Managing partner at Cambrian, Cambrian Ventures
Rebecca Lynn Pope Explains The Power Of Becoming a "Soft Wife"
Life and Love Coach Rebecca Lynn Pope tells Portia the benefits of laying down the "boss woman" mentality in exchange for a "soft wife" life.
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About Rebecca Lynn
Rebecca Lynn Pope, a certified life and love coach and author, appeared on the television show "Portia" in October 2023 to discuss the concept of a "soft wife life." Pope described the term as a shift from a "hard wife life," which she characterized by being overwhelmed and out of balance, toward a state of peace, work-life balance, and interdependence with a partner. She stated that femininity is a "superpower" and contrasted it with masculinity, which she described as ambition and drive. Pope said that her husband now pays 90% of their household bills, allowing her income to be invested, and that the most difficult part of the transition was overcoming ego. Pope said she had been married for nearly 10 years and described the early years as "Rocky," with poor communication and a lack of emotional safety. She said that about four years ago she began praying for "more ease and flow" after becoming exhausted from running multiple companies. Pope attributed the change in her relationship to her own healing work and said that the shift required letting go of the belief that she had to perform to be loved or respected.
Transcript (15 segments)
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Porsha0:10
Term soft wife life. I know a lot of people see that hashtag, live in a soft life. We put a wife in there. What does that mean? It means that as wives and women who want to be wives, that we need to get to a place of balance. You need to be able to tap into peace, work-life balance, being able to allow a man to take care of us, do for us, love us, support us, versus a hard life or a hard wife life where you are overwhelmed, overworked, overpressured, and out of balance. So it's really about bringing back in some of the more traditional values around being able to say, hey, I think we're in a space you feel comfortable in.
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Rebecca Lynn1:10
But you're saying this is about both of you really submitting to a softer life. It's about interdependence versus hyper-independence, where you feel like you've got to do it all on your own, you've got to just take on everything yourself. It is about leaning on each other and supporting each other and allowing yourself to be loved and supported. And this is something that you talk about from personal experience and from experiences that you share in your book, right? Definitely. Tell me more.
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Porsha1:39
So it's really important to understand that modern society is putting pressure on women to be everything: career woman, professional woman, make all the money, right, boss chick. And there's a lot of pressure to then also say, but we're supposed to have balanced relationships as well, and understand how to show up as feminine in our relationships. It's very difficult. And that femininity is really important here, right? And that's sometimes I think some women make, they feel like that's, if I'm feminine, I'm vulnerable somehow or I'm weak. You say that's not at all the case. How do you make the case if that's not the case?
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Rebecca Lynn2:31
Femininity is a superpower. If we think of masculinity as ambition, drive, competitiveness, right, the strength to just keep pushing through to get results, femininity is resting in your peace, it's resting in your balance, it's patience, it's moving slower in assurance and certainty. And that is also very powerful, because often we're rushing so much.
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Porsha3:11
And how were you? Were you a hard wife when you got married?
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Rebecca Lynn3:12
Yes, most definitely.
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Porsha3:15
Did your husband feel like you were a hard wife? Did he express that?
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Rebecca Lynn3:19
He wasn't exactly great at expressing it, but we went through a lot of rocky years, Porsha, where we were up and down. You know, we weren't communicating effectively, we weren't understanding each other effectively, right. We weren't leaning on each other, we weren't a safe place. Yeah, we're supposed to be the safe place to land, exactly. Yeah. And so, you know, getting into that healing work and beginning to recognize what we really need. So what should that look like for you? Therapy, individual therapy, couples therapy, books, coaching, just really digging into the things that were holding us back from being vulnerable with each other.
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Porsha4:11
Did you have an aha moment?
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Rebecca Lynn4:11
That'll do it. I was praying, oh my God, I want more ease and flow. I'm tired of this pace I'm keeping, the pressure, the ambition, the drive. I own several companies, I was just running myself ragged. And I began to pray some different prayers. I wanted to show up differently in life. And listen, be careful what you pray for. God will answer. What has to change?
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Porsha4:35
So what did your husband say or do differently interacting with a soft wife that didn't happen with the hard wife? That seems so mean. I don't want to say hard wife, it's judgmental. Sometimes we're just kind of strong. We don't mean any harm, especially if we've had strong mothers and our role models.
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Rebecca Lynn5:11
And that's huge, right? It's being able to take that pressure off to where I can wake up and I can be productive, but I'm being productive with peace, not under the gun to perform.
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Porsha5:22
What's the toughest part about making a transition from hard wife to soft wife?
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Rebecca Lynn5:29
Ego. Ego. We take on so much vanity and arrogance and ego and think that we have to be all these things in order to be successful or to be respected or to be loved. And getting back into the essence of who we are as women. We are loved before our femininity, for who we are, not about performance.
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Porsha5:51
That sounds so beautiful and so gentle. I love it. I love it.