Let Yourself Be Soft When You’ve Been Strong for Too Long

(air whooshes) (cursor clicks) (gentle music) Headspace Studios. (relaxing music) Hi, friends. You're now listening to "Radio Headspace." It's Dora, and I'm so glad that you're here. So continuing my post-breakup healing journey, I'd finally stopped turning my recovery into a performance art piece, and I was actually starting to feel better. But then something weird happened. I was having coffee with my best friend and she said something that should have been comforting. "You know, Dora, you don't have to be strong all the time. You can let people take care of you." My immediate response? I literally recoiled. "I'm fine," I said, probably a little too quickly, "I don't need taking care of." She just smiled knowingly and said, "That's exactly what I'm talking about." Later that night, I caught myself doing dishes with my tears streaming down my face. I wasn't sad about the dishes. I was just so tired of holding everything together. And even in that moment of exhaustion, I couldn't bring myself to call anyone for help. I had become so good at being the strong one that I had forgotten how to let myself be soft. (soft music) Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that softness is dangerous. Maybe it was childhood circumstances that required us to grow up fast. Maybe it was cultural messages that told us vulnerability equals weakness. Maybe it was relationships where being soft meant getting hurt. So we developed this incredible skill, the ability to be strong, independent, self-reliant. We became the friend everyone calls in a crisis, the one who has it together, the rock that everyone else leans on. And those skills saved us. They got us through many hard times. They're not wrong or bad, but sometimes we get so good at being strong that we forget it's okay to be anything else. We resist softness like it's a threat to our survival, when actually it might be the key to our healing. (gentle music) During my relationship, I had been the steady one. When he was stressed about work, I was calm. When his family was chaotic, I was the peacekeeper. When things got hard, I was the one who figured it out. After the breakup, that identity felt like all I had. "At least I'm handling this well," I told myself as I divided our stuff, found a new apartment, and got on with my life. But as the months went on, I realized I was handling everything like it was a business transaction. I was competent, organized, and completely numb. My breaking point came at my niece's birthday. I was sitting at a table full of couples, and my sister-in-law made a comment about how "at least now you can focus on your career without distractions." Instead of feeling hurt or asking for support, I just smiled and agreed this is actually perfect timing for me. But driving home, I let myself cry, really cry, the ugly, snotty, gasping kind of...