So gentleness. compassion.
what do those words mean to you?
what are your associations with the words gentleness and compassion?

do you think of weakness? do you think of nice-ness do you think of any person in particular that is kind of emblematic of that?
do you think of, like, I don't know a religious figure? or some kind of like evolved person? do you think of someone like that's been very kind to you?

I used to think of compassion - specifically self-compassion - as weakness.
Gentleness seemed flaccid. 'Be gentle': That seemed like something that you offer to someone who is fragile. It seemed like an insult: Be gentle with yourself.

But I don't think that now at all.

I think gentleness is very precise and it requires restraint, it requires attention, it requires stepping out of the momentum where we make something right, and we make something wrong, we make something good we make something bad.

gentleness is care. and caring takes enormous courage.
it takes enormous presence. because we can't care without paying attention.

So many of the things that we put on, or assign to, kind of the realm of willpower, or effort or productivity, could be more appropriately aligned with the language of caring and attention.