongFriendFatigue #MentalWellness #ShiftHappensWithShay

Continue the conversation with Shay on her Instagram, Facebook page, website, and linkedIn! You can also email Shay at shifthappenswithshay@gmail.com if you are looking for insight about your life, send your stories, or request topics you would like to address.

Please note this podcast is not a substitution for therapy, if you require assistance with exploring trauma, deeper relationship issues, or more please reach out to establish care.

Transcript

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Hey there, and welcome to Shift Happens with Shay. I'm Shay, your host and licensed marriage and family therapist. This podcast is where we dive into all the shift life throws our way, whether it's relationships, mental health, personal growth, or just figuring out this crazy journey of adulting here. We're all about honest conversation, real stories, and a whole lot of laughs as we tackles life's challenges together. This is your space to grow, explore, and feel seen. So grab a cozy spot, maybe a cup of coffee or wine, and let's get ready to shift through it all. Thanks for tuning in, and remember, no matter what life brings us, we're in this together. Hi everybody. Welcome back. My beautiful loves. I hope you're doing okay. Just checking in real quick how you've been. How have the two weeks been treating you? I hope, well, I hope we're springing it into spring with new, profound, life and light into our life. This episode is near and dear to me because I. Do and have seen myself as the strong one. And we're going to continue to build off of our last episode when we talked about being the strong friend. Pretty much struggling in silence, and now that you understand and see that you've been struggling in silence, this episode is for you when you've always been the strong one, but you're finally realizing and you're starting to wonder. What if it feels like, what would it feel like to be held? And that's a beautiful thing because we're gonna get right into talking about the myths that strength equals constant resilience. We get tired of being resilience. We get tired of always having to be the one to bounce back, and it pretty much continues to dehumanize us as if we don't need support. And we do. We always need support. There's nothing wrong with that support. And then we're gonna talk about what soft life is too. And this is beyond the luxury aesthetics that we all see. Though I'm all for it because your girl loves an all inclusive, your girl loves a spa day, a medi, petty. I'm all for it. But there is more to a soft life than just the luxurious aesthetics. And then we're gonna talk about how we can shift. And because this shift is an act of radical self-care, radical self-love and healing, we're cultivating radical self-love when we're tired of being the one who holds it all. And I want us to take a little break and think about when was the last time you let someone take care of you? I want you to sit with that prompt for a bit, and don't worry, of course, I'll post this on our Instagram and we can all just wander and talk with one another. But when was the last time you let someone take care of you? I, and if it's a hard, pretty much prompt for you to really think about when's the last time you relied on somebody, laid your head on somebody's shoulders, gave it all to somebody else to take care of. Baby, we got a lot to get into then today. And this goes into, we're gonna dive in on who is a strong friend and what do we look like. And typically for us, that means like we're usually emotionally available. And we're not talking about in the sense of love, like you just let any old body in more. In the sense that we are very accessible emotionally to our loved ones, though, that when they're going through something, we jump up. We're the dependable ones. We're always showing up for all the crisis. We are seen as the person that can handle crisis very well, so everybody always comes to us to put out fires. We are everybody's firefighter, and we end up putting others before ourself because we're thinking about other people's needs and we're thinking about how we can help them save them, how we can make their life easier without thinking about how this impacts us. But if you're the one that's always getting up don't worry girl, I got you. I'm here for you. Lay on me. Tell me what's up. But never, you don't feel like you're able to do the same for someone else. Maybe you're a strong one. If you've ever felt that unspoken pressure to perform emotional perfection. Shea, what are you talking about, bro? I'm trying to tell you, girl, emotional perfection, like you just don't feel, you can't, you're allowed to break down. You can't look like you don't have it all together. You don't feel safe enough or that maybe this will discredit you in being able to be there for others because you are showing that you got it all together, that you can't, you can't fall apart. You end up being this beacon of strength and we are then forced into this cycle of emotional perfection, having to have the perfect emotional responses. Anytime someone says something, us to us, despite that it might be