The Whimsical Black Girl Era

Reclaiming softness, joy, femininity, and imagination as a form of freedom

There was a time I thought I had to choose.

Strong or soft.
Athletic or feminine.
Disciplined or playful.
Serious or “too much.”

But I’ve been learning something that feels like a deep exhale in my body:

I don’t have to choose anything at all.

I get to be all of it.

And maybe that’s what this “whimsical Black girl” era is really about.

Not a trend.
Not a performance.
But a return.

The “odd one out” who was never actually odd

I’ve always kind of been the odd ball.

On paper, I’m strong. Athletic. Disciplined. I move with structure, I teach movement, I understand strength in a very physical way. People see that first.

But underneath all of that… I’ve always been a girly girl.

My world is pink in ways that don’t always make sense to other people. It’s soft but vibrant. Playful. A little magical. There are moments where I see life almost like a storybook, filled with color, imagination, fun creatures, adventure, and emotion.

And for a long time, I didn’t know where that version of me belonged.

Because the world has a way of telling Black women what we should be:

Strong.
Resilient.
Unshakable.
Held together.

And while there’s nothing wrong with strength… somewhere in that narrative, softness started to feel like something I had to hide.

Like it didn’t belong to me in the same way.

Whimsy is not childish, it’s liberation

But lately, I’ve been sitting with this idea of whimsy.

And I need to say this clearly:

Whimsy is not immaturity.
Whimsy is not delusion.
Whimsy is not something you grow out of.

Whimsy is permission.

It’s the permission to:

• romanticize your life again

• laugh without editing yourself

• enjoy things without making them productive

• move through the world with softness instead of armor

• be playful, expressive, and emotionally alive

It’s what happens when survival mode finally loosens its grip.

And for so many Black women, that moment is new.

When strength becomes the only identity

I think a lot of us get praised for being strong so early that we never learn how to be anything else.

We become the dependable one.
The resilient one.
The one who handles it.
The one who keeps going no matter what.

And over time, strength stops feeling like something we have… and starts feeling like something we are required to be.

So we build lives around it.

We perform stability.
We over-function.
We push through.
We minimize softness because it feels unfamiliar.

But underneath that is a quieter truth:

We want more than survival.

We want joy that doesn’t have to be earned.

The body remembers softness before the mind does

This is where my yoga practice changed things for me.

Because you can’t fake presence on a mat.

You can’t outrun your breath.
You can’t perform your way through stillness.
You can’t “power through” your own nervous system.

Eventually, your body asks you to soften.

To slow down.
To release.
To just be.

And in those moments, something interesting happens:

You remember you are not just strong.
You are not just responsible.
You are not just what you produce.

You are also playful.
You are also tender.
You are also allowed to exist without effort.

My life has always been a little pink

If I’m honest, I’ve always lived in contrast.

My discipline is real. My strength is real. My structure is real.

But so is my softness.

So is the part of me that sees life as color and story and feeling.
So is the part of me that wants to wear something cute just because it makes me feel alive.
So is the part of me that still believes in magic, even in adulthood.
So is the part of me that wants life to feel like an experience, not just a responsibility.

And I used to think that made me inconsistent.

Now I think it makes me whole.

Whimsy is a practice, not a personality

Here’s what I’m learning:

You don’t have to become a whimsical person.
You just have to start letting whimsy back in.

It looks like:

• slowing down your mornings instead of rushing into stress

• choosing joy without justifying it

• letting yourself play again

• making space for beauty in your everyday routine

• moving your body in ways that feel good, not punishing

• allowing softness without guilt

It’s not about escaping life.

It’s about actually being in it.

The soft life wasn’t the final destination

People talk about the “soft life” a lot.

But I don’t think softness is the end goal.

I think whimsy is.

Because softness can still be passive. Still be performance. Still be aesthetic.

But whimsy feels alive.

It feels like laughter you didn’t plan.
Like joy that surprises you.
Like color returning to parts of your life you forgot were dimming.

It feels like you’re not just surviving your life anymore, you’re participating in it.

Maybe this is what freedom actually feels like

So maybe the whimsical Black girl isn’t a new identity.

Maybe she’s the version of you that was always there before the world told you to tighten up, hold it together, and stay strong.

Maybe she’s the part of you that never stopped believing in joy.

Maybe she’s the part of you that still wants pink in a world that told you to wear neutral.

Maybe she’s the part of you that didn’t disappear, she just got quiet.

And maybe now is the time to listen again.

Because I’m realizing something deeply simple, but powerful:

I don’t just want to be strong.

I want to be free.

And freedom, for me, looks a lot like whimsy.

in love and in service,

xoxo,

Courtney 💋