I learned that you didn’t come onto this earth as a perfectionist or control freak. You weren’t born a person of cringe and contraction. You were born as energy, as life, made of the same stuff as stars, blossoms, breezes. You learned contraction to survive, but that was then. You have paid through the nose — paid but good. It is now your turn to reap.
—Anne Lamott, Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair
Tenderness is a vibration. It is an energy that communicates caring and affection. It is silent, wordless and soft but also, magical, like a rainbow. And it’s powerful. If we are honest with ourselves, most of our problem areas and stress arise from situations and circumstances that we don’t like, can’t accept, judge, fight against, try to control, begrudge. We end up feeling dull, disconnected and not fully awake. I propose that tenderness is the antidote to our anxiety, separation, forcefulness and apathy. It is the needed emotion to be a salve to our wounds. If we find a way to treat ourselves and others tenderly, as we would a small child, we will be far healthier and contented. And if you learn to identify it, work with it and channel it, tenderness will powerfully uplift and expand your life.
Japanese psychiatrist Takeo Doi, in his book The Anatomy of Dependence (1971), reports that in Japan there is an everyday noun, amae (pronounced ah-mah-ay), which is best defined in English as “the expectation to be sweetly and indulgently loved.” The verb, amaeru, is to wish for this kindly love with the confidence that you will receive it, and the adjective, amai, means ‘sweet.’ Doi describes amae as a universal human emotion, originating from the earliest vulnerability of the infant and the bonds they form with kind and loving caregivers. All babies come into the world in tenderness, presuming that the world will comfort them and benevolently provide.
And for Doi, all humans continue to seek sweet, caring relationships and experiences throughout their lives. What struck him as unique (and puzzling) was that the Japanese have an elaborate vocabulary for this earliest, most intimate of human emotions, including numerous states of mental and emotional anguish when amae is missing or the desire to amaeru frustrated, whereas the Western languages are silent.
From Doi’s perspective this “dependent love” is not immature, to be outgrown as quickly as possible—but more essentially it is the very foundation of all love and the essence of human connection. Unfortunately we Americans grow up in a culture where being “independent” is held up as a supreme achievement. Having lost its association with “dependable” we consider “dependency” a liability not an ability. Not surprising then that there is no closely equivalent English word for this sweet form of affection—even though when we encounter it we all say “Oh, that’s what I always wanted.”
Indeed, tenderness is the emotional equivalent of nourishment. So ask yourself, “Is tenderness a missing ingredient in my life? Am I hungry for something, and I don’t even know what?” In truth, tenderness isn’t lost or missing so much as hidden. That’s because we are taught to work mightily to defend against our tenderness— reject it, disavow it, denigrate it—in order to save face. This repression gets passed down through families, doing harm from generation to generation. Frustrated, thwarted, and buried tenderness causes a great deal of suffering in individuals. It also risks doing harm to the world in which we live. Until we deal with these internal constraints and allow tenderness back into our lives we will not be living a truly fulfilling, “whole” life.
I learned that you didn’t come onto this earth as a perfectionist or control freak. You weren’t born a person of cringe and contraction. You were born as energy, as life, made of the same stuff as stars, blossoms, breezes. You learned contraction to survive, but that was then. You have paid through the nose — paid but good. It is now your turn to reap.
—Anne Lamott Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair
Tenderness is a vibration. It is an energy that communicates caring and affection. It is silent, wordless and soft but also, magical, like a rainbow. And it’s powerful. If we are honest with ourselves, most of our problem areas and stress arise from situations and circumstances that we don’t like, can’t accept, judge, fight against, try to control, begrudge. We end up feeling dull, disconnected and not fully awake. I propose that tenderness is the antidote to our anxiety, separation, forcefulness and apathy. It is the needed emotion to be a salve to our wounds. If we find a way to treat ourselves and others tenderly, as we would a small child, we will be far healthier and contented. And if you learn to identify it, work with it and channel it, tenderness will powerfully uplift and expand your life.
Japanese psychiatrist Takeo Doi, in his book The Anatomy of Dependence (1971), reports that in Japan there is an everyday noun, amae (pronounced ah-mah-ay), which is best defined in English as “the expectation to be sweetly and indulgently loved.” The verb, amaeru, is to wish for this kindly love with the confidence that you will receive it, and the adjective, amai, means ‘sweet.’ Doi describes amae as a universal human emotion, originating from the earliest vulnerability of the infant and the bonds they form with kind and loving caregivers. All babies come into the world in tenderness, presuming that the world will comfort them and benevolently provide.
And for Doi, all humans continue to seek sweet, caring relationships and experiences throughout their lives. What struck him as unique (and puzzling) was that the Japanese have an elaborate vocabulary for this earliest, most intimate of human emotions, including numerous states of mental and emotional anguish when amae is missing or the desire to amaeru frustrated, whereas the Western languages are silent.
