You can say that Shanelle Genai’s word this year is “easy.” A little over a week into 2023, a Florida-based entertainment journalist and self-proclaimed fan of soft living tweeted:
“I define a gentle life as a more deliberate way of life. I don’t think you can buy your way to it, it’s a situation,” said Genai. “It’s about moving deliberately, inventorying your thoughts, goals and intentions. I like to think about the ideal version of myself and what it does, and then I try to do it.
Like many viral trends, the soft life started with black women. The idea comes from the influence of Nigeria before creating Western culture. On TikTok, the hashtag #softlife has over 543.3 million views and #softblackgirl has around 16.3 million.
“Living gently, for me, is really about taking care of yourself in every aspect of your life from home to work to relationships to health and how you manage your relationships,” she says. Affirmation for Black Women: A Journal author and psychotherapist Oludara Adeeyo. “It touches everything.”
Soft Black Girl vs. Strong Black Woman
It’s a philosophy that more black women are embracing as a rejection of the Strong Black Woman trope, “the perception that black women are naturally strong, resilient, independent, and self-sacrificing.”
“From the moment I was born, I felt the need to be a strong black woman,” she said Black Men Breathe author Zee Clarke. “I was thinking about how black women don’t have models for resting because their mothers didn’t rest. Their grandmothers didn’t rest. And when you go back to slavery, we took care of the white women’s children and then went home to take care of ourselves. That come in very tired and exhausted, so the status quo is overwork and not taking care of yourself.
Genai agreed, noting that the previous generation prioritized being strong—physically, emotionally and mentally. It is often a means of survival.
“What the purpose of a soft life is to highlight is that we don’t have to be strong,” Genai said. “There’s strength in vulnerability and there’s strength in being soft. There’s strength in easing into things. I’m not saying that responsibility is negative, but you don’t always have to jump to the rescue. I think this is a way for Strong Black Women and Girls to Live Softly to can live together.
Soft living is more than aesthetics
While the soft lifestyle has become synonymous with Black Girl Luxury, Adeeyo insists that lifestyle is more than Instagram aesthetics—it’s a mentality, which promotes the importance of mental health.
“I believe that self-care should start with practicality and once you start practicality, it becomes instinctive and bleeds into other parts of your life,” she says. “It’s not just about buying things, but not being in the office. It’s saying no in your personal life. It’s saying no because you’ve changed your mind and you want to take a break. It’s about building a community with people who make you feel sane and sane.
Soft living is also about figuring out what works (and what doesn’t) for you.
“It’s very easy to get caught up in the aesthetics of everything and believe that if you need the right yoga set, you should drink a matcha latte and walk ‘hot girl’ and cook salmon in a pan and sit with you. wine class,” said Genai. “You think there’s a routine or a right way to do things and there isn’t. There’s beauty in individuality.”
Implement a gentle life
As writer and activist Audre Lorde once said, “Taking care of myself is not self-indulgence, it’s self-preservation and that’s an act of political warfare.” For black women, self-care is bad, it can be a matter of death.
“The problem is in the tissue, which means that when something happens, it shows up in your body – whether it’s like you’ve been punched in the stomach or you feel tension in your shoulders,” he explained. “Your mental health is very closely related to your physical health, especially black women. Black people have high blood pressure rates, heart disease and a lot of these things are a direct result of the discrimination and racism that we experience.
For those who have a hard time putting themselves at the top of their to-do list, Clarke suggests reciting the mantra, “Today, I choose me.” He also emphasized the importance of listening to your body.
As part of a gentle life, Clarke recommends a daily morning check-in where you ask yourself, “How am I doing? How am I feeling right now?”
“I really use my name like, ‘Good morning, Zee. How are you?'” he said. “There’s something about using your name that’s a question from the perspective of someone who cares about you and you can be honest.”
Then he advises you to decide what to do for the day. So if you’re feeling super energized, maybe you can get around to the extra items on your list. But if you’re tired, give yourself permission to postpone the task for another time.
To start a smoother life, one must start being honestfront-end in the future without the influence of family, friends and social media, Adeeyo said.
“Many of us have a hard time being honest with ourselves because we’ve been told how to look, feel, act, live,” she said. “So sometimes we don’t know. If you don’t know yourself, you can’t live a gentle life.”
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