But that's not what the strong women in my life do at all. 🌸

The ones I admire most have backbones of steel hidden underneath their gentleness. My mother is soft, yes. But she's also the one who makes the big decisions. She's gentle with people's feelings, but she doesn't let anyone—not even the people she loves—treat her without respect. She yields, but she never breaks.

I think what's best for me is to understand that being a good wife doesn't mean disappearing into someone else's vision of who I should be. It means being so grounded in who I am that I can give from a place of strength, not desperation. It means my softness is a choice I make every day, not a default setting I can't change. 💪

Maybe I've been thinking about this backwards. A good wife isn't someone who has surrendered herself. She's someone who knows exactly who she is and has chosen to build something with another person anyway. That's not weakness at its foundation—that's radical confidence.

I'm learning that I need to know myself first. To develop my own thoughts, my own convictions, my own strength. Then, if I choose gentleness, it will mean something real. It will be powerful because I could choose otherwise and I'm choosing this instead. 🕊️

Does that change what I believe about softness? Actually, it makes me believe in it more. But now I understand it differently—not as surrender, but as strength expressed gently.