hurtful, despite that we might wanna cry despite that. We might wanna be angry. Despite that, we might feel like yelling despite the impacts it has on us, but we continue to stay silent and just act as if. We are the most mature person in the room and we just take it, and that's not it. And, this is so common, especially for us women and those of us in Bipoc communities, like just. It's just a generational influence. We have to have it together because I'd say as a black woman, if you show too many emotions, you're too emotional or you're seen as the angry black woman, or you're seen as bitter. So you have so much resentment that if we show an ounce of feeling or emotions, we're discredited immediately that we can't handle it. But then when we do emotionally regulate. And we might actually show this emotional perfection. Then we dehumanize ourselves because then everybody thinks that we can handle everything that we don't need a shoulder to cry on that nothing impacts us. So they keep on throwing more things at us and also. I'll admit in the community you might hear crying is for the weak. What's crying gonna do for you? Crying's not gonna solve nothing. So we don't even give ourselves a chance to sit within our emotions and acknowledge it and just be attuned to ourselves. And what's the reward for this emotional perfection? Burnout. Emotional invisibility and isolation. Because we then don't communicate or talk about our struggles, and now we feel like we're in this cycle by ourselves just being alone. And I have a quote that's pretty much like the strong friend is often the loneliest one in the room because how often as you being the strong one, do your friends check in on you? I find it interesting that in my group of friends we have all been or are the strong ones for our other friends and. It's kind of funny, like for instance, with my ing, like when me and her talk, like we just on and on and on and on and on for each other, but we allow ourselves to be vulnerable with each other. Vulnerable. Vulnerable with one another. And we talk about the things that are bothering us. And of course, because we're both one of women of color, we have. Sometimes similar experiences, similar feelings, and we're able to lean on each other, cry to one another and all of that. But when we go to like our other friends, we may not feel as comfortable doing that because we're the ones that hold it together for the other friends. Like you, you can't just, I can't be breaking down in front of you all the time because sometimes inadvertently I might think, wow, maybe they're not strong enough to hold me and I have to be the strong one for them. But again, that's isolating. Luckily I have my ting so I don't have to feel isolated. But, being the strong one is the, being the loneliest one in the room. It, it really sucks. So, but Shea, I'm so tired of being strong. I do wanna relax. I do wanna be soft. I don't wanna always be resilient. I don't always wanna save the day. So what is the soft life you're talking about? And we've all been hearing about soft life. I love this for us as women of color, honestly, just also as women too, that we are now starting to give ourselves permission to rest. Permission to receive and permission to exist without urgency. Yes, you are more than somebody's next crisis saver. Okay. And that's why I meant when I say soft era living, soft life living, it's not just about the luxurious aesthetics you're seeing on Pinterest or Instagram or TikTok, which, but like I said, that's okay if you do that because I'm a luxury girly too. I love that stuff. But. It's really the leisure of the permission to rest, receive, and like I said, exists without urgency. It looks like saying no without guilt. It looks like being emotionally expressive without shame. It looks like creating peace. And not just by avoiding conflict, like you don't just say, oh no, I'm not going to deal with that. Like you're avoiding'cause you're afraid of it. No. You have a boundary in place stating that this is not above my boundary. This is not going to be for me to have to solve. I have to put me first, and if this is a situation or a conflict, that's gonna have me compromise me. It's not for me and I am going to say no to it. And that's not avoiding, dad's actually being pretty direct. I'm not going to do this i's a a no. And like we said, saying no without guilt. And then also prioritizing joy and stillness. We have often felt like we've been punished for being still because this stillness or soft life says that we're lazy, we're selfish, or we're avoided, and those are misconceptions. You're not selfish. And also, even if you are a little selfish, go ahead. Because if you've never been selfish for yourself, let's start today. Because you deserve to be a priority. You deserve to just rest. You deserve to just exist and be, you're allowed to do that. So give yourself permission to enter this soft life and you know that mixes come to our next reflection. Where in your life are you choosing productivity over peace? Where have you been? Pretty much living by the message that if I'm not productive, then I'm not worthy of rest. I have not earned my rest. I don't deserve my