How Well Did You Love?

 

 

English: Love question (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is one of the three questions asked by Lord Buddha.  The other two are:

How fully did you live?

How deeply did you let go?

I will fail in answering all these questions as I have never lived any of them consciously.  My actions may or may not have reflected these questions.  There would have been times when my actions would be saturated with these questions but I have never consciously acted with these questions as underlying intentions.

I have loved and I do love, but how do I define “How Well?”  What is the benchmark of “How Well?”

If it means non judgmental, allowing others To Be – without trying to steer, direct or change their course,

If it means not letting others actions getting to me,

If it means not taking anything personally,

If it means understanding others and myself first and then making necessary adjustments in my own attitudes,

If “How well did I love” means all the above, then Yes, I do Love well.

However, if loving well is defined as passionate hugs, physical expression of love through touching, hugging, expressing verbally by saying ‘I love you’ 400 times a day, expressing emotions and allowing emotions out pour with passion,

If loving well is defined as giving gifts, cards or  even making regular phone calls to keep in touch -

then I fail miserably.  I don’t know how to express love that way.  For most part my culture prohibits me from external display of love though physical touch publicly.  I understand the importance of it, I realise that touch binds people – however, that understanding is very difficult to translate into a reality.  Cultural conditioning is difficult to transcend.

To me “How Well Did I Love” translates to how pure are my intentions behind my actions, how much I want to do for others without thinking of my own circumstances and how much I understand the motives and drives behind other people’s actions and not let my thermostat fluctuate accordingly.

My emotional thermostat is the measure of ‘how well I love’ and it is generally set at a constant temperature that doesn’t rapidly fluctuate at minor changes in the weather.  Yes, it does react to extreme weather conditions but very quickly returns to its set temperature  - a pleasant, warm and soothing 21 degrees Celsius.  That’s my heart’s temperature.  If that is loving well, I am doing OK.

Question is – if unconsciously that is how well I love, what would it be like if I consciously ask myself each day “How well did I Love”, what would happen?

If I consciously ask myself every day or as often as I remember, then the thermostat is regulated even better.  My emotional thermostat can be permanently calibrated to read 21 degrees and not fluctuate to the extremities.  The conscious living with Love as its intention will extend the reach of my thermostat. The radius of inclusion widens and more and more people can be drawn into that warmth.

Consciously asking myself “how well did I love” will remove even the tiniest of judgments that may arise from the deep corners of the heart and unconditional acceptance will spread as I cleanse my own heart with that question.

There are benchmarks set by people who intentionally walked with this question like Mother Theresa and there are role models who were the embodiments of the driving factor in that question – Love.  Buddha, Jesus, Sai Baba – history has provided us with great beings who walked on this earth to show and tell, to demonstrate through every cell of their bodies what Love is and all I have to do is take one axiom of what they said and live it.

The benchmarks are set in statements like

Do unto others…..

Help Ever, Hurt Never……..

Take refuge in Society with righteous living……….

I am not short of stories, metaphors, examples or even cliches to fall back onto. The key is “How much do I want it” and “How conscious am I of that want”

The reason I may feel  blue, down, depressed etc is because I am far removed from the desire or knowledge of that question “How well did I Love”.  If I only reflect a tiny fraction and hold that question in front of me each day, it will be a shining mirror that shows who I am.  The only choice I would then have is to acknowledge the reflection without judgment and complete acceptance and correct course if necessary or continue with satisfaction.  Any smudges that I see are not on the mirror but in me.

“How well did I Love” will be the cleansing solution to purify my heart.  Each cleanse will shine it a tiny bit until one day when I don’t need that cleansing.  I drop the “How” and the “well”, I also drop the doubt “Did I”.  What is left is “LOVE”.  It may happen in this life time or it may take several.

Keep asking “How well did I Love” until you don’t need to anymore.

Hope that day arrives sooner………

With Love and Respect

Padma Ayyagari

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Real Reason Behind Procrastination……….

Procrastination (Photo credit: Emilie Ogez)

 

Procrastination – is a familiar word to all of us.  Every single one of us would have experienced this at one time or the other in our lives. We put things off, sometimes for a short period of time and yet at other times indefinitely.  We get anxious when we think of those things that we are putting off, briefly pick up, look at them and then delay finishing.  We often give ourselves very good excuses, justifications for not doing.

