Finding Strength In Gentleness

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast here:

So for some reason, I’ve been writing a lot about my “no-poohair experiment lately.  And now I’ve gone even deeper into this experiment, as I’ve begun doing something called water-only washing.  In essence, I’ve completely stopped using any thing on my hair other than water, baking soda, eggs, and apple cider vinegar.

Big deal, right?  It’s just hair.  But by making this change, I’ve noticed some other things start to change as well.

Snuggly Bunnies (Image from herwordskill, Flickr Creative Commons)

Mostly, the way I’ve always treated my skin suddenly feels sort of harsh.  Hot showers suddenly feel way to hot.  The Neutrogena foaming face wash that I’ve used for years suddenly seems overly drying.  The Body Shop body washes that I used to love just feel like they have one too many chemicals.   Now that my scalp is being treated differently, the rest of my skin seems to be calling out for something different too.  I’ve been playing around with the most natural soaps I can find, and using natural oils like jojoba and lovely essential oils as well.

I feel like my skin is calling on me to be more gentle with it, and I’m finding that the more I heed the call, the better my skin feels, and the better I feel. It’s like the old Hermetic, mystical saying, of “as above, so below” and “as within, so without.”  The gentler I treat my skin, the more I seem to find gentleness within.

There is such a beauty in gentleness, and I think it’s a quality that we often forget.  Who are we gentle with, other than babies, and maybe ourselves and others when we’re injured or quite ill?  Wouldn’t it be beautiful if we could cultivate more gentleness in our everyday lives?

Imagine being gentle with yourself when you’re late for work.  How might you feel differently or plan differently for next time?  Imagine being gentle with yourself when you overeat at dinner.   What might you learn from that experience, and how might you treat yourself later that night or the next day if you were gentler with yourself?  What if you were gentler with your friends, your kids, your coworkers, your partners?  How might things shift and change in your relationships and within you?

I see a strength in gentleness.  It takes strength to be kind to yourself and others, to listen, to flow with what is rather than resent that what is isn’t what it should be.  Cultivating gentleness, to me, doesn’t mean ignoring other, potentially less gentle emotions.  It just means deciding, when possible, to go a little easier on ourselves and others than we might otherwise.

Does this concept of gentleness appeal to you?  Is there a place in your life that is calling out for more gentleness? Let me know what you try and how it went on my facebook page!

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to https://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

4 thoughts on “Finding Strength In Gentleness

  1. “Be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. In the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.” ~ Max Ehrmann (Yes. :-) )

Comments are closed.