rest. And if those are some of the things that you tell yourself, and that's why in your life you end up choosing productivity over piece, whether that's in your friend group. Your family or work or wherever in your life, we really need to rethink because remember, in order to have a soft life, you gotta have, you gotta give yourself permission to rest, receive, and you are allowed to exist without urgency. But think about that. Where in your life right now are you choosing productivity over peace? But I understand because it's hard to let go of a mindset that. Honestly, it was unconsciously built for us, and we didn't realize it was being built around us. It wasn't intentional for us, but it was intentional for the ones that gave us the meaning of this wall that now we've built against vulnerability and being able to let go. So we end up having this tension between softness and responsibility. It then becomes really difficult for us to choose ourselves because we're like, no, but I still have this to do and that to do, and if I don't do it, who will type of thing. Right, that internalized message. If I don't do it, who will? And I know we've all had that thought. I've had that at work. I used to work at a agency for literally about six years, and I was one, and I think I mentioned this in a previous episode, previous session of ours, I was one of the top performing. If not the top. And that's not to toot my horn. It is just because I know I wrote the SOPs, I made the deals with the people. I went and I got stuff done when nobody knew the answer, I found it. So when you end up being the book, the quote unquote knowledge in the room, everybody asked as if there's no way they can support you or that, oh, it's okay. Shay will take care of it. Or they got it, da da, da, da. But. It also gives you that sense of, on your shoulders, this heavy weight that no, if I don't do it, who will? I know I can get it done. I trust myself to get it done, but it means we don't trust the other people around us to follow through. That's horrible. And then also another fear. If we're the strong friend and we're resisting letting go is because we fear disappointing our loved ones, and that's understandable. We, trust me. I always tell people that I fear disappointing my mother more than making her angry because disappointment hurts way more than her anger. I'd rather she yell, I'd rather she throw a fit or I'd rather she just do a whole bunch of stuff rather than to look at me with disappointment in her eyes. It is the heaviest wound to burden. But I understand why you, as a strong friend would resist letting go because you're afraid of disappointing others, or that you might be a person that believes that love is earned through labor. I can't just expect people to love me. I gotta show them why I am worthy of love, so I have to do it through labor. I gotta work and earn the love. And that's really hard. If everybody in your life makes you feel like you have to earn love, what is the purpose of that? When do you stop earning? When does the goalpost stop moving? So I'm gonna tell you, this is how we're gonna start regaining control for ourselves in our life, and funny enough to regain control in order to get to softness. You gotta release it. You gotta release the control and the guilt because you have to name the fear that is beneath this control. And you gotta ask yourself, why am I afraid? What am I afraid will happen if I stop managing everything? What was gonna happen? Are people gonna fail? Are people gonna be upset that it didn't go right? Maybe. But then this teaches others how to also manage these different crises. You gotta let people grow. You gotta let people do their thing. But if that is your fear, what else though? What else are you afraid of will happen if you stop doing everything and let's reframe. Letting go as a space. This is a beautiful space that we're not dropping people. We're just choosing pressing, ugh. We're choosing presence over performance. I'm choosing to exist. I'm choosing to be more than my next task. My self worth is not based on my performance. It's not attached to my self worth that we are, like I said, we're more than this. So we were framing, letting go as I'm making space for myself and use both an and language girl. What you talking about right now? Hello. Hold on, hang with me. Hang tight with me. This is what I mean by that. We, we can be caring and have boundaries. I can love others deeply and choose myself. I can be there for others and I can rely on others to be there for me. And both. Life is about duality. It doesn't have to be about this extreme, part on the spectrum where you have to be. All in or all out. You can have both. You can be caring, you can be loving, you can be there and still want others there for you, and still have your boundaries and still be able to put yourself first without fearing that you're abandoning other people. And this is hard. But in order to get to that, we have to practice micro releases. So small releases. We want to, don't start with the biggest task. Start with something small. Like instead of you being the one that controls everybody's itinerary or being the one that plans