 

Procrastination is a subject written about extensively. Any number of solutions are on offer to conquer it.  What am I going to add that is new or what solution would I offer that is not already given?

 

Well, in putting off the inevitable – yet again, I realized a very important truth about this whole subject – the real reason why I procrastinate.

 

What do I hope to achieve in putting off the inevitable, or putting off things to do?  Why do I resist the knowing urge to act now? Why do I postpone things?

 

Procrastination helps me ‘Buy Time’ or so I think.

 

Delaying to Buy Time – such a fallacy.

 

When I look at the artificially created calendar, it comforts and acknowledges my continued mortality and the mental unrest due to pressed anxiety will ease in the short term.

Is that why I postpone – to comfort myself that I am going to live that much longer? Does that hope, ambition, expectation create a rush in me to live?  Am I scared that if I finish doing everything that I have to do now, there is no reason for me to live for tomorrow?

Is that it?  Procrastination helps me ‘Buy Time’ ?

I live in a big bubble of illusion thinking that I can stop the clock by delaying.  Small or big – the size of the issue or thing is not the question.  The fundamental  principle in resistance induced procrastination is the false hope that I am applying brakes on my guaranteed mortality.  I want to continue my life and living.  As long as I have hopes pinned on ‘One Day’ set at some arbitrary distant future, I feel comforted that I could live until then to see it through.

 

Needs, Wants, Desires,  Ambitions, Hopes, Expectations,  – they are the drivers of life.  Procrastination and Delaying are the brakes that temporarily stop the wheel of time – or so I think.

I fool myself that in delaying I have actually stopped the clock.  But my mind rotates along with the clock that never stopped, while my eternal clock that counts down my life ticks closer to the zero hour.

 

I don’t like to dwell on ‘what if’s’ but I don’t mind living in “if then’s”

 

The “What If” scenarios – “What If I fall sick”, “What if I have an accident and die”, “What if I cannot deliver/do/keep my promise” etc., etc., gets answered with a promising “If I…………, then I can………..” and buys time. You fill in the blanks.

 

The fear induced by “What If’s” are comforted by “If, then, I can’s” false assurances of our immortality, and the clock ticks as we settle our minds temporarily in its permanent impermanence.

 

Am I buying time or Am I wasting time?

 

If my existence is timed on earth, every moment I delay in doing what I am meant to be doing – I am wasting time.  On the other hand, if I think I am immortal (funnily enough we think that without ‘thinking’) then every decision postponed, I am buying time (Not),.

 

Deep down I know that my existence is limited and my days are numbered and yet on surface I act as though I am going to be eternal – and there is the conflict within me.

I can never be at peace with myself when two sub currents of ‘Push and Pull’ exist.  That unrest shows in me as emotional irritability, the deep discontentment, the anxiety, the frustration, the emotional ups and downs, the entire zeal we call living.

 

Many solutions are offered in conquering this self defeating enemy called Procrastination – they work for brief periods of time until we forget again.  So what is a solution that we cannot overlook -

 

Observing the Push and Pull of Time with awareness and remembering that the next minute is not ours

 

How do we do that?

 

We will explore that in the next blog………..

 

Until then, let me know what you think.

 

With Love and Respect

 

Padma Ayyagari

 

 

 

 

 

How to ‘Walk a Mile In The Others Shoes’

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

“Walk a Mile in The Others Shoes” – so the saying goes.  Have I got the capacity to even walk a quarter mile in the others shoes – is my doubt.  Quarter mile is not a long distance.  I can walk a quarter mile in less than 10 minutes or even 5 minutes if I chose to, or it can take 30 minutes or even an hour.  Its not so much the time it takes to walk, but how I walk the distance is the question.

How awake and aware am I in walking that distance?  Walking externally with shallow breath that doesn’t fill the lungs with fresh air or missing beats of the heart that notice partial stories around, including my own – that is what I do every day.

Body in the present quarter mile, but head trapped somewhere in the field of time stuck behind 100th or even 1000th milestone, bogged on the tracks of memory of hurts, rejections, disappointments – turning the grave inside out, trying to keep the dead alive – where am I?

Certainly not present in the quarter mile to notice  the changing landscape, the shapes of the clouds or the flight of the birds – my mind is hissing from the steam of memory cloud while my feet carry my body mechanically forward.  I am a walking tribute to dead memory.

How can I possibly walk a mile in the others shoes when I can’t even walk in my own for a quarter mile without being fully present in the now?

