Have we limited tenderness to the quality of meat or something expressed between lovers, or parents and their children? It seems to me that tenderness is much bigger than this and that it starts with how we treat ourselves in a million small ways throughout the day.
With a little awareness and focus we can soon become masters of tenderness, enriching our lives (and those we share it with) in remarkable ways.
Have you experienced a tender moment?
A tender touch?
A tender thought?
Have you beheld a tender act?
Just asking these questions returns me to the tenderness I have felt – it seems to be something that is alive in me and when I reconnect with it, it melts me, and whatever I’m doing, I can’t help but be tender with.
Tenderness flows from within me and through me. Tenderness can be felt in my voice, my touch, my thoughts, my ears and my eyes. It may sound funny, but even my taste becomes tender when I allow it.
There are things that I notice when I allow myself be tender:
- My body lets go. I notice how I’ve been holding my shoulders tight or my forearms hard… the tension drops away.
- When I take my time, with no rush or force, suddenly I have a sense of having plenty of time.
- I feel with my whole body, and thinking from here leads the way.
- Tenderness is definite and delicate all at once, with purpose, not wishy-washy at all.
- I have focus with no indecisiveness (or indecision) in what to do, everything is clear and simple.
- The choice to allow tenderness feels powerful, deliberate and not half-hearted.
- I am more playful, not rough or imposing, but light, open and full.
- I am super-present – in the moment, not before or beyond it, or even thinking of anything else.
- I enjoy the fullness of love, accepting the joy and letting it out and in.
These exquisite elements of tenderness are medicine to the body and being, available whenever the choice is made and applicable well beyond special moments with a select few. Tender washing up, tender typing, tender brushing hair – it melts away the hardness I can bring to get through the day and creates a deep sense of wellbeing that makes such a difference to everything.
Tenderness is like the warmth of the sun – it is there for everyone, has no off button, no dimmer and does not reserve itself for a select few.
It is there for us all equally, naturally, easily whenever we choose to let its remarkable ways unfold as we go about our day to day lives, all the richer with it.
Inspired by the work of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon.
By Adrienne Hutchins, Brisbane, Australia
892 Comments
“These exquisite elements of tenderness are medicine to the body and being,” So true when we allow ourselves to be tender we are not able to hold onto the tension and angst that is there constantly in the background running our body against and at odds with its natural rhythm.
Being tender is our natural way but we have let the world dictate to us from young that being tender as an adult does not work and is scorned upon.
I have lived being very hard on myself for a long time, tenderness does absolutely melt the hardness so I have been cultivating more and more tenderness in my life and the hardness is melting.
A beautiful reminder that tenderness is a natural quality within us all and when we choose to surrender and allow our body to let go of the hardness we move and express from our true way of being and the love we are.
Thank you for sharing your exquisite elements of tenderness and how healing they are to the body, it is simply our choice to bring them into our everyday lives.
Tenderness is very lovely to feel in the body, ‘My body lets go. I notice how I’ve been holding my shoulders tight or my forearms hard… the tension drops away.’
We are more rich when we live from our heart, which is where our tenderness is present. Therefor allowing it to come out.
Your point that our body actually changes when we are tender is super important, it’s great to acknowledge that we are always contributing to the state our body is in by the quality we choose – and the way we treat ourselves and move and touch things contributes to whether our body feels amazing or hard and tired at the end of the day.
Being tender is natural for us but we have created a way of being and living full of demands and self-impositions that hardens up and tense our precious body. Connecting deeper with ourselves supports us to understand why being tender is not for the weak ones or for a selected few, but who we are, truly powerful and very wise from our very essence.
Adrienne your sharing feels like a warm bath of tenderness, my body feels now very yummy and expanded, thank you
I discovers this week that tenderness allows space, from where I can surrender to the rhythm for whatever is there to be done. And the most amazing side effect of it: it fills me up with so much love I don’t feel to eat things that don’t support this quality.
I have recently developed more of a connection to my own tenderness, I would say both Esoteric Yoga and Sacred Movement have supported this. Since I first read your blog I can see how I have become more aware of tenderness and what it brings into life and I agree with all your dots points, tenderness is definitely powerful, purposeful, and brings a sense of focus. It’s truly lovely to feel it within me and in my movements.
Oooo, just reading what you have written about tenderness has inspired me to feel that in my body as I type this morning, not to go searching for it, but to actually appreciate it in my body and therefore bring it into my activity (typing) consciously, not unconsciously. So thank you, as I will take that physical memory into my day today.
We are presented with an opportunity in every moment to be tender with ourselves and when I am tender with myself I feel so different than when I am not aware or connected to the tenderness inside me, the main feeling is that I can feel me and know that living tenderly is my natural way of being.
Tenderness certainly is a universal quality that when moved by this, expresses the grace of love that we all innately are.