all the outings, let someone else plan the outing, let the text go and answer for a few hours. Remember, you are allowed to exist without urgency. Let that text go unanswered. It was fine. It's not a nine one one. Call it, it's okay, and if it is, they'll end up calling you. To be quite honest. And another way is you can say, I need a moment to think about that. Give yourself time. This is how you actually take back control of your softness that you actually reintegrated into your life by letting go all of these other expectations that you are only worth your performance. And also. Remember when I mentioned that we can protect our softness and we can engage in it without abandoning who we are. So you can create soft buffers. You could do 30 minutes of silence before or after high emotion interactions. You could journal after tough conversations to return to you. Take time to return to you. We are attuning to ourselves because remember, we've been putting others in front of us for so long, we've become detached. From us, so we need to come back to ourselves. We can create soft boundaries with languages. Like, I wanna show up for you fully, but I'm not in the emotional space right now. Or, can I get back to you tomorrow? I'm in a restoration mode, and trust me, the ones who love you will get it. Me and my friends do this with each other now. Actually, quite often if I feel like I have a very emotionally charged conversation that's about to come out, I end up. Asking my friends do you have space for me emotionally right now? Especially not only, but especially because I am attuned to other people's feelings. I do notice when people's moods are off, but even if it's not off, I'm still gonna ask because I don't know, maybe you don't have the space for me right now, and that's okay. That's not offensive. That's you protecting your softness. And we have to remember and see it that way. This is not rejection. This is allowing our friends to engage their boundaries and to respect themselves. Boundaries are an act of self-love, and then also you can guard your joy, make joy non-negotiable. It is not an option. We are here to create our joy. We're not allow other people to take it. Protect your laughter. Your stillness, your solitude. They're so precious and you deserve it all. Protect it and have your soft circle. Surround yourself with people who honor your softness, not just your strength. And that's important because these are the people who gonna encourage your restoration. These are the people who are gonna check in and be like, Hey, did you take time for yourself? Hey, how are you doing? I noticed you were having a hard day. Are you all right? Oh girl, don't even worry about it. I know life's been tough. I understand if you've been off the map, you're just trying to get yourself together, create a circle of softness. These people are so needed. I'm so appreciative of my ing of Carla. I have Tasha, like I'm just saying there. I have so many people in my life that create this allowance of healing and softness and just chill. And then when we need to be there for each other, we show up and whatnot. I love it. Like it's not question that if one of us is not talking or something that we don't love, that we end up, not that we're not loving the person. Like what? No, I'm still here for you. So ask yourself though about your current circle. Do they give as much as they take? Do you feel safe to be soft? Just take a moment with that. Remember? You do not have to be everything to everyone in order to be worthy of love. You don't have to be everything to everyone in order to be worthy of love. And now we're gonna get back into, with that being said, I want you to start now embracing radical self-love through self-loving. And radical self-love is embracing all parts of yourself rested, raw and real vulnerability. Authenticity like it is required not only for connections with other, but connections with ourselves. I mentioned that in I two sessions ago when we talked about vulnerability. You need to have that for yourself. Radical self-love is needed for the strong ones. I need you to embrace all of yourself. And ways you can begin. This is doing inner child check-ins and that's a way of sitting with yourself talking to your most wounded self, the self that needed love, a hug that embraced the most that needed to hear. You're doing enough, you're so enough, you're so loved. That part of you whatever age, even though we typically say inner child and that's I don't know, people think about five, 10 years old. Your inner child can be whatever that most hurtful part of your life was. My inner child is actually around the age of 21 and 22. She's around there and often I typically have to sit with her and it's okay. Find that inner child and check in with yourself. How are you feeling? My love. Are you okay? It's okay. I notice you're coming out more. I notice that you're bringing out that armor. We don't need that. It's okay to be soft here. Implement some daily rituals of softness, such as stretching, breath work, journaling, or just a nice hot cup of tea. And if you're a coffee drinker, that's fine too. Make some moments for yourself and dedicate to