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I think it’s time we bring back the term. Or in my generation’s instance, since we weren’t around for its conception, I think it’s time we adopt it and blend it in with our world today.

I heard Jane Goodall once say, “We will never reach our full potential until we can use both head and heart, both the intellect and love and compassion together.”

We had the “Make love, not war,” flower power, hippy moment, and now, we are having what I feel is our analytical, far-too-critical moment.

Think of the words flower and power. A flower, so soft, beautiful, and fragrant mixed with the strength of a bull. When did we forget, or did we ever truly know, how much strength there is in kindness and compassion?

I have been told to be careful; if you’re too nice, people will eat you up and spit you out. You have to grow a thicker skin and toughen up.

Well, I quite disagree. Tell that to Gandhi or Buddha or Jesus.

Kindness is our super power, compassion is our comfort, love is our language.

Without these things, we will become a society who destroys each other, acts in anger and hate. Fears what each person will do next, obliterates our only home we have to inhabit: Earth. Poisons the very air that we have to breathe.

Oh, wait.

Is that where we are? Is this where we have come, where we have already landed?

Is it our intellect that got us here?

Animals know to take only as much as they need. Yet, we take to levels of greed and gluttony. Is this what actually differentiates us from wild animals?

There are two categories: the ones who destroy and the ones who do not.

The ability to plot and pre-meditate is a strictly human function.

I will ask again, is it our intellect that got us here? Is our lack of heart, our lack of love glaring at us right in the face? On the brink of destruction, will we finally realize we are doing this whole thing wrong?

I asked my father once, “What does the word ‘God’ mean to you?”

He replied, “We are all part of one creation, which is God to me. God is spiritual and reveals that spirit through nature. The human race thinks it knows God, but has no respect for nature. It is impossible to know God and not respect nature.”

Are we living in a Godless world?

As an actress, my greatest struggle has been the blending of heart and my industry. Some of the greatest directors and producers I have worked with have all given me the same notes on my work, time and time again, “Yes. But we want her to be strong! You’re naturally very soft, we want to make sure this character is a strong woman!”

The flower is soft, yes. But does a rose still not have thorns to protect it against harm? There is more strength in love than there is in fear or hate or anger. Strength comes in all shapes and sizes, in all different colors, in both pantsuit and flowery dresses, alike.

“Do not mistake my kindness for weakness” will be the words she took to her grave.

But this space for love to conquer all is not being welcomed today. We have been so hardened as a society. Especially us women, we are stuck in a huge moment full of contradiction. We are fighting daily for equality and respect, yet I fear that we are losing what makes us as women, the very strongest and most resilient beings on the planet: our compassion, our femininity.

We are all so multifaceted. We have to allow ourselves to actually be multifaceted. We have started to attack each other, judge each other way too harshly.

How will we ever get anywhere if we bully the bully? Especially amongst each other. If we fight fire with fire, does a burn not scorch the flesh just as horrifically, no matter the flame throwers’ intentions?

Be mad at the diet culture, end body shaming, stand up for the mental health of our fellow brothers and sisters, but if you throw shame at the girl in the corner starving herself for being a bad example, doesn’t that defeat your own cause?

They say hurt people hurt people. But I think it’s more, hurt people hurt themselves.

We need to start seeing and acknowledging the pain in other people. There is so much more power in acknowledging the suffering and setting boundaries in the name of love.

Where is the love? Where has the love gone?

Instead we attack, we want to bring people down in the flames with us. We want to make people suffer for how they make us feel. The sufferer watching the sufferer suffer.

The only thing we will ever have control over in our lives is our perception.

We can do this another way. Especially woman to woman.

It’s time we allow each other to be whatever it is that we want to be.

And for me, I am reclaiming my softness. Softness in my mind, body, and spirit.

My softness that glides me through my day. My softness that protects me from sharp edges, that dances with joy, and that sets boundaries with loving intentions.

If you held my hand, you would feel the calloused palms of someone who spent their days in a woodworking shop. It’s how I was born; it is who I am.

But people say, “Wow, your hands are so different from who you are. They feel so masculine, yet you are so girly and feminine.”

And that, my friends, is exactly the point. Don’t put us in a box. There is strength in softness. Power in love. Understanding and resolve in compassion.

My hands are my superpower. My love is my currency.

If it’s only for a minute during the day, take a deep breath and just soften, my dear. Simply soften. Then get moving with your day!

Flower Power. Power in Flowers. A reclamation.