“Tenderness is like the warmth of the sun – it is there for everyone, has no off button, no dimmer and does not reserve itself for a select few.” A beautiful reminder as i set out for my day – to choose tenderness rather than anxiousness or nervous tension – and from that place do what needs to be done.
Thank you for this beautiful reminder of the absolute power in tenderness. Being tender with ourselves and the world around us is the doorway to the wonder and magic of life.
It’s a great point that tenderness can be there all day everyday, we do innately know this quality because we often bring it out for babies and children, yet it’s there in full for ourselves as well.
It is often something we all deeply love, to be held with tenderness. When we look at modern day life there is a frenetic pace and drive and with this our movements become racey and then the tenderness is disconnected from.
It is wonderful to take a moment to ponder tenderness. I have always seen tenderness as a way of moving but your words remind me that tenderness is a quality first and foremost.
I have noticed how my thoughts can change my movements and vice versa. if my thoughts are hard or not loving then my movements are no longer tender and caring. So if I feel that my body and movements are hard I look at my thoughts. It is an ongoing learning but it makes a huge difference to my day and how I perceive life.
I am also learning to clock my thoughts during the day. Do they honour and support me to live tenderly in everything I do or do they abuse and send me down a spiral of living in disregard? We can allow our thoughts to rule the roost if we are not present and discerning as to where they have come from.
We are naturally tender, beautiful and sweet.. To accept that is asking a lot from us; as we have made our ways so unnaturally that it is at times hard to indeed feel and accept that we are tender, naturally so. This blog is a reminder of how important it is that we accept our tenderness (who we are) again – and forever. To hold it dear.
As I read the comments following this blog I can feel how tenderness is love in movement. Deeply gorgeous.
‘I feel with my whole body, and thinking from here leads the way…’. A very different way of thinking, one which emerges from the fullness of our being, not just from the ‘echo chamber’ that is our mind.
A daily dose of tenderness or several supports us to surrender into the expansiveness that is always on offer when we make the choice to be tender in whatever we are doing.
Being asked if I’ve had a tender thought or moment brings me back to that feeling of tenderness, and it can be that simple stop to consider that tenderness and to embrace it again in the next moment. It is indeed remarkable, tenderness and in fact very accessible if we allow ourselves that space to be with it.
I have a sore right arm at the moment and went to have a massage to support it. At the start of the session, I got to feel that I had almost abandoned my right arm as it felt like it was hanging off my arm as some appendage and not really part of my body at all. It was almost like I was angry at it for being sore and did not want it to be part of my body. Then during the session, the woman doing the massage touched my arm with so much tenderness that tears started to fall out of my eyes. Her tenderness melted the hardness that I was in around my arm. It reconnected my arm energetically to the rest of my body. Tenderness melts hardness for sure.
Being touched by Tenderness is such a life-changing event, which is open to us all when we are ready to feel what is happening with a touch by that level of love from a simple laying of a hand on your arm.
While reading your blog about tenderness Adrienne, I could feel my body surrendering and embracing tenderness, which brings home to me how beneficial it would be, both to ourselves and others, to make this quality part of our everyday life.
This blog is foundational for me, one of my pillars for appreciating me when I’ve let the stuff seem greater and more complicated than the simplicity of connecting to my tenderness and preciousness.
Tenderness for me means a deep surrender in my body that allows an honest, simple and loving encounter with myself and others.
I love what you present here about tenderness and agree it is certainly not something to reserve only for referring to the quality of meat or just for certain relationships! This is something that we can build in all areas of our life for the true benefit of us all.
I come alive too through tenderness – I can feel and register love in my body. Treating myself in tenderness, especially when I feel anxiousness, in pain or hurt, I can remain with myself while confirming more and more tender in my movements subsiding the pain. My feelings become hypnotic and I feel more of a settling than to feel abrupt and harsh towards myself because of the pain.
This a very powerful way of being Rik, holding ourselves in tenderness to let go of the pain and reconnect back to love inside us. Thanks for sharing
Tenderness is gigantically powerful to me. When I am feeling separate from myself, lost, doubting, then it is through tenderness, through even reading about tenderness, through re-connecting to that expression in me, that I come back to myself. Tenderness and Appreciation are life jackets for me in the storms of life.
It was great to read this, this morning as normally on a Monday morning I can brace myself and get ready to go into the day in that way. It was good to be reminded to stay with a tenderness as it brings a quality to my day.
Re reading your blog this morning made me more aware how my choice to use indecisiveness a lot has also affected living my tenderness and it is true when I choose to doubt, think over again and again is never about being in my body, feeling my natural tenderness. It is all about avoiding clarity and simplicity in my life.
Yes Annelies, it is about the lightness in how we are being and living the simplicity of life.