You Deserve To Be The Soft Version Of Yourself

I Hope This Helps, The Podcast, Podcast Shownotes

Can I join you on the journey?

Every week, I share stories, lessons, encouragement, and practical healing and growth practices from my life and work with others.

Hey Beloved, I'm Nakeia

Apple Podcasts | Spotify

“If you have not met the soft version of me, I have not met the safe version of you.”

I met 2 things during my freshman year of college: accountability and a softer version of myself.

If you feel like there is a version of yourself you have never met, you are right—and that version of you deserves to be uncovered.

Getting a place of wholeness, a place in your life where you are fully expressed, will require you to do the work I share in today’s episode. This conversation is about emotional safety, holding all the versions of yourself, tenderly, and finally meeting the soft version of yourself.

Meeting Accountability

So some of you may have heard this story, especially if you read my book, Habits for Healing.

Picture it, freshman year of college, I meet my friend Eric. I can’t remember how we met, but I know we both took the same English class, perhaps another class as well. I don’t remember exactly. But we met and became fast friends. Fast forward to a few weeks into the school year. Eric says to me, “You know no one likes you, right?” I looked my newfound friend in the face, and I said, “I don’t care. I don’t like them either.”

That was the version of myself that I was in my freshman year of college. I had experienced my first heartbreak. I had experienced some betrayal from friends. I came straight from the projects in New Jersey and all that that entails. So, when it came to other people and being friends with them, I was standoffish.

I was a little leery. I was probably mean and very defensive, I knew this about me, very self-aware. So when he told me no one liked me, not only was I not surprised, I really didn’t care. But what I did care about was how Eric experienced me and the fact that no one else liked me. He said, “You are not the same version of yourself around everyone else that you are with me.” He said he understood why. He also said, “You’re cool. Like you’re good people, and others should see that from you.”

Up to that point, again, I really didn’t care who liked me and who didn’t. But there was something about the care, consideration, and understanding, I would say, that Eric showed me that made me want to care, to evaluate how I was showing up in the world and why I would rub some people the wrong way.

I really didn’t do anything specific. I wasn’t arguing, fighting, or rolling my eyes. Actually, I rolled my eyes at Eric when he told me no one liked me. But, you know, I wasn’t really doing anything to anyone. But there was this energy that was very present. There was this way about me that was very obvious. And the truth was, it was a version of me, but it wasn’t the whole of me. It didn’t tell the full story of who I was.

I took some time to reflect on Eric’s words. I actually asked him to hold me accountable, and he checked me for the rest of that school year. And we are still friendly to this day. I actually sent him a direct message on Facebook when I decided to include him in the book, asking for permission to tell the story and to use his real name. Of everyone in the book, Eric’s name is real.

What was very impactful about that engagement with Eric was that I met what I now call the Habit of Accountability. It wasn’t just about things I had been through in my life up until that point. It was also about how I was choosing to show up in the world as a result of those things that had impacted me.

Meeting Safety

I learned two things from my friend Eric in that year.

The first thing I learned is that there was a version of me that deserved to be uncovered.

There was a version of little Nakeia, young Nakeia that deserved to be uncovered. The version of myself that Eric saw, my other friends in college saw, my family saw, and even I saw, but none of the rest of the world were getting the privilege, I would say, of meeting.

Buried under the anger of friendship betrayal, the heartbreak that came from no longer being in a relationship with my high school sweetheart, and the fear of being hurt, used, and rejected again was someone worth new friendships, new love, and new experiences.

That version of me was buried under the anger, under the defensiveness, under the rolling of the eyes, but it existed, and it deserved to be uncovered.

I deserved the connection.

Up to that point in my life, I saw glimmers of happy Nakeia, friendly Nakeia, and carefree Nakeia. Those versions of myself existed, and I saw them from time to time, but that wasn’t the baseline or the standard by which I was living. That experience with Eric taught me that not only did the rest of the world deserve to experience that version of me, but so did I.

I have a question for you today as I share this story:

Who is buried underneath your anger, resentment, outrage, doubt, fear, hurt, and heartbreak?

What version of yourself deserves to be uncovered?

You deserve friendships, love, experiences, and deep connection too. Eric saw me. Who in your life right now sees you?

Let yourself, your true self be seen.

You are also deserving of friendships, love, experiences, and deep connections.

The second thing I learned is that if you have never met the soft version of me, I have never met the safe version of you.

If you have never met soft me, calm me, I have never met a safe enough version of you to be that version of myself. And this was a huge lesson because two things can be true at once. Yes, I needed to be accountable for how I showed up in front of new people or around new people, people who wanted to know me, who wanted to learn me, and who wanted to be my friend. And also, I needed to protect myself, to be defensive, to be on guard based on the people in my life at the time. The old folk, the people who were my friends and family up to that point, the people whom I encountered in very intimate ways, they weren’t always safe.

