Embracing Kindness and Gentleness Toward Myself

Children learn to deny their own needs in order to make their parents or teachers

happy. In the right measure, this can hold tremendous value. However, it often requires

children to suppress their own needs or wishes entirely.

So here we are, I'm sitting in front of a couple who are parents, in their 40’s. They are

very hard and demanding on themselves. This reflects their own childhood experiences.

The husband has learned to be hard on himself and others. When his wife asks him to

be more gentle or to use softer words, he might want to comply. However, he has spent

so many years denying his own needs and being praised for doing so that it has

become second nature. Today, while he understands his wife’s words, he lacks the

capacity to be softer or more gentle.

The gift of therapy is that it offers him the opportunity to develop this gentleness.