Tenderness

"I have understood that the most important things are tenderness and kindness." ~Bridget Bardot

As we jump into February, I was thinking about the importance of tenderness for ourselves as well as others. Whether you're feeling the world from a dark or light perspective, all you may need is a little tenderness. Humans need to be seen, heard, and understood with tenderness.

"I can hear a little whisper, can you? It says, you are loved. And we are. Not feeling it? Try a little tenderness." ~Adriene Mishler (Yoga with Adriene)

What is tenderness?

Tenderness is a feeling of concern, gentle affection, or warmth. Here are the synonyms: Kindness, kindliness, kind-heartedness, soft-heartedness, softness, tender-heartedness, compassion, compassionateness, care, concern, sympathy, warmth, warm-heartedness, fatherliness, motherliness, gentleness, benevolence, generosity, humaneness....

Want to feel it?

Try watch the music video released in 1984 by General Public, Tenderness: https://youtu.be/6XegL32Btzs

I can feel the tenderness within the first few cords. The beat, their voices, and the smiles of children. I feel so much soft-heartedness when listening to this song. Maybe it's my memories, or the message to be tender-hearted with my own words...

"But I'm still in the dark Seems like without tenderness There's something missing

Tenderness Where is the Tenderness Where is it?

I don't know where I am but I know I don't like it I open my mouth and out pops something spiteful Words are so cheap, but they can turn out expensive Words like conviction can turn into a sentence..."

What I've found so insightful is that these lyrics were deeper than they appeared. According to the song writer, Wakeling:

"There was a darker side to the song, because it came out in that period of AIDS, fear of AIDS. Nobody really knew much about it, and everybody was all of a sudden terrified to touch a door handle. Being a terrific hypochondriac, and everybody was always having colds on the road on tour, it's like any time anybody sneezed, I was like, could that be AIDS? So it was to do with that, but in sort of non-obvious way."

Sound familiar? Covid made many of us think and feel the same way. Maybe tenderness is a place we can all start to become more gentle with ourselves and others.