Flick by Madie Doell
As much as I don't enjoy the experience on Instagram, I must admit there are a plethora of creative people putting out compelling work with thoughtfulness and style. It's cool seeing how creative people are and how they are expressing it.
A new creative I've come across recently goes by the name of Yung Pueblo. He styles himself as a mediator, writer, and speaker and I find a lot of his work intriguing because he focuses on being a complete person, not just for the sake of self but for the community around you as well. As a person that relentlessly pursues personal growth, this grabs my attention.
Recently, he dropped a post that contained a rather striking line that sent me to that weird and quiet internal place I have reserved for contemplation. That last sentence Being in a relationship with a high degree of authenticity and gentleness allows both people to bring down their guards and feel at home.
Yeah. That shit.
This struck a chord with me because in my persistent quest to discover my best self, I'm realizing I have not gotten to where I am by being gentle with myself. The authenticity part isn't that hard because coming from a conservative and very religious family and learned very early in life that my honesty is a by-product of my desire to survive. Keeping it real sounds cool but it's not an option when you're trying to find who you are and preserve it, you know?
But gentleness. That's a tough one.
Because it wasn't gentleness that got me through dealing with the constant trauma of physical abuse when I was a child from the same people that allegedly loved me and had my best interests at heart.
It wasn't gentleness that gave me the ability to survive in one of the most competitive labor markets in the world and often have to go without to do it.
And gentleness wasn't really a part of how I recovered from the heartbreak of being taken for granted by the person I loved the most. And having to deal with that fallout alone.
I'm at the big age now where I can recognize that, of course, I probably (probably) did not resolve these situations in the most healthy of ways and I need to spend some time addressing that.
But doing that with tools that are gentle, comforting, and affirming seems almost unnatural to me. Because gentleness isn't how I survived.
However, I'm realizing perhaps experiencing life consistently from a place beyond mere surviving also means realizing the tools you used to survive have their limits.
And surviving and healing are two different galaxies.