The Gift of Gentleness – Gathering our allies

We have focused for the past 4 weeks on the gifts that help us to soothe, and settle, and regulate our inner hormonal, and neurobiological worlds. We have taken doses of “slowing down” and “stillness” to antidote what Brene Brown calls “our anxiety lifestyle”, and spoonfuls of “gratitude” and “beauty” to reduce our sense of scarcity and fear. These resources come with us into our further explorations (if you want to look back, or have missed any of the blogs so far checkout www.foxtalesforsoul.com/blog/).

Of course, developing a personal practice that involves activating and using these resources, can also stir the deeper layers of our defences and personality structures in ways that open up possibilities for change and growth. You may be finding that you are dreaming more vividly at the moment, or that you are finding old memories surfacing, or that within the pressure cooker of COVID-19 and lockdown, you are realising that some of the patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving, that you previously just ignored, are starting to trouble you. From a psychotherapist’s point of view, this stirring and disturbing is good news, and cause for excitement, and all the metaphors about “breaking down to break through” and “seeds having to have their husks broken in order to grow” start to come to mind. However, the trap for us all would be to push forward, bulldozing ourselves into some sort of “getting on with it” or “getting over it”. Whatever defences or internal dynamics are being wobbled by practicing stillness, connecting with beauty and finding gratefulness flowing into your life, are there for very good reasons, and have done a good job of keeping you alive and relatively sane so far. They, and you as their creator, deserve to be treated with respect. We need to gather a few more allies before we go to meet them.

“Be excessively gentle with yourself” writes John O’Donohue, in one of his many beautiful poems. How often are we gentle with ourselves at all, never mind excessively? Looking at some of the social media posts, and the memes that are floating about on “the interweb”, I see a strange tension emerging during our current experience of crisis: on one hand, the rush to productivity, learn a new language, reshape your business, learn to paint, build a new garden, get fit, clear out your cupboards, homeschool your children effectively, develop, change, grow – “Succeed in the lockdown challenge”. On the other, a collection of posts appear rejecting that drive, pointing out that lockdown is stressful and we might need more time to rest, to sleep, to adjust to this new way of living. Of course, somewhere in the middle are those other posts about how much we are all drinking, eating, and spending on online shopping, truth in humour, highlighting our struggle to feel ok about any of it, and our tendencies towards not so helpful soothing strategies.

Gentleness. What is it? More to the point, what is it when I am asked to direct gentleness towards myself?

I feel a story coming – bear with – are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.

As a child I was deeply in love with horses. I spent hours drawing them, reading stories about them, visiting them in local fields to try and get them to come to talk to me, teaching myself the points of the horse, the correct way to fit a bridle, the use of diagonal aids (riding the back of the sofa), and the correct way to build a stable so that the drainage would not cause a problem (seriously, aged 9, I was to be found internally debating the merits of corrugated iron versus wooden roofing for said fantasy stable). I longed to own a horse, or even to have riding lessons, but family finances would not permit either. So I continued my learning through books and daydreamed about the horse-filled life I wanted. Several times in my reading I found the term “gentling”, describing how a rider would soothe their mount after they had been startled, or if the horse was signalling alarm. The term has stayed with me since, along with the images it conjures – of stroking the horse’s ears, neck and face, murmuring soothing noises, and overall, of the sense of the bond between horse and rider, communication, attunement and trust. This is probably the place that led me to connect so deeply to the phrase from Toko-pa Turner I shared in last week’s blog: “gentle the eyes to see life and ourselves with kindness” – soothe the way you look at yourself and life, to see peacefulness instead of problem.

So, is that the way I normally communicate with myself when I am stressed – with love, attunement, calm responsiveness, gentling myself? Errrrm, no. Not as the natural, default setting, no. My inner voice to myself tends to start with “FFS! What are you making such a fuss about?! Just get on with it! Idiot. Stupid. Don’t be ridiculous”, and once it has had a good run up in that vein, it can become almost Shakespearean in its ability to creatively chastise me for whatever I am struggling with.

