Soft Power Esra

I thought I was growing. I thought I was becoming freer.

But little by little, I was leaving myself behind.

In this episode, I reflect on a time when I confused spirituality with the ability to endure my own discomfort. When I believed that jealousy meant I wasn't evolved enough, that my boundaries were something to overcome, and that becoming a better version of myself meant learning to accept things that hurt me.

I talk about love, insecurity, non-monogamy, and the difference between challenging your fears and abandoning your own needs.

Because growth doesn't always mean learning to tolerate more.

Sometimes, it means learning to listen to yourself again. 🤍

What if the way we learned to give love shaped the way we search for it?

The way we grow up shapes more than we realize. It influences how we express affection, how we experience closeness, and what we believe we have to do to be loved.

In this episode, I reflect on the love I grew up witnessing, the things I learned to give naturally, and the kind of affection I had to learn later in life. I talk about the insecurities that can grow from feeling like you're never quite enough, the years I spent looking for validation in others, and the quiet realization that love was never something I had to earn.

Because maybe learning to love isn't just about understanding how to give love to someone else.

Maybe it's also about learning that we don't have to become someone else to deserve it.

You don't have to be chosen by someone else to know that you are enough. 🤍

What if the life you're afraid of living is the life you watched your mother live?

For a long time, one of my biggest fears was becoming my mother.

Not because I don't love her. I do.

But because I watched a woman who gave so much of herself to everyone around her, while rarely leaving enough space for herself.

In this episode, I look at my mother's story, the world she grew up in, the choices she had — and the choices she didn't.

And I reflect on the difference between understanding where our parents come from and allowing their lives to become our own.

Maybe we don't have to reject the people who came before us to choose differently.

Maybe we can look at them with compassion, understand their story, love them deeply — and still decide that our own story will look different.

You are allowed to love your parents and still choose your own life. 🤍

What happens when you leave everything behind, only to realize that you took yourself with you?

When I moved from Germany to Portugal, I thought I was leaving my old life behind.

I was looking for freedom, a new beginning, and a different version of myself. But freedom came with anxiety, loneliness, heartbreak, and the realization that a new place doesn't automatically heal old wounds.

In this episode, I talk about feeling caught between two worlds — no longer the person I was in Germany, but not yet the person I was becoming in Portugal.

And about the people who gave me the courage to leave in the first place, especially my parents and the trust they gave me to follow my own path.

Because sometimes we don't need to travel further to find freedom.

We need to stop running from ourselves. 🤍

What happens when you stop trying to plan your life — and simply let it unfold?

Seven years ago, I booked a €30 flight to Lisbon.

I had never travelled alone, had no real plan, and had no idea that this spontaneous trip would eventually lead me to leave my job, move to Portugal, and completely change the direction of my life.

In this episode, I take you back to the beginning — to a stranger drawing a map for me in a café, a last-minute road trip to Faro, a broken-legged surfer, a free tipi in the middle of a pine forest, and the moment I realized that maybe life doesn't always need to be figured out.

Sometimes the most important chapters begin when we simply say yes to the next thing in front of us.

Maybe you don't need to know where the river is taking you.
Maybe you just need to trust the flow. 🤍

TICO LIVES FOR EVER <3 IN ALL OF US

If you could sit next to your younger self for a moment, what would you give them?

A word. A feeling. A piece of advice.

In this episode, I reflect on what I once thought I needed most — fearlessness — and what I now realize I needed instead: the trust that I would be okay, even when I was afraid.

We talk about self-love beyond affirmations and mirrors, and how it can show up in the quiet decisions we make every day: the boundaries we set, the way we care for our bodies, the things we walk away from, and the choice to stop abandoning ourselves.

Maybe you don’t need to become someone new.

Maybe you just need to start giving yourself the love you needed all along. 🤍

What happens when you spend your childhood trying to become someone you think the world will accept?

In this episode, I talk about growing up between cultures, feeling like I was never quite enough for either side, and the ways those experiences taught me to compare, adapt, and make myself smaller just to feel like I belonged.

But maybe belonging was never about finding the right place or becoming more like the people around us.

Maybe it begins when we stop abandoning ourselves.

You don’t have to change who you are to deserve a place in this world. 🤍

We spend so much of our lives trying to become stronger. But what if real strength was never about becoming harder?

In this episode, I share the story of how I confused survival with strength, why we build emotional armor, and how healing isn't always about changing who we are—it can also be about returning to the softness we left behind.

What if growth didn't come from pressure, but from choosing ourselves?

Welcome to Soft Power — a place for the conversations we usually only have with ourselves.

I'm Esra, and every week I invite you into my inner world. Through stories of love, heartbreak, travel, healing, friendship, anxiety, and the quiet moments in between, I try to put feelings into words that many of us struggle to explain.

This isn't a podcast about having all the answers.

It's about asking better questions.

Because sometimes we don't need advice.

Sometimes we just need someone to say,

"I've felt that too."

Whether you're navigating change, healing from something you can't quite name, or simply looking for a space that feels honest and human, I hope these conversations remind you that you're not alone.

Growth doesn't always look like becoming stronger.

Sometimes it looks like staying soft.

Welcome to Soft Power. 🤍