Latest / She Rose: Women Who Turned Pain Into Purpose / How to Be Gentle With Those Who Were Rough With You | She Rose
Transcript
- There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to be soft when the world has been hard on you. It feels like holding a feather in a hurricane. I want you to picture that image for a moment. A feather. Light, fragile, almost invisible against the sky. Now imagine it caught in the eye of a storm. The wind is screaming, debris is flying, and you are standing there, hand outstretched, trying to keep that tiny thing from being torn apart. That is what gentleness looks like when it is directed toward someone who has treated you with roughness. It doesn’t look like weakness. It doesn’t look like giving up. It looks like an act of supreme, terrifying strength. Because if you let go, if you stop holding that feather, it falls. And often, when we are dealing with people who have hurt us, letting go means letting them win. It means accepting the chaos as their normal. But holding on? Holding on requires a stillness that is incredibly difficult to maintain when your nervous system is screaming at you to fight back. Let’s sit with that for a second. Why do we even try to be gentle with those who were rough with us? Is it because we’re people pleasers? Is it because we’re afraid that if we show any edge, they’ll destroy us completely? I think it’s deeper than fear. I think it’s because we remember what it felt like to be held gently ourselves. We remember the safety. And so, in the presence of someone who has broken that safety, we instinctively try to recreate it. We become the parent we needed, or the friend we wished we had, hoping that if we just soften enough, they will soften too. It’s a beautiful impulse. It’s also a trap. Because you cannot heal someone else’s wound by bleeding out yourself. You cannot teach someone how to handle glass by handing them shards and smiling while they cut your palm. Here is where we need to draw a very clear line, one that I’ve had to learn the hard way after years of mediating conflicts in corporate boardrooms and my own living room. There is a massive difference between gentleness and compliance. Compliance is shrinking. Compliance is saying, 'I hear you,' when you really mean, 'Please don’t leave me.' Compliance is swallowing your truth to keep the peace. Gentleness is different. Gentleness is speaking your truth with kindness. It is setting a boundary without anger. It is saying, 'I care about you, but I will not accept this behavior,' and meaning it with a calm heart, not a clenched fist. When you are gentle with someone who was rough with you, you are not submitting to their chaos. You are refusing to participate in it. You are bringing a different frequency into the room. And that is exhausting work. It requires you to be anchored in your own worth, regardless of their reaction. I remember a woman named Sarah who came to see me last year. Her father had been absent for most of her life, then reappeared with stories of regret and requests for money. Every time he called, she would answer. Every time he asked, she would give. She thought she was being generous. She thought she was breaking the cycle of abandonment by showing up. But after six months, she was broke and bitter. She realized she wasn’t healing him; she was enabling his avoidance. When we talked, I didn’t tell her to cut him off. I told her to change the shape of her love. Instead of giving money, she gave clarity. Instead of absorbing his complaints, she offered silence. She said, 'Dad, I love you, but I can’t talk about this right now.' And she hung up. That was gentle. It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t punitive. It was honest. It was the first time she respected herself enough to respect the boundary. And ironically, that was the first time he started to take her seriously. Think of your emotional energy as a garden. Some people come through with boots on, stomping on the tulips, trampling the roses. They don’t mean to destroy it, or maybe they do. But their roughness leaves mud and footprints everywhere. If you run out there every day, barefoot, trying to smooth out the dirt with your hands, you will get cuts. You will get blisters. You will eventually stop growing anything because you’re too busy cleaning up their mess. Being gentle with them doesn’t mean opening the gate wider. It means building a fence. A fence isn’t mean. A fence is protective. It says, 'This is my space. This is where I grow. You can visit, but you must wear clean shoes.' When you protect your inner garden, you preserve the tenderness you have left for those who deserve it. You save your softness for the things that are truly fragile, not for the things that are merely indifferent. It’s okay to be a work in progress here. You might try to be gentle today and fail. You might snap. You might say something sharp. That doesn’t make you bad. It makes you human. The crack is where the light gets in, but sometimes the light burns before it warms. Give yourself grace. Notice when you are reacting from old pain rather than present reality. Ask yourself: Am I being gentle because I choose to be, or because I am afraid to be strong? There is no shame in choosing strength. In fact, true strength is often quiet. It is the ability to hold your ground without raising your voice. It is the power to remain kind when you have every right to be angry. That kind of kindness changes you. It doesn’t necessarily change them. But it changes you. And you are the only person you are responsible for changing. So, here is a small practice for you tonight. Think of one person who has been rough with you recently. Not someone you hate, but someone who has worn you down. Imagine them not as a villain, but as someone who is hurting, who doesn’t know how to hold the feather. Then, imagine yourself walking away from them. Not in anger, but in peace. Visualize yourself closing the door softly. Hear the click of the latch. Feel the weight of the key in your pocket. Tell yourself, 'I am safe. I am whole. My gentleness is mine to give, not theirs to take.' Take three deep breaths. Feel your shoulders drop. You don’t have to fix the relationship. You don’t have to forgive everything today. You just have to protect the tenderness inside you. Let that be enough for now. Let that be the seed you plant for tomorrow. I’m so proud of you for doing this work. It’s not easy, but you are doing it. I’ll be right here next time, sitting with you in the quiet. Until then, be gentle with yourself. Goodnight.