just being, still have that tea or coffee and sit at the table, look at the sun, come up. Maybe the evening, do some stretching. Don't do coffee in the evening and do a herbal tea. Just, caffeine or do some stretching, just some soft movements, allowing your body to wake up and or just toned or wind down in a soft, like without it being rushed, a blaring alarm. That's why I also recommend when you pick your alarms, I know we often tend to go for the most like. Like gut wrenching ones. I say gut wrenching, but so alarming. Like they just shock you, like you wake up with an urgency. And remember, soft living is about existing without urgency. Pick that soft melody, let yourself. Wake up to softness. Start the day. Soft. I know often we're like, oh, I'm not gonna listen. I'm not gonna hear it. Well, at least don't pick the alarm. That's like, eh, eh, eh, eh, like so loud. That is it's more of like, almost like you're waking up with a heart attack, your heart's racing. You wanna pick something that's gonna allow you to softly start your day and move about. Also, some other things we can do to begin embracing radical self-love is self-forgiveness. That compassion. Allow yourself to make mistakes. Mistakes are a part of life. Now, of course, if there's a pattern and you've been doing something for a long time, yeah, get that together, especially it's harmful, but also know you're not gonna be perfect. It's okay. Sit with yourself and forgive yourself. Because when we keep shaming ourselves, then we keep shaming ourselves into emotional perfection, and we're not perfect. We're allowed to break down. We're allowed to fall apart. We're allowed to not have it together and forgive yourself for not having it together. Forgive yourself for being so strict on yourself. Forgive yourself for allowing yourself to be stuck in this cycle of resilience and strength. Allow yourself to forgive and reframing your boundaries are an act of self love. Boundaries are here for you to protect your heart, protect your peace, protect your joy, protect your laughter, your smile, protect your stillness. Boundaries are an act of self-love. Remember, softness is not the opposite of strength. It is your birth right. Okay, you got this, and now we're gonna go into. Additional ways that we're gonna continue to shift from us being the strong friend who wants to start now being more soft with ourselves. Here are some boundaries that you can try and you can practice with for the next two weeks is scripted boundaries. Such as I love you, but I can't be your safe space right now. I need time for me. And you don't have to say it like that. Same thing I tell my clients. You don't need to say it like your therapist. You need to say it in your own words, but say it assertively. We're not, we don't have to be rude about it. We don't have to be nasty about it. We don't have to come off super tough about it. We're practicing softness. We're shifting. You are allowed to be soft. You can say I love you, and that usually disarms people anyways, because we're reassuring them that we're not abandon them. We're just saying, I love you. That doesn't stop. Just because I want time for myself right now because some friends might feel defensive because this is new for them, and it's okay to tell them that this is more about me. Honestly it is less about you. I'm trying to be there for myself more, and I love you. I'll always be here for you, but right now, in this moment, I need space for myself. So again, I love you, but I can't be your safe space right now. I need time for me. Or you can try. Like I mentioned, like when me and my friends do, when we have things to say to other people, can I be vulnerable with you for a moment? And sometimes you actually might be surprised, your friends might be happy that you're actually opening up to them because they might feel like, dang, like she never opens up to me. And she's never, I've never seen her cry, like, is she okay? I feel afraid to go up to her because she never asks for anything or anytime that I do ask, she's always saying that she's fine, but it doesn't feel like she's fine. Trust those people. Trust. These people that you love so much that you'd go over and beyond for to help them, give them the opportunity to go over and beyond for you sometimes. So go ahead and practice sometime in these next two weeks asking, can I be vulnerable with you for a moment? Ask for small help. It doesn't have to be super big. It could be one small ask a week. Hey, can you help me out with this topic that I have to talk about? Hey, can I soundboard with you about a bit? Blah, blah. Hey, can I soundboard with you a bit on this piece? I just want to, I wanna hear how this sounds out loud. I would love your opinion, or if it's something small, like, Hey, what are some restaurant suggestions you have? Hey, for our next girl trip, what are some things you're into? What are some things you would wanna do on there? Can you actually take up on doing the driving this time? Or can you take this, can you look into the restaurant suggestions? I'm gonna go look into the hotel. Small things, small things. But for the next two weeks, just do some, just help yourself