Try A Little Tenderness

“Oh she may be weary

Them young girls do get weary

But when that girl gets weary you gotta try a little tenderness”

Otis Reddings words have been singing through my mind for the last few weeks now. Seemingly a lot of people have been trying to serenade tenderness into my heart. From navigating the season of love deemed as Valentine’s Day in Westernized popular culture to coming across Meena Srinivasan beautiful TED talk as part of my graduate course work, the concept of trying a little tenderness has been orbiting into my life intensely.

Which draws me to inquire what does it mean to be tender?

With yourself? With others?

Where I am landing in this moment is tenderness is Love’s sibling, not twin but definitely sharing commonality in their genetic makeup. Tenderness to me is feeling the bruises of a world that is hurting in so many ways and actively choosing to not poke the wound inflicting more pain but to apply the salve of a gentle response. Tenderness is not something popularized in our everyday constant stream of information but it’s a key to finding the way out of the chaos.

In thinking about how to apply more tenderness to myself and the world around me, I’ve realized how attached I am to the pain/ pleasure paradigm of the human experience. How the more it is fed, the more insatiable it’s hunger is.

The spirit spoken poem below came to me as I began a conversation to try and understand how to ingest the paradox of humanity and spirituality. The words which follow are a stream of unwinding the tangle of cultural training to align as a human doing over a human Being first. These words of my own current version of trying a little tenderness to apply the salve of love on wounds which reach many generations deep. I am beginning to step in the direction of gathering the pebbles of reparation for the suffering my lineage has experienced and enacted generation after generation. I ask for grace and tenderness from you, Dear Reader, as I am learning.

Tender Healing

Tenderness is the sweet gift of a hummingbird in flight.

Sugar,

Alcohol,

Sex,

Marijuana,

Shopping,

Productivity,

Technology.

All addictive substances which results in pleasure larger than physical life.

All these pleasures have consequences 

One of the consequences all these addictive patterns have elicited is a resistance to boredom and monotony.

Newness and novelty are supreme but it creates of a cycle of constant craving for more.

More learning, more travel, more doing, more creativity, more experiences.

But what did I come here for?

Equanimity feels deeply inaccessible in my culture if that’s what I came here for.

Obsessed with an unsustainable, busy calendar,

Keeping it up for about a month and then burnout.

Everyday so many commitments to do making for this tornado of doing with so little space for being.

It’s highly addictive. 

Sugar and productivity are the first reward system overload memories I have.

Erica you’re so talented, such a good girl, so smart, so quick and bright, here’s a cookie.

These encouragers, an addiction I may never fully recover. Much like food for abstinence is impossible.

Connection is a human necessity like physical nourishment.

A baby who isn’t held and nurtured will fail to thrive in some cases.

I crave the approval of others cellularly.

I grieve for the loss of loved ones who first built me and encouraged me on my way in life.

I crave the sugary sweetness of pleasure in words and physical senses.

A treat is such a versatile word for the pleasure of reward.

It can be a sensory reward for any and all of the senses.

Sentience is what makes us unique, right?

Tenderness is the caring eyes of a creature who can truly achieve unconditional love.

It is a powerful tool to guide us through this lived experience while paradoxically being our metaphorical, Achilles heel.

I move towards pleasure over pain and the pendulum swings too far and I fall into the tangles of discomfort.

But what happens when I lean into the pain?

It intensifies in some cases but then it feels heard sometimes so it lessens.

I chase all these ways to be “well”, are they real?

“Evidence-based” swirls in my vision. 

I ingest more ferociously for knowledge is a never ending well.

To be tempted by her calls to really Know entraps me.

I hold loosely to my ideas and “knowledge”,

Hoping that my values which lie below the surface are pure and will buoy me when my thoughts cannot.

I  won’t reprimand the mind with the stick of reprieve. 

I’ll look at the puddle of mess my mind has made with empathetic eyes. 

Coaxing the beginner mind back to center,

Aligned with calm for in this stillness the winds die down.