The stories I create for myself are always in relationship with others, binding to others and yet incredibly isolating as they are stuck on the ‘repeat’ button in my head.  With each ‘repeat’ the story is relived, strengthening the groove that I pay attention to and its generally the negative that is magnified.

I may or may not accept, understand or even acknowledge, but the track repeats tirelessly over and over on a titanium record with multiple songs of similar themes.  The record doesn’t break, doesn’t worn out nor even scratch.  When the tracks of my records are full of songs created by my losses either through not having a normal child, or the worries of future finances, or the guilt of not doing enough, or the resentments of how no one understands or cares about what my story is, – when the same feelings play cloaked in different clothes equally colorful and attention grabbing, how can I possibly have space on that record to play others songs to listen?

My needle either gets stuck in the grooves of the record or slips and jumps to the next groove hoping to play a different song.  The beat and the melody of these songs might be different but the etchings of these songs have permanent labels that are universal on the records of every mind on this planet.  The grooves of past or future trapping the ‘Songs of Guilt or Songs of Worry’.

When the needle of my focus is unpinned, the arm of time can sweep over the past and future and yet remain present.  The grooves can be refilled after wiping the surface clean.

When I stop zooming in and see things through the key hole of a view finder, I am not trapped in my story.  Instead if I zoom out and take a broad perspective, then I will gain the understanding that the carefully construed hopes and ambitions,  miseries and sorrows, joys and anticipations, are the same songs in everyone, only singing with different melodies, rhythm and pitch.

My stories are ‘Not More Than, Better Than, Worse Than or Only Ones’ for that matter. My stories – even though different in color, size and shape, are similar to yours when it comes to the intensity of feelings. If I play at the boundaries of my story with this understanding that generates compassion and empathy, I will not impose an outcome on a relationship and be prepared for surprises.

As James Carse said “To be prepared for surprise is to be educated”and as Sai Baba says “End of Education is Character.”

So, how do I walk a mile in the others shoes?

Rumi’s poem sums it all:

“Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing,

There is a field.  I ‘ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

The world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.”

Let us meet in that field beyond right and wrong with compassionate eyes of understanding and non-judgment.  World will definitely be a better place.

Do you agree? Let me know………

Until next time

With Love and Respect

Padma Ayyagari

 

Two Most Rampant Diseases of Today……..

This is a short post.  Want to know the two most rampant diseases of today that are infectious?

Read below…….

“I must warn you against two infectious diseases that are rampant today. They are selfishness and the habit of reviling others. Investigate and examine, then you have the right to pronounce judgement. When you truly do this you will realize that the Self is better served, by serving others than criticising them. You will soon come to the conclusion that there are far more useful ways of spending the little time you have here in this life than ridiculing or praising others. Do not concern yourself with the faults and excellences of others. Instead care earnestly and sincerely about your own faults. Foster more carefully and sincerely, your own best qualities. This is my advice to you today.” – Sai Baba April 4 1965

How can we curb these diseases?  Let me know your ideas.

Until next time

With Love and Respect

Padma Ayyagari

How Resilient Are You?

austerity (Photo credit: 401K)

Not just emotionally, but in all areas of life, particularly in the area of finances and economics.

I had a weird dream in which Dr.Vandana Shiva was introduced to me by my Writing Teacher at a party.  Now, I vaguely heard Dr Shiva’s name in the past, never actually bothered to check what she stands for. But today, after the dream, I had to Google her and found her website. Astonishing to recognise that she looks exactly like the person I saw in my dream. That made me even wonder more as to why I have dreamt of her at this particular juncture of my life.  I like the ideas being promoted by Dr.Shiva and I have to explore it further to practice in my daily life.  As I continued to read her website, I came across ‘online text of “Economic Resilience,” a community how-to booklet written by Joanne Poyourow of Transition Los Angeles.’ and started reading it.

That led me to write this blog post because it is tied in with the concept of “Ceiling on Desires” that Sai Baba talks about, which I believe in deeply.

He says – “What is the meaning of Ceiling on Desires? Man is living in a dream world.  He is forgetting the Supreme Consciousness. That is why it is important to keep desires under control, to place a ceiling on them.  Desires are a prison.  Man can be freed only by limiting his wants.”

At an individual level, ‘Ceiling on Desires’ focuses on wasteful patterns of behavior regarding Time, Money, Energy, Food, Water and other resources.  It is not a program for self denial but a program that cultivates careful choices and provides motivation to further the highest purpose in life. It utilizes our inner and outer resources to achieve the noblest and the highest possible.

