Try Softer | A Guided Meditation for More Ease, Less Effort
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What It Really Means to Try Softer
So many of us have spent most of our lives pushing through. We keep showing up again and again, through grief or anxiety or whatever struggle we're moving through, even when everything within us is asking for a break.
We've learned to treat trying hard as the only way forward, in our work, our relationships, and especially in our healing.
But lately I've been sitting with a question that's quietly reshaping how I move through my own life and my own healing journey. What if trying hard isn't actually what gets us where we want to go?
This question came into sharper focus for me this summer, when I had the chance to attend a screening of Andrea Gibson's last show, performed with the Colorado Symphony at Red Rocks Amphitheater.
Andrea was Colorado's poet laureate, and their poetry is some of the most raw, vulnerable, and honest writing I've ever encountered. Sitting in that audience was one of the most moving nights of my life.
One of Andrea's most well-known lines has stayed with me ever since:
"I know most people try hard to do good and find out too late they should have tried softer."
It's one of my favorite quotes of theirs, and I think part of why it resonates so deeply is that I feel a real relief just hearing it. It speaks to something true in me, something I've felt for a long time without having the words for.
Why We Need to Try Softer With Our Own Healing
So often, we treat our healing journey like one more thing we have to do right. Our trauma, our patterns, our nervous systems start to feel like problems to be solved, like there's always something within us that needs monitoring or correcting.
And underneath all of that striving is often a quiet, painful belief that we're somehow broken, that we need to be fixed before we're allowed to feel okay.
But nothing about you is a problem to be fixed, and this pattern of pushing, efforting, and trying so hard works against us, especially when we're trying to heal.
When we approach our inner world and our feelings like they're something we have to strive to manage or correct, we exhaust ourselves. And that inner trying, while completely understandable, often keeps us in the very cycle of gripping and rigidity that we're trying to heal from in the first place.
How Trying Softer Actually Changes Us
Our nervous systems, our bodies, and the most vulnerable parts of us (the parts most longing for healing) often respond to softness and acceptance far more than they respond to force.
We've been taught to push and correct and manage our way toward healing.
But when we let that grip loosen, something in us that has been bracing for a long time finally gets permission to settle. And it's in that settling, not in the pushing, that real change becomes possible.
There's a real relief in showing up with more tenderness and less pushing.
I've found that I can accomplish things differently, and more beautifully, when I approach them with less effort and less force. I still show up fully. I still care. I still try. I'm just learning to do it with less gripping and striving.
Using Iffirmations to Practice Trying Softer
Today's meditation uses iffirmations to help us explore what trying softer might actually mean for us. Iffirmations are similar to affirmations, but they're "what if" statements instead of flat, declarative ones, and using them is really its own small practice of trying softer.
A regular affirmation states something as already true. For example: “I try softer with myself.”
For a lot of us, that can feel forced, especially when it doesn't match what we're actually feeling inside. It can end up being one more thing we're gripping toward, one more thing we're trying to force ourselves to believe.
And when we say something we don't really believe yet, some part of us knows it isn't true, which creates a kind of tension in our bodies rather than ease.
An iffirmation softens that. We add "what if" in front of the same idea.
“What if I could try a little softer today?”
And if that still feels like a stretch, we can soften it even further. “What if I could begin to try a little softer today?”
This is part of why iffirmations are more somatically informed than affirmations. A "what if" doesn't ask us to believe something on the spot or force our way into a mindset we don't feel. It invites possibility, which gives our nervous system room to actually consider something new instead of bracing against it.
In this episode, you'll hear iffirmations like “What if the parts of me that keep pushing could rest for a while? “ and “What if I don't need to overpower any parts of myself to heal?”
If any of these don't feel quite right in your body, you're welcome to edit them, soften them, or play with the wording until they land closer to your own inner experience.
Try Softer With Me
This week's meditation offers a gentle way to authentically explore this concept of trying softer (especially in your healing journey). I've created iffirmations to help you discover what trying softer actually means for you, in your own body and your own life, as something you can embody and feel.
It's a slow, tender practice meant to help you regulate, soften, and open to more ease and flow.
Listen to this Guided Meditation to Try Softer now
Episode timing:
00:00 - How Trying Softer Helps Us Heal
04:40 - Guided Meditation to Try Softer: Soothing and Regulating Breathing
09:48 - Guided Meditation to Try Softer: Iffirmations for Trying Softer
20:56 - Conclusion and Reflections
You're invited to join me for The Secret Wisdom of Your Triggers, a free training on how meeting our triggers with compassion helps us heal our core issues instead of just managing them.
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Learn to heal your core issues in a loving and integrated way.
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Gain profound insights into the conflicts and repeating patterns in your life.
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Learn the 3 biggest emotional mistakes you’re making that are keeping you stuck and spinning.
Iffirmations for trying softer on your healing journey
What if I could try a little softer today?
What would it be like to keep showing up for myself consistently but with less gripping and striving?
What if the parts of me that keep pushing could rest for a while?
What would it be like to stop treating myself as something that needs to be fixed?
What if I don't need to overpower any parts of myself to heal?
What if healing is more possible than I think it is and it's happening more than I realize?
What would it be like to let my attention rest on myself the way it rests on someone I love?
What if my self-awareness could be more gentle and less vigilant?
What if it’s safe to arrive here, in this moment, exactly as I am?
What if I’m allowed to heal at my own pace?
What if I am whole, complete and worthy, just as I am?
More and more, I soften my heart toward myself.
More and more, I allow myself to try softer.
*These questions are called “iffiirmations.” To learn more about iffirmations, click here!
How was that Guided Meditation to Try Softer for you?
How do you feel now? And what was your favorite iffirmation?
Please let me know in the comments!
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And please join me every Friday on this beautiful journey out of your head, and into your more embodied and authentic self. 🩷🩷🩷
Thanks so much for joining me today!
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Enjoy more like this: Iffirmations, Self-Compassion Exercises
About me
Hey, I’m Karena!
I’m a somatic emotional healing coach here to help you quickly identify and heal the subconscious blocks, old emotional wounds and self-sabotaging core beliefs that are holding you back!
Want to go deeper? Join me for The Secret Wisdom of Your Triggers!
Are you ready to understand your emotions, patterns, and struggles in a deep and compassionate way (plus make real change in your life)?