Hello Queen,

Over the past few months, social media has been abuzz about living the “soft life.” It didn’t take long for Beyonce to release her single, the soft life anthem, “Cozy” to make women every where want to jump on board. The irony to this provocative shift is how we went from glamorizing the grind, the hustle, the perpetual state of chaos to normalizing softness, ease and its lack of stress. I recall my own spirit telling me that this was exactly the freedom I needed after enduring multiple seasons of traumatic personal and professional fatigue. It was in this place that I learned to embrace rest and to prioritize self. With softness, with peace comes clarity. It’s invigorating to feel your world align and your lenses become less cloudy. I saw love more clearly. I saw my role as a mother with vivid eyes. I saw my desire for my career, my life’s work, and my passion for it become even more intense. My life now, has more purpose because I began to relax and the end finally justified the means but, with a greater level of joy and authenticity.

Why shouldn’t we be the priority? Why shouldn’t we choose what makes us feel light? For some women, this is what travel does for your soul. It gives you permission to embrace your life in a way that your day to day does not always allow. For others, there’s our daily workout routine or the value found in yoga. It may be that one glass of wine you allot yourself at the end of the week or a peaceful lounge outside after a long day. However you choose to define your soft life; know that your soul deserves to relax into all of the feels.

• Relax into a season where your peaks outweigh your valleys.
• Relax into a season of triumph after the previous ones were so plagued with turmoil.
• Relax into the fear of the “what ifs” and “what nows?”

At first, you may wonder how you’ll continue to accomplish your goals and take care of your family if you aren’t existing in a constant state of normalized angst. But, the peace that exists inside of you will manifest in a way that you’re able to feel contentment and power where you once felt chaos. The gift of resetting our mind to kiss the lightness of life is one in which you are, dare I say it? Allowed.

So, Queen, I leave you with this:

Be wild but, stay soft.

We seldom think of the word wild as a cousin to softness. But hear me out as I shift our narrative. In the same way that our mothers taught us that we could be different than who they were raised to be and in the same way that they inspired us; we can, should and will do the same for the little girls who will walk our journey after us. Be courageous enough to tell her that wild isn’t a naughty word. Reckless doesn’t have to conjure up thoughts of regret.

Wild means bold, brave, powerful. She dances to her beat, listens to her tune and sings her song, her way. In other words, she is living.

I have decided that this will be my mantra as I exist in my softer season of life. But, I love walking on the wild side so I saved you a seat or should we call it, a ride? Either way— you choose. Either way — you decide.

“If any female feels she needs anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.”

~ bell hooks

J. Joy Davis is the Female Founder of THE FIRM MANAGEMENT, a company with a capacity for management, creative production and brand strategy that is best suited for women who dare to live as large as they dream.

She has spent over a decade working with multi-location entrepreneurs, investors, luxury retailers and Fortune 500 companies including but, not limited to NBA, WNBA, Marriott, Michael Kors, BCBG, Max Azria, Tory Burch as well as nonprofits and charitable foundations on the Business Development, Corporate Sales and Relationship Management sides of the table. Joy has developed a keen business sense as to how to connect the right people with the right resources to move the needle in the right places.

With a love for academia and a heart for empowering young power players, she is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina – Charlotte where she teaches Business Communication courses for Belk College of Business. She is currently working on what she is manifesting to be her first best-seller while praying for a publisher who is AS obsessed about the plights of the high achieving woman as she is! Her greatest joy is being a mother to her teenage son, Nolan. Thus, Joy believes that while success is a powerful antidote, it is authenticity where God shines the brightest.

Follow Joy: @thefirmwins

This article was originally published in the CEOMOM Magazine October 2022 Issue.