Hello, Reader,

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This letter has been sitting on my heart for a long time.

I am blessed to have made it to five seasons of the Black Women Amplified podcast. Several times, we have made it to the number 1 podcast for Black women's empowerment. But season 5 is different. This idea came to me after the last election. God downloaded the title, and I got to work. After years of working with women from all walks of life, one theme continues to be expressed. WE ARE TIRED!

Season 5 is about everything I’ve heard, witnessed, and held in the quiet spaces over decades of conversations with women who show up, hold it all, and rarely have space to tell the truth about what that costs them.

I’ve listened to brilliant, capable women whisper that they’re tired of performing. I’ve sat with women who are celebrated in public but invisible in their own lives. I’ve had conversations with women who are holding down families, communities, careers, and silently losing themselves in the process.

And I realized, as I listened, that so much of our pain has gone unspoken. It lives under the surface, in the pauses between words, in the deep breath before we answer “I’m fine,” in the way we laugh to keep from crying.

We were taught to survive, to serve, to stay strong even when it’s breaking us. And for a long time, we did exactly that, because we had to. Because we didn’t see another way.

But we’re in a different season now.

I created this 8-part series—The Soft Life is Political—not because I have answers, but because I needed a space to name what has gone unnamed for too long. I needed to create something that would meet us right where we are, with no pressure to be more, fix more, or perform strength when what we really need is softness, breath, and truth.

This is not a marketing moment. It’s a love letter. A quiet offering to the part of you that wants something more honest than hustle. The part of you that’s been whispering, “I can’t keep living like this.” The part of you that remembers, maybe faintly, maybe clearly, that your life belongs to you, too.

I don’t need you to agree with me. I just want you to feel seen. And I want you to know that I made this series with you in mind.

You don’t have to earn your rest. You don’t have to explain your exhaustion. You don’t have to prove anything to be worthy of peace.

We don’t need permission to lay it down. We just need space to feel free.

And this is mine to you.

With kindness,
Monica

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