I knew that that soft version of me existed. I wanted to be calm, carefree, but I didn’t have a space where that was safe—Where I could do that without risking emotional harm.

So not everyone in my life would have described me as mean, or distant, or unapproachable, or hard, but those who did deserved that version of me, I promise you. They did something. They said something—and not once, but repeatedly. So I needed to be guarded. I needed to protect myself. I needed to be boundaried because those people weren’t safe.

What I had to work on is identifying my safe space, identifying my safe people, so that I could show up as the soft version of myself. For years, I allowed people who hurt me to label me as mean, and I almost fell for it. I started labeling myself as mean. I would tell people who wanted to be my friend, people who wanted to date me, “I’m mean. I don’t play about me.” And that was true if you crossed me, but that wasn’t truly who I was at my core. That wasn’t the heart of me.

And so…

I learned that if I found or cultivated or created safe spaces, I could be the version of myself that not only other people learn to love, but I also love.

Before this encounter with Eric, I would often question myself. I’m not gonna lie. I would ask myself, “Why do you change when they are around?” “Why are you different when they come around?” “Why do you tense up?” “Why do you turn your face up?” “Why do you roll your eyes?” “Why are you so defensive around so and so?” “Why are you so uncomfortable?” “Why are you out of character?” I questioned myself, and the answer was I wasn’t safe and everything inside me knew that it wasn’t a safe space to be me. I was doing what I needed to do to protect myself.

Now I don’t want this to be an excuse for us to be messy, for us to truly be mean. When my family called me mean, what they were really describing was a boundary version of me. They considered my saying no as mean. They considered me not engaging in the same conversations over and over again, because it stripped me of my good energy, mean. They decided that my being assertive and clear on who I was and what I wanted was mean. When the truth is, I was just clear, assertive, and knew what I wanted.

If you are on edge, uncomfortable, guarded, and hypersensitive or hardened in the presence of someone, there is a reason. Bring that person to mind right now… Something was done, something was said, and you weren’t safe.

But here’s the accountability piece: It is our obligation to remain consistently, as often as we can, the most aligned, whole, and healed versions of ourselves. And we can’t do that if we are always guarded on edge. We can’t do that if we are always squaring off with the people in our lives. So we are accountable for choosing safe people.

Just like we are accountable for erecting a boundary when necessary, we are accountable to—and we are actually obligated to the softest parts of ourselves to create a space where we can just be soft, kind, calm, relaxed, regulated.

Just like Eric said to me, you deserve, and the rest of us deserve to meet this version of you… I’m saying to you, other people need to experience the happy, calm, and soft version of you.

Meeting The Soft Version Of Yourself

How do we do this? How do we get to a space where we can be softer, we can feel safe, we can feel secure without being aggressive, and on edge?

1. Get somewhere safe.

If you are a client of mine and you are listening to this, you have heard this a time or two before. Get somewhere safe. You need to be safe physically, spiritually, and emotionally consistently to uncover the soft version of yourself. Get in safe relationships, in safe environments, in safe conversations.

What I learned about myself is that I am soft, where I am seen, supported, soothed, satisfied, strengthened, sustained, and most of all, safe.

2. Hold yourself accountable to being that version of yourself as consistently as possible.

Again, we need to be able to hold multiple things at once. You need to protect yourself. You need to guard your heart. You need to be assertive. You need to be your own protector. But you also need to be regulated, calm, soothed, and safe. When you feel out of character, tap into the soft version of you. When you feel disconnected from who you know yourself to be, tap into the soft version of you. And when you feel angry, uncomfortable, on edge, tap out. Tap out of that version of you and find somewhere safe to be.

3. Every version of you is necessary. You need to hold all of the versions of you.

Every piece of you deserves to be at peace. You need to be whole to truly be yourself. There is nothing inherently wrong with being assertive, protective, and on alert. That is the safeguard in you doing its job. If you can’t be anything other than assertive, protective, alert, if only the safeguard in you is present in life, then you don’t give yourself or those who are meant to love you and befriend you access to any other version of you. They miss out on the soft version, the calm version, the collective version, and the regulated version.

You have to allow every part of you to exist in your life.

If they have not met the soft version of you, you have not met the safe version of them.

Get somewhere safe. Hold yourself accountable to being that soft, calm, regulated version of yourself as consistently as possible and allow every version of yourself to be fully expressed in your life.

You deserve deep connection.

You deserve deep, meaningful, safe connection. Tap in to the version of you that cultivates that in your life.

Until next time, beloved, I hope this helped.