In the Ceiling on Desires program the desires are acknowledged by understanding the nature of lower mind.  But the temptation is suppressed through redirecting the desires with a strong will power. The mental energy of a desire is channelled into  more purposeful activity e.g., Money saved by Ceiling on Desires is put to good use.

Following four questions were raised in ‘Economic Resilience’

• What might you do to become more “conservative” in your spending, perhaps because the newspaper says we’re in hard times? These items we labeled as slight austerity measures.
• How you might change your spending if you heard we were entering a ten-year Depression, or if your family breadwinner(s) lost his/her job? These are moderate austerity measures.
• What spending patterns might you embrace if there were no foreseeable source of cash? These are severe austerity measures, the kind our grandparents became quite accustomed to living with during the Depression of the 1930s.

They are powerful questions worth stopping to ponder.

Why?

As we know, excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of individuals and in the hands of a few nations is causing massive problems all over the world. Exploitation and poverty cause imbalance and are responsible for deprivation, hunger and malnutrition on a massive scale and they can even cause wars.  When morality is lacking in the means for acquiring wealth it can cause extreme misery as the current global financial crisis has shown.

So, are we individually responsible for the doings of a select few?

Does it translate into us, who are not directly responsible for GFC, putting a limit on our desires and curbing our spending?

My take on that is Yes.

I may not be directly responsible for the happenings in the world but……

Eevery action I undertake, every choice and every decision I make – effects not just me but every other person on this planet somehow – as we all are interconnected.

As remote as it may sound, my decision in buying the next chocolate bar or the next piece of jewellery or throwing that lavish party to feed the well fed mouths – again, does effect the starving people in Africa or India or cause a war in Zimbabwe.

I am not trying to make us feel guilty. Unless we take responsibility in how we consume to satisfy our ever growing, insatiable desires, the world will always have starving people living along side super rich obesity, and we will be craving for peace whilst satisfying the pangs it causes in our stomach pits with yet another chocolate bar or coffee or coat or shoes.

So, how resilient am I and how important are those 4 questions for me?

These are the questions I am seriously pondering now more than ever and I would implore you do the same.

I am going to take some more serious austerity measures ( I already live a minimalist life style) – what would you like to do?

Is economic resilience, avoiding temptation, consuming less – important to you? What would be the result if every individual chose to consume less?

What do you think?

Let me know – I am always open for a healthy discussion.

Until next time

With Love and Respect

Padma Ayyagari

 

 

Do You Know The Rhythm Of The Heart?

Heart beat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the 21,600 breaths I take every day, my heart steadily beats a 100,800 lub-dub’s. Between every in and out and every lub-dub, I have a choice to cleanse myself of built up debris and pent up emotions and from that muck grow lotuses that stand tall, radiantly proud and glistening with moist love.

My heart gives me that opportunity colluding 21,600 times with my breath that repeats the incessant mantra “SO-HUM” (‘I’ am ‘THAT’).  Oxygen of Love pumps rhythmically  through the internal chambers, airing all vital organs, releasing toxins of dejection and rejections Non-Violently,

Most of the time my heart lives in that rhythm but the odd 1% of the time a race of imagined realities and perceived hurts begin and is kept up by the breath.

As I acknowledge the muck at the bottom of the chambers, allow them space with Understanding and Acceptance, Breath takes charge of mind’s reins with a conscious, deep and slow released ‘HUM’ (THAT). Heart pulls back into place mindful of its true purpose.   The stirred dust particles settle and the lotus blooms.

Heart starts to beat in line with Breath,  only releasing vapors of gentle compassion, empathy and love, singing

“SO-HUM” ( I am THAT).

THAT is the Rhythm of the Heart

Journey Of My Heart Into The World………..

As part of an Online Writing Class exercise I am to boldly share my writing to the world and here it is – A Journey of My Heart Into The World. I have written this as a Haiku (A form of Poetry, traditionally written in 3 lines of 5,7,5 words). I quite enjoy the tightness required in writing a Haiku and it is an art I would love to master one day.

Here it is in its complete imperfection – “Done is better than perfection”.

Hearts (Explored!) (Photo credit: qthomasbower)

Overstuffed mansion of the head

Defining culture and ID of my belonging

- Brown Desert, the emerging ancestry.

