How We Learn to Flinch, And How We Unlearn It

Wiring Softness Back In

I have always been a woman’s woman.

Partly because the most influential people in my life have been women.
Strong backs and soft fronts. That combination I value most. And partly because I have had many not-so-great, with some horrendous, experiences with men.

The nervous system remembers what the mind tries to forget.

I watched a video recently of a parent calmly reassuring their child who had accidentally made a giant mess. The therapist reviewing it said, “This is wiring the child’s nervous system to believe that mistakes are safe.”

My mind skipped instantly to the time I accidentally sat on my stepdad’s hat. He drew back his fist to punch me. He didn’t follow through. But he wanted to. And I felt an overwhelming, scorching shame for my mistake.

Ah. That was wiring too. Wiring that mistakes are dangerous. Wiring that love can be withdrawn and is conditional.

Jung would say that what we experience in childhood forms the early architecture of the psyche. The “mother” and “father” archetypes aren’t just people. They become internal presences. They shape what we believe about safety, worth, belonging.

When the early container is volatile, the inner world becomes vigilant.

So when I walked into a life drawing class this week and a smiling woman entered the room like a human sunbeam, throwing out compliments like a flower girl scattering petals, something in me paused.

According to her, the room looked great. We all looked amazing and everything was wonderful.

Later I realised she was the model. And how she did not appear on bit nervous or self-conscious. Just radiant.

Without hesitation she undressed, stepped into her first pose, and commanded the room, not with dominance, but with assurance. I had to start drawing immediately during the demonstration because something about her presence felt archetypal. Sovereign. Integrated. A woman inhabiting her body without flinch.

At the break, I asked her if she always felt so confident.

“Yes,” she said, without missing a beat. Then she added, “I think it must have been my parents. They always told me I was gorgeous.”

I let that wash over me.

What a foundation. What a psychic inheritance. To be told early and often: You are beautiful. You are safe. You are welcome here.

And here is the irony, we spend years trying to unhook from the need for external validation, yet we require early validation to build the secure base from which we can eventually transcend it.

The order matters.

Attention in the wrong order, from the wrong people, makes all the difference. (Cut to the damaging media coverage or the victims of Epstein and his marry band of pedophiles and how damaging that kind of abuse is at such early years in life). It still continues to do damage with its protection of the perpetrators of the the victims.

Jung spoke of individuation, the process of becoming who we truly are. For many women, that journey involves reclaiming parts of ourselves that were shamed, silenced, or sexualised too early. It involves meeting the shadow, the internalised voices that say “don’t be too much,” “don’t take up space,” “don’t be messy.”

And it often happens in the presence of other women. Because there is something alchemical that happens when women gather.

After the break, I sat beside a sweet table partner. There were smiles. Quiet concentration. Thoughtfulness. We were just drawing lines on paper. But something else was happening too.

The room felt held. Not by ego, Nnot by power, not by control.

But by a kind of collective steadiness.

The Great Mother archetype isn’t just about nurturing babies. It is about creating psychic containers. Spaces where growth can occur without fear of being struck down for sitting on a hat.

Women do this instinctively for one another. We steady each other’s nervous systems. We widen each other’s worlds. We whisper, “You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re beautiful.”

And when we don’t receive that early, we can build it later, together.

Which is perhaps why International Women’s Day matters to me.

At Tribe, we’re hosting a conversation inspired by the podcast Have You Frozen Your Eggs Yet? and we’ve titled the evening Nothing Is Off the Table.

Because what have you been told, as a woman, that is hard to believe?

That your biological clock is ticking?
That your body is public property?
That your ambition is unattractive?
That your softness is weakness?
That your anger is too much?

We are inviting women to bring the unspoken things. The awkward questions. The inherited shame. The impossible expectations. Nothing off the table.

We’ve also invited poets to read their work, because poetry slips past defences and reaches the places policy and productivity never can.

Women who laugh loudly.
Who witness your story.
Who sit beside you while you draw the wobbly lines.
Who help rewire your nervous system in real time.

And just like that, there is a gentle reminder of my word for the year, soft.

Strong backs. Soft fronts. Becoming sovereign and soft at the same time.