In an ongoing conversation with a friend, we’ve started to use the words Gentle and Edge as verbs. He read Doing Gentle With an Edge in the summer, and since then, we’ve been returning to the topic over and over. To gentle. To edge.
The key to knowing when and how to gentle and/or to edge lie in one of my favorite words: Discernment.
Twenty years ago I would not have a clue what doing gentle might look like. I had an inner dialogue in a style more akin to inner dictators (a mix of Hitler, Mao and Stalin), something I honestly didn’t pick up on until I had an insight during a therapy session.
My therapist asked why I was so hard on myself, and I remember the feeling that came over me. How my jaw dropped. How I asked, incredulously, don’t I have to be? When she smiled at me, gently, and said No… my life changed.
But that does not mean I always find it easy to do gentle towards myself. I am (still) much more prone to edge, which in my world centers around giving and receiving tankespjärn.
With a growing, and increasing, awareness of myself, I am getting better at discerning when one or the other serves me (you, we, all of us) more, and I’ve found ways of doing gentle that mostly work for me. But there are other ways, your ways, that you know, and use, that might serve me. No wonder I am hoping to see You in one, some or all of the salons on the topic of Doing Gentle With an Edge during 2023!
Doing Gentle With an Edge: An exploration!
A salon-series in Interintellect on the first Sunday of every month (with a few exceptions) in 2023, starting in February. The series will center around the concept of doing gentle with an edge, which is my book (e/audio) that you will receive a free access code to as part of the ticket price.
Come join for one, a few, or all of the salons, I’d love to have you there!