Being Gentle with Self and Others

by Dr. Lisa Templeton

Gentleness can seem a difficult path in such a harsh, overstimulating, and critical world. It feels so much easier to withdraw, isolate, create walls, and harden to the environment around and within us. It takes courage to be gentle and to step outside of what we have deemed safe and comfortable. To understand this softened energy, let’s consider what gentleness is not. Gentleness is not a weakness. It is not letting people walk all over you or using “kid gloves” with others. It is not managing others’ emotions or trying to force a situation. Being gentle is not an opening that leaves you vulnerable and potentially hurt. It is a strength of courage that brings about more empowerment and lightness.

To be gentle opens the path for great wisdom and awareness to show itself around the hardened parts of others and within ourselves; these parts that we continue to conflict with or rub against in an uncomfortable way. Gentleness is encompassed with kindness, compassion, and understanding. There is an awareness of the circumstances, environment, and situation at hand. Gentleness is aware of the big picture and all that is around it. Consider the gentleness of a deer – aware and alert, yet poised, calm, and peaceful. This energy teaches us to remember to be tender with ourselves and others. To be gentle is to offer true care, nurturing, and love to ourselves and to others. Every single one of us needs to be cared for and to care for ourselves.

The world may look bleak filled with people who don't care, but this is not true. Human behavior does not depict an individual’s inner thoughts very well. Some behaviors seem to convey a lack of care on the outside, with a sort of indifference, but deeply within they are extremely overwhelmed, hardened, traumatized, and afraid. We must be the change we want to see and soften the hard edges within us. Remember that this practice, in turn, provides comfort and inspiration in a difficult world that often comes with a lot of pain and suffering.

Gentleness isn’t being a push over to those who are hurting others. It recognizes that hurt people lash out at others and try to gain control through overpowering others. Gentleness involves a fierce nature that doesn’t attach to the hard, harsh nature of hate, fear, and judgment. A softer energy offers a deeper awareness of when we are being harmed and how to set a clear boundary, step away, and hold true to our values of care and love that exist moreso in our world than we realize. Gentleness doesn’t make you weak, it actually strengthens your sense of oneness and love.

Take a few moments right now to tap into gentleness. If we see others and their hard ways feeling pokey and distressing, practice meeting that with care, love, and compassion - with a gentle awareness. Take a deep breath. Notice your body. Pay attention to your heart and set an intention to soften your heart first with yourself and then with others. Check in with your torso, your stomach, hips, arms, and legs. See if you can breathe into any tight space you notice. If you have pain somewhere, give it care and attention. As Rumi stated, “Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.” When we offer a gentle mindful eye to the hardened, hurt places, we find the light within ourselves and in each and every one of us.

Breathe in deeply and exhale. Allow your whole body to relax all at once. Try to offer a gentleness when regarding and attending to your body. Remember that there is an honor in having this body, as hard as it is to maintain and care for. Give gratitude to your body and your mind and set an intention to be gentler with yourself in your dialogue, as well as with your body and the choices you make. Start within and then consider how you might soften with others in your life. Each moment is an opportunity to soften our hearts and open our minds to the care we all crave so deeply.

Befriending Our Anxiety

By Lisa Templeton, Ph.D.

Our emotions have much to offer us in wisdom and direction; we only need to practice listening more deeply when they arise. Anxiety is an emotion that can be very uncomfortable inconvenient. Our initial instinct when anxiety comes up is to fight the tension and try to get rid of it. Many of us push away and/or judge anxiety when it shows up in our experience.

Shifting our perspective on anxiety can be very helpful. Can you work toward more connection with this experience? Why not welcome in the anxiety, listen to it, and observe it? What could happen if we befriended our anxiety? As Rumi writes of emotions in his poem, The Guest House, “Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house of its furniture - still, treat each guest honorably.”

Although we can feel as though certain emotions wipe us out and can be incredibly overwhelming at times. These difficult times will eventually abate and other, lighter, emotions move into the mix. Our entire life is a waxing and waning of emotions. We might as well befriend them, especially the ones we have been conditioned to judge so harshly and quickly.

It is quite possible that our anxiety might have important wisdom to communicate. All we need to do is to stop, look, and listen to what is going on within us – without judgment. With this present moment awareness, we are a bit more open and malleable to shift our own mind. As we shift our mind, our perception transforms to see a broadened truth. Here are 5 tips to aid you in shifting your perspective and working to befriend your anxiety:

1) Recognize that anxiety is not your enemy – there is nothing to fear with anxiety, it’s just uncomfortable. Anxiety cannot harm you or overtake you unless you allow it to. This lies in our perception and choices. Our anxiety may not seem like a friend, possibly because neither of you have ever been very friendly with each other. If you treat someone like your enemy, and push them away, you will create more separation and conflictual energy. Approach anxiety like a friend who wants to support you and offer help, but maybe doesn’t really know how just yet.

2) Use your imagination to personify your anxiety - try imagining your anxiety as a person. How are you relating? How is your anxiety relating to you? Assess this relationship from a neutral place. Perhaps you notice a thought like, “I don’t want this anxiety, get away, I shouldn’t feel this.” Consider how you might feel if someone spoke to you in this way? No one deserves to be pushed away or judged negatively. If you tell it to go away when it shows up, there is more conflictual energy and the whole exchange is even less comfortable. When you change how you relate with your anxiety, your anxiety can then shift how it is relating with you.

3) Be a good friend – consider the qualities of a good friend. Someone who is caring and compassionate. Someone who sees, hears, and acknowledges us while also working to uplift and offer us hope in times of struggle. A good friend will honor us and also set boundaries and be direct as needed to nurture both you and themselves. Consider what you look for in a friend and do your best to be that person in relationship with your anxiety. If you fall back into old ways of relating – mindfully slow down, apologize and offer care.

4) Teach your anxiety how you want to be treated – Consider what you might like to hear from a friend and how you would speak to them. Work to create that kind of dialogue in your own mind. Try saying something nice when you are feeling anxious or perhaps speak some truth around reasons why anxiety might be there to offer understanding and compassion. What might anxiety be communicating? What are you communicating back? How we talk to each other either creates or dissolves a friendship. How do you react internally to your anxiety when you notice this feeling? Is there compassion and understanding, or judgment and criticism? The more aware we are of our inner dialogue, the more we can listen and set boundaries on how we want and don’t want to be treated.

5) Spend time with your friend. We can often live only in our minds, thinking a lot about everything. Emotions live in our bodies, so if you want to visit with anxiety, you need to feel into where anxiety lives in your body. We must stop and feel in order to deeply listen. In this moment, take a nice deep breath and listen to locate where anxiety shows up in your physical body. For some, anxiety shows up in the stomach area; for others, it is in the heart or throat. It may even change where it lives each time you listen in. Perhaps you don’t notice it at all right now. Set an intention to notice more. No matter what you notice, make attempts to spend good quality time with anxiety, offering it deep breaths, compassion, understanding, and unconditional love.