From Doi’s perspective this “dependent love” is not immature, to be outgrown as quickly as possible—but more essentially it is the very foundation of all love and the essence of human connection. Unfortunately we Americans grow up in a culture where being “independent” is held up as a supreme achievement. Having lost its association with “dependable” we consider “dependency” a liability not an ability. Not surprising then that there is no closely equivalent English word for this sweet form of affection—even though when we encounter it we all say “Oh, that’s what I always wanted.”
Indeed, tenderness is the emotional equivalent of nourishment. So ask yourself, “Is tenderness a missing ingredient in my life? Am I hungry for something, and I don’t even know what?” In truth, tenderness isn’t lost or missing so much as hidden. That’s because we are taught to work mightily to defend against our tenderness— reject it, disavow it, denigrate it—in order to save face. This repression gets passed down through families, doing harm from generation to generation. Frustrated, thwarted, and buried tenderness causes a great deal of suffering in individuals. It also risks doing harm to the world in which we live. Until we deal with these internal constraints and allow tenderness back into our lives we will not be living a truly fulfilling, “whole” life.
Our Need for Tenderness
I believe that, to varying degrees, all of us are out of touch with our need for tenderness. No matter how successful we are we still have concerns about our marriages, jobs, parents and parenting, and transitions of all sorts. We all need comfort on occasion. Neglecting any one part of ourselves can topple our lives, often unexpectedly and dramatically. The fast-paced toxic nature of modern life and current world affairs, combined with too many families in crises, has deadened the most tender parts of ourselves. There is also an inner enemy: the critical, judgmental voice in our head that tries to shame us for having needs or feeling vulnerable. In an effort to protect our tender hearts from the outside world, and from our own unloving voice, we end up in a crisis of neglect, disastrously cut off from ourselves, others, and the planet itself. The sad fact is that currently there is not enough tenderness available in our own hearts, and in the world at large to heal this crisis of neglect.
In truth, it takes tenderness to heal tenderness. The Tenderness Way is my effort to raise a warning signal. I am asking people to wake up to the kind of warm affectionate love that will help us all to thrive emotionally, to heal ourselves, and prevent us from creating further damage to this world that has been entrusted in our care.
I am asking you to prioritize paying closer attention to your well-being and that of others, identify where you have been negligent, and start to care and caretake more.
Rejecting the hard-heartedness and harshness that appears to reign in today’s world may feel like a tall order. You might be saying, “Why bother: it won’t make a dent or a difference.” I assure you it’s a worthy effort to re-connect yourself to your humanity, however new and “tender” it might feel at first.
Remember, tenderness is your birthright. You can never lose it. It will always find you. But instead of tenderness showing up in your life suddenly when you’ve been delivered a blow, brought to your knees, rattled to the core, or in those precious times of happiness when you’ve fallen in love or given birth, I’m suggesting that you not wait for times of triumph or challenge to call forth your tenderness but consciously cultivate more of this power right now.
With your tender heart as your best company, make tenderness a daily practice. It will be like a secret ingredient that transforms a run of the mill recipe into something magical. Helping others understand this is the foundation of my practice, and that’s why I created this website!
I believe that, to varying degrees, all of us are out of touch with our need for tenderness. No matter how successful we are we still have concerns about our marriages, jobs, parents and parenting, and transitions of all sorts. We all need comfort on occasion. Neglecting any one part of ourselves can topple our lives, often unexpectedly and dramatically. The fast-paced toxic nature of modern life and current world affairs, combined with too many families in crises, has deadened the most tender parts of ourselves. There is also an inner enemy: the critical, judgmental voice in our head that tries to shame us for having needs or feeling vulnerable. In an effort to protect our tender hearts from the outside world, and from our own unloving voice, we end up in a crisis of neglect, disastrously cut off from ourselves, others, and the planet itself. The sad fact is that currently there is not enough tenderness available in our own hearts, and in the world at large to heal this crisis of neglect.
In truth, it takes tenderness to heal tenderness. The Tenderness Way is my effort to raise a warning signal. I am asking people to wake up to the kind of warm affectionate love that will help us all to thrive emotionally, to heal ourselves, and prevent us from creating further damage to this world that has been entrusted in our care.
I am asking you to prioritize paying closer attention to your well-being and that of others, identify where you have been negligent, and start to care and caretake more.
Rejecting the hard-heartedness and harshness that appears to reign in today’s world may feel like a tall order. You might be saying, “Why bother: it won’t make a dent or a difference.” I assure you it’s a worthy effort to re-connect yourself to your humanity, however new and “tender” it might feel at first.
Remember, tenderness is your birthright. You can never lose it. It will always find you. But instead of tenderness showing up in your life suddenly when you’ve been delivered a blow, brought to your knees, rattled to the core, or in those precious times of happiness when you’ve fallen in love or given birth, I’m suggesting that you not wait for times of triumph or challenge to call forth your tenderness but consciously cultivate more of this power right now.
With your tender heart as your best company, make tenderness a daily practice. It will be like a secret ingredient that transforms a run of the mill recipe into something magical. Helping others understand this is the foundation of my practice, and that’s why I created this website!