~ Bailey Shawley, M.Ed, CCTS-F, Specialized Parenting & Educational Consultant
I had the sheer pleasure of spending time with a few infants and babies in recent days, and it brought me immense joy. I’ve always loved babies. And while I loved raising our two, I have to admit that it was nice to hand those babies back to their parents and avoid the sleepless nights and diaper changes. I also have been thinking about the word “gentle,” since I repeated it several times to the older kids who wanted their turn holding the babies.
I’ve found myself using the word “gentle” much more frequently in consulting and Reiki healing sessions the past few weeks, too. Specifically, I have been urging clients to be “gentle” with themselves. As I’ve been talking through what being gentle with ourselves looks like and why it is important, I’ve been using the idea of holding babies gently to illustrate my point. Even the most physically strong people can handle babies gently if they are mindful of their movements and force. Even if they can bench three times their own body weight, they still can hold a baby gently.
So, if we aren’t babies ourselves, then why the need for all of the gentleness? Well, we just don’t seem to be handling ourselves with as much care as we should. We tell ourselves that we aren’t enough, we tell ourselves that we can’t do anything right, we tell ourselves that we are too fat or too thin or too short or too tall… we treat ourselves far too harshly. We can be bosses at work yet struggle with managing our households and personal tasks. We can be the best advice givers to our friends yet not have a clue about how to help ourselves. We know we can do some of it, so we tell ourselves that we “should” be able to do all of it all of the time. False. You know what is true, though? We can be strong, independent people yet still need support and self-care. Read that again.
Being gentle does not equate to lack of strength. Just like strong people can hold babies while being gentle, we can be strong while treating ourselves with care. We need to know that we are enough even if we aren’t as productive or successful as we think we “should” be. We need to recognize the things that we do well, let go of our mistakes, and put time and energy into the things we want to learn. We need to find the things we like about ourselves. We need to know that if there is something we don’t like about ourselves, we can change it if we want to and not because we think we “should.” We need to take breaks. We need to delegate. We need to recognize and celebrate our success. We need to know that telling ourselves that we need to do it all, all of the time, is unrealistic and unfair.
Most of the time, we are better at being gentle with our friends than with ourselves. A good rule of thumb is, if you wouldn’t say it to a friend, don’t say it to yourself. That’s why being gentle with yourself means being a friend to yourself. And this is what we haven’t been doing. It’s time to start.
Positive self-talk and consistent self-care are important components of being gentle with oneself. I educate clients on these and other strategies to help them be better friends to themselves. If this blog post resonated with you in any way, reach out or schedule a consultation. The initial consultation is free of charge to ensure we are a good fit for one another and is available online or in person. Or, if you’d like to jump right into consulting, feel free to schedule an individual consultation. All B Connecting, LLC services are confidential and judgment free.
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