We admire those who move on quickly, who never show hurt, and who never need time to mend....
opinion
What society calls strength is often just a steel-wrapped façade. We are taught to praise the unshaken, the unbothered, and the untouched. In a culture obsessed with composure and polish, we confuse emotional restraint with resilience. We admire those who move on quickly, who never show hurt, and who never need time to mend.
But true power does not live in pretence. It is not found in the withholding of tears or the absence of vulnerability. It lives in the heart that has been shattered - and still beats openly.
In the one who dares to feel everything, to fall apart, and to return - present, grounded, and willing to begin again. To remain soft in a world that rewards the mask is not weakness. It’s a profound expression of wholeness. A choice to honour your humanity over your armour.
Strength begins where you were broken: Anyone can appear unshaken before they’ve been tested. Before life comes for them - before loss, betrayal, or heartbreak. But when life inevitably takes what you thought was certain, your deeper strength is revealed. It’s not in how quickly you recover. It’s in how honestly you let yourself fall. It’s in your ability to rise while still carrying what you’ve felt. To be changed by pain and yet not corrupted by it.
To be strong is not to remain untouched. It is to stay in contact with yourself even after the fracture. To reach again, speak again, feel again - when you know exactly what it costs. That’s endurance. The kind that doesn’t glitter. The kind that sustains.
The discipline of returning: Softness is not surrender. It’s a discipline. A kind of spiritual stamina. The steady, stubborn refusal to close off. It means waking up the morning after betrayal and not letting it define your voice. Showing up when grief still sits in your chest like stone. Extending your hand again, even though the last time, no one reached back.
To start over isn’t foolish. It’s sacred. It means you’re still listening to the part of yourself that wants to connect, to believe, to offer something true to the world. Coming back is the fiercest kind of grace.
Openness is precision, not fragility: Staying open is not a lack of discernment. It is the height of it. It’s knowing exactly where your boundaries lie, and still choosing to meet the world with your heart. Not careless vulnerability, but informed courage. The kind that has walked through fire and still believes in warmth.
Remaining soft doesn’t mean being without limits. It means holding them with clarity, not bitterness. It’s choosing to stay generous, not because you haven’t been hurt, but because you refuse to let the hurt reshape you into someone you’re not. This isn’t fragility. It’s mastery.
Bitterness is not protection, it is paralysis: Bitterness is pain that never got to breathe. It’s grief that hardened. It’s the armour we build when we’ve been wounded and decide no one will ever get close enough to do it again. But that armour doesn’t protect. It confines. It keeps pain out, yes - but it also blocks joy, intimacy, wonder and awe.
Softness says: I will build walls when I need to - but they will have doors. And windows. And light.
Softness says: I will be wiser next time - but I will not be colder. I will still reach.
Trying again is the truest courage: Most people stop when they’ve been let down. They decide one rejection means permanent refusal. One heartbreak means hope was a mistake. One silence means never speak again. But the heart that stays open doesn’t retreat so easily.
To begin again after being dismissed, overlooked, or abandoned is not naïve. It is brave. It is the boldest form of resilience - the kind that refuses to close. Trying once more means you haven’t handed the pen of your story to someone who couldn’t read you. It is not weakness to return. It is strength to keep offering your truth when it wasn’t held the first time.
We are measured by what we continue to offer: Your strength is not in how quickly you shut the door after being hurt. It’s in how fully you still show up afterward. To be seen and not received - and still remain visible. To love and not be loved back – and still choose to love. To lose - and still choose to offer. That is not recklessness. It is reverence for your own soul.
To live this way is to live expansively. To choose wholeness over withdrawal. That is where the real weight of strength lives.
Softness is what makes you reach again: To stay gentle is to refuse to let your past write your future. It is to believe truly that love is still worth offering, even if the last person couldn’t hold it. It is to risk once more, not because you expect to win, but because you will not become a version of yourself who stops trying. Every act of care is a statement of return. Every moment of vulnerability is a declaration of power. To hope again is to live again.
The world applauds the mask. Life responds to the real: The world will celebrate your distance. It will call you wise for being aloof. It will applaud your ability to seem untouched. But the life you want? The love you long for? The sense of meaning, belonging, and intimacy? It does not meet the mask. It cannot find you if you’re hidden.
Life responds to the real. The raw. The reachable. You cannot guard yourself from pain and still expect to feel joy. You cannot shut down and hope to be found. To show up again is the only way in.
Staying soft after loss is mastery: Rejection doesn’t mean you were wrong to care. It means you were brave enough to continue caring after being dismissed is a rare kind of power. To stay after being left is a rare kind of strength. To return - not because it’s easy, but because you’re committed to living fully - is mastery.
Most people re-enact their pain. Someone disappears, so they disappear. Someone withholds, so they shut down. But healing is interruption. It is the quiet, persistent refusal to become what hurt you. It is saying: I will not give my pain a home inside me. I will let it pass through - but I will remain.
The final form of strength: The rarest kind of power is not invulnerability. It is tenderness. It is feeling everything and still choosing grace. It is knowing what you’ve lost - and still choosing to give. It is letting life move through you - and still choosing to believe.
The people who shape us most are not the ones who seem untouchable. They are the ones who stayed kind when the world told them not to. Who chose openness over control. Who chose to bleed rather than retreat. That is strength.
To be soft is not to be weak. It is to have been burned and still refused to turn to ash. To be soft is to be disciplined in your humanity. To be soft is to show up again. And again. And again. Not because you expect to be met - but because anything else would cost you your spirit.
That’s the kind of strength that endures. That roots. That stays.
Neshmeeya Abbas is an author based in Amsterdam. She can be reached at neshmeeya@gmail.com