Empty corners of the heart

Dare cross to see what’s on otherside

- Temporary Life, inevitability of death.

Transitioning rights and wrongs in

15 inch space between head and heart

- Heated Assault, dead bark falling.

The timeless abyss bled surrender

Reluctantly dropping toxins of dejection and rejections

- Autumn Death, nature’s birth control.

Shining diamond in the sun

Blowing vapors of Unconditional Love and Compassion

- SO-HUM, I am That!!!

First Understanding, Then Adjustment…………

The Conscience (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have learnt profound lessons in the last couple of days and the depth of the simple statement by Sai Baba -  “First Understanding, Then Adjustment ” echoes in my ears from the bottom of my heart even as I am typing this.

The following anecdote shows how the above statement became clear as I was trying to  cross the chasm that appeared  and how it was possible to build a bridge over that across the Continents.

It sounds simple.  4 words arranged in an order that makes sense  – Yep, I know, I follow……..How very wrong was I?

There is no randomness in the arrangement of those words in that statement.  I never understood the order of the words nor did I ever bother to understand, rhetorically, parrot like, repeating the statement to everyone and anyone who had ears to hear – within context of course, but without much thought.

Why Understanding First, why not Adjustment first?

Isn’t that what we do? Try and adjust to issues and circumstances without complete understanding? I did.

Three days ago I have transgressed boundaries in an online writing class, trying to write for a given writing prompt, cleverly, albeit unaware  at the time that that’s what I was doing,  The result backfired.  Whilst the writing itself was OK (I think), the theme and the story line it followed was not mine. I have unintentionally picked up, a thread of another person’s story and presented a continuation to that story without thinking if it is correct to do that or ask for permission.

I have breached a basic rule of writing – I was writing about something that is not My Truth or My Story.

As soon as I realised it, I have deleted the post and sent an apology email for doing what I did.  But the damage was caused by then and my trying to make an adjustment by a simplistic apology with rationalized arguments, without actually understanding was not going to be enough to ease the pain I have created to the other party.

How could I do that – the pain that question caused in me was, well, painful…….incredibly painful.  I tried to justify, rationalize, explain why I did what I did – to myself and to the other party.

The number of “How could I’s” that my conscience raised were answered with equal if not more number of justifications by my mind.  However, my conscience will not be quiet.

With every justified adjustment, it rebelled with an increasing visceral response of pain, itch and high temperature.  I continued to adjust the body thermostat with more explanations, justifications, more Coffee, increased scratching – my conscience wanting to jump out of my skin and my mind trying to contain it within its reasoned explanations.

I continued to push against the edge and stretch without making any attempt to understand either myself or the other person.  In this confused state of altered egos weighed under rationalizations and justified arguments we started dialoguing.

What emerged was incredibly beautiful.  In my own mind after a pause in the dialogue, I started a conversation with myself.

For every ‘How could I’, I offered a simple, counter “YES, I DID”

For every “I did because…..”, I cut off the ‘because’ and remained with “I DID….”

Again and again I repeatedly accepted that…….

I DID breach boundaries…..

I DID step into a territory that I did not know anything about and tried to extend that story as mine……

I DID breach Truth and Non-Violence. I DID cause hurt….

As those I DID’s start settling into my heart without any barriers, I UNDERSTOOD, then Adjustment was simply a matter of admitting that’s what I did and asking if that was the reason for the other party’s anguish expressed publicly. ‘YES’ and then followed an explanation why, as the other party felt understood.

My itch and pain disappeared instantly.  “First Understanding, Then Adjustment”.

We try and lash out, hide, drink, smoke, watch mindless TV or use any number of distractions and think that we adjusted ourselves to whatever is happening.  In that process of adjustment first, we are masking our capacity to understand and pushing it further down.

Surface adjustments with unwillingness to understand causes resentments, hatred, illness, disease and even wars.  Trying to understand without judgments, justifications, explanations and reasonings is a profound spiritual practice which makes us vulnerable because we have no where to hide but look at what’s going on squarely from our own perspective first and then from the others.

First Understanding……

Complete understanding results in acceptance and adjustment happens instantly.  The tenderness one feels when this process is complete is incredible.  No nagging doubts, no concerns of right or wrong, a complete peace descends.  Not only is the distance between two parties is closed but also the huge distance we travel between the 15″ space of Head and Heart closes as well as they merge in the flowing Love and vulnerable tenderness.

