From Survival to Softness: Reclaiming Emotional Presence

How choosing emotional presence can transform burnout into soulful leadership.

I remember the day I realised I had lost my emotional presence. Between the conference calls, the school runs, the endless to-dos - I had become flat. Functional, but absent. I had forgotten how to feel.

We move through the motions; present in body, distant in spirit. Numbness doesn’t always look like struggle; sometimes it looks like strength.

Softness had become a liability. Compassion, a luxury. Somewhere along the way, I learned that feeling too much meant being too exposed. That tears made people uncomfortable. That tenderness slowed things down when efficiency was prized. I came to believe that to be strong, I had to be impermeable. That to be respected, I had to be emotionally restrained.

So I put softness down. And for a while, I believed I was better for it. Until a moment in my kitchen broke the illusion - and began my slow return to presence.

The Moment I Knew My Heart Had Closed

I was standing in the kitchen, my daughter beside me, talking - again - about how much she wanted a dog. I responded with some offhand remark: It’s only a dog."

She paused, looked at me with genuine hurt , and asked:

"Is there anything you actually care about?" Her words landed like a stone.

In that moment, I realised that my heart - once so tender and alive - was closed. Not just temporarily, not just bruised. It had been closed for a long time. And even more heartbreakingly, I saw that I was modelling that way of being to my children: this quiet disengagement, this numbness disguised as strength.

I had come to wear my unfeeling as a badge of honour. It showed up in the way I moved through life with efficiency but no warmth - always ticking the boxes, never pausing to celebrate. I’d brush off compliments, roll my eyes at sentimental movies, and dismiss emotional conversations with a quick "I’m fine." It looked like strength, but it was really distance. It kept me safe, and it kept me separate. I called it boundaries, resilience, even leadership. But underneath was grief. Longing. A deep ache to be moved again. To love with my whole being.

That day, I made a quiet vow to myself: I would find a way to open my heart again. Even if it meant feeling the things I had so carefully buried. Especially if it did.

The Cost of Living Without Emotional Presence

When you're in survival mode, numbness can feel like mercy. It quiets the noise. It keeps the tears at bay. It lets you keep functioning - packing lunches, making spreadsheets, showing up to meetings, parenting, performing.

But the longer you stay numb, the more you lose. You lose the nuance of joy. The texture of love. The creative spark. The capacity to feel delight or sadness in its true form.

You lose presence - not just with yourself, but with the people you love most. I saw it in my daughter’s eyes. I heard it in her voice. And I knew I couldn’t keep teaching her that this was what womanhood meant: muted emotions, constant coping, a closed heart.

Emotional suppression might keep you efficient, but it robs you of intimacy - with your children, your partner, your work... your soul. And the irony is, the very things that make life worth living - connection, creativity, compassion - are only available to us when we are fully present to our emotional life.

A Slow and Sacred Return to Feeling

I wish I could tell you there was a clear, repeatable strategy. A magic ritual. A 5-step plan to open the heart and keep it open. But there isn’t. Not for me. Not yet.

A quiet moment of return — soft light, a still breath, and a hand over heart. This is how emotional presence begins to stir.

What I have instead is an intention.

A longing. A steady whisper that says: I want to feel again. It's quiet; like the flutter of a moth's wings inside my chest, barely there but unmistakable. It doesn’t shout. It hums gently beneath the noise, a feeling more than a thought, brushing up against the edges of my awareness when I slow down long enough to listen.

Sometimes that longing brings discomfort. Like, in meditation, when I reach for compassion trying to summon love for myself, my family, the world. Some days it lands like a warm breeze.

But often, it’s dry. Empty. I don’t feel anything at all.

Yet, progress. Slow? Yes, but still, steady progress creeps up on me. So stealthily I barely notice. Barely.

Tonight, as I read to my daughters, I felt my heart opening. The story had a sad scene, something that, ordinarily, wouldn’t have registered. A character in the story lost his grandmother. And something in me stirred. Just a flicker in my chest. A warmth. A sadness. A presence. It passed quickly, but I noticed it. And in a heart that has been frozen, even the smallest stirrings matter.

So, I continue. Without a strategy. Just an intention. A willingness to feel whatever is there, even if what’s there is silence. Or sorrow. Or nothing at all.

A Gentle Invitation to Begin Again

If your heart has been closed, if life has required you to go numb just to survive, please know: there is no shame here. Only softness. Only space.

The act of choosing to feel again, however slowly, however imperfectly, is not weakness. It is sacred. It is leadership. It is love.

If you’re willing, find a quiet moment. Light a candle, if you like. Breathe deeply. And ask yourself:

• Where in my life have I been choosing numbness?

• What might happen if I let myself feel, just a little, right there?

• What do I long to feel, and what part of me is afraid of that longing?

You might choose to journal by hand or, if your thoughts flow more freely in spoken word, simply open your phone’s voice notes app (like Apple Voice Memos, Otter.ai or Just Press Record) and begin there. Let it be raw, unscripted, just for you. Later, if it feels right, you can listen back, jot down a few notes, or even use a gentle AI tool to transcribe and reflect on what your heart revealed - if and only if that feels safe and kind to your process.

Your healing doesn’t need to be tidy. It only needs to be true.

May your heart stir again, in its own time, in its own way. A

nd may you honour whatever is true for you in this moment, even if what’s true is simply the desire to feel. May you greet its return with tenderness.