Wait a minute though. These days, actually, some of the time – there is a new voice in the house. I am learning. And I think that learning has come in two ways. First of all, my encounters with nurses within the world of cancer have been universally positive. They all consistently demonstrated “professional gentleness”, if you like. From immediately after receiving my diagnosis, through to the challenges of chemotherapy, those women were attentive, responsive, calm, affirming and gentle. The chemo nurse specialist, who subsequently checked in with me every week throughout treatment, even hugged me having shown me the chemo ward, recognising wordlessly that the impact of seeing in reality what was to come had left me shocked and scared. She remained attuned to my state of being, confronting me when I was being dismissive or minimising the effects of the treatment, and was ready to step in and say “enough” when the side effects were overwhelming me in ways I was numb to. I’ve had a concentrated experience of the power of grounded gentleness through those fantastic professionals – and I have internalised them and their approach as an option for how I approach myself.

Secondly, I’ve been required by events to change my connection with myself. My relationship with my body has always been basic, pragmatic, and about making sure it is functioning well enough to get me about and get on with my work. Breast cancer really put a stop to that. I’m learning now how to recognise in a new way when the “FFS” voice, (my inner “Critical Parent” or even occasionally what Eric Berne called the “Witch Parent”), starts up its refrain in response to my  physical limitations, and to realise I need to be more attuned to myself, more open to allowing fatigue or pain to have their place and be responded to. I am literally having to practice gentleness with myself every day. This learning process is embedded in the actions of putting soothing oil on my scars, making sure I gently stretch muscles daily to avoid what is called “cording”, taking pleasure in the slow recovery of energy and stamina whilst learning to say to myself “Enough” if my body clearly needs a slow day.

Being “excessively” gentle with myself – that’s a bit of a challenge still, and one of the many roles my own therapist has with me is to constantly nag encourage me on this front, but I am getting there, and my internal Cancer Care Nurse is a key player these days.

GO DEEP

What does “gentleness” mean to you? What ideas, images and feelings arise for you when you read that word?

Where and when in your life are you able to be gentle with yourself at the moment?

Is there a figure in your story who embodies gentleness? A grandparent, a therapist, a friend? What do you see in them that conveys gentleness?

If no real figure, is there a figure in a story or a film who has gentleness to offer? What do they do that speaks of gentleness?

Do you have an inner “FFS” voice that kicks in when you actually need a more gentle response to yourself? What is its start up phrase? Notice what happens if you attempt to interrupt it as it starts to criticise you. Use your Breathing pattern learned from previous blogs (“Breathe In, Be Still, Let Go” perhaps) to shift away from the critical, painful dynamic if it continues, and turn toward something of beauty to soothe yourself again.

GO WIDE

A gentle daily practice – use some oil, lotion or even hand cream and physically “gentle” yourself, perhaps your hands and/or your feet. Focus on what you are doing, being gentle in your actions, perhaps murmuring something soothing to yourself, listening to your body’s inner state of being, noticing any stresses and gently responding to them with slow and gentle movements.

Create your Inner Care Person – connect to your sense of whatever figure you discovered in Going Deep. Visualise them. Notice how they stand or sit or move. Notice their clothing. Where are they meeting you? Imagine talking with them about your worries, your stresses, your concerns. How would they respond to you? Write, draw, paint, sculpt something that will serve as an anchor, a point of connection, to this being.

Writing practice – take a page of a journal and divide it in half from top to bottom. On the left start with “I am stressed about……..” and fill in whatever is concerning you. Imagine that your inner gentle self or inner gentle care person is now taking the pen and write down however they would respond on the right. Come back to the left side and respond to whatever the caring person has said, saying more about your concerns or fears or stresses, and then swapping over again, mentally handing the pen over to the Carer so that they can write their response to you. Continue for as long as you want to. At the end review what the Carer has written to you, sit quietly with it. If you want to, focus on your breathing, breathing in what you want to take from the Carer’s response, breathing out and letting go of any stress you can release as you take in gentleness from the Carer.

I’d love to hear how these blogs land with you. You can comment, or message me via Facebook or at BarbaraFoxtales@protonmail.com

If you like what you are finding here and want more, sign up to my email list via www.foxtalesforsoul.com. There are new developments in the pipeline and some new opportunities to work with me coming soon!

In the meantime, stay well, enjoy whatever you can when you can, and survive the rest.