The hollowing ceases.

I still scratch at the edges desiring to understand, 

But with tired eyes of a child, I surrender to rest.

I see my tantrum of desires as almost laughable in a dark humored way.

To consume is my nature. 

Coming into this world crying for connection.

Constantly hungry for touch and sustenance.

Tenderness is the misty morning embrace of sunshine in the dead of winter.

I am soothed gratefully so by a mother and father who loved me.

But now that they are gone from this physical role, sometimes in a body of many moons, I still cry out.

And when silence hits my ears, it stings.

It feels as though I may not breathe and then I do.

I settle into the reality reminding myself that this pain is not just mine.

It’s one passed from generation to generation.

Transcending space and time.

A reaching out and not receiving is painful to each.

It can breed darkness and light.

This dance of polarity will continue as is the order of our world.

Pain reliant on pleasure, 

Fear interconnected with hope.

What is the positive opposite of each experience?

This question is not easily answered.

Many minds come together with intentions of love and connection yet still consensus is not met.

Bias is present, frustration brews.

Maybe we have come to a place in time and history where we will awaken to these truths in each other.

Holding loosely but with compassion.

Problems a seemingly impossible dizzy of duality.

Will I ever be able to face the darkness fully when I cling desperately to the light?

Many relationships have pushed me beyond where I was prepared to go.

This is what I came for.

Consciously unaware how this push may aid in the reason for my life.

A bit unsatisfying of a conclusion, I’ll admit

But it’s where I am right now. 

Here to let go even when I’m bloodying my knuckles to stay the same.

I say I love change, but really I love planned novelty of a new pleasure.

This affinity ultimately swings me to the pain.

Even in writing these words now as they flow through me almost faster than my hands can keep up, I feel a tinge of wonder for their future impact.

Be Here, Now, child.

Tenderness is the reminder of poppies and words intertwined in wisdom indigenous to this land.

Come come, back Home.

This is where you belong in the stillness of rest.

You look so tired, I know you see it.

Push harder and faster and maybe then I’ll be enough…

No no, you know that’s not so.

But the unlearning is arduous. 

The remembrance of my ancestors is clouded by my physical realities.

Help me, please I pray.

They whisper, “We are.”

I fear what mission am I on?

“Love must be greater than hate”, I respond back to them.

It feels insane to write this but I say to them,

“Lay your pain at my feet so I may see the way fear drove you mad with hate.”

I tremble at the sheer magnitude of my ask.

But I root in.

The first Mother holds me as I have been her child in every body.

I look down at the hell in front of me, blinded by sharp barbs of generations of misdoings, to friend and foe.

“Why are we like this?”, I ask.

A hiss and then a silence says it all.

It feels too much for me to carry so I ask for only one or two to come to me.

Direct lines from my line to tell me their story so I may try and hold it and learn.

Blood, sweat, and tears and all.

They comply with tales of adventure, of love, of pleasure and pain, of creation and destruction just like my story holds.

Tenderness is the barren trees covered in lichen in beautiful harmony with cycles of rest and creation.

And then there are the stories which feel untouchable. 

Inconceivable of how they got there.

I side step my judgement and ask tenderly, “ Say more.”

Down cast eyes of a punished child, an ice in their voice begins.

Someone harmed them so they harmed someone in return.

It was the wrong someone though.

Their reward system paid no mind to the debt.

This tale as old as human time.

Since we started counting, oppressed and oppressors arise.

“Why is this?”, I ask.

Power,

It intoxicates and deeply motivates expansion.

“But it’s for evil?”

A side smile of indifference, I feel the weight begin to crawl up my legs.

Mother moves me back a step for a clearer view.

With a little distance from muddied guilt, I ask,

“Why do we hurt each other?”

Pain/pleasure axis

“Say more?”

It’s a complicated system that worked efficiently before, in a simpler world.

Evolution hasn’t caught up

But don’t blame her,

We fired her long ago.

