{"id":3965,"date":"2012-07-11T13:18:14","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T17:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=3965"},"modified":"2012-07-11T13:18:14","modified_gmt":"2012-07-11T17:18:14","slug":"the-whole-gentle-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html","title":{"rendered":"the whole ‘gentle’ thing ~"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’m pretty good at truthful, all humility aside :). In fact, sometimes I have to remember to temper it w\/ the Buddha’s whole ‘is it appropriate? is it necessary? is it timely?’ context. I’ve learned how to say ‘No, those jeans are NOT flattering’ very carefully. The only times I flail are (of course!) when I’m trying to be truthful w\/ myself — that’s far harder. And not so much because of the ‘hard’ things we need to learn, but often I forget to temper my own self critique w\/ the mercy I would extend others.<\/p>\n

I’m sure you don’t do that…<\/p>\n

I’m also pretty fearless. Unless it’s a high place, or painful. And even the pain isn’t so much fear as avoidance. High places, though? They leave me quivering jelly. I always feel like I might just jump to see if I can fly…<\/p>\n

But the gentle thing? I’m not good at that. I remember apologising to my older son once, saying he deserved a more nurturing mother. He reassured me that having a mother who would fight for him w\/ the principal was also good. Thank heavens! Because that’s the mom the boys had. And still have.<\/p>\n

I’m okay if you’re a bee, or a bird inside the house, or \"\"<\/a>even a bat circling the fan in the upstairs bedroom. I can coo to you and work patiently to free you. But if you’re a student w\/ a catastrophe? My MO is usually laughter — try to get you to laugh, even as I hug you. For some reason, I don’t speak fluent human gentle… only bug, bat, & animal gentle.<\/p>\n

So this FB meme felt targeted when I saw it today. Reading it, I’m reminded: I need to be more gentle. Even if it’s difficult. Because gentleness is, like mercy, what leavens fearlessness and truth. And don’t we all need that? A little lightness of being…? It might even help with the self-truthfulness…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m pretty good at truthful, all humility aside :). In fact, sometimes I have to remember to temper it w\/ the Buddha’s whole ‘is it appropriate? is it necessary? is it timely?’ context. I’ve learned how to say ‘No, those jeans are NOT flattering’ very carefully. The only times I flail are (of course!) when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[358,357,56],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,1275,360,359],"class_list":["post-3965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fear","category-gentle","category-grace","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-fear","tag-gentleness","tag-truth"],"yoast_head":"\nthe whole 'gentle' thing ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm pretty good at truthful, all humility aside :). In fact, sometimes I have to remember to temper it w\/ the Buddha's whole 'is it appropriate? is it\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"the whole 'gentle' thing ~ - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I'm pretty good at truthful, all humility aside :). In fact, sometimes I have to remember to temper it w\/ the Buddha's whole 'is it appropriate? is it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-07-11T17:18:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2012\/07\/Gandhi-quote-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Britton Gildersleeve\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"the whole 'gentle' thing ~ - Beginner's Heart","description":"I'm pretty good at truthful, all humility aside :). In fact, sometimes I have to remember to temper it w\/ the Buddha's whole 'is it appropriate? is it","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"the whole 'gentle' thing ~ - Beginner's Heart","og_description":"I'm pretty good at truthful, all humility aside :). In fact, sometimes I have to remember to temper it w\/ the Buddha's whole 'is it appropriate? is it","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html","og_site_name":"Beginner's Heart","article_published_time":"2012-07-11T17:18:14+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2012\/07\/Gandhi-quote-150x150.jpg"}],"author":"Britton Gildersleeve","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html","name":"the whole 'gentle' thing ~ - Beginner's Heart","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2012\/07\/Gandhi-quote-150x150.jpg","datePublished":"2012-07-11T17:18:14+00:00","dateModified":"2012-07-11T17:18:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52"},"description":"I'm pretty good at truthful, all humility aside :). In fact, sometimes I have to remember to temper it w\/ the Buddha's whole 'is it appropriate? is it","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2012\/07\/Gandhi-quote-150x150.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/files\/2012\/07\/Gandhi-quote-150x150.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2012\/07\/the-whole-gentle-thing.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"the whole ‘gentle’ thing ~"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/","name":"Beginner's Heart","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Britton Gildersleeve","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/#\/schema\/person\/b4348bfbe2223c0ec325db830aa95f52","name":"Britton Gildersleeve","description":"Britton Gildersleeve is a 'third culture kid.' Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. She is (still) working on her beginner's heart ~","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/author\/brittongildersleeve"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3965"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3978,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions\/3978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}