The silence from a satisfied head and heart echoes loudly in the ears saying -

“First Understanding, Then Adjustment”

So, here is a tip.  If you have unresolved issues, pull them out and try to understand the truth in the issues without argument or reasoning.  How do you know what is truth?  Your conscience will not be silent with any of your mind’s arguments.  There will be nagging doubts, a dull pain in the middle of your body, a bad taste in the mouth every time you remember, always some physical reaction to what is going on – if you observe closely.  That’s when you know that you are battling with the truth that your conscience is trying to show.  Accept the truth without judgment first from your own perspective and then from the other person’s – see what happens.

You need not even go to the extent of the other party being involved in this process.  Just see it as it appears, accept without judgment and watch the issue dissolve its hold on you as your understanding deepens.

Remember “First Understanding,Then Adjustment”

Use this – until next Sunday

With Love and Respect

Padma Ayyagari

Are You Aware Of Your Breath?

Deep, Shallow

In & Out

Expand, Contract

Gentle or Harsh

As it goes in giving life, breath is one common thing that all creatures living have regardless of species, gender, color, caste and creed.  Breath is indiscriminatory in nature although it manifests differently in each,  given their circumstance, situation and feelings in any given moment.  The fundamental necessity that distinguishes between life and death, an involuntary but completely taken granted for, until no more – A vital component which determines if I can move or not, if my existence is guaranteed or not – that vital component that absolutely determines and makes my mark on this planet – is so taken for granted.

I assure myself that because I can breathe now, I can in the next minute as well.  I act as if it is seamless and yet between each breath lies my life’s guarantee, between exhale and inhale can my story be finished.  Flared out lungs may not necessarily contract in and yet I act as though they have come with a promissory note.  Well they did.

The day I was born, my lungs had a time stamped on them, a ‘best before’ date written on them, a ‘use by date’ that only the hands that printed on them can see, a shelf life that is predetermined and yet can go off any minute.

Do I need to know the exact date to determine how I am to live today or is it enough for me to know that there is an expirty date that could be as soon as between next inhale and exhale or as late as a billion or trillion or countless exhales later? Countless in my mind yet a count has begun with my first exhale the day I was born.

So how am I to live?

Every breath in writes a memory only to be etched deeper with every breath out.  At the last breath halfway between exhaling a whole of eternity will pass.  The tiny space between the in and out is where the world is held as memories. There is no good or bad, no right or wrong, just life coming in and going out,  bringing with it stories that create memories.

A truth about our need to tell our story unfolding today in its struggles and triumphs is -  when we penetrate into the space between the two breaths, we accept that pain and pleasure are inseparable, we cannot have one without the other.  In that acceptance life flows.

In Out, Expand, Contract – we  need to focus only on expansion.  An expansion painted on the waves of life only guaranteed until the next gushing in tide which may or may not arrive.

So how do you treat your breath? Do you take it for granted or are you consciously aware of each in and out?

It is difficult to be in that constant awareness, but a few minutes spent in silence every couple of hours during the waking time, just becoming aware of the breath and being thankful for it, brings things back into perspective.

What practice can you establish to become aware of your breath and give thanks to its presence?

Do tell me……….

Until next time

With Love and Respect

Padma Ayyagari

“Where Does Tenderness Come From….”

 

Those words of Poet Marina Tsvetaeva touched my heart, twisted and rung it until kindness oozed out of it.

 

Tender – that word is so soft, just repeating it makes me go all mushy.

 

Yes, where does it come from? Do I need to question that word or its origin?  Where does this Tenderness come from?

 

From the depths of within, that word melts the hardened edges and reveals the soft glowing core. When I feel tender I am vulnerable, the fresh new spring growth of mine needs protection from the cold frost bite of feelings trying to burn it or harden it before the leaves fully unfolded.  I need to protect this tenderness freezing from that bitter cold of unexpressed grief, cover it gently so it doesn’t get burnt in that raging bush fire of anger.  I need to water this tenderness with the soft rain of love everyday and keep it undercover until its tendrils grow strong enough to tightly wind themselves around the poles of grief and anger.  The dark poles that are dug deep into the earth of my heart are also the very structures tha tenderness can lean on.

 

Where does this Tenderness come from?

 

From the mulch of my heart ‘Tenderness’ emerges as songs on my lips, twinkle in my eyes, touch through my hands – making me soft, open and vulnerable.