She didn’t quit we just stopped investigating in her.

A culture of doing stunted our growth to see the repercussions of this never ending cycle of pain and pleasure.

“So what did we do?”

We doubled down,

Tripled down,

Quadrupled down.

Generation after generation entrenched in a better’s bluff, convinced one day it would pay out.

In the true definition of insanity believing that our hate would breed a world of freedom when it accordance with law it tightens the shackles around us all.

Tenderness is welcoming my ancestors to teach me who they were in hope that we all may find our way Home.

My eyes well in overwhelm of a system, I don’t feel able to escape.

“Isn’t there a corner of this blue planet that isn’t like this?”

Colonialism became global it is true.

But that is where the remembrance begins.

Reciprocity can begin,

A wisdom is always there in the land. 

We just live so far away.

The pain and sorrow is there as well for the Mother holds all memories tenderly. 

I can’t stop I think with sorrow looking away from my ancestor's’ face.

They inch closer, I don’t move

A semblance of a stroke of my cheek brings my shame ridden eyes back to center,

You must try.

Through is the only way. 

I hate this answer for a moment with the rage of a thousand lifetimes.

And then my fire extinguishes.

“I’ll try”

We smile softly both feeling that it’s not enough but it’s all we can.

Tending to the tree of forgiveness when we are able. 

Rooting ourselves in discomfort of recognition for all the pain inflicted.

The expansiveness of this valley of pain feels never ending,

The small forgiveness which I can attain throws a pebble in this crevasse.

And maybe a hundred generations from now if our Mother will still have us, we will fill the valley of suffering and all rise awakened.

Though it might take longer, 

Time is yet the construction of physical existence. 

Unplugging moment by moment from the obsessive addictions of the illusory world will guide us to the next stone and the next.

I am but one step in this journey,

One pebble in the hand.

But I am willing to listen.

To be awake when I’m called on.

To have the hard conversations. 

To ask for help to be better.

Yet still know, “We are all complete and… could use a little bit of improvement too”, to paraphrase the sentiments of the sage Zen Master.

Tenderness is the inspiration of an artist beautifying an old building with their creativity.

I belong to this system so did my ancestors.

Born into this body for unknown reasons to me.

Though its seemingly clearer as I open up to becoming a good ancestor in training.

May I make a little improvement with my braid in this rope of life.

Ever so small is still one pebble to fill the divide.

My soul knows this to be truth.

Not the type of true which build righteous divides, but the integrity of hope for a more peaceful future.

And really right now even that word feels a little tainted.

May my life be a brush stroke of nonviolent creation,

A prayer I send out to touch upon unconditional love for how ever briefly as my contribution to this unfolding lifetime.

I thank the great Mother for her hospitality as I haven’t been a great house guest at times.

I apologize for blind action for myself and those before and after me.

I ask for tender guidance of care on how to do better.

I request to relearn the language of gratitude so I may speak it to her with all my remaining days.

I quiet myself now,

Busy mind, Be still.

Uncross myself.

This is a prayer,

A song,

A whisper in the winds of remembering a way not free of suffering but one aligned with integrity and respect for reciprocity and the pulsing heart of our Source.

I’ll take a step and then another with curiosity and care.

Faith that my vessel will be guided by God so much greater than one.

We all flow in and out in our designed time,

I feel the beat returning.

Tenderness is ever-colorful flowers in a windowsill for all to be greeted by.

Faint but true.

Long gone but joyfully homecoming.

May we all return into her embrace of pure Love to fully live.

These arms eliciting a greater pleasure than any physical experience.

My soul craves this fundamentally. 

I return,

It is right for me.

I must consciously choose this way and then the next.

Sometimes it feels hard but I know the call a little better now,

The voice of Divine drenched in Tender Healing. 



If you made it all the way to the end, I deeply appreciate your time and energy for connecting in this journey together.

May you find tenderness and love for your self and others in the days to come.

With gratitude,

Erica