practice. And we want to continue working on building reciprocal relationships. Let people show up for you. Like I said, we have to allow people the chance to show up for you, and this also will help you let you know who are the people that are there for you and care for you, and those who may just be super reliant on just your strength. Remember, relationships take two. It can't be drain drain from you. And I'm not saying you have to cut those people off. You just might have to make strong boundaries. And that just means letting them really know when you have space for them. Like not allowing yourself to be accessible like that anymore.'cause if they only come around when something's going down, we gotta train people how to treat us. So teach them, put that boundary there. And then maybe if you'd like. Create your own softness, ritual. Check-in some of those things that I talked about before. Journaling, stretching tea, inner child check-ins. You can create a visual or digital version of this, like on I IG or printer shoe. You might just actually check. Put that in the search box and you'll see softness, rituals, checklists show up, and these are some ways you could take time to help yourself shift to more of the soft era or soft living. So my loves, I hope this was what you needed. I hope that you being the strong one, you allow yourself to start. It is daunting because you're doing a whole mindset and lifestyle shift. And of course, with any shift, there will be some resistance. Be prepared for the resistance. It will happen. I'm not gonna say it's super easy. Sometimes you'll do something lofty per se, and you'll just be sitting there putting a sound bath on and maybe some lo-fi music and chilling with yourself, and that small voice is saying, but you didn't do much today. Why are you being lazy? And you have to practice self-compassion when that inner critic appears and remind yourself. That your worth is not attached to your productivity. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to release, you are allowed to live guiltless. You are allowed to just be in stillness without urgency. So we are shifting now from being strong all the time to being soft with intentions. And I invite you guys to this journal prompt to take with you from today. What part of me is asking to be held more gently this season. What part of me is be, what part of me is asking to be held more gently this season and take time with yourself. We're gonna work on those gentle invitations because you deserve them. If you loved what you hear today or you wanna reach out to me about what you've been doing throughout the week to practice your softness, don't hesitate to reach out to me. I would love to hear you guys' success and even some of your struggles. I'm happy to be here. For you. Of course I do have my own boundaries. I'm d and d. Just because we on the internet webs, I know we have this thing that thinks instant gratification, 24 hour accessibility. I'm gonna get to your message when I'm able to get to your message.'cause I do have life happening in the background, but it doesn't mean I care any less. I'm here. I love you all and I can't wait to hear ways. You're gonna be more gentle with yourself this season and how you're gonna invite softness into your life with more intention. So please reach out to me, share and tag so that we can continue conversations as a community. Reach out to me at Shift Happens with Shay on Instagram. I am starting up my Pinterest. TikTok is slowly coming along, so you can still find me on all of those as shift happens with Shay. I'm on Facebook as well, but the main place you'll see my work or my podcast or whatnot, will be YouTube shorts or TikTok and Instagram mostly. Instagram is mostly where I'm at, but trust me, I'll reply to a DM on any of those any of those platforms. And if you are looking to seriously want to work with me, you can look me up on. LinkedIn, Han Moore King. I'm on there. I share my work on there. I'm networking. I'm available on there too, within reasons. But yes, pleased. And if you see anything on my page that excites you and you're sharing tag and share this message with a friend that you felt really needed it, and you just already was thinking about her, not only just yourself, but someone else that you thought needed this conversation, share it. I would love to hear from them too. And with that, I do want us to end with one final affirmation, and you can say it with me or you could repeat after me, or you could just say it in your mind. It's okay. I release the need to perform strength. I am allowed to rest, receive, and rise in softness. Good. All right, my loves. I adore you. I can't wait to have more for you. I'm still working on my products. They're almost done. I gotta take pictures. Still working on my website. I'm so excited about releasing that to you guys and bringing in the joy of making our own magic, our own razzle dazzle into our world, and I can't wait till we talk again. I love you all. Have an amazing day. You are beautiful. You deserve the world, and reach out to me and let me know what you want more of. You can also email me at Shift Happens with shea@gmail.com. Love you all.