With gentleness along the way

I encourage gentleness.

Gentleness is your birthright.

You are not going to change your fear-based patterns in any meaningful way if you are not gentle with yourself as you try to change.

When you are watering your plant, nourishing your vision, gentleness needs to come along for the ride.

Sometimes when I encourage gentleness, I suspect that the person I’m speaking with thinks that I’m just “trying to be nice.” Like maybe the gentleness isn’t really what they need, but perhaps I’m only suggesting it to be kind to them, not because gentleness is actually helpful.

But that’s not accurate.

I encourage gentleness because I believe that there’s such freedom in adding that to whatever I do. There are so very many things that I’m not perfect at, and when I’m beating myself up over that it’s a kind of hell, and when I’m gentle with myself, I can sink more deeply into what is.Whenever I can sink into what is, I’ve unlocked myself from the cage with the key that I was holding in my hand the entire time.

There’s a kind of honesty that goes along with gentleness, if you think about it. I say “honesty” because gentleness acknowledges all of the parts that are imperfect and creates a space for them to exist. There’s something dishonest about pushing away the parts we don’t want to see with harshness, trying desperately to hide them.

Gentleness allows time for transforming something while acknowledging the truth of the present moment.

Gentleness frees us up to BE who we already are.

Gentleness allows us to sink into that tender spot, and forgive ourselves and others.

Perhaps we never really transform anything until we’re able to look at ourselves with kind eyes–and that means gentleness.

Where in your life would you like to see more gentleness along the way?