try a little tenderness

this is my five hundredth post on this blog, if you can believe it.  gee, I sure do have a lot of opinions ...

After a week of vacation and a few more days at home with minimal work to do and a lot of fresh air and sunshine, my body and mind are finally beginning to relax.  As usual, contrast inspires clarity, and I am realizing that the speed of my thoughts and movements is a very good barometer of my inner state.  The more internally settled I become, the more slowly I am able to move as I do the tasks of daily living.

I've learned so much over the years about mindfulness, which I'll arbitrarily define as paying conscious attention to what is happening in each moment.  And although I get it and I know how to do it, I don't find it all that satisfying for whatever reason.  Maybe I am missing some important part of it?  In any case, I've found something else that I like better for now:  tenderness.


I can open a drawer habitually, or with tenderness.  I can type fast and use the backspace key a million times, or I can slow down a little bit and tap each key with tenderness.   Same with tying my shoes, or holding my steering wheel, or preparing a meal.  Tenderness and speed appear to be inversely proportional for me.  I can walk fast, or I can walk with tenderness, but I can't seem to do both. 

When I move with tenderness, I like my life.  I can keep up with it.  I feel engaged and enjoy each task.  When I speed up, I become annoyed.  Or maybe when I become annoyed, I speed up.  Or both. I don't feel any real need to bother separating cause from effect.

I guess in today's note to myself, I want to document how much better it feels to slow myself down to the speed that allows for tenderness in my thoughts, words, and actions.  I may or may not be ready to incorporate this as a guiding principle in my life yet, but I like the idea of doing so, and I don't want to forget about it.