Gentle in, gentle out
I’ve been thinking about what it means to be gentle lately because, well, it feels to me like the world could benefit from more gentleness. I say that knowing that gentleness is not exactly prized or rewarded in terms of society’s definition of success. You have to beat the competition to win, to be the best, to be deemed successful by worldly standards. And most of us don’t think of gentleness as the key to getting there.
Even those whose goal isn’t profit or coming in first tend to fall into the trap of making what we do into a competition where gentleness is sidelined. Today’s political landscape is a good example. The not-for-profit world is another one as competition for coveted philanthropic and government funding becomes harder to access.
But there is a place in the world for gentleness, I think, that isn’t just reserved for holding babies or carrying a too-full cup of coffee without spilling it. Striving to be gentle is a worthy pursuit beyond just being about how it is that we touch or hold someone or something with our hands.
We can be gentle in all the ways we show up in the world – in our relationships, in our choice of words, in our choice of actions. We can choose to be gentle. We can choose to practice gentleness.
But what does that look like?
I know it when I see it. And, it seems to me, that I do not see it often enough.
Gentleness looks like leading with our ears and our eyes and our hearts. It looks like holding the tongue when our mouths want to say what our head is thinking and leaving room for the heart to go first, or waiting until the head has had time to formulate a thoughtful response.
Gentleness looks like feet, real or metaphorical, walking with a soft and slow cadence, taking care not to trample on anything alive underfoot. It sounds like a quiet approach to the thing we are walking towards, an approach that is not weighed down with the heaviness of clomping boots that thud loudly as the feet draw near.
Gentleness looks like a face that is just starting to smile, with eyes that reflect the object it sees because it is so keenly focused on it.
Gentleness can be any size. Any color. Any shape.
Gentleness looks confident because it has been practiced on itself. There is familiarity to it because it is born from within.
To live and move with gentleness extended outward begins with inhaling it deeply into and for ourselves. Then gentleness can be given as the gift that it is.
Photo by Jonathan Rautenbach on Unsplash
_____________________________________________
A poem…
the best characteristic
of an elephant
is not brute strength
or mammoth size